176  THE  CHINESE  EMPIRE
established  was  that  the  Roman  elsewhere  than  in  Rome  was
extraterritorialised—he  was  not  required  to  submit  to  the
territorial  laws  of  the  “  foreign  ”  country,  but  remaine.
outside  them  and  continued  to  enjoy  the  protection  of  his
own  laws.  As  an  echo  of  this  privilege  we  find  that  in  the
Constitution  of  a.d.  824  imposed  upon  the  people  of  Rome
by  Lothair,  acting  as  vicegerent  for  his  father,  Lewis  the
Pious,  each  inhabitant  of  the  city  was  required  to  choose  the
code—Roman,  Frankish,  or  Lombard—by  which  he  wishe
to  live,  and  was  then  judged  according  to  the  law  selecto
The  underlying  principle  is  obvious.  It  was  recognised  as
inequitable  that,  for  example,  the  Frank,  who  was  entitle
by  his  native  law  to  compound  for  a  homicide  by  paymen
of  weregeld,  should  by  the  accident  of  residence  in  wha  »
though  the  capital  of  the  empire,  was  still  to  him  a  foreign
city,  be  compelled  to  submit  to  what  would  appeal  to  him
the  cruel  and  vindictive  penalty  of  death  ;  and  while  e
wished  to  preserve  for  himself  his  own  law,  he  did  not  wis  1
to  impose  it  on  the  Roman  people  or  on  the  Tombai  ds  w  0
less  than  a  century  before  had  been  masters  of  the  city-The
  Frank  in  Rome  was  fully  extraterritorialised,  but  o
Rome  the  Frank  was  titular  sovereign.
When  the  West  first  met  the  East  on  equal  terms  a
shorter  range  than  a  lance’s  length,  it  was  found  that  their
laws  were  incompatible  :  that  no  Venetian  or  Genoese,  the
pioneers  in  commerce  in  those  days,  would  willingly  or  cou
in  reason  be  expected  to  submit  himself  to  Moslem  law»
based  on  the  stern  requirements  of  the  Koran  ;  and  that  no
follower  of  the  Prophet  could  yield  obedience  to  a  code
whose  leading  exponent  was  the  Pope.  There  was  no
thought  of  requiring  either  to  conform  to  the  law  of  the
other  ;  as  between  one  country  of  Europe  and  another  the
lex  loci  ™ght  be  applied,  but  to  assimilate  the  legal  procedure
  of  two  diverse  civilisations  was  the  mingling  of  ou
and  vinegar.  The  question  was  one-sided,  since  no  Moslem
ever  strayed  from  the  fold,  and  the  Padishah  settled  d
off-hand  by  bidding  the  Giaours  judge,  control,  and
protect  their  own  nationals  according  to  their  own  customs-