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Goths. Their form of government in some measure borrowed from the Germans, xvi. 42. When a body of them had fixed in a tract of land, their military government soon became civil, their general being king, his officers nobles, and the soldiers freemen, the natives being considered as slaves, ibid. The nobles were a standing council, to which the freemen were occasionally called, by their representatives, ibid. On the conversion of the gothick princes to christianity, the clergy, being rich and powerful, formed themselves into a body, held synods or assemblies, and became a third estate, in most kingdoms of Europe, ibid. 43. These assemblies seldom called in England before the reign of Henry