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and those hinted at under the legal titles of notaio,* avvocato,† giudice non gentil,‡ and the geographical titles of Ostienses and Aretino.||

(3.) Legal terms.-This is rather a difficult subject to arrange, as many terms, in strictness legal in their meaning, are, as in English, often applied in a general sense; for example, arra (in the sense of prediction), chiosa, debito, diritto, digesto, disigillarsi, disfrancare, editto, eterna legge, infamia, indizio,** masnada,†† prefetto nel foro divino, reda, retaggio, reo, rio, testimonio. Among technical words of law calling for no special notice are: arra, bando, cancellare, chiosa, colpa, comento, concistoro,‡‡ consistoro, contumacia, convenanza, convegno, corte, costume, danno,§§ dannato, decreto, decretali, divieto, diritto, dispensare, drittura, duolo, editto,

* The poet lawyer, Jacopo da Lentino, Purg. xxiv., 56,

+ L'avvocato de' tempi cristiani, Par. x., 119, may be either Orosius, the author of Historia adversus Paganos, or St. Ambrose, the reputed author of Mosaicarum et Romanarum Legum Collatio.

Another and perhaps better reading is Giudice Nin Gentil, Purg. viii., 53. In either case the allusion is to Nino Visconti, the Governor of the Pisan possessions in the island of Sardinia.

§ Par. xii., 83. The allusion is to Enrico da Susa, Cardinal of Ostia, a commentator on the Canon Law. Students of that law were said Ostiensem

sequi. See Epist. viii., 7, Ostiensem declamant.

|| Benincasa da Arezzo.

¶ Dritto is always strictly legal in its meaning, as in Purg. v., 78.

** As a term of the law of evidence, the word is generally in the plural, but in Dante is always in the singular.

++ Almost equivalent to the old English law term manupast, those who ate at a man's table, but used by Dante as meaning simply a number of persons, Inf. xv., 41; Purg. ii., 130.

Used figuratively in Convito iv., 5, quell' altissimo e congiuntissimo consistoro della Trinità. "Consistorie" is similarly used in a figurative sense in Piers Plowman's "Vision of the Last Judgment."

§§ Note that the elements of actionability under the Lex Aquilia (damnum, culpa, injuria) often occur in the "Divina Commedia."

In Inf. xxi., 32, it appears to be used as equivalent to dolus.

fellonia, fio, foro,* frode, furto, giustizia, giusto,† giudice,
giudicare, giudizio, giuggiare, giurare, giura,‡ interdetto, ingiusto,
ingiuria, legge, legista, lite, norma, patto, patteggiare, perdono,
perdonanza, privilegio, registrare, reo, rio, sentenza, statuto, testare,
testamento, torto,§ tolletto. Worthy of special notice is the
great variety of words used for torture, among which are
found briga, dolore, croce, martirio, martire, noia, soffriri,
tormento, tortura, travaglia, and the verbs affaticare and
assannare. The words which follow have an interest of
their own.
Caorsa ¶ is grouped with Sodom, for usury
was a terrible sin in the fourteenth century, and the
inhabitants of Cahors were famous usurers. This is not
the place to enter on the great question of the treatment
of usury in mediæval Italy, but it may be noticed that in the
"Divina Commedia " the word usura occurs twice** and the
word usuriere once.tt The usurer is placed among the
violent, probably from a misunderstanding of Aristotle,‡‡
and Virgil explains that usury is offensive to Divine goodness
because it is contrary to nature, probably from a feeling
that the usurer unnaturally produces money from money,
"a breed of barren metal."§§ The words scranna and
vivagni are curious. The former appears to be etymologi-
cally the English "screen," and sedere a scranna|||| would
mean sitting at screen, very much like sitting in
Chancery, if that word be derived from the low Latin
word cancelli, meaning screen-work. Vivagni means the

* L' uno e l' altro foro, Par. x., 104: i.e., civil and canon law.

+ Justice is defined in Par. xix., 88, as that which conforms to the Supreme Good.

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borders of anything, but in one place* is used to signify the margins of treatises on Canon law, with their closely-printed glosses or summa, brocarda or brocardica. The well-known phrase il gran rifiuto† touches a question of Canon law. This is commonly understood of the resignation of the Papacy by Celestine V. in 1294. It was, according to Scartazzini, a cowardly abjuration of his high office, and was an abjuration rather than a resignation, because a resignation can only be made to a human superior, and a Pope has no human superior. The apostolic succession was broken; Boniface XIII. was a usurper; the chair of St. Peter was vacant. In several cases English lawyers are reminded of familiar phrases. Bobolcas (if Tassoni's view be adopted), and tollette_dannose|| recall bovata and maletolts; per conservar sua pace¶ reminds of conservators of the peace, and barattare,** barattiere,†† baratteria‡‡ of the now practically obsolete offence of common barratry.§§ Corte has a double meaning like curia and "court" in England, viz., the king's entourage and a tribunal. In "De Vulgari Eloquio" the phrase curia regis occurs.|||

(4.) Legal Arguments.-In two passages there seems to be an allusion to legal procedure. The inquisitorial

* Par. ix., 135.

The allusion is probably to the thumb-marks on the margins, caused by continual study.

+ Inf. iii., 60.

This is the reason of St. Peter's strong assertion, thrice repeated, of the usurpation of his place (il loco mio, il loco mio, il loco mio, Par. xxvii., 22). It is said that Cardinal Egidio Colonna owed his elevation to the Sacred College to his defence of the legality of Boniface's appointment in his De Renuntiatione Papa. The Canon law on the subject is to be found mainly in Decretals i., 9. § Par. xxiii., 132. ¶ Inf. xxiii., 107.

** Par. xvi., 57.

|| Inf. xi., 36.

†† Inf. xxi., 41; xxii., 87, 136. ‡‡ Inf. xxii., 53. §§" Barratry of the master and mariners" is, however, still a phrase known in policies of marine insurance.

66

||||i., 8.

process of the ecclesiastical courts is perhaps glanced at in the Purgatorio,* and in the Inferno the trial before Minos is entirely in accordance with the practice of the mediæval Italian courts, both ecclesiastical and secular, for the purpose of obtaining evidence.t The argument of Cicero, aut vi aut fraude fiat injuria,‡ seems to be the basis of the argument in the Inferno that injury works either by force or fraud, but fraud is the more displeasing to God because it is a peculiarly human failing (proprio male), therefore the fraudulent are more severely punished than the violent. In the same canto there is an attempt at a division of fraud, according as it is practised on one who trusts the fraudulent person or on one who does not. The former is the graver offence and is punished as treason.|| At the end of Canto VI. of the Purgatorio is the famous comparison of Florence to a sick woman who can find no rest in her bed. Florence is similarly unsettled, for she is continually changing

Legge, moneta, offizio, e costume.

Later in the Purgatorio the poet says that law should be a curb (freno), and laws there are, but who obeys them? The reason is that what made Rome great, the two suns— Emperor and Pope-no longer shine, for the light of the one has extinguished the light of the other.¶ The lines

in nostra corte

Rivolge sè contra 'l taglio la rota,**

*E dolcemente sì che parli acco' lo, Purg. xiv., 6.

+ Inf. v., 7.

"Good judges and justices," says Coke, "abhor these

practices," 2 Inst., 55.

De Off., i., 13.

§ Inf. xi., 23.

|| Id., 53.

¶ xvi., 106. They are the duo luminaria of De Monarchia iii., 1, 4; there he also calls them sun and moon. The two swords of S. Luke, xxii., 38, he is careful to say in De Mon. iii., 9, do not represent the temporal and spiritual

jurisdiction of the Pope.

** Purg. xxxi., 41.

seem to mean that in the Court of Heaven confession and repentance blunt the sword of justice. The justice of heaven seems unjust to man, says Beatrice, but that ought to be an incentive to faith rather than to heresy. Twice the theory of a patto between God and man appears; the vow is such a compact, it is offered by man's free will, and is the victim in the sacrifice ;t the patto with Noah is suggested to men by a double rainbow, and so is bilateral.‡ The Latin line,

Non decimas quæ sunt pauperum Dei,§

is the statement of part of a legal truth, but into the vexed question of a tripartite or quadripartite division of tithe Dante does not enter.

(5.) Penology.-Dante does not fully distinguish crime from sin. A crime with him is a crime because it is a breach of the law of God. That it is also a breach of the law of the State is simply a coincidence.|| For instance, in one passage he groups crimes and moral offences together as deserving the same punishment. His treatment of crimes and punishments is very instructive as a guide to the sentiment of the period.** It is useless to classify the crimes in extenso, as almost every possible variety of crime is mentioned. Some of the more interesting are those which follow.

Affaturare,†† arti,‡‡ magiche frode.§§ The importance

*Par. iv., 67.

§ Par. xii., 93.

+ Par. v., 28.

‡ Par. xii., 17.

This is quite in accordance with the stage of law described by Sir H. Maine, in which the distinction between sin, tort, and crime has not yet been drawn. (Ancient Law, c. x.)

¶ Inf. xi., 58.

**

É pela penalidade que melhor se caracterisa o direito de um povo (Braga, Poesia do Direito, Oporto, 1865, p. 145).

†† Inf. xi., 58.

‡‡ Inf. xx., 86.

§§ Id., 117.

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