Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/327

 FEUDAL STATES OF EUROPE 279 Sometimes there were intermediate courts between these two. In Germany, besides Lehnrecht, regulating the rela- tions of fief-holders to their lords, and Hofrecht or manorial law, there was Dienstrecht regulating the status of the minis- teriales. There were vast numbers of feudal and manorial courts and consequently there was great variety in the laws produced by them, especially since their attendants were not trained lawyers, but simple warriors or peasants and rough lords, who reached a decision as best they could. Royal law as yet did not have a very wide influence and was itself largely feudal in character. By the thirteenth century some lawyers endeavored to reduce feudalism and its mani- fold customs and local diversities to a system. The business of the average feudal court was in the main limited to ques- tions of personal status and personal injuries, crimes of vio- lence, rights over land or other fiefs, and the feudal bond. EXERCISES AND READINGS Feudal States. Seignobos, Feudal Regime, translated by Dow, pp. 65-68. Feudal States of France. {For those who can read French.) Lavisse, Histoire de France, vol. II, pp. 39-77, 283-310. The Holy Roman Empire at its Height. Emerton, Medieval Europe, pp. 174-94. Italy, 867-962. Sedgwick, A Short History of Italy, pp. 67-78. For consecutive chronological narrative of one reign after another, see, in the case of the Holy Roman Emperors, Henderson, History of Germany in the Middle Ages, pp. 117 etseq.; for the Capetians, Kitchin. History of France, vol. I, book in. f~^ Mf 5