At length, after the frenzy of the Crusades, the ruined princes sell liberty to the serfs of the glebe, who had obtained money by labor and commerce. Cities are made free, the commons are granted certain privileges; and the rights of men revive even out of anarchy itself.
The barons were everywhere in contention with their king, and with one another. The contention became everywhere a petty intestine war, made up out of numberless civil wars. From this abominable and gloomy chaos appeared a feeble gleam, which enlightened the commons, and considerably improved their situation.
The kings of England, being themselves great vassals of France for Normandy, and afterwards for Guienne and other provinces, easily adopted the usages of the kings from whom they held. The states of the realm were long made up, as in France, of barons and bishops.
The English court of chancery was an imitation of the council of state, of which the chancellor of France was president. The court of king's bench was formed on the model of the parliament instituted by Philip le Bel. The common pleas were like the jurisdiction of the châtelat. The court of exchequer resembled that of the superintendents of the finances--_généraux des finances_--which became, in France, the court of aids.
The maxim that the king's domain is inalienable is evidently taken from the system of French government.
The right of the king of England to call on his subjects to pay his ransom, should he become a prisoner of war; that of requiring a subsidy when he married his eldest daughter, and when he conferred the honor of knighthood on his son; all these circumstances call to recollection the ancient usages of a kingdom of which William was the chief vassal.
Scarcely had Philip le Bel summoned the commons to the states-general, before Edward, king of England, adopted the like measure, in order to balance the great power of the barons. For it was under this monarch's reign that the commons were first clearly and distinctly summoned to parliament.
We perceive, then, that up to this epoch in the fourteenth century, the English government followed regularly in the steps of France. The two churches are entirely alike; the same subjection to the court of Rome; the same exactions which are always complained of, but, in the end, always paid to that rapacious court; the same dissensions, somewhat more or less violent; the same excommunications; the same donations to monks; the same chaos; the same mixture of holy rapine, superstition, and barbarism.