look at
document number eight in the same collection,[14] we will further see
the territory of Chiusi referred to as "fines clusinas."

Hand-in-hand with the growth of episcopal organization we see another
term coming into use in connection with the same land division, and
this also is an administrative one, but of the church simply, and only
made use of by conversion or carelessly when applied to a civil area.
I mean the _districtus_, which term is properly applicable only to the
jurisdiction of a bishop, and designates the limits of his episcopal
power, that is, his diocese. The reasons for this term being used in
later times occasionally for the civil division, the _civitas_, are
twofold. They result, firstly, from the confusion which arose between
matters of civil and ecclesiastical jurisdiction, when political power
was given to a large number of the bishops, and when they united to
their religious duties as pastor, the judicial and sometimes even some
of the military duties of _comes_ and _judex_. And secondly, in the
important fact that in almost all cases the boundaries of a bishop's
diocese coincided more or less exactly with the limits of the
authority of the state officers; so that the division which should be
called a _civitas_ or _territorium_ from the point of view of civil
government, should be called a _districtus_ from that of
ecclesiastical government.

Where we find at once the most important and, if not rightly
understood, the most perplexing traces of the survival of the old
Roman municipal system, is in this matter of territorial boundaries.
According to the Roman system, as we have seen, the city was the
important administrative unit, and each city was surrounded by a belt
of rural lands, more or less large according to the size and
importance of the city itself. This of course resulted in a division
of the whole country into a number of districts whose boundaries were
definitely marked, perhaps even jealously guarded. Now, when the
Lombards took possession of the country, while they rejected the
principle of the municipal unit, as foreign to the character and
instincts of their race, they could not fail to see the practical
utility of using, and the actual difficulty of overthrowing, a system
of land division which custom and authority had united in rendering
alike definite and convenient. What was the result? They made use of
the old boundary lines, leaving their limits, as far as we can judg