Common to all Roman subjects

Each subject of the empire under such a system had the benefit or the burden of the laws of the people to which he belonged. He was bound by the laws which were common to all Roman subjects, but in addition the courts took notice of the law and customs of the race of which he was a member. The foreigner was in a different position. Roman law afforded him protection. For the rest, foreigners might settle their own disputes and regulate their own affairs as they liked. The Armenian in Constantinople had, as an occupant of Roman territory, to obey the laws which had been imposed for the preservation of public order, and to pay certain taxes. But questions of marriage, succession to property, of personal status generally, were left to be settled either by the Armenians themselves or by a magistrate named by the emperor to administer Armenian law.

This condition of things was known to other cities, but received its largest development in Constantinople, Treaties or capitulations where the system which created it has always respecting foreign resisted, and still exists, under the treaties or capitulations with the Porte ; a system which is a striking illustration of the continuity of history. In other words, the system of capitulations under which foreigners to-day reside in Turkey is the one under which they have always resided there. As no writer with whom I am acquainted lias called attention to this fact, I may be excused for sketching briefly the history of the capitulations.

Deacon and other Greek authors

The first treaty granting the right of exterritoriality which I have been able to find was made with the Warings, a people who have left Their history. tjiejr name England, and of whom I shall have more to say later on. In 905 and 945, when these treaties were made, the Warings were more usually called Russians, though one has only to read in Leo the Deacon and other Greek authors the accounts of their appearance, to recognize them as relations. From that date we have an unbroken series of capitulations down to the time of the Moslem conquest in 14:53. The Yenetians obtained such concessions early in the eleventh century.