Locally, the consideration of the system of justice administered in the kingdom involves some account of three things--the organization of the fiefs, the position of the Italian traders in their quarters, and the privileges of the Church. Each fief was organized like the kingdom. In each there was a court for the noblesse, and a court (or courts) for the bourgeoisie. There were some thirty-seven _cours de bourgeoisie_ (several of the fiefs having more than one), each of which was under the presidency of a _vicomte_, while all were independent of the court of burgesses at Jerusalem. Of the feudal courts there were some twenty-two. Each of these followed the procedure and the law of the high court; but each was independent of the high court, and formed a sovereign court without any appeal. On the other hand, the revolution wrought by Amalric I. in the status of the _arrière-vassaux_, which made them members of the high court, allowed them to carry their cases to Jerusalem in the first instance, if they desired. Apart from this, the characteristic of seignorial justice is its independence and its freedom from the central court; though, when we reflect that the central court is a court of seigneurs, this characteristic is seen to be the logical result of the whole system. Midway between the seignorial _cours de bourgeoisie_ and the privileged jurisdictions of the Italian quarter, there were two kinds of courts of a commercial character--the _cours de la fonde_ in towns where trade was busy, and the _cours de la chaîne_ in the sea-ports. The former courts, under their bailiffs, gradually absorbed the separate courts which the Syrians had at first been permitted to enjoy under their own _reïs_; and the bailiff with his 6 assessors (4 Syrians and 2 Franks) thus came to judge both commercial cases and cases in which Syrians were involved. The _cours de la chaîne_, whose institution is assigned to Amalric I. (1162-1174), had a civil jurisdiction in admiralty cases, and, like the _cours de la fonde_, they were composed of a bailiff and his assessors. Distinct from all these courts, if similar in its sphere, is the court which the Italian quarter generally enjoyed in each town under its own consuls--a court privileged to try all but the graver cases, like murder, theft and forgery. The court was part of the general immunity which made these quarters _imperia in imperio_: their exemptions from tolls and from financial contributions is parallel to their judicial privileges. Regulated by their mother-town, both in their trade and their government, these Italian quarters outlasted the collapse of the kingdom, and continued to exist under Mahommedan rulers. The Church had its separate courts, as in the West; but their province was perhaps greater than elsewhere. The church courts could not indeed decide cases of perjury; but, on the other hand, they tried all matters in which clerical property was concerned, and all cases of dispute between husband and wife. In other spheres the immunities and exemptions of the Church offered a far more serious problem, and especially in the sphere of finance. Perhaps the supreme defect of the kingdom of Jerusalem was its want of any financial basis. It is true that the king had a revenue, collected by the vicomte and paid into the _secretum_ or treasury--a revenue composed of tolls on the caravans and customs from the ports, of the profits of monopolies and the proceeds of justice, of poll-taxes on Jews and Mahommedans, and of the tributes paid by Mahommedan powers. But his expenditure was large: he had to pay his feudatories; and he had to provide fiefs in money and kind to those who had not fiefs of land. The contributions sent to the Holy Land by the monarchs of western Europe, as commutations in lieu of personal participation in crusades, might help; the fatal policy of razzias against the neighbouring Mahommedan powers might procure temporary resources; but what was really necessary was a wide measure of native taxation, such as was once, and once only, attempted in 1183. To any such measure the privileges of the Italian quarters, and still more those of the Church, were inimical. In spite of provisions somewhat parallel to those of the English statute of mortmain, the clergy continued to acquire fresh lands at the same time that they refused to contribute to the defence of the kingdom, and rigorously exacted the full quota of tithe from every source which they could tap, and even from booty captured in war. The richest proprietor in the Holy Land,[26] but practically immune from any charges on its property, the Church helped, unconsciously, to ruin the kingdom which it should have supported above all others.