Note 15 — Chapter I · THE EARLY GERMANS
Reading edition
The German popular assembly was simply the periodical gathering of free men in arms for the discussion and decision of important points of tribal policy. It was not a legislative body in the modern sense. Law among the Germans was immemorial custom, which, like religion, could be changed only by a gradual shifting of popular belief and practice. It was not "made" by any process of deliberate and immediate choice. Nevertheless, the assembly constituted an important democratic element in the government, which operated in a measure to offset the aristocratic element represented by the principes and comitatus [see p. 28]. Its principal functions were the declaring of war and peace, the election of the kings, and, apparently, the hearing and deciding of graver cases at law.