Constantine gave the sanction of law to the usage adopted by the christians, and organized into a kind of privileged arbitration this custom of the times of persecution. He required the parties in civil matters, by a mutual agreement, to decline the authority of the ordinary judges, in order to submit themselves to the arbitration of the bishops; and the execution of the sentences of the latter was confided to the imperial officers. The episcopal arbitration was even compulsory in certain cases. This constitution was confirmed by the successors of Constantine ; it forms the subject of a whole title of the code of Justinian (book i. tit. 4); and the proceedings under it increased to such a degree, that the bishops complained of the consumption of their time thereby occasioned.

In the appendix to Ritter's edition of the Theodosian Code, we find two laws which have been regarded with suspicion by James Godfrey and father Sirmond. The first provides, that if either of the parties, even after a suit is commenced, demands the judgment of a bishop, the affair shall be referred accordingly; the second requires, that the deposition of a bishop should be held as conclusive in justice.

Independently of these privileges, the bishops were specially charged to repress the exposure of new-born infants (sanguinolenti), and to cause pupils and insane persons to be provided with tutors and curators. They were also required to see that none but christians were admitted as advocates in the cities; and certain extraordinary powers of police and of inquisition were likewise confided to them, of which it does not belong to our subject to speak.

Lastly, there was one measure which gave a severe shock to the consideration in which jurisprudence and those who cultivated it had been previously held. Constantine, at the same time that he prosecuted the exactions of those publicans so much denounced by the christians (always the enemies of the officers of the revenue), and founded religious

schools, in which theology was made use of to propagate a contempt for the vanity of the pagan sciences, confounded the jurisconsults with the publicans in a single holocaust, and, under the name of advocates (causidici), pointed them out and sacrificed them as guilty of an odious rapacity, whilst he nevertheless maintained usury at a very high legal rate, and seemed to turn this disorder to his own advantage. The profession of the law was declared to be incompatible with that of the church. It was only under Valentinian, and under Zeno, that the professors of law were admitted to participate in the honors accorded by Constantine to those who had acquired the quality of emeritus in the instruction of good letters. Nevertheless, the doctors in law were always considered upon the same footing with physicians, grammarians, and other professors of letters, in regard to the privilege of certain immunities; and under the successors of Constantine, and especially under Justinian, the jurisconsults and advocates (togati) acquired very great consideration.

It cannot fail to be manifest, therefore, that the edifice of the Roman law suffered extensively from the attacks of a religion, which, being at the same time moral and dogmatic, regulated all the thoughts, all the actions, and even all the civil relations, of men from their birth to their death. It is evident, also, that as much by this influence as by the effect. of the transfer of the seat of empire, the great school, in which so many celebrated jurisconsults had been formed, must have lost insensibly its lustre and its credit.

The ancient civil divisions of persons disappeared, and their place was supplied by a division according to religion; though christianity could not at once abolish slavery. Privileges and the admissibility to offices were less attached to the title of citizen than they were to that of christian and the quality of pagan became a title of exclusion. All the superior and subaltern administrations were confided

exclusively to the christians; and Constantine called upon all the functionaries attached to the old religion to renounce their faith or relinquish their offices. Difference of religion became an impediment of marriage, and a cause of disinheritance from father to son; and jews and pagans were prohibited from holding christian slaves in servitude. Juridical persons or corporations had also become more numerous than formerly, since the christian religion had given rise to a great number of churches, convents, houses of refuge, and other establishments of the same kind, before unknown.

We meet with the generous charity of the christian morality, in a great number of civil regulations concerning pupils, and especially in regard to the poor, a forgotten class, unknown under the system of polytheism, but from thenceforward becoming every day more numerous by the progressive abolition of slavery. The female sex, also, by the influence of christianity, obtained a greater social and civil emancipation. The dignity of their existence gained much with the new religion. The dominical power and the paternal power were diminished; and the right of selling one's children was almost suppressed, since the father was only allowed to exercise it in a case of miserable necessity, and in regard to new-born children (sanguinolenti), whom the law allowed him the faculty of redeeming at the same price. The right of chastisement was subjected to a new amelioration, in so far as the intervention of a magistrate was made necessary to its exercise in many cases. The paternal power might be taken away from those who made a bad use of it. The ancient pontifical charges, which discharged one from the paternal power, were replaced in this respect by the new dignities of the Roman church. As to the right of life and death of masters over their slaves, it was completely suppressed. Antoninus had established Constantine confirmed and

wise regulations in this respect;

extended them; and he also repressed the cruelty of the chastisements which were sometimes inflicted upon slaves. On this subject, the title de emendatione servorum of Justinian's Code may be consulted. To the ancient solemn forms of enfranchisement, Constantine added that of enfranchisement in the churches.

We have already seen what was the general influence of christianity on the institution of marriage, which was prohibited between the godfather and godmother, between the jew and the christian, between the seducer and his victim, the man and woman guilty of adultery, &c. Second marriages were restrained; and we may find in the law 3 of the Theodosian Code, de nuptiis, in connection with the Novel 74, chap. iv. § 1, the commencement of the intervention of the church in acts of civil state; but the necessity of the nuptial benediction was not imposed until afterwards. Celibacy ceased to be regarded as injurious to the public order; but, on the contrary, was made honorable, and considered. as the most holy and respectable state. No other idea was now attached to it than that of chastity; privileges were accorded to those who devoted themselves to it; and it was then that the monastic life made immense progress. Even in the married state, continence was regarded as a virtue. From thenceforth the provisions of the law Papia, designed to encourage marriage and to favor fruitful unions, disappeared. But while Constantine abolished this part of the law, he retained those of its provisions which restrained the faculty of disposing between husband and wife, and which accorded well with the spirit of christianity.

Concubinage was treated with disfavor, though tolerated for a long time afterwards; adultery and rape were punished with the severest penalties; the causes of divorce were restrained and carefully specified; divorce by mutual consent was favored, when the cause for which it was sought was the desire of the parties to live in chastity.

We find, lastly, in the influence of christianity, the reason of the gradual substitution of the principle of family affection for that of political affection, in the devolution of successions; and we discover it also in the laws concerning paternal usufruct, the revocation of donations on account of ingratitude, legitimation,—dower, — benefit of inventory, and several other matters. But this research of detail would require developments from which we are obliged to abstain.

ART. IV.-LIFE OF LORD NORTHINGTON.

[Lord Hardwicke, whose life is contained in our last number, retired from the office of chancellor, in November, 1756. On his retirement, the great seal was put in commission, for a year, in the hands of chief justice Willes, sir John Eardley Wilmot, and baron Smyth. It was then given to sir Robert Henley, afterwards earl of Northington, with the title of lord keeper, which was subsequently changed for that of lord chancellor. The following sketch of the life of lord Northington is abridged from a review of a memoir of him by his grandson, lord Henley, in the fifth volume of the Law Magazine. Of this work, the reviewer speaks as follows:

"Lord Henley's memoir (the rest of the volume being filled up with extracts from some of lord Northington's decrees) consists but of sixty-four as small streamlets of print as ever meandered through so many meadows of margin; that is, it contains in all about the same quantity of letter-press as might fill from twenty-five to thirty pages of the Law Magazine. Now, in this small compass, we need hardly say, it would be utterly hopeless to look for any of those minute details of manners, of character and of private history, which after all form the principal charm of biography. The author, in fact, has attempted nothing of this. So far as we can see, he has set about his task with little or no advantage in point of materials over any other person who might have chosen to undertake it; and had he been merely Mr. A B, a stranger to lord Northington and his family, we should have pronounced him to have performed it creditably, though as coming from lord Henley, his grandson, it certainly has not realized our expectations."]

LORD NORTHINGTON was the second son of Anthony Henley, a man of ancient descent and tolerably large fortune, well