But the most just Charles pitied his labour and anxiety and added to the bishopric an excellent estate whence he and his successors might provide themselves with corn and wine.[22] We may feel sorry for the poor flustered bishop collecting his two cartloads of cheeses; but it is possible that our real sympathy ought to go to Bodo, who probably had to pay an extra rent in cheeses to satisfy the emperor's taste, and got no excellent estate to recompense him.
A visit from the emperor, however, would be a rare event in his life, to be talked about for years and told to his grandchildren.

But there was one other event, which happened annually, and which was certainly looked for with excitement by Bodo and his friends.

For once a year the king's itinerant justices, the _Missi Dominici_, came round to hold their court and to see if the local counts had been doing justice.

Two of them would come, a bishop and a count, and they would perhaps stay a night at the big house as guests of the abbot, and the next day they would go on to Paris, and there they would sit and do justice in the open square before the church and from all the district round great men and small, nobles and freemen and _coloni_, would bring their grievances and demand redress.

Bodo would go too, if anyone had injured or robbed him, and would make his complaint to the judges.