Page:Omniana.djvu/270

252 church. The little town of Norcia had the privilege of making its own laws and chasing its own magistrates, and so jealous were the people of all priests, that in order to prevent the possibility of any one obtaining authority among them, one of their laws was, that all men who could read and write, should be incapable of bearing a share in their government. Their magistracy therefore, which consisted of four persons, were called, Gli quatre Illiterati, the four illiterates,..and as a necessary consequence of this singular institution, all causes were examined without writings, and decided orally.

I know not when this brutalizing system was established, nor what circumstances occasioned it. It would be interesting to trace its history;a Jack Cade establishing a permanent order of things is a phenomenon, of which there is no other instance. The fact is mentioned in a volume of letters concerning the