But the abuse does not seem to have been
satisfactorily corrected till the time when Charlemagne formally
substituted for the body of the freemen, who in theory were supposed
to attend the _placita_ and assist in the judgments, a limited number
of men who, as regularly constituted judges, either assisted the
_judices_ or made judgments of their own, as the case might be. These
officers were the _scabini_, whose position we are now investigating.
All of the best authorities agree that no authentic allusion to the
office in Italy is to be found prior to the establishment of Frankish
rule. The word _scavinus_ or _scabinus_ sometimes occurs, but in every
case the document containing it has been proved spurious on other
grounds. For instance, Brunetti[65] publishes a donation of the bishop
Speciosus of Florence, to the monastery of the cathedral, purporting
to belong to the year 724, in which a certain "Alfuso scavino" is
mentioned; but it has been proved that the monastery was only founded
in the year 760, and though it may, at a later date, have received the
donation, the significancy of the use of the term vanishes. The first
authenticated use of the name of the new judge seems to be in a
_placitum_ of Charlemagne of the year 781.[66] In this the parties to
a suit are mentioned as having already appeared before the "Comitem et
suos Escapinios.
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