the Constable (_comes stabuli_) who marshals the host; the Seneschal, or
High Steward, who controls the demesnes; the Protonotary, by whose staff
the royal letters and all documents of state are written out; the
Arch-chaplain, to whom ecclesiastical suitors bring their petitions and
complaints. Finally there are the Counts of the Palace, appointed from
the chief races of the realm, who exercise the king's appellate
jurisdiction in secular cases. But the king is bound by custom to govern
with the counsel and consent of his great men--a Germanic tradition
which no after growth of respect for Roman absolutism can destroy. A
select body of influential nobles deliberates with the king on all
questions of national importance. Their decisions are submitted
for approval to a more general assembly (Mayfield), held annually in the
spring or summer. By this assembly the military expedition of the year
is discussed and sanctioned; here also are promulgated royal edicts
(_capitula_).

The ordinary freeman, upon whom falls the ultimate burden of military
service, has no voice in the debates of the Mayfield; but ordinances
affecting the old customary laws of the several races which make up the
kingdom (Salians, Ripuarians, Saxons, etc.) do not take effect till they
have been accepted by popular assemblies in the provinces which they
concern. And such revisions are infrequent. The royal prerogative in
legislation is limited by a popular prejudice, which regards the
customary law as sacred and immutable. The Capitularies are chiefly
administrative ordinances; the "law of the land," which is the same
everywhere and for all persons, is an ideal to be realised in England
alone of medieval states. Elsewhere the king's law is a supplement, a
postscript; the privilege of the free man is to live under the law of
his province, his lord's fief or his free city.