Anafesto was conducted to a chair which
had been prepared for him in his parish church, and solemnly invested by
the metropolitan with the insignia of authority, one of which is said to
have been an ivory sceptre--a symbol and a material borrowed from the
Romans.
It is not an unusual misconception that this organic change in the
government involved the simultaneous extinction of the tribunitial
office and title. But the truth is that the tribunes continued to
exercise municipal and subordinate functions many generations after the
revolution of 697; each island of importance, such as Malamocco and
Equilo, had its own tribune, while of the smaller islands several
contributed to form a tribunate or governorship; and office, though
neither strictly nor properly hereditary, still preserved its tendency
to perpetuate itself in a limited number of families. It is only
subsequently to the twelfth century that less is heard of the tribunes;
and the progress of administrative reform led to the gradual
disappearance of this old feudal element in the constitution.
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