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Notes 37—40
that the private law which was developed in England by a French-speaking court was just one more French coutume. Sohm, Fränkisches Recht und römisches Recht, p. 69: 'Die Vorgeschichte des englischen Rechts von heute hat nicht in England, sondern in Nordfrankreich ihre Heimath.…Stolz kann die Lex Salica auf die zahlreichen und mächtigen Rechte blicken, welche sie erzeugt hat.'
38 Blackstone, Commentaries, vol. III., p. 149; J. H[oddesdon], Tho. Mori Vita, Lond. 1652, p. 26.
39 Smith, Commonwealth, ed. 1601, p. 141: ‘withernam…is in plaine Dutch and in our olde Saxon language wyther nempt.’
Barbarous language of the law.40 Pollock, First Book of Jurisprudence, p. 283, from Dyer's Reports, 188b, in the notes added in ed. 1688: 'Richardson, ch. Just, de C. Bane, al Assises at Salisbury in Summer 1631. fuit assault per prisoner la condemne pur felony que puis son condemnation ject un Brickbat a le dit Justice que narrowly mist, & pur ceo immediately fuit indictment drawn per Noy envers le prisoner, & son dexter manus ampute & fix al Gibbet sur que luy mesme immediatment hange in presence de Court.' In France the Ordonnance of Villers-Cotterets (1539) decreed that the judgments of the French courts should be recorded no longer in Latin but in French. 'L'utilité de cette innovation…se comprend assez d'elle-même. On dit qu'un motif d'une autre nature, l'intérêt des belles-lettres, ne contribua