Note 285 — Chapter IX · The State.

Assize Wil. 3, 4. Reg. Dunf., Nos. 13, 23, 43, 45, 56. I have rendered Probi homines by Proprietary. Probus has passed into the French language as Preux; probus homo, as Preud-homme. They are continually found in the Frank laws and capitularies as Meliores pagenses, the class furnishing the Scabini, the Mediocres of some of the other early laws. In burghs they were the class from which echevins, bailies, and aldermen were chosen. They represented the leading members of all that part of the communitas which was not comprised in the clergy, greater barons, and royal officials, answering very much to the class from which in modern times—whether in burgh or upland—the grand jury, magistrates, and members of Parliament are supposed to be chosen. Amongst the old Saxons the Scepenbar man—he who was qualified to be chosen for a Scabinus—was required to be “probus, prudens, indigena, ingenuus, et quatuor avis natus, liber et opulentus;” in other words, the qualifications for a Probus homo were supposed to be birth, property, and character. In the old Scottish laws the probus homo is always rendered “good man”—and the gude-man is still the equivalent of “the master” in a certain class—the probus homo et fidelis, “the good man and true,” being a man of a class superior to the simple fidelis or “leal man.” The good equally appears in his equivalents amongst the Welsh,—the Gwr dha “bonus homo;” and amongst the Spaniards—the Hidalgo, “fijos d’algo,” or “filius boni hominis.” Amongst the Northmen he appears seemingly as the Danneman, and amongst the Irish Gael as the Saoi. The Scabinus derived his name from the same source as the Scop; both were Makers—to use the old English word answering exactly to ποιητης—and in times when an unwritten code was preserved in the memory by such verses as “the father to the bough, the son to the plough;” by a sort of memoria technica like the Welsh Triads; or by a quaint system of question and answer, as is traceable amongst the Irish; the qualifications to constitute a good “law maker” may have often produced a good “maker” of poetry.