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"Ut alia epistola ad te scripsi, nihil aliud me hic tenet, nisi cura permutandi hoc beneficium, quod defectu temporum multo tenuius est, quam ferebatur. Nollem enim, id quod tanto et temporis impendio quaesivi, et animi sollicitudine, nunc amittere vitio festinandi.

The beneficium is partly of Roman, partly of German origin; in the Roman system the usufruct the occupation of land belonging to another person involved no diminution of status; in the Germanic system he who tilled land that was not his own was imperfectly free; the reduction of a large Roman population to dependence placed the two classes on a level, and conduced to the wide extension of the institution.

At an early date we find cases of conquered princes a Duke of Aquitaine, a Duke of Bavaria, a King of Denmark who take the vassal's oath and agree to hold their former dominions as a beneficium. So again a member of the royal house does homage and promises service in return for his appanage. More common, and more important for the future, is the practice of treating counts as vassals.

Elater novus fibris conciliatur. Febricula fugatur. Acris dyspnoea solvitur. Beneficium dextra ripa partum, sinistra perditum. Superficie corporis, aquae marine frigore et pondere, compressa et contracta, interstitia fibrarum occluduntur: particulis incrementi novis partes abrasas reficientibus, locus non datur.

Quia illud in pretio haberi potest, quod per se revocat nobis in memoriam beneficia Dei, et est occasio ut pro eis acceptis grati existamus. At imago Christi per se revocat nobis in memoriam beneficium nostræ redemptionis, &c.

Paul. Now just as I cannot receive or give the sacrament of baptism, of penance, or of extreme unction in any one's stead or for his benefit, but I take for myself alone the blessing therein offered by God, and there is here not officium, but beneficium, i. e., not work or service, but reception and benefit alone; so also, no one can say or hear mass for another, but each one for himself alone, for it is purely a taking and receiving.

Side by side with the beneficium grew up another institution which helps to explain the relation of lord and vassal in later times.

When, after the death of Charlemagne, men began to combine the idea of the comitatus with the idea of the beneficium, and to grant the usufruct of parcels of their land on condition that the grantee should be true, loyal, and helpful to them, that is, become their vassal, we may consider that the feudal system of landowning was coming into existence.

The same term was applied to the numerous grants which churches made from their vast possessions for limited periods and upon various conditions. We also find the Frankish kings and other great landowners disposing of their lands in a similar fashion. The beneficium forms the first stage in the development of mediæval landowning.

Speaking of the trial by jury, as established by Magna Carta, he calls it, "A privilege which is couched in almost the same words with that of the Emperor Conrad two hundred years before: 'nemo beneficium suum perdat, nisi secundum consuetudinem antecessorum nostrorum, et, judicium parium suorum. The difference between this reading and the other is important.