According to the theory of judicial procedure among the Teutonic
nations, judgment in criminal cases was given in the open court or
_placitum_, where, besides the regular judges, all or any of the
freemen within its jurisdiction were supposed to concur in the
judgment and sentence. How far this method of arriving at judicial
decisions was carried out in practice depended largely on custom and
other local influences, and consequently varied greatly in different
countries and with different nations. I do not propose to enter into
the discussion[58] of the existence of these "judicators"[59] in
Lombardy in the eighth century, but will only say that it is certain
that before the Frankish conquest there did not exist a class of men
whose business it was to assist the judge in disposing of cases. If
through ignorance of the law or for other reasons he was unable to
come to a decision, "si vero talis causa fuit, quod ipse ...
deliberare minime possit,"[60] he could call some of the freemen to
assist him: "advocis [advocet] alios ... qui sciunt judicare,"[61]
etc., but this seems, in later times at any rate, to have been a
privilege to be used at discretion, and the persons summoned were not
regularly appointed officers of the court. The Lombard codes are
silent with regard to these indicators; but Savigny,[62] in his
argument to prove their existence, claims that mention is made of them
in two decisions of Liutprand of the years 715 and 716, and brings as
additional evidence a _placitum_ of 751[63] in which Lupo, duke of
Spoleto, gives judgment "una cum judicibus nostris .
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