1922 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 577 bears all the marks of a mature work. We should take it that the fact of the introduction being ready and the anxiety of the ' Commissione per gli Atti delle Assemblee Costituzionali Italiane ' to make a start on their lengthy and difficult undertaking combined to bring about the publication of this volume in 1917. despite the temporary impossibility of collating certain manuscripts. Thus the introduction is complete, though the documents published refer only to the years 1228-1331, later documents up to 1420 being held over for a future volume. A large proportion of the documents have never been printed before, and the method of publication is explained in a foreword in which Dr. Leicht recalls the strange procedure of Dr. Eduard Traversa, who brought out a book in 1911 1 which was principally based on the researches of Dr. Leicht, but scarcely mentioned them. There follows a concise and very useful account of the history and organization of the patriarchate of Aquileia, and after it a chapter which will probably be considered the most interesting section of the work. Several theories have been propounded as to the origin of the Friulian parliament ; Dr. Leicht shows that none of them is completely satis- factory, for the parliament, which had only incidental judicial powers, could not have been a development of the Lombard assemblies, which had only survived as judicial assemblies ; nor is there any indication that it arose, as Fertile suggested, from ecclesiastical councils. Dr. Luschin von Ebengreuth assumed that the Friulian parliament had developed from a consilium fidelium, Dr. von Ottenthal believed it to be the outcome of the curia fidelium, but neither of these theories explains the obligatory character of its meetings. No doubt these meetings were in some way connected with those of the curia fidelium, but in practice, so far back as existing documents allow us to explore, the curia and the parliament in the territory of Aquileia existed side by side, and parliament heard appeals from the judgements of the curia. Dr. Leicht thinks that the main factor of the institution of periodical parliamentary assemblies in Friuli were the financial difficulties with which the patriarch had to contend, and the need which he felt of coming to agreement with his principal subjects and dependents as to the incidence and amount of financial and military tributes. The well-known customary limitations of the powers of the feudal overlord provided the legal basis and justification for parliamentary assemblies. In Friuli there is evidence of such customary limitations as early as 1189, and thus the parliament of the patriarchate is shown to have attributions and origins not dissimilar from those of other provinces and countries. As early as the thirteenth century there is evidence of its possessing legislative powers, but the provincial assembly of Istria seems to have already exercised such a power at the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century ; 2 and the judicial attributions of parliament were probably due to its kinship with the provincial assemblies. An interesting, if secondary, point is that in 1 Eduard Traversa, Das Friaulische Parlament bis zur Unterdruckung des Patri- archates von Aquileia durch Venedig, Vienna, 1911. 8 Cf. ' Pax Histriae ', Mon. Germ, Hist. Constitution's, 1, n. 428, about which see Leicht, ' La "forma sacramenti " dell' Istria', in Arch. Star. Ital. 1916, n. 4. VOL. XXXVII. NO. CXLVm. P p
