Page:Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, Volume 1.djvu/74

 CsV 60 /. BEFORE THE NORMAN CONQUEST But it is possible to exaggerate the triumph. Neither in Germany nor in Scotland did the " reception of the foreign law " wipe out the other laws. At the end of the Middle Ages, the Germans have a maxim : " Town's law breaks land's law, land's law breaks common law." It is only when other sources fail, that we resort to Roman Law. The laws of the towns play a great part in the history of Law. The privileges granted by the town-charters of the thirteenth century have borne fruit, and developed into great bodies of municipal law, which kings and emperors have to respect. Upon the scanty materials of charter privileges and local customs, the Schoffengerichte of Germany, the cours d'echevins of France, the bailies' courts of Scotland, have built up elaborate systems of local law, which strive to main- tain exclusive control within the limits of their jurisdiction. The town laws of Liibeck, Hamburg, Goslar, Vienna, and Magdeburg, the statuts of Avignon and Aries, the plaids de d'.echevinage de Reims, the Bjarkoratten of Scandinavia, are among the most important monuments of law in the Middle Ages. But it is very significant to notice that none of these come from England. Chartered boroughs there were, of course, in the land of the Common Law, and some of them had custumals of their own. But they were of small impor- tance ; and they stood much in fear of the law of the land. It is very doubtful whether any royal judge in England would Ahave accepted the maxim : " Town's law breaks land's law." Had he done so, it would have been with great reservations and modifications. The victory of the Common Law put very narrow bounds to the growth of municipal custom in England. Finally, it must not be forgotten, that royal legislation forms an important factor in the law of the later Middle Ages. We have seen what became of it in England ; how it was virtually swallowed up in the national law which dates from the end of the thirteenth century. The failure of the Diets and Etats Generaux of the Continent left the new idea to work out its own developement. The success of the feudal monarchy in France gave it prominence there. As each new province is added, by diplomacy or annexation, to the domain of the Crown, the royal Ordonnances, fettered only by the