To these the judex, though the most prominent, cannot be said to form an exception.  That he was the head of the district judicial system has in part been already shown, and will come out more clearly when we come to define the powers of some of his subordinates.  His leadership in war we have seen to be but the natural continuance of his original office; and that as dux he was to be ranked among the first nobles of the land, the “optimates,” the “viri illustres,” we can see from the following passage in the laws of Liutprand, when in the prologue to the third book already quoted, he gives forth the edict with the judges as “una cum illustribus viris optimatibus meis ex Neustriae et Austriae et Tusciae partibus vel universis nobilibus Langobardis."[23] Although the position of the duces as nobles of the land never altered, their power relative to that of the king suffered many modifications.  The ducal power—­“principes” of Tacitus—­preceding among the Lombards that of the king, we see the dukes exercising much greater control in the earlier stages of the monarchy:  even, on the death of Clefis—­576—­actually establishing a sort of aristocratic republic, under the leadership of thirty dukes, which lasted for ten years; after which time, on the event of a dangerous war with the Greeks and the Franks, Authari, the son of Clefis, gained the throne by election; the dukes giving up to him, says Paulus Diaconus,[24] the half of their estates for the support of his dignity, retaining, however, the rest, not as servants of the king, but as “principes” of the people, an important distinction.  Agiluf—­591 to 615—­originally duke of Turin, met with much opposition from the power of the dukes; but when we come to the time of Rhotari—­636 to 652—­we find their power already declining, and in the eighth century, as for example under Liutprand—­712 to 736—­the laws show them reduced to the position of the other judices, but still representing a high aristocracy whose consent was, as we have seen, necessary to all acts of the king.

The most important of the functions of the dux as judex was holding the Curtis Regia or Curtis Ducalis, in the largest city or “urbs” of every civitas.  Here, in conjunction with his subordinates, he heard all cases which did not go up to the king for judgment, and here was centered the fiscal administration of the civitas.  To describe in detail the composition of these curtes, their jurisdiction and methods of procedure, would require a whole chapter of no mean proportions, and however interesting in itself, would be out of place in the present investigation.  All that it is needful for us to consider is the relation of these curtes to the municipalities in which they were located.  Of their location within the city walls the proofs to be found in numbers of the old documents are to me conclusive.  I will give a few examples, however,