TEUTONIC AND MEDIALWAL COURTS. The primi tive Teutonic court was a folk-moot, or popular court, in which the decision was proposed by the presiding dignitary (king or prince or 11011 dredman), or by law-speaker appointed by the presiding dignitary, and was approved or disapproved by the assembled freemen. In the later Frankish (Carolingian) Empire, special judgment - finders (seabini, Sehoffen, eeherins) gradually took the place of the body of freemen. These judges or assessors were at first ap pointed by the count; but, after the dissolution of the Empire, their office, like most offices, be came hereditary.
The early Teutonic courts were those of the hundred, of the county, and of the tribe. In the Frankish Empire the court of the tribe was re placed by the royal court, held by the count palatine; and in the Carolingian period circuit courts were held by Imperial missi. Even in the Carolingian period the courts of the hun drsd and of the county were being supplanted by manorial courts, held by the bailiffs of the seigneurs, and after the dissolution of the Em pire the popular free courts disappeared in many parts of Europe. During the Middle Ages ap
peared special feudal courts and independent city courts. Nearly all the medireval courts were courts at once of first and last instance; there was no system of appeals; the king's court was usually nothing but a feudal court for the great vassals. In all of these courts, from the king's court down to the manorial court, the decision was usually rendered (or at least approved) by a limited number of judges or assessors, who were regularly the pares of the defendant—i.e. persons of the same class and rank. Through out the Middle Ages there were also special ec clesiastical courts (see CANON LAW), with juris diction not only over'Church matters, but over the persons of the clergy and over many matters to-day regarded as civil. In these courts the judicial organization and procedure of the late Roman Empire were perpetuated. From the ordinary (bishop's) courts appeals ran to Rome, and the Pope could appoint legates to hold spe cial courts.