TO THE READER A few remnants of the lawstofllantancient.predaroryapeople, compiled for apmonarch who ruled twelvencenturies agožin Constantinopleemixed subsequently with Eongobardic-tribal customs, and bound together in the chaotic volumes of ob- scure and unauthorized interpreters-these fomsthestradition ofopinionsawhiahinaaalarge parLOLEurope is stillkaccorded thename of laAnd it is as deplorable as it is common in our own day that an opinion of Carpzov,3 an ancient usage cited by Claro, a torture suggested with irritating complacency by Farinacci,5 should make up the laws accepted with confidence by those who ought, only with trembling diffidence, to govern