The progress of
society, however, required that the supreme tribunal should become
stationary and permanent, that the suitors might know when and where
they might prefer their claims. Philip the Fair, therefore, about the
year 1300, began by enacting that the pleas should be held only at
Rouen. Louis the XIIth remodelled the court, and gave it permanence;
yielding in these measures to the prayer of the States of Normandy, and
to the advice of his minister, the Cardinal d'Amboise. It was then
composed of four presidents, and twenty-eight counsellors; thirteen
being clerks; and the remainder laymen. The name of exchequer was
perhaps unpleasing to the crown, as it reminded the Normans of the
ancient independence of their duchy; and, in 1515, Francis Ist ordered
that the court should thenceforward be known as the _Parliament of
Normandy_; thus assimilating it in its appellation to the other supreme
tribunals of the kingdom. There is an old poem extant, written in very
lawyer-like rhyme, which invests all the cardinal virtues, and a great
many supernumerary ones besides, with the offices of this most honorable
court, in which purity is the usher, truth has a silk gown, and
virginity enters the proceedings on the record.
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