Negative Estimate of Society. His required to bring the parties to agreement if possible Court records, however, do not furnish a positive measurement of a society from a statistical point of view, since they take account chiefly of the fractures of the law, and pass over that great current of good and lawful deeds which go on unmentioned in the records of any state. Statistics of crimes punished are important in comparative studies of periods and peoples, for they indicate the growth or decline of public morality, but taken alone they afford an incomplete picture. Periods vary in the enforcement of the same laws, sometimes through laxity of corrupt prosecutors and judges, sometimes through laxity of public opinion. One must inquire which factors are at work. Mixed Records. Documents of a judicial character will frequently be found in records which are not consistently named. This is due to the mixture of functions which occurred in administrative bodies of the mediæval period and even in modern times. Municipal councils and executives often heard trials and decided controversies in law. The Privy Council of the Elizabethan period, for example, was both an administrative and a judicial body, hence its records contain matters pertaining to both functions. The true nature of the document must be continually borne in mind. The earlier records of the American colonies often contain in the same book curious mixtures of governmental functions, because the town meetings passed upon all public questions from the admission of citizens to the probate of their wills. Whatever may be the connection in which the judicial act has been recorded, it should be separated from its surroundings for interpretation. The possible inferences to be drawn from it have been indicated here only in part. 1 For examples, see Early Records of the Town of Providence. Government in Action. CHAPTER XVII ADMINISTRATIVE DOCUMENTS ADMINISTRATIVE documents form a class so vast in extent and so varied in character that a complete description here is out of the question. As time goes on and governments become more complex the number and variety increase. Governmental functions enlarge and submit to change, yet one characteristic of the records remains constant. They show how the positive force of the state is exerted. How extensive these are in theory at a given time is to be found in the constitutions and organic laws, but the actual practice is found in the administrative records of nation, district, town, or parish. We find here, first, the evidences of change from one period to another. The differences in the scope of government and variations in the carefulness of administration are indicated by a comparison of the documents as a whole during one epoch and another. We find that modern governments are doing more things than were the mediæval or ancient, because commerce, education, and society in general are all more complicated, and more problems arise which states can solve better than individuals. But it would be hazardous to assert that medieval government was less intensive in all respects, for one finds on examination that the paternal care of the state was in some matters more pervasive than now. The regulations of prices; the sizes and weights of goods; the pattern of dress, and many other matters were regulated with an amount of detail which would now be called oppressive. The evidence for this is found in the ordinances of the period, reinforced by the proclamations, orders, and reports evolved in the execution of the laws. Generalizations upon the laws and conditions of a given time ought not to be made without due consideration of actual administration, both executive and judicial. Among other things it is not necessary to inquire which class of official documents is the more important, for all have their place, and the importance will depend upon the line of research at the moment in hand. In modern times the larger affairs of state will be found in the records of cabinets and councils; the regular routine of administration will be recorded in the journals and reports of the various departments. From these a few examples of various periods will suggest the kinds of information to be derived from administrative documents. At first thought one would hardly believe that a Notitia Dignimere list of offices would be of much account to tatum. future inquirers, but, in fact, we are greatly indebted to some one under the Roman empire for a catalogue of the provinces, their subdivisions, and the designations of the governing officers. This socalled “Notitia Dignitatum" confirms other information about Roman provincial administration and presents a visual impression of the extent of Domesday Pipe Rolls. the empire and the minute ramifications of its government. It provides a key to the boundaries of various otherwise indefinite territories, and while it does not answer all the puzzles suggested in its text, there is light afforded on certain obscure movements in imperial history. Another familiar example is the tax-collectors' manual and register of feudal obligations which William the Conqueror imposed upon his English subjects. The Domesday Book is in the first place a statistical survey of England from which we may infer the extent of its cultivation and form an estimate of its population. We catch some of the municipalities in their primitive condition; we find some counties well advanced and others too barren to be listed; the names of the people show the distribution of the various races and the extent to which the Norman invaders had taken possession of the soil; the terms used to describe the divisions of land in different parts of the kingdom open up dialects to the philologist and clues for institutions to the historian. A Domesday Book, however, was required only at long intervals in the middle ages, but there are other documents which reveal financial and economic conditions from year to year in England. The Pipe Rolls, for example, give the semiannual returns of the sheriffs to the royal treasury, and are complete from the second year of Henry II onward. What might seem to be merely a collection of problems in addition and subtraction is a most valuable body of information concerning methods |