in the year 1204 the Latin empire was established at
Constantinople, the assizes of Jerusalem went into effect there. The
following is an account of this event:

'As there were many peoples about Constantinople which had not been
governed by the Roman law, and the situation of the conqueror
himself required new ordinances, and because indeed the empire
could not be governed otherwise than by the 'usages and assizes' as
they are in the Orient, the emperor Baldwin determined to send a
messenger to the king and patriarch of Jerusalem, praying them to
send to him a copy of their 'usages and assizes.' When these
arrived, they were read in the presence of all the barons, and it
was thereupon resolved to administer minister justice in accordance
with these, and especially those chapters adapted to times of
peace.'

Hence there are translations of the assizes to be found in modern Greek,
and the dukes of Athens, princes of Thebes, and other lords of that
region, who appear in Shakspeare's comedies, applied this system of law,
and perhaps many an obscure custom referred to in those plays might be
explained by this fact.

It was especially the customs preserved in the principality of Achaia
which the Venetian government of Negropont subjected to an examination
by twelve citizens, and which, with a few exceptions, particularly in
the parts relating to judicial combats, were sanctioned by the doge
Francesco Foscari.

But the most romantic chapter in the history of the extension of this
law, is the account of its introduction into the Frankish principality
of the Morea. This principality was wrested from the Byzantine empire,
in the year 1213, by William of Champlitte, at the head of a band of
adventurers, and passed by intrigue into the hands of the family Ville
Hardouin. An old chronicler of the times tells us that when the second
prince of this family, Godfrey II, reigned in the Morea, an imperial
squadron landed at Pontikos, carrying the beautiful Agnes, with her
suite of ladies and knights, to James, king of Aragon, to whom her
father had promised her in marriage on receiving from that king the
promise of an auxiliary corps for his army. Godfrey was a man who well
understood human life. He appeared at the port, testified his high
veneration for the princess, and invited her to rest herself from the
voyage in his land. The princess seems not to have regarded this journe