NORMAN LAW. NVhen, about 911, Charles the Simple ceded to the Scazidina vian pirate II roll% or I1ollo, that portion of Neustria which was thenceforth known as the Duchy of Normandy, the institutions and customs of the country were Frankish. These institutions and customs the conquerors apparently accepted, for there is little trace in the later Norman law of Scandinavian influences. Some at least of the Frankish im perial institutions were more fully preserved under the Norman dukes than in other parts of France. Our knowledge, however, of Norman law in the tenth and eleventh centuries is very imperfect; it is hased largely ou inferences from earlier Frankish and later Anglo-Norman sources.
For the period from the Norman conquest of England in 106ti to the French conquest of Nor mandy in 1202-04 we have considerable material: we have twelfth century documents (printed by Bigelow as an appendix to his History of Proce dure in England, 1880) and more or less com plete Exchequer IZolls of various dates from 1180 to 1203 (published by Stapleton, with valuable observations, 1310. 1844). That the organization of the exchequer was originally Norman and not English is shown by its existence in the Norman Kingdom of Sicily in the first half of the twelfth century. As later in England. exchequer was a judicial as well as an administrative authority, and from the time of Henry 1. it included trained lawyers. Like the Frankish emperors, the Nor man dukes sent out miss?, or itinerant justices, who held court in various parts of the duchy. In the ducal court and iu the circuit courts proce dure was initiated by ducal writ (breve), and proof by wager of battle was supplanted by an inquest of the vicinage. This was a further de velopment of the Frankish inquisitio; and the Norman 'jury of proof,' as Brunner calls it, was transferred to England and became the jury of judgment. That in other respects the in fluence of Norman law upon English law was very great is universally admitted; but there is as yet no agreement as to the extent to which it superseded the older Saxon law.
When Philip Augustus Normandy he promised that the duchy should preserve its privileges. Shortly before, about 1200. a private
compilation had been made, known as the Straub' et emisurtudines .Vortnannkr. To this was added, about l2lS. a Trartatus dr Mrrrihn.c rt Remota tionibus, Later in the same century appeared eompilations of judgments rendered in the ex chequer and of judgments rendered in assize. The most complete statement of Norman law, how ever, is the Grand Coulumirr de Normandie, de seribed in the oldest 1.atill texts as the Summit dr Legibus .Vornionnite or darn rt ronsuctudincs °rum ttnia% Sc,' (tRAND CorrumIER or NOR MANDY.
Gradually, by judicial interpretation, the law of Normandy was assimilated to that of Paris and of Northern France generally. Not only were the courts tilled with Frenell judges, but cases were carried to the Parliament in Paris. The notes or glosses which accompany the fif teenth century copies of the Grand Coutamicr misinterpret some passages and declare that others are no longer in force. About the middle of the sixteenth century Guillaume 'l'errieu wrote a commentary on the laws of Normandy, which was printed in 1574. This work and the original Grand still constitute the basis of the law of the English Channel Islands.
In 1577 Henry Ill. ordered that a new conlantc be drawn up for Normandy. The royal commis sioners stated in their report that the old eon tunic was largely unintelligible and for the most part no longer in use; and in their revision they omitted some of the most important institutions, which give to the Norman law its historical im portance, including the incompletely developed jury. The new coatunic remained in force until the Code Napolkm gave France a common law.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Brunner, Das anglonormanBibliography. Brunner, Das anglonorman- vische Erbfolgesystem (Leipzig, 1869) ; id., Die Entstchung der Schwurgeriehte (Berlin, 1871) ; id.. "Die Quellen de: lewmanniselien P,echts," in Holtzendortl, der sehaft iStb ed., Leipzig, 1890) : and "Die Ibiellen des anglonormannisehen BMus" ( ibid.) ; Pollock and Maitland, History of English Lair (2d ed., Bo:ton, 1899). Both in P,runner's encyclopaAirt articles and in Pollock and Maitland full refer ences are given to the sources and the older liter ature.