Slaves were often very cruelly treated
by their masters; Duke Rauching for example made his slaves put out
torches by pressing them against their naked legs.
by their masters; Duke Rauching for example made his slaves put out
torches by pressing them against their naked legs.
Cambridge Medieval History - v2 - Rise of the Saracens and Foundation of the Western Empire
All the men
thus mustered served at their own expense, and remained on campaign
all summer; in winter they returned to their homes, to be recalled,
if need were, the following spring. Charles the Great made a great re-
form in the military organisation. He based the obligation to military
service upon property, the principle being that everyone who possessed
a certain number of mansi was obliged to serve. The number varied
from year to year according to the number of fighting-men required.
We thus see how these institutions were incessantly transformed by
the influence of circumstances and by human action. Roman and
Germanic elements were combined in them in various proportions, and
new elements were added to them. The Merovingian institutions thus
came to form a new system; and from them arise by a series of transfor-
mations the institutions of Charles the Great.
Only the Church, which connects itself with the Gallo-Roman Church,
presents an appearance of greater fixity, since the Church claims to hold
always the same dogmas and to be founded on stable principles. Never-
theless even the Church underwent an evolution along with the society
which it endeavoured to guide. We shall give our attention successively
to the secular Church and the religious Orders.
## p. 142 (#174) ############################################
142 Organisation of the Church
No one could become a member of the secular clergy without the
permission of the king. Anyone who desired the clerical office must also
give certain guarantees of his moral fitness. His conduct must be
upright and pure, and he must possess a certain amount of education.
To have married a second time, or to have married a widow, debarred
a man from the clerical office, and those who were married must break
off all relations with their wives. Clerics were distinguished from laymen
by their tonsure, they wore a special costume, the habitus clericalis, and
they were judged according to the Roman Law. Each cleric was
attached to a special church, which he ought not to leave without the
written permission of his bishop; the councils impose the severest
penalties upon priests wandering at large (gyrovagi).
The chief of the clergy was the bishop, who was placed over a
diocese—parochia, as it was called in the Merovingian period. Theoreti-
cally there were as many bishops as there had been civitates in Roman
Gaul, but the principle was not rigorously carried out. A number of
the small cities mentioned in the Notitia Galliarum had no bishop in
the Merovingian period, for their territory was united to that of a
neighbouring city. This was the case in regard to the civitas Rigo-
magensium (Thorame) and the civitas Scdinensium (Castellane) in the
province of the Alpes Maritimae. On the other hand some of the
cities were divided up. St Remigius established a bishopric at Laon
which was not a Gallo-Roman city. Similarly a bishopric was created
at Nevers. Out of the civitas of Nimes were carved the bishoprics of
Uzes, Agde and Maguelonne; out of Narbonne that of Carcassonne;
out of Nyons that of Belley. This creation of new bishoprics was due
to the progress of Christianity. Certain bishoprics which the Mero-
vingian kings created in order to make the boundaries of the dioceses
coincide with those of their share of the kingdom—such as that of
Melun, formed out of that of Sens, and of Chateaudun, formed out of
that of Chartres—had only a transient existence.
Theoretically the bishops were elected by the clergy and people of the
city. The election took place in the cathedral, under the presidency of
the metropolitan or of a bishop of the province; the faithful acclaimed
the candidate of their choice, who immediately took possession of the
episcopal chair. But under the Merovingians it is observable that the
kings acquire little by little an influence in the elections. The sovereign
made known his choice to the electors; in many cases he directly
designated the prelate. He might, of course, choose the man most
worthy of the post, but usually he was content to be bribed. "At this
time," says Gregory of Tours, "that seed of iniquity began to bear fruit
that the episcopal office was sold by the kings or bought by the clerics. '1
In face of these pretentions of the monarchy the first councils of the
Merovingian period, those of 533 and 538, did not fail to assert the
ancient canonical rights. Before long however the bishops saw that they
## p. 143 (#175) ############################################
Appointment of Bishops 143
must take things as they were and make the best of them. They were
prepared to recognise the intervention of the king as legitimate, while
insisting that the king should not sell the episcopate and should observe
the canonical regulations. "None shall buy the episcopal dignity for
money," runs the pronouncement of the Fifth Council of Orleans, of 549;
"the bishop shall, with the king's consent and according to the choice of
the clergy and the people, be consecrated by the metropolitan and the
other bishops of the province. 11 These principles were recalled at the
famous council of 614, but without the mention of the king: "On the
decease of a bishop there shall be appointed in his place whoever shall
have been elected by the metropolitan, the bishops of the province, and
the clergy and people of the city, without hindrance and without gift of
money. 11 Chlotar II in the edict confirming these canons modified the
tenor of this article. While recognising the right of election of the
persons interested, he maintained the right of intervention of the prince.
"If the elected person is worthy, he shall be consecrated, upon the order
of the prince. 11 From that time forward the established procedure was
as follows. On the death of a prelate the citizens and the people of the
civitas assemble, under the presidency of the metropolitan and the other
bishops of the province. They choose the successor and make known to
the king the act of election—consensus civium pro episcopatu. If the
king approves, he transmits to the metropolitan the order to consecrate
the bishop-elect, and invites the other bishops of the province to be
present at the ceremony. If he is dissatisfied with the election, he
requests the electors to choose another candidate, and sometimes he
himself nominates him.
The power of the bishop was very great. All the clergy of the
diocese were under his control, and in the episcopal city a certain
number of clerics lived in the bishop's house and ate at his table.
Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, laid down about the middle of the eighth
century a very strict rule for these clergy, requiring them to live as
a community: this was the origin of secular canons. Throughout
the whole diocese the bishop reserved to himself certain religious
functions. He alone had power to consecrate altars and churches,
to bless the holy oils, to confirm the young and to ordain clergy.
All other functions he delegated to the archpriests, whose appoint-
ment was either made or sanctioned by him. Only these archpriests
had the right to baptise, and at the great festivals they alone had
the right to say mass. The district under the authority of the
archpriest soon came to be considered as a smaller parochia within
the larger parochia. The archpriests were generally placed in the
vici, the large country-towns. Under them were the clerics who served
the oratories of the villae; these clerics were presented by the proprietors
of the villae for institution by the bishop. The bishop was assisted in
his work by an archdeacon who exercised oversight among the clergy
## p. 144 (#176) ############################################
144 Power of the Bishop
and judged contentions arising among them. It was the bishop, too,
who administered Church property, and this property was of large
extent. Never were donations to the Church more abundant than in
the Merovingian period. The benefactors of the Church were, first,
the bishops themselves: Bertramn of Mans left to his see thirty-five
estates. Then there were the kings, who hoped to atone for their
crimes by pious donations, and rich laymen who to provide for the
salvation of their souls despoiled their heirs. All property acquired
by the Church was, according to the canons of the councils, inalienable.
The Church always received and never gave back. In addition to
landed property, the Church received from the kings certain financial
privileges, such as exemption from customs-dues and market-tax. Often,
too, the sovereign made over to the Church the right to levy dues
at specified places. Further, since Moses had granted to the tribe of
Levi, that is to say to the priests, the right of levying tithes upon
the fruits of the earth and the increase of the cattle, the Merovingian
Church claimed a similar contribution, and threatened with excom-
munication anyone who should fail to pay it. The tithe was generally
paid by the faithful, but it was not made obligatory by the State. It
only acquired that character in the time of Charles the Great. All this
property was theoretically in the charge of the bishop of the diocese.
He was required to divide it into four parts, one for the maintenance
of the bishop and his household, one for the payment of the clergy
of his diocese, one for the poor, and one for the building and repair
of churches. Little by little, however, property became attached to
secondary parishes and even to mere oratories.
The bishop had great influence within his city as well as in the
State. In the city he acted as an administrator and carried out works
of public utility. Sidonius of Mainz built an embankment along
the Rhine, Felix of Nantes straightened the course of the Loire, Didier
of Cahors constructed aqueducts. The bishop thus took the place of
the former municipal magistrates, whose office had died out; he received
the town to govern (ad gubernandurn); by the end of the Merovingian
period certain cities are already episcopal cities. The bishop maintains
the cause of his parishioners before the officials of the State, and even
before the king himself; he obtains for them alleviation of imposts and
all kinds of favours. The bishops1 protection was especially extended
to a class of persons who formed as it were their clientage—widows,
orphans, the poor, slaves, and captives. The poor of the city were
formed into a regularly organised body, their names were inscribed on
the registers of the Church, and they were known as the matriculnrii.
The bishops and the clergy in general enjoyed important legal
privileges. From 614 onwards the clergy could only be judged on
criminal charges by their bishops; the bishops themselves could only
be cited before councils of the Church. But, still more important,
## p. 145 (#177) ############################################
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 145
laymen were glad to make the bishop the arbiter of their differences;
they knew that they would find in him a judge more just and better
instructed than the count. The Church could also give protection to
malefactors; the criminal, once he had crossed the sacred threshold,
could not be torn thence; it was commonly believed that frightful
chastisements had smitten those who attempted to violate the rights of
sanctuary.
It would be easy to shew how grossly immoral was the Frankish
race—the history of Gregory of Tours is filled with the record of
horrible crimes—but at the same time they were profoundly credulous
and superstitious. On Sundays, at the sound of the bells, they rushed
in crowds to the churches. They frequently received the communion,
and it was a terrible punishment to be deprived of it. Apart from
the Church services the Franks were constantly at prayer. They
believed not only in God but in the saints, whom they continually
invoked, and they believed in their intervention in the affairs of this
world. They were eager to procure relics, which had healing power.
The Church had in its control sacraments, religion, healing virtue,
and the* bishop held the first place in the Church; he was felt to be
invested with supernatural power, and the faithful held him in awe.
Above the bishop was the metropolitan. With a few rare excep-
tions, the metropolitan had his seat at the chief town of the Roman
province. In the course of the fifth century, the province of Vienne
was cut in two: there was one metropolitan at Vienne, another at
Aries. The latter annexed to his jurisdiction the provinces of the
Alpes Maritimae (Embrun) and of Narbonensis II (Aix). Thence-
forward twelve metropolitan sees were distinguished: Vienne, Aries,
Treves, Rheims, Lyons (to which was united Besancon), Rouen, Tours,
Sens, Bourges, Bordeaux, Eauze and Narbonne. The metropolitan
had the right to convoke provincial councils, and presided at them.
He exercised a certain oversight over the bishops of the province, and
it was to him that it naturally fell to act as judge among them.
His title was simply that of bishop: the title archbishop does not
appear until quite the end of the Merovingian period. The authority
of the metropolitans was subordinate to that of the Frankish Church as
a whole, which had as its organs the national councils. These councils
were always convoked by the king, who exercised much influence in
their deliberations. We have the canons of numerous councils held
between 511 and 614, which give us a mass of information regarding
ecclesiastical organisation and discipline. These canons are not much
concerned with doctrine; they recall the clergy to their duties, safe-
guard the property of the churches against the covetousness of laymen,
and censure pagan customs such as augury and sortes sanctorum.
The Frankish Church honoured the Papacy and regarded the bishop
of Rome as the successor of St Peter, but the Papacy had no
C. MED. H. VOL. II. CH. V. 10
## p. 146 (#178) ############################################
146 Relations with the Papacy
effective power over this Church, except perhaps in the province of
Aries. Reading the work of Gregory of Tours, which is so full of life
and reflects so exactly the passions and ideas of the time, we do not find
that the Pope plays any part in the narrative. The bishops are ap-
pointed without his intervention and they govern their churches without
entering into relations with him. At the end of the sixth century, as
we saw earlier, Gregory the Great maintained an active correspondence
with Brunhild. He gives her advice, and his advice was, without
doubt, listened to with respect. The pope takes no direct action, but
he urges the queen to act. It is not difficult to see however that he
was quite ready to supersede Brunhild in the task of directing the
Frankish Church; he would like to make Candidus, who was the
administrator of the papal patrimony in Provence, a kind of legate
beyond the Alps. There can be no doubt that Gregory I, had he lived,
would have succeeded by his able policy in re-establishing in Gaul the
papal authority as it had been exercised by Leo I before the fall of the
Empire. But after the death of Gregory in 604 relations between
Rome and the Franks became very rare for more than a century.
There are only one or two instances of such relations to which we can
point. Pope Martin I (649-655), for example, requested the sons of
Dagobert to assemble councils in order to combat the Monothelete
heresy, which was supported by the Byzantine Emperors. Relations
were not effectively resumed until the eighth century, but they were then
to have an immense influence upon general history.
We have already seen how, in their opposition to the Emperors of
Constantinople, the popes sought the aid of the Mayors of the Palace,
and how this alliance was concluded. We have also noticed, in passing,
how Boniface brought under the authority of the Holy See the Germanic
races whom he converted to the Christian faith. But, besides this, with
the aid of Carloman and Pepin (after 739), Boniface accomplished another
task. After the death of Dagobert the Frankish Church had fallen
into profound decadence, and Charles Martel had sunk it still lower by
conferring bishoprics and abbeys on rude and ignorant laymen. These
bishops and abbots never wore clerical vestments, but always sword
and baldric. They dissipated the property of the Church and sought
to bequeath their offices to their bastards. For eighty years no
council was called. Every vestige of education and civilisation was in
danger of being swamped. A complete reform of the Church was
necessary in the interests of society itself. To Carloman and Pepin
belongs the merit of having perceived this, and they entrusted this great
work to Boniface. Once more a series of councils was held, in the
dominions of Carloman as well as in those of Pepin; there was even a
general council of the whole kingdom in March 745 at Estinnes in
Hainault. The ecclesiastical hierarchy was restored, measures were
taken against priests of scandalous life; the clergy were encouraged to
## p. 147 (#179) ############################################
Monasteries 147
become better educated. Above all, this reformed clergy was placed
under the authority of the Papacy; the road to Rome became familiar
to them. On the one hand there was a political alliance between the
popes and the Mayors of the Palace; on the other relations were renewed
between the clergy of what had been Gaul and the Papacy. Thus was
recovered the idea of Christian unity in one sole Church under the
authority of the Pope, as the successor of the apostle Peter.
We have hitherto spoken chiefly of the secular Church, but in even
a summary account of the Church of the Merovingian period a place
must be found for the monasteries. As early as the fifth century, before
the conquest of Clovis, famous abbeys had arisen upon Gallic soil.
Such were Liguge near Poitiers, Marmoutier and St Martin in the
territory of Tours, St Honorat on one of the islands of Lerins, St
Victor at Marseilles. In the time of Clovis Caesarius founded in the
town of Aries one monastery for men and another for women. Under
Clovis and his successors monasteries rapidly increased in number.
Childebert I founded that of St Vincent, close to the gates of Paris,
afterwards to be known as St Germain-des-Pres; Chlotar I founded
St Medard of Soissons, while Radegund, the Thuringian wife whom
he had repudiated, built Ste Croix of Poitiers. To Guntram is due
the foundation of St Marcel of Chalon-sur-Saone, and the extension
of St Benignus of Dijon. Private persons followed the example of
the kings. Aridius, a friend of Gregory of Tours, founded on one
of his estates the monastery which from his name was known as
St Yrieix. All these monasteries were placed under the charge of
the bishop, who visited them and if necessary recalled the monks to
their duty. At the head of the household was placed an abbot,
generally chosen by the founder or his descendants, but in some cases
elected by the community, subject to the bishop's confirmation. Each
monastery was independent of the rest, and had a rule—regula—of its
own, based upon principles borrowed from the early monks in Egypt,
from Pachomius, Basil and the writings of Cassian and Caesarius of
Aries. The abbeys did not as yet form congregations obeying the same
rule. Since they confined themselves to serving as a refuge for souls
wounded in the battle of life, they had no influence on the outside world.
They were not centres of the religious life radiating an influence beyond
the walls of the cloister and exercising a direct action upon the Church.
This type of monastic life was the creation of an Irish monk, Colum-
banus, who landed on the Continent about the year 585. He settled in
the kingdom of Guntram, and established, in the neighbourhood of the
Vosges, three monasteries, Annegray, Luxeuil (known in Roman times
for its medicinal baths), and Fontaines. These three houses were under
his direction and he gave them a common rule, which was distinguished
by its extreme severity. Obedience was required of the monk "even
unto death," according to the example of Christ, who was faithful to
ch. v. 10—2
## p. 148 (#180) ############################################
148 Columbanus and his Disciples
His Father even unto the death of the cross. The smallest peccadillo,
the least negligence in service, was punished with strokes of the rod.
The monk must have no possessions; he must never even use the word
"my. " This rule became common to all the other abbeys which were
founded subsequently by Columbanus himself or his disciples. For
Columbanus did not remain undisturbed within the walls of Luxeuil.
Twice he was torn from his refuge by Brunhild, whose orders he
refused to obey. He wandered through Champagne, and under his
influence a monastery arose at Rebais and convents for women at
Faremoutiers and Jouarre. Later he found his way to the shores of the
Lake of Constance in Alemannia where his disciple Callus founded the
monastery which bore his name, St Gall. He ended his days on
23 November 615 in Italy, where the monastery of Bobbio claims him
as its founder. Loyal disciples of his had reformed or founded in Gaul
a large number of monasteries; in no similar period were so many
founded as between the years 610 and 650. We can mention only the
most famous—Echternach, Prlim, Etival, Senones, Moyenmoutier, St
Mihiel-sur-Meuse, Malmedy and Stavelot. Many of these monasteries
received from one hundred to two hundred monks.
All these abbeys obeyed the same rule and were animated by the
same spirit; they formed a sort of congregation. In general they
declared themselves independent of the bishop—ad modum Luxoven-
sium. They chose their abbots and administered their property freely.
Moreover these monks did not confine themselves within the walls
of their monasteries; they desired to play a part in the Church.
St Wandrille claimed that the monks should not merely be allowed to
count the years which they spent in the cloister, but those also in which
they travelled in the service of God. The disciples of Columbanus
were preachers like himself; they proclaimed the necessity of penance,
the expiation of every mistake according to a fixed scale, as in the rule of
the monastery, and at this time penitentials began to be widely circulated.
The sense of sin became very keen among the people, and they multiplied
gifts to the Church in order to atone for their transgressions. The monks
also became missionaries; each abbey was, so to speak, the head-quarters
of a mission. St Gall completed the conversion of the Alemans, Eustasius
abbot of Luxeuil converted the heretical Warasci in the neighbourhood
of Besancon and went to preach the Gospel in Bavaria. But the very
number of these monasteries caused the defects of the rule of Colum-
banus to be quickly perceived. This rule did not provide for the
administration of the monastery; it did not prescribe, hour by hour,
the employments of the day; then, again, it was too severe, too crush-
ing, and often reduced men to despair. Now, about a hundred years
earlier (c. 529), Benedict of Nursia had given to the monastery of Monte
Cassino an admirable rule; this rule was not known in France until
after the death of Columbanus and the remarkable growth of monasteries
## p. 149 (#181) ############################################
Spread of the Benedictine Rule 149
connected with him, but once known its advantages were soon recognised.
All the questions which Columbanus had left unsettled here received a
practical solution. It regulated the relations of the abbot with the
monks and of the monks with one another; it prescribed the employ-
ments of the day and the hours to be divided between prayer, manual
work and study. Mystical speculations are left aside; there is something
of the legal spirit of ancient Rome in these clearly-drawn precepts.
The rule of St Benedict at first appeared as a rival alongside of that of
St Columbanus; but after the great ecclesiastical reform associated with
the name of Boniface it reigned alone; and a little later Louis the
son of Charles the Great imposed it (817) upon all the monasteries of
his realm. The impetuous torrent which Columbanus had let loose
was thus turned into a wide channel, in which its waters could flow
calmly.
Merovingian society was composed of remarkably definite gradations,
each man having his fixed price, so to speak, marked by the wergeld.
At the bottom of the scale was the slave. The Germans as well as the
Romans had possessed slaves, and their number was increased in the
Merovingian period. After a war the prisoners were often reduced to
servitude; many of these unfortunates belonged to the Slav race, and
the name slave gradually took the place of servus. There were also
slave-dealers who went to seek their human merchandise overseas; young
Anglo-Saxons were much sought after on account of their beauty. Then
again, a man who could not pay his debts, or a fine inflicted by the courts,
fell into servitude; and a freeman who married a slave lost his freedom.
Slaves were looked on as chattels; the master could sell them or give
them away at his pleasure. Anyone who stole or killed a slave paid
a fine of thirty solid/, just the same amount as was paid for stealing a
horse, and this compensation was paid to the master: the slave was not
considered to have any family.
Slaves were often very cruelly treated
by their masters; Duke Rauching for example made his slaves put out
torches by pressing them against their naked legs. The Church however
took up their cause; it declared unions between slaves which had been
blessed by the priest to be legitimate, and earnestly exhorted masters
not to separate husband and wife, parents and children.
Slaves could escape from their condition by enfranchisement. In the
Merovingian period there were two kinds of solemn enfranchisement,
that per denarium before the king, by which the former slave acquired
the rights of a Frankish freeman, and that of the Church, by which
he became a free Roman. In both cases he was discharged from all
obligation towards his former master, but remained in a certain
dependence on the king, who fell heir to the property of slaves if
they had no children born after their enfranchisement. But usually the
slave was simply freed by a written statement to that effect given by the
## p. 150 (#182) ############################################
150 Classes of Society
master, and a freedman of this kind, known as libertus or lidus, remained
in a position of close dependence upon his former master. He could, it
is true, plead in the courts and enter into binding agreements, but he
paid his patron a yearly fee known as the ltdimonium, and if he died
without issue his patron became his heir. The freedman usually retained
the land which he had cultivated as a slave, but instead of being a
servilts holding it became a lidilis holding.
On the large estates there was a third class of holding, the marm
ingenuiles. These were held by the coloni, the descendants of the
former Roman coloni. Theoretically these coloni were free, but they
were bound to their holdings; they could not quit them without the
permission of the owner, and if they ran away they were brought back
by force. But, on the other hand, so long as they paid their rent,
they could not be expelled from their holdings and might cultivate
them as they chose. They thus form an intermediate class between the
slaves who were tied to one place and the freemen, to whom all roads
stood open.
The freemen might belong either to the conquering race, the Franks,
or the conquered race, the Gallo-Romans; and the two races were under
different laws. The Salic law fixes the wergeld of a Salian Frank at two
hundred golidi, that of the Roman at one hundred only. But we must
not conclude from this that there was a great gulf fixed between the two
races. Where both parties to a case were Gallo-Romans, they were
judged according to the Roman law; when a Gallo-Roman was accused
by a Frank, judgment was still given according to the Roman law; it
was only in a case where a Frank was the defendant that the Salic law
was applied, and it is quite natural that this law should be more severe
upon the murder of a man of the same race than on that of a Roman.
Besides, the further we advance in Merovingian history, the more the
two races become intermingled. The Franks admired the Roman
civilisation and endeavoured to assimilate it; they learned the common
language of Gaul, which was in process of becoming Romanic; they
even prided themselves on learning to speak pure Latin. The Gallo-
Romans, on their part, adopted the military customs of the barbarians.
They frequently gave Germanic names to their children. Both nations
were Christian, and the common faith contributed to bring them
together.
In theory all these freemen were equal, but little by little dis-
tinctions arose among them. In default of a nobility with hereditary
privileges, there grew up an aristocracy, potentes, priores, who exercised a
powerful influence. These great men belonged generally to the ancient
Gallo-Roman senatorial families, who held vast estates and possessed
great wealth. From these families the king chose the great officers of
state and the people of the cities chose their bishops; thus there was
added to their wealth political power, or the veneration attaching to
## p. 151 (#183) ############################################
Origin of Vassalage 151
the sacred office of the priesthood. The Franks who possessed large
estates became assimilated to these Roman senators and there thus grew
up an aristocracy composed of members of the two races.
In consequence of the troublous times which were the rule in Gaul
in the seventh century, the poor and the weak could not depend on the
protection of the State, and sought protection from one or other of these
powerful personages. They put themselves under his mundeburdis as it
was called in Germanic; they "commended" themselves to him, accord-
ing to the expression borrowed from Roman usage, and this expression
is suitable enough, for they became in fact clients of these great men.
The patron undertook to maintain his clients, to support them in
law cases, to further their interests; in return, the client promised to
serve his patron on all occasions, to defend him if he were attacked,
and to take the field along with him if he attacked anyone else. Each
of these great personages had thus under his orders a more or less
numerous body of men. To mark these new social conditions new terms
were created, or a new sense was given to ancient terms. The protector
was called the senior; the client was called vassus. In the Salic law
the term vassal simply meant a slave attached to the personal service
of his master; at the close of the Merovingian period it always
means one of these voluntary dependents. Those who felt the need
of protection could "commend" themselves not only to wealthy
private persons but also to royal officers, to the dukes and counts,
to the officials of the palace; but above all they could commend
themselves to the king himself. In that case the sovereign exercised
a double authority over them; first, his public authority as king, and
secondly a more special protection, parallel, in so far, to that of the
seignior. In time the strength of the king came to depend in large
measure on the number of his vassals. The subjection of the individual
to the State was replaced by a personal subjection to the king, and the
population of the country came to be composed of groups of men bound
to one another by personal ties. Thus we find the germs of the feudal
system already present in the seventh century.
A time was to come when to this subordination of persons there
should be added a subordination of lands. In order to understand this
evolution, which was to have so great a historical importance, we must
first examine the conditions on which property was held.
With the exception of the towns the soil of Gaul was divided, in
the Merovingian period, into large estates, called villae or fundi. These
estates usually bore the name of their original holder; thus the villae
called Victoriacus had belonged to a man named Victorius, and the
modern villages which have descended from these villae have kept the
old names. Variously transformed according to the district in which
they lie, they are known to-day as Vitrac, Vitrec, Vitre, Vitrey or Vitry.
Similarly villae bearing the name Sabiniacus have become our villages
## p. 152 (#184) ############################################
152 The Merovingian Villa
of Savignae, Savignec, Sevigne, Savigneux. Many of these estates,
especially in the north and east, changed their names after the invasions,
taking the names of their barbarian owners. Thus Theodonis villa,
Thionville, Ramberti villare, Rambervillers, Arnulfi curtis, Harcourt,
Bodegiteli vaUis, Bougival near Paris. In the seventh century some
estates took the name of the saint to whom the church was dedicated:
Dompierre, Dommartin, St Pierre, St Martin. Some villae again took
their names from some particular variety of trees or plantations;
Roboretum has become Rouvray, Rouvres; Rosariae and Cannaberiae have
given us the names of our modern villages Rosieres and Chennevieres.
It often happened that through sale, exchange or division among
brothers, a villa was divided between several owners, but it none the
less retained its unity and organisation.
The lands of the villa were divided into two portions. One, consisting
of the lands lying round about the house of the owner, was farmed
directly by him. The other portion was divided up into lots or holdings
(mansi), of which the owner gave the use to his slaves, his lidi, or to
freemen ; whence comes the distinction between mansi seroiles, lidiles and
ingenviles, of which we have spoken above. Each tenant cultivated his
holding for his own profit, but in return for its use was obliged to pay a
rent to the owner and to render him certain services. The houses
occupied by the tenants were either isolated, in the mountainous districts,
or grouped together within a small area. A villa was self-sufficing;
besides the cultivators there were the workmen who made or repaired
the tools and implements. There was a mill and a wine-press which
served the whole population of the villa, and often there was a forge
also. It had its own chapel, of which the priest (often born on the
estate) was appointed by the master, with the consent of the bishop.
The woods surrounding the villa remained in possession of the land-
owner, but he gave the tenants rights of user. Over all the dwellers
on the estate he exercised a seigniorial jurisdiction.
There still existed, no doubt, alongside of the great estates or zuUae
a number of small estates belonging to freemen. But these small estates
tended to disappear in the course of the seventh century. The fact was
that the small proprietors were unable to defend their estates; they had
no inducement to sell them, for money would have been of little value to
them; accordingly they "commended themselves" to some great man
of the neighbourhood, handing over their property to him. He in
turn gave them the use of it for life, and thus they were at least certain
of occupying it in security until the end of their days. Previously they
had held their lands ex alode or de alode parentum, by inheritance
from their ancestors, with the right of using it as they chose; henceforth
they held it per benejicium, in consequence of a grant made by the
great seignior. When agreements of this kind became frequent, two
varieties of landed property were distinguished, allodial lands which
## p. 153 (#185) ############################################
Origin of the Benefice 153
were held by the owner in person, and "benefices,11 of which the use
was granted by a large proprietor to another person during the lifetime
of the latter.
Many circumstances contributed to multiply these benefices. The
Church, which had large estates and could not get them all cultivated
by its serfs, lidi and coloni, let parts of them to freemen, who culti-
vated them, and at the death of the tenant the land returned, in an
improved condition, into the hands of the Church. This mode of
tenure was already known to the Roman law (precarium). It sometimes
happened that in exchange for a grant of this kind, the grantee made
a gift to the Church of an estate of similar value belonging to himself.
Thenceforward he had the usufruct of both estates, that of the Church
as well as his own; but at his death the Church took possession of both.
The grantee had the advantage during his life of a doubled income, and
on his death the Church doubled its property. But it often happened
that the Church, which was, as we know, very powerful, received the
lands of private persons in the manner described without adding any-
thing of its own, only conceding to the former owner a life-use of the
property. Thus in various ways the allodial lands disappeared, and
benefices became every day more numerous.
Up to this point we have seen the beneficiaries solicit the benefice
and take the initiative in obtaining it. These beneficiaries remained
bound by ties of gratitude to their benefactor, they exerted themselves
to serve him and marched with him when he went to battle; they were
his vassi. Before long a man's power was measured by the number
of his vassi, the army of his clients; and then the great men, in
order to increase their clientage, and consequently their influence, began
themselves to offer benefices to those whom they desired to attach to
themselves and gain as adherents.
The king, or the Mayor of the Palace who replaced him, needed to
be able to count on the great men for the wars, whether foreign or civil,
in which he engaged. Obligation towards the State was too abstract a
conception to be understood, and the mere sense of duty was not strong
enough to keep the great men loyal. The king therefore began to
distribute lands to these great men. At first he gave them abso-
lutely, but before long these lands were assimilated to the benefices.
This evolution took place especially at the time when Charles Martel
laid hands upon the property of the Church and distributed it in his
own name to his warriors. The property of the Church was inalienable,
it could not be given as an absolute possession. The warriors were only
the life-tenants of it, and at their death it reverted to the Church.
These estates were therefore simply ecclesiastical benefices, granted
by the king or the mayor. Once this precedent had been established,
estates granted by the king from his own lands were granted on the
same conditions, merely for the lifetime of the grantee.
## p. 154 (#186) ############################################
154 Charters of Immunity
Another great change took place about the same time. One reason
why Charles Martel made grants of ecclesiastical property to his warriors
was that they had now to support great expense. They served in his
armies no longer as foot soldiers but as cavalry, and their equipment was
very costly. The revenue of the lands which were granted to them
served as an indemnity against the expenses of military service. Thus
it came to be considered that the benefice carried with it the obligation
of military service. Under Charles the Great, the holders of royal lands
were bound to be first at the muster; and before long it was an under-
stood thing that, when a private person who had granted benefices
marched to the wars, all his beneficiaries, who were also his vassals, must
accompany him. Thus at the end of the Merovingian period the
characteristics of the later fief are taking shape. The eleventh century
fief is the direct descendant of the eighth century benefice, of which we
have just traced the origin.
Another characteristic of the fief is that the holder of it exercises
thereon all the powers of the State: he levies taxes, administers justice
and summons the men of the fief to follow him to war. Now even in the
Merovingian period on some of the great domains the State resigned a
portion of its rights to the proprietor or seignior, and thus we find present,
from this time onward, all the germs of the feudal system. We have
seen how great were the powers of the count and the other royal officials:
they often abused these powers, and the proprietors of the great estates
complained to the king of their tyranny. In many cases the king listened
to their complaints and gave them charters of immunity forbidding
all public officials to enter their estates, to claim right of lodging, to try
causes, to levy the Jredus or other impost, or to compel the men to attend
the muster of the royal army. Thenceforward the men of this privileged
territory had nothing more to do with the agents of the government;
the agents of the proprietpr took their place; and before long the
proprietor himself levied the former state-taxes, judged cases in his
private court and regarded it as within his competence to deal with all
offences committed upon his domain. He led his men in person to join
the royal army, and he was naturally tempted to use them also in
the prosecution of his private quarrels. If we remember the extent of
some of the domains, which comprised a number of villae and were some-
times as large as a modern canton, we see how great was the area which
was withdrawn from the authority of the royal officials, if not from that
of the king himself. The estates which enjoyed these immunities were
veritable seigniories. Alongside of the institutions of the State there had
thus arisen another set of institutions which came into collision with the
former and brought about the decay of the authority of the State. All
the elements of feudalism—commendations, benefices, and immunities
—are in existence without its being possible to say that feudalism is as
yet constituted, because the elements are not combined into a system.
## p. 155 (#187) ############################################
Industry and Commerce 155
But before this system came into operation Charles the Great was to
re-establish a strong centralised government; he was to make these social
forces serve the interests of the State itself, and by his genius was to
restore with incomparable brilliancy that Frankish monarchy which at
the close of the Merovingian period had seemed likely to disappear.
The Merovingian period as a whole is without doubt a melancholy
period. It marks in history what must be called an eclipse of civilisation,
and it deserves to be described as a barbaric era. Nevertheless, it must
not be imagined that the two hundred and seventy years, which it
includes were, so to speak, sunk in unbroken gloom. Even in this period
it is possible to note some facts concerning industry and commerce, arts
and letters.
Industry found refuge chiefly in the country districts, where each
estate produced for itself all the supplies necessary to agricultural work
and common life. The towns themselves took on a country-like air.
The ancient buildings—temples, basilicas, baths—had been destroyed
during the invasions and their ruins lay on the ground; the only con-
siderable buildings now erected were churches. A sparse population
occupied rather than filled the space surrounded by the half-ruined
walls. Many houses had disappeared and wide areas lay vacant;
these were turned into fields or vineyards, and thus in the interior
of formerly populous cities there were closes and culturae. Outside the
ramparts there rose, in many cases, a high-walled monastery—a sacred
city alongside of the secular city—and these monasteries became new
centres of population. Within the decayed cities we nevertheless find,
at all events at first, some traces of industry. There is mention in the
sixth and seventh centuries of workshops for the manufacture of cloth at
Treves, at Metz and at Rheims. There were also potteries, and numerous
specimens of their art have been found in the tombs. The Merovingians
had a taste for finely wrought arms, for sword-belt buckles of damascene
work, for jewellery and gold-plate. The Merovingian goldsmiths were
skilful. Eligius, son of a minter at Limoges, attained by the aid of his
art to the highest posts; he became the counsellor of Dagobert and bishop
of Noyon. There was also in the Merovingian period a certain amount
of commercial activity. The Franks imported from abroad spices,
papyrus and silk fabrics. This merchandise was either brought to the
ports of Marseilles, Aries and Narbonne, or came by way of the Black
Sea and the Danube. In the time of Dagobert a Frankish merchant
named Samo went to trade on the banks of the Elbe, and there formed
a great Slav kingdom which had its centre in Bohemia, and extended from
the Havel to the Styrian Alps. The merchants of the town of Verdun
formed an association in the time of Theudibert, about 540. The king
aided them by lending them, at the request of the bishop Desiderius, 7000
aurei. They were thus enabled to put their business on a sound footing.
## p. 156 (#188) ############################################
156 Kenantius Fortunatus
and in the time of Gregory of Tours the wealth of these merchants was
renowned. But commerce was chiefly in the hands of Byzantines and
Jews. The Byzantines, who were generally known by the name of
Syrians, whether they came from Asia or from Europe, had important
trading-stations at Marseilles, at Bordeaux, at Orleans. When in 585
Guntram made his entry into the last-named city he was welcomed with
cries of acclamation in the Syriac language. Simeon Stylites conversed
with Syrian merchants who had seen Ste Genevieve at Paris. In 591 a
Syrian named Eusebius was even appointed bishop of Paris, and gave
offices in the Church to his compatriots. The Jews, on their part, formed
prosperous colonies. Maintaining friendly relations with their co-
religionists in Italy, Spain, and the East, they were able to give a wide
extension to their business, and, as the Christian Church forbade the
lending of money at interest, all dealing in money, all banking business,
was soon in their hands. Five hundred Jews were settled at Clermont-
Ferrand; at Marseilles and Narbonne they were more numerous still.
The Jew Priscus acted as agent in purchases made by King Chilperic, who
held disputations with him concerning the Holy Trinity.
Intellectual culture naturally declined during the Merovingian
period. Nevertheless in the sixth century there are still two names
which are celebrated in the history of literature, those of the poet
Fortunatus and the historian Gregory of Tours. Fortunatus, it is
true, was born in Italy and educated in the Schools of Ravenna; but
his verses, with their wealth of mythological allusions, pleased the taste
of the Frankish lords and the Merovingian kings, of whom he was
to some extent a flatterer. He sang the praises of all the monarchs
of his period, Charibert, Sigebert and Chilperic; he even lavished
on Fredegund his paid panegyrics:
Omnibus excellens meritis Fredegundis ojnma.
Becoming the adviser of Queen Radegund he settled in her neigh-
bourhood at Poitiers. He there became first priest, and then bishop.
It was at this period that he wrote those charming notes in verse,
thanking Radegund for the delicacies which she sent him and describing,
with a slightly sensual gourmandise, the pleasure he derived from a good
dinner; but at the same time he finds a more energetic strain in which
to deplore the sorrows of Thuringia. And, also doubtless at the request
of his patroness, he wrote the fine hymns which the Church still uses in
the Vexilla regis prodeunt and the Pange lingua.
If Fortunatus was the sole poet of the Merovingian period Gregory
of Tours is almost the sole historian. In his work, the History of the
Franks, this troublous period lives again, with its vices, crimes and
passions. The portraits which he gives us of Chilperic, Guntram and
Brunhild are painted with extraordinary vividness. His work manifests
real literary power. Critics sometimes speak of the naivete of Gregory,
## p. 157 (#189) ############################################
Gregory of Tours 167
but we must not deceive ourselves; this naivete is a matter of deliberate
art Gregory does not of course observe strict grammatical correctness;
he is by no means Ciceronian; he writes the language as it was spoken
in his day. In a few passages only, where he is obviously writing with
conscious effort, he employs rare and poetical expressions, as for example
in the account of the baptism of Clovis, in the description of Dijon, in
the narrative of his quarrels with Count Leudastes. But to these we
prefer those pages where he lets himself go, and writes with his natural
vigour, where he slips in malicious reflexions as it were unconsciously, or
where he excoriates his adversaries. He has the real gift of story-telling
and has justly been called the barbarian Herodotus. After his day
all culture disappeared. A vast difference separates him from his
continuator, the chronicler who has been named—we do not know for
what reason—Fredegar. The chronicle of Fredegar is composed of
scraps and fragments from various sources. One of the authors from
whom extracts are made writes, "The world is growing old; the keenness
of intelligence is becoming blunted in us; no one in the present age can
compare with the orators of past times,'1 and this phrase might be applied
to the whole of the work. Nevertheless there are still found in Fredegar
attempts at portraits of some of the Mayors of the Palace, Bertoald,
Protadius, Aega, whereas in the last chronicler of the period, the Neustrian
who compiled the Liber Historiae Francorum, there is no longer any-
thing of that kind; it is a very meagre chronicle of the rois fainiants.
The lives of the saints, which are still numerous enough, are singularly
monotonous; they rarely inform us of any facts and are as like each
other as one ecclesiastical image is to another.
A certain number of churches were built during the Merovingian
period, such as those of Clermont, Nantes and Lyons, without counting
the abbey churches such as St Martin de Tours and St Vincent or
St Germain-des-Pres at Paris, but of these great buildings no trace
remains to us. The only remnants of buildings of this period belong to
less important edifices, such as the baptisteries of Riez in Provence and
St Jean de Poitiers, the crypt of St Laurent at Grenoble, and of
the abbey of Jouarre. The great churches which are known to us from
descriptions generally have a nave and two side-aisles with a transept, and
are in the form of a Latin cross. At the point of intersection of nave and
transept there was a tower, which at first served by way of "Lantern,''''
but afterwards to hang bells in. On the walls were placed numerous
inscriptions, sentences taken from the Scriptures, verses in honour of the
saints. Pictures recalled to the faithful the history of the saints or
scenes from Scripture. Often, instead of pictures the walls, as well as
the floor, were covered with mosaic-work in which gold was freely used;
a basilica at Toulouse was known for this reason as la Daurade. Sculpture
in high relief was unknown, even in bas-reliefs the human figure appears
very rarely after the sixth century. The artists could no longer even
## p. 158 (#190) ############################################
158 Merovingian Art
trace the outlines of animals, they drew conventional animals which are
difficult to recognise, geometrical designs or roseate and foliate forms.
Some houses which Fortunatus describes to us seem still to have had
a fine appearance. Such was the castle built by Nicetius, bishop of
Treves, on a hill overlooking the Moselle. The single entrance gate was
commanded by a tower; a mechanical contrivance raised water from the
river to turn a mill. This is quite a medieval donjon-keep. There
were great houses too at Bissonnum and Vereginis villa, belonging to
the bishop Leontius of Bordeaux, where under porticoes formed by
three rows of columns guests could promenade sheltered from rays of
the sun. But such dwellings must have been exceptional; the ordinary
houses surrounded by the necessary appurtenances must have resembled
farms rather than castles. Merovingian art however is mainly repre-
sented by the numerous pieces of jewellery which have been discovered,
as was mentioned earlier. This art is certainly of Oriental origin: it
was practised not among the Franks only, but among the other bar-
barian peoples of the West, and even here are found the same decorative
ornaments.
In art as well as in literature the seventh century and beginning
of the eighth are marked by a profound decadence. But just at the
period of blackest barbarism the Frankish kingdom came into contact
with Italy, the mother of arts and sciences, where the monuments of
antiquity were preserved; and with England, where the monks still
studied in their cloisters, and where the Venerable Bede had founded a
school of worthy disciples. The Anglo-Saxons and the Italians brought
to the Franks the treasures they had safely guarded; the Emperor
Charles the Great recognised that it belonged to the duties of his office
to spread enlightenment, to foster art and literature; and at length,
after this night of darkness, there shone forth the brilliance of a true
renaissance.
## p. 159 (#191) ############################################
159
CHAPTER VI.
SPAIN UNDER THE VISIGOTHS.
Of the Gothic kings, it was Euric who really conquered the Iberian
peninsula. We cannot indeed exactly determine the extent of his
conquests. If we accepted in their literal signification the words of
Jordanes, Mas Hispanias, we should have to believe that Euric ruled
over the whole peninsula; but those words are inexact, because we
must except not only the Suevic State, but also other territories of the
south and centre, which were not conquered by the Visigoths until
considerably later. St Isidore, with reference to the campaigns of Euric,
uses the words Hispania superior, which Hinojosa takes to mean Spain
with the exception of Vasconia, Cantabria, and possibly the two
Conventus of Saragossa and Clunia. Other writers allude to the con-
quest of districts in the north-east and south-east; and lastly, from the
decrees of various councils held between 516 and 546, and from other
evidence, we conclude that, near the end of the fifth century, the Visigoths
held in Spain practically the whole of the ancient province Tarraconensis
with the almost certain exception of part of Vasconia—most of the
provinces of Carthaginensis and some portion of Baetica and Lusitania,
and Galicia; while the rest of Lusitania remained in the hands of the
Sueves, and the Balearic Isles still belonged to the Empire. In Gaul
the Visigothic kingdom was bounded on the north-west by the Franks,
on the north-east by the kingdom of Syagrius, and on the east by the
Burgundians; thus it stretched from the Loire to the Pyrenees, and
from the Atlantic to Aries.
International complications immediately confronted the Visigothic
king, Alaric II (485-507). They originated in the ambition of the
Frankish king, Clovis, whose predecessors had fought against Euric.
The first encounter between the two powers was brought about by Clovis1
invasion (486) of the kingdom of Syagrius, whom he defeated, and
forced to take refuge in Toulouse, under the protection of Alaric.
thus mustered served at their own expense, and remained on campaign
all summer; in winter they returned to their homes, to be recalled,
if need were, the following spring. Charles the Great made a great re-
form in the military organisation. He based the obligation to military
service upon property, the principle being that everyone who possessed
a certain number of mansi was obliged to serve. The number varied
from year to year according to the number of fighting-men required.
We thus see how these institutions were incessantly transformed by
the influence of circumstances and by human action. Roman and
Germanic elements were combined in them in various proportions, and
new elements were added to them. The Merovingian institutions thus
came to form a new system; and from them arise by a series of transfor-
mations the institutions of Charles the Great.
Only the Church, which connects itself with the Gallo-Roman Church,
presents an appearance of greater fixity, since the Church claims to hold
always the same dogmas and to be founded on stable principles. Never-
theless even the Church underwent an evolution along with the society
which it endeavoured to guide. We shall give our attention successively
to the secular Church and the religious Orders.
## p. 142 (#174) ############################################
142 Organisation of the Church
No one could become a member of the secular clergy without the
permission of the king. Anyone who desired the clerical office must also
give certain guarantees of his moral fitness. His conduct must be
upright and pure, and he must possess a certain amount of education.
To have married a second time, or to have married a widow, debarred
a man from the clerical office, and those who were married must break
off all relations with their wives. Clerics were distinguished from laymen
by their tonsure, they wore a special costume, the habitus clericalis, and
they were judged according to the Roman Law. Each cleric was
attached to a special church, which he ought not to leave without the
written permission of his bishop; the councils impose the severest
penalties upon priests wandering at large (gyrovagi).
The chief of the clergy was the bishop, who was placed over a
diocese—parochia, as it was called in the Merovingian period. Theoreti-
cally there were as many bishops as there had been civitates in Roman
Gaul, but the principle was not rigorously carried out. A number of
the small cities mentioned in the Notitia Galliarum had no bishop in
the Merovingian period, for their territory was united to that of a
neighbouring city. This was the case in regard to the civitas Rigo-
magensium (Thorame) and the civitas Scdinensium (Castellane) in the
province of the Alpes Maritimae. On the other hand some of the
cities were divided up. St Remigius established a bishopric at Laon
which was not a Gallo-Roman city. Similarly a bishopric was created
at Nevers. Out of the civitas of Nimes were carved the bishoprics of
Uzes, Agde and Maguelonne; out of Narbonne that of Carcassonne;
out of Nyons that of Belley. This creation of new bishoprics was due
to the progress of Christianity. Certain bishoprics which the Mero-
vingian kings created in order to make the boundaries of the dioceses
coincide with those of their share of the kingdom—such as that of
Melun, formed out of that of Sens, and of Chateaudun, formed out of
that of Chartres—had only a transient existence.
Theoretically the bishops were elected by the clergy and people of the
city. The election took place in the cathedral, under the presidency of
the metropolitan or of a bishop of the province; the faithful acclaimed
the candidate of their choice, who immediately took possession of the
episcopal chair. But under the Merovingians it is observable that the
kings acquire little by little an influence in the elections. The sovereign
made known his choice to the electors; in many cases he directly
designated the prelate. He might, of course, choose the man most
worthy of the post, but usually he was content to be bribed. "At this
time," says Gregory of Tours, "that seed of iniquity began to bear fruit
that the episcopal office was sold by the kings or bought by the clerics. '1
In face of these pretentions of the monarchy the first councils of the
Merovingian period, those of 533 and 538, did not fail to assert the
ancient canonical rights. Before long however the bishops saw that they
## p. 143 (#175) ############################################
Appointment of Bishops 143
must take things as they were and make the best of them. They were
prepared to recognise the intervention of the king as legitimate, while
insisting that the king should not sell the episcopate and should observe
the canonical regulations. "None shall buy the episcopal dignity for
money," runs the pronouncement of the Fifth Council of Orleans, of 549;
"the bishop shall, with the king's consent and according to the choice of
the clergy and the people, be consecrated by the metropolitan and the
other bishops of the province. 11 These principles were recalled at the
famous council of 614, but without the mention of the king: "On the
decease of a bishop there shall be appointed in his place whoever shall
have been elected by the metropolitan, the bishops of the province, and
the clergy and people of the city, without hindrance and without gift of
money. 11 Chlotar II in the edict confirming these canons modified the
tenor of this article. While recognising the right of election of the
persons interested, he maintained the right of intervention of the prince.
"If the elected person is worthy, he shall be consecrated, upon the order
of the prince. 11 From that time forward the established procedure was
as follows. On the death of a prelate the citizens and the people of the
civitas assemble, under the presidency of the metropolitan and the other
bishops of the province. They choose the successor and make known to
the king the act of election—consensus civium pro episcopatu. If the
king approves, he transmits to the metropolitan the order to consecrate
the bishop-elect, and invites the other bishops of the province to be
present at the ceremony. If he is dissatisfied with the election, he
requests the electors to choose another candidate, and sometimes he
himself nominates him.
The power of the bishop was very great. All the clergy of the
diocese were under his control, and in the episcopal city a certain
number of clerics lived in the bishop's house and ate at his table.
Chrodegang, bishop of Metz, laid down about the middle of the eighth
century a very strict rule for these clergy, requiring them to live as
a community: this was the origin of secular canons. Throughout
the whole diocese the bishop reserved to himself certain religious
functions. He alone had power to consecrate altars and churches,
to bless the holy oils, to confirm the young and to ordain clergy.
All other functions he delegated to the archpriests, whose appoint-
ment was either made or sanctioned by him. Only these archpriests
had the right to baptise, and at the great festivals they alone had
the right to say mass. The district under the authority of the
archpriest soon came to be considered as a smaller parochia within
the larger parochia. The archpriests were generally placed in the
vici, the large country-towns. Under them were the clerics who served
the oratories of the villae; these clerics were presented by the proprietors
of the villae for institution by the bishop. The bishop was assisted in
his work by an archdeacon who exercised oversight among the clergy
## p. 144 (#176) ############################################
144 Power of the Bishop
and judged contentions arising among them. It was the bishop, too,
who administered Church property, and this property was of large
extent. Never were donations to the Church more abundant than in
the Merovingian period. The benefactors of the Church were, first,
the bishops themselves: Bertramn of Mans left to his see thirty-five
estates. Then there were the kings, who hoped to atone for their
crimes by pious donations, and rich laymen who to provide for the
salvation of their souls despoiled their heirs. All property acquired
by the Church was, according to the canons of the councils, inalienable.
The Church always received and never gave back. In addition to
landed property, the Church received from the kings certain financial
privileges, such as exemption from customs-dues and market-tax. Often,
too, the sovereign made over to the Church the right to levy dues
at specified places. Further, since Moses had granted to the tribe of
Levi, that is to say to the priests, the right of levying tithes upon
the fruits of the earth and the increase of the cattle, the Merovingian
Church claimed a similar contribution, and threatened with excom-
munication anyone who should fail to pay it. The tithe was generally
paid by the faithful, but it was not made obligatory by the State. It
only acquired that character in the time of Charles the Great. All this
property was theoretically in the charge of the bishop of the diocese.
He was required to divide it into four parts, one for the maintenance
of the bishop and his household, one for the payment of the clergy
of his diocese, one for the poor, and one for the building and repair
of churches. Little by little, however, property became attached to
secondary parishes and even to mere oratories.
The bishop had great influence within his city as well as in the
State. In the city he acted as an administrator and carried out works
of public utility. Sidonius of Mainz built an embankment along
the Rhine, Felix of Nantes straightened the course of the Loire, Didier
of Cahors constructed aqueducts. The bishop thus took the place of
the former municipal magistrates, whose office had died out; he received
the town to govern (ad gubernandurn); by the end of the Merovingian
period certain cities are already episcopal cities. The bishop maintains
the cause of his parishioners before the officials of the State, and even
before the king himself; he obtains for them alleviation of imposts and
all kinds of favours. The bishops1 protection was especially extended
to a class of persons who formed as it were their clientage—widows,
orphans, the poor, slaves, and captives. The poor of the city were
formed into a regularly organised body, their names were inscribed on
the registers of the Church, and they were known as the matriculnrii.
The bishops and the clergy in general enjoyed important legal
privileges. From 614 onwards the clergy could only be judged on
criminal charges by their bishops; the bishops themselves could only
be cited before councils of the Church. But, still more important,
## p. 145 (#177) ############################################
The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 145
laymen were glad to make the bishop the arbiter of their differences;
they knew that they would find in him a judge more just and better
instructed than the count. The Church could also give protection to
malefactors; the criminal, once he had crossed the sacred threshold,
could not be torn thence; it was commonly believed that frightful
chastisements had smitten those who attempted to violate the rights of
sanctuary.
It would be easy to shew how grossly immoral was the Frankish
race—the history of Gregory of Tours is filled with the record of
horrible crimes—but at the same time they were profoundly credulous
and superstitious. On Sundays, at the sound of the bells, they rushed
in crowds to the churches. They frequently received the communion,
and it was a terrible punishment to be deprived of it. Apart from
the Church services the Franks were constantly at prayer. They
believed not only in God but in the saints, whom they continually
invoked, and they believed in their intervention in the affairs of this
world. They were eager to procure relics, which had healing power.
The Church had in its control sacraments, religion, healing virtue,
and the* bishop held the first place in the Church; he was felt to be
invested with supernatural power, and the faithful held him in awe.
Above the bishop was the metropolitan. With a few rare excep-
tions, the metropolitan had his seat at the chief town of the Roman
province. In the course of the fifth century, the province of Vienne
was cut in two: there was one metropolitan at Vienne, another at
Aries. The latter annexed to his jurisdiction the provinces of the
Alpes Maritimae (Embrun) and of Narbonensis II (Aix). Thence-
forward twelve metropolitan sees were distinguished: Vienne, Aries,
Treves, Rheims, Lyons (to which was united Besancon), Rouen, Tours,
Sens, Bourges, Bordeaux, Eauze and Narbonne. The metropolitan
had the right to convoke provincial councils, and presided at them.
He exercised a certain oversight over the bishops of the province, and
it was to him that it naturally fell to act as judge among them.
His title was simply that of bishop: the title archbishop does not
appear until quite the end of the Merovingian period. The authority
of the metropolitans was subordinate to that of the Frankish Church as
a whole, which had as its organs the national councils. These councils
were always convoked by the king, who exercised much influence in
their deliberations. We have the canons of numerous councils held
between 511 and 614, which give us a mass of information regarding
ecclesiastical organisation and discipline. These canons are not much
concerned with doctrine; they recall the clergy to their duties, safe-
guard the property of the churches against the covetousness of laymen,
and censure pagan customs such as augury and sortes sanctorum.
The Frankish Church honoured the Papacy and regarded the bishop
of Rome as the successor of St Peter, but the Papacy had no
C. MED. H. VOL. II. CH. V. 10
## p. 146 (#178) ############################################
146 Relations with the Papacy
effective power over this Church, except perhaps in the province of
Aries. Reading the work of Gregory of Tours, which is so full of life
and reflects so exactly the passions and ideas of the time, we do not find
that the Pope plays any part in the narrative. The bishops are ap-
pointed without his intervention and they govern their churches without
entering into relations with him. At the end of the sixth century, as
we saw earlier, Gregory the Great maintained an active correspondence
with Brunhild. He gives her advice, and his advice was, without
doubt, listened to with respect. The pope takes no direct action, but
he urges the queen to act. It is not difficult to see however that he
was quite ready to supersede Brunhild in the task of directing the
Frankish Church; he would like to make Candidus, who was the
administrator of the papal patrimony in Provence, a kind of legate
beyond the Alps. There can be no doubt that Gregory I, had he lived,
would have succeeded by his able policy in re-establishing in Gaul the
papal authority as it had been exercised by Leo I before the fall of the
Empire. But after the death of Gregory in 604 relations between
Rome and the Franks became very rare for more than a century.
There are only one or two instances of such relations to which we can
point. Pope Martin I (649-655), for example, requested the sons of
Dagobert to assemble councils in order to combat the Monothelete
heresy, which was supported by the Byzantine Emperors. Relations
were not effectively resumed until the eighth century, but they were then
to have an immense influence upon general history.
We have already seen how, in their opposition to the Emperors of
Constantinople, the popes sought the aid of the Mayors of the Palace,
and how this alliance was concluded. We have also noticed, in passing,
how Boniface brought under the authority of the Holy See the Germanic
races whom he converted to the Christian faith. But, besides this, with
the aid of Carloman and Pepin (after 739), Boniface accomplished another
task. After the death of Dagobert the Frankish Church had fallen
into profound decadence, and Charles Martel had sunk it still lower by
conferring bishoprics and abbeys on rude and ignorant laymen. These
bishops and abbots never wore clerical vestments, but always sword
and baldric. They dissipated the property of the Church and sought
to bequeath their offices to their bastards. For eighty years no
council was called. Every vestige of education and civilisation was in
danger of being swamped. A complete reform of the Church was
necessary in the interests of society itself. To Carloman and Pepin
belongs the merit of having perceived this, and they entrusted this great
work to Boniface. Once more a series of councils was held, in the
dominions of Carloman as well as in those of Pepin; there was even a
general council of the whole kingdom in March 745 at Estinnes in
Hainault. The ecclesiastical hierarchy was restored, measures were
taken against priests of scandalous life; the clergy were encouraged to
## p. 147 (#179) ############################################
Monasteries 147
become better educated. Above all, this reformed clergy was placed
under the authority of the Papacy; the road to Rome became familiar
to them. On the one hand there was a political alliance between the
popes and the Mayors of the Palace; on the other relations were renewed
between the clergy of what had been Gaul and the Papacy. Thus was
recovered the idea of Christian unity in one sole Church under the
authority of the Pope, as the successor of the apostle Peter.
We have hitherto spoken chiefly of the secular Church, but in even
a summary account of the Church of the Merovingian period a place
must be found for the monasteries. As early as the fifth century, before
the conquest of Clovis, famous abbeys had arisen upon Gallic soil.
Such were Liguge near Poitiers, Marmoutier and St Martin in the
territory of Tours, St Honorat on one of the islands of Lerins, St
Victor at Marseilles. In the time of Clovis Caesarius founded in the
town of Aries one monastery for men and another for women. Under
Clovis and his successors monasteries rapidly increased in number.
Childebert I founded that of St Vincent, close to the gates of Paris,
afterwards to be known as St Germain-des-Pres; Chlotar I founded
St Medard of Soissons, while Radegund, the Thuringian wife whom
he had repudiated, built Ste Croix of Poitiers. To Guntram is due
the foundation of St Marcel of Chalon-sur-Saone, and the extension
of St Benignus of Dijon. Private persons followed the example of
the kings. Aridius, a friend of Gregory of Tours, founded on one
of his estates the monastery which from his name was known as
St Yrieix. All these monasteries were placed under the charge of
the bishop, who visited them and if necessary recalled the monks to
their duty. At the head of the household was placed an abbot,
generally chosen by the founder or his descendants, but in some cases
elected by the community, subject to the bishop's confirmation. Each
monastery was independent of the rest, and had a rule—regula—of its
own, based upon principles borrowed from the early monks in Egypt,
from Pachomius, Basil and the writings of Cassian and Caesarius of
Aries. The abbeys did not as yet form congregations obeying the same
rule. Since they confined themselves to serving as a refuge for souls
wounded in the battle of life, they had no influence on the outside world.
They were not centres of the religious life radiating an influence beyond
the walls of the cloister and exercising a direct action upon the Church.
This type of monastic life was the creation of an Irish monk, Colum-
banus, who landed on the Continent about the year 585. He settled in
the kingdom of Guntram, and established, in the neighbourhood of the
Vosges, three monasteries, Annegray, Luxeuil (known in Roman times
for its medicinal baths), and Fontaines. These three houses were under
his direction and he gave them a common rule, which was distinguished
by its extreme severity. Obedience was required of the monk "even
unto death," according to the example of Christ, who was faithful to
ch. v. 10—2
## p. 148 (#180) ############################################
148 Columbanus and his Disciples
His Father even unto the death of the cross. The smallest peccadillo,
the least negligence in service, was punished with strokes of the rod.
The monk must have no possessions; he must never even use the word
"my. " This rule became common to all the other abbeys which were
founded subsequently by Columbanus himself or his disciples. For
Columbanus did not remain undisturbed within the walls of Luxeuil.
Twice he was torn from his refuge by Brunhild, whose orders he
refused to obey. He wandered through Champagne, and under his
influence a monastery arose at Rebais and convents for women at
Faremoutiers and Jouarre. Later he found his way to the shores of the
Lake of Constance in Alemannia where his disciple Callus founded the
monastery which bore his name, St Gall. He ended his days on
23 November 615 in Italy, where the monastery of Bobbio claims him
as its founder. Loyal disciples of his had reformed or founded in Gaul
a large number of monasteries; in no similar period were so many
founded as between the years 610 and 650. We can mention only the
most famous—Echternach, Prlim, Etival, Senones, Moyenmoutier, St
Mihiel-sur-Meuse, Malmedy and Stavelot. Many of these monasteries
received from one hundred to two hundred monks.
All these abbeys obeyed the same rule and were animated by the
same spirit; they formed a sort of congregation. In general they
declared themselves independent of the bishop—ad modum Luxoven-
sium. They chose their abbots and administered their property freely.
Moreover these monks did not confine themselves within the walls
of their monasteries; they desired to play a part in the Church.
St Wandrille claimed that the monks should not merely be allowed to
count the years which they spent in the cloister, but those also in which
they travelled in the service of God. The disciples of Columbanus
were preachers like himself; they proclaimed the necessity of penance,
the expiation of every mistake according to a fixed scale, as in the rule of
the monastery, and at this time penitentials began to be widely circulated.
The sense of sin became very keen among the people, and they multiplied
gifts to the Church in order to atone for their transgressions. The monks
also became missionaries; each abbey was, so to speak, the head-quarters
of a mission. St Gall completed the conversion of the Alemans, Eustasius
abbot of Luxeuil converted the heretical Warasci in the neighbourhood
of Besancon and went to preach the Gospel in Bavaria. But the very
number of these monasteries caused the defects of the rule of Colum-
banus to be quickly perceived. This rule did not provide for the
administration of the monastery; it did not prescribe, hour by hour,
the employments of the day; then, again, it was too severe, too crush-
ing, and often reduced men to despair. Now, about a hundred years
earlier (c. 529), Benedict of Nursia had given to the monastery of Monte
Cassino an admirable rule; this rule was not known in France until
after the death of Columbanus and the remarkable growth of monasteries
## p. 149 (#181) ############################################
Spread of the Benedictine Rule 149
connected with him, but once known its advantages were soon recognised.
All the questions which Columbanus had left unsettled here received a
practical solution. It regulated the relations of the abbot with the
monks and of the monks with one another; it prescribed the employ-
ments of the day and the hours to be divided between prayer, manual
work and study. Mystical speculations are left aside; there is something
of the legal spirit of ancient Rome in these clearly-drawn precepts.
The rule of St Benedict at first appeared as a rival alongside of that of
St Columbanus; but after the great ecclesiastical reform associated with
the name of Boniface it reigned alone; and a little later Louis the
son of Charles the Great imposed it (817) upon all the monasteries of
his realm. The impetuous torrent which Columbanus had let loose
was thus turned into a wide channel, in which its waters could flow
calmly.
Merovingian society was composed of remarkably definite gradations,
each man having his fixed price, so to speak, marked by the wergeld.
At the bottom of the scale was the slave. The Germans as well as the
Romans had possessed slaves, and their number was increased in the
Merovingian period. After a war the prisoners were often reduced to
servitude; many of these unfortunates belonged to the Slav race, and
the name slave gradually took the place of servus. There were also
slave-dealers who went to seek their human merchandise overseas; young
Anglo-Saxons were much sought after on account of their beauty. Then
again, a man who could not pay his debts, or a fine inflicted by the courts,
fell into servitude; and a freeman who married a slave lost his freedom.
Slaves were looked on as chattels; the master could sell them or give
them away at his pleasure. Anyone who stole or killed a slave paid
a fine of thirty solid/, just the same amount as was paid for stealing a
horse, and this compensation was paid to the master: the slave was not
considered to have any family.
Slaves were often very cruelly treated
by their masters; Duke Rauching for example made his slaves put out
torches by pressing them against their naked legs. The Church however
took up their cause; it declared unions between slaves which had been
blessed by the priest to be legitimate, and earnestly exhorted masters
not to separate husband and wife, parents and children.
Slaves could escape from their condition by enfranchisement. In the
Merovingian period there were two kinds of solemn enfranchisement,
that per denarium before the king, by which the former slave acquired
the rights of a Frankish freeman, and that of the Church, by which
he became a free Roman. In both cases he was discharged from all
obligation towards his former master, but remained in a certain
dependence on the king, who fell heir to the property of slaves if
they had no children born after their enfranchisement. But usually the
slave was simply freed by a written statement to that effect given by the
## p. 150 (#182) ############################################
150 Classes of Society
master, and a freedman of this kind, known as libertus or lidus, remained
in a position of close dependence upon his former master. He could, it
is true, plead in the courts and enter into binding agreements, but he
paid his patron a yearly fee known as the ltdimonium, and if he died
without issue his patron became his heir. The freedman usually retained
the land which he had cultivated as a slave, but instead of being a
servilts holding it became a lidilis holding.
On the large estates there was a third class of holding, the marm
ingenuiles. These were held by the coloni, the descendants of the
former Roman coloni. Theoretically these coloni were free, but they
were bound to their holdings; they could not quit them without the
permission of the owner, and if they ran away they were brought back
by force. But, on the other hand, so long as they paid their rent,
they could not be expelled from their holdings and might cultivate
them as they chose. They thus form an intermediate class between the
slaves who were tied to one place and the freemen, to whom all roads
stood open.
The freemen might belong either to the conquering race, the Franks,
or the conquered race, the Gallo-Romans; and the two races were under
different laws. The Salic law fixes the wergeld of a Salian Frank at two
hundred golidi, that of the Roman at one hundred only. But we must
not conclude from this that there was a great gulf fixed between the two
races. Where both parties to a case were Gallo-Romans, they were
judged according to the Roman law; when a Gallo-Roman was accused
by a Frank, judgment was still given according to the Roman law; it
was only in a case where a Frank was the defendant that the Salic law
was applied, and it is quite natural that this law should be more severe
upon the murder of a man of the same race than on that of a Roman.
Besides, the further we advance in Merovingian history, the more the
two races become intermingled. The Franks admired the Roman
civilisation and endeavoured to assimilate it; they learned the common
language of Gaul, which was in process of becoming Romanic; they
even prided themselves on learning to speak pure Latin. The Gallo-
Romans, on their part, adopted the military customs of the barbarians.
They frequently gave Germanic names to their children. Both nations
were Christian, and the common faith contributed to bring them
together.
In theory all these freemen were equal, but little by little dis-
tinctions arose among them. In default of a nobility with hereditary
privileges, there grew up an aristocracy, potentes, priores, who exercised a
powerful influence. These great men belonged generally to the ancient
Gallo-Roman senatorial families, who held vast estates and possessed
great wealth. From these families the king chose the great officers of
state and the people of the cities chose their bishops; thus there was
added to their wealth political power, or the veneration attaching to
## p. 151 (#183) ############################################
Origin of Vassalage 151
the sacred office of the priesthood. The Franks who possessed large
estates became assimilated to these Roman senators and there thus grew
up an aristocracy composed of members of the two races.
In consequence of the troublous times which were the rule in Gaul
in the seventh century, the poor and the weak could not depend on the
protection of the State, and sought protection from one or other of these
powerful personages. They put themselves under his mundeburdis as it
was called in Germanic; they "commended" themselves to him, accord-
ing to the expression borrowed from Roman usage, and this expression
is suitable enough, for they became in fact clients of these great men.
The patron undertook to maintain his clients, to support them in
law cases, to further their interests; in return, the client promised to
serve his patron on all occasions, to defend him if he were attacked,
and to take the field along with him if he attacked anyone else. Each
of these great personages had thus under his orders a more or less
numerous body of men. To mark these new social conditions new terms
were created, or a new sense was given to ancient terms. The protector
was called the senior; the client was called vassus. In the Salic law
the term vassal simply meant a slave attached to the personal service
of his master; at the close of the Merovingian period it always
means one of these voluntary dependents. Those who felt the need
of protection could "commend" themselves not only to wealthy
private persons but also to royal officers, to the dukes and counts,
to the officials of the palace; but above all they could commend
themselves to the king himself. In that case the sovereign exercised
a double authority over them; first, his public authority as king, and
secondly a more special protection, parallel, in so far, to that of the
seignior. In time the strength of the king came to depend in large
measure on the number of his vassals. The subjection of the individual
to the State was replaced by a personal subjection to the king, and the
population of the country came to be composed of groups of men bound
to one another by personal ties. Thus we find the germs of the feudal
system already present in the seventh century.
A time was to come when to this subordination of persons there
should be added a subordination of lands. In order to understand this
evolution, which was to have so great a historical importance, we must
first examine the conditions on which property was held.
With the exception of the towns the soil of Gaul was divided, in
the Merovingian period, into large estates, called villae or fundi. These
estates usually bore the name of their original holder; thus the villae
called Victoriacus had belonged to a man named Victorius, and the
modern villages which have descended from these villae have kept the
old names. Variously transformed according to the district in which
they lie, they are known to-day as Vitrac, Vitrec, Vitre, Vitrey or Vitry.
Similarly villae bearing the name Sabiniacus have become our villages
## p. 152 (#184) ############################################
152 The Merovingian Villa
of Savignae, Savignec, Sevigne, Savigneux. Many of these estates,
especially in the north and east, changed their names after the invasions,
taking the names of their barbarian owners. Thus Theodonis villa,
Thionville, Ramberti villare, Rambervillers, Arnulfi curtis, Harcourt,
Bodegiteli vaUis, Bougival near Paris. In the seventh century some
estates took the name of the saint to whom the church was dedicated:
Dompierre, Dommartin, St Pierre, St Martin. Some villae again took
their names from some particular variety of trees or plantations;
Roboretum has become Rouvray, Rouvres; Rosariae and Cannaberiae have
given us the names of our modern villages Rosieres and Chennevieres.
It often happened that through sale, exchange or division among
brothers, a villa was divided between several owners, but it none the
less retained its unity and organisation.
The lands of the villa were divided into two portions. One, consisting
of the lands lying round about the house of the owner, was farmed
directly by him. The other portion was divided up into lots or holdings
(mansi), of which the owner gave the use to his slaves, his lidi, or to
freemen ; whence comes the distinction between mansi seroiles, lidiles and
ingenviles, of which we have spoken above. Each tenant cultivated his
holding for his own profit, but in return for its use was obliged to pay a
rent to the owner and to render him certain services. The houses
occupied by the tenants were either isolated, in the mountainous districts,
or grouped together within a small area. A villa was self-sufficing;
besides the cultivators there were the workmen who made or repaired
the tools and implements. There was a mill and a wine-press which
served the whole population of the villa, and often there was a forge
also. It had its own chapel, of which the priest (often born on the
estate) was appointed by the master, with the consent of the bishop.
The woods surrounding the villa remained in possession of the land-
owner, but he gave the tenants rights of user. Over all the dwellers
on the estate he exercised a seigniorial jurisdiction.
There still existed, no doubt, alongside of the great estates or zuUae
a number of small estates belonging to freemen. But these small estates
tended to disappear in the course of the seventh century. The fact was
that the small proprietors were unable to defend their estates; they had
no inducement to sell them, for money would have been of little value to
them; accordingly they "commended themselves" to some great man
of the neighbourhood, handing over their property to him. He in
turn gave them the use of it for life, and thus they were at least certain
of occupying it in security until the end of their days. Previously they
had held their lands ex alode or de alode parentum, by inheritance
from their ancestors, with the right of using it as they chose; henceforth
they held it per benejicium, in consequence of a grant made by the
great seignior. When agreements of this kind became frequent, two
varieties of landed property were distinguished, allodial lands which
## p. 153 (#185) ############################################
Origin of the Benefice 153
were held by the owner in person, and "benefices,11 of which the use
was granted by a large proprietor to another person during the lifetime
of the latter.
Many circumstances contributed to multiply these benefices. The
Church, which had large estates and could not get them all cultivated
by its serfs, lidi and coloni, let parts of them to freemen, who culti-
vated them, and at the death of the tenant the land returned, in an
improved condition, into the hands of the Church. This mode of
tenure was already known to the Roman law (precarium). It sometimes
happened that in exchange for a grant of this kind, the grantee made
a gift to the Church of an estate of similar value belonging to himself.
Thenceforward he had the usufruct of both estates, that of the Church
as well as his own; but at his death the Church took possession of both.
The grantee had the advantage during his life of a doubled income, and
on his death the Church doubled its property. But it often happened
that the Church, which was, as we know, very powerful, received the
lands of private persons in the manner described without adding any-
thing of its own, only conceding to the former owner a life-use of the
property. Thus in various ways the allodial lands disappeared, and
benefices became every day more numerous.
Up to this point we have seen the beneficiaries solicit the benefice
and take the initiative in obtaining it. These beneficiaries remained
bound by ties of gratitude to their benefactor, they exerted themselves
to serve him and marched with him when he went to battle; they were
his vassi. Before long a man's power was measured by the number
of his vassi, the army of his clients; and then the great men, in
order to increase their clientage, and consequently their influence, began
themselves to offer benefices to those whom they desired to attach to
themselves and gain as adherents.
The king, or the Mayor of the Palace who replaced him, needed to
be able to count on the great men for the wars, whether foreign or civil,
in which he engaged. Obligation towards the State was too abstract a
conception to be understood, and the mere sense of duty was not strong
enough to keep the great men loyal. The king therefore began to
distribute lands to these great men. At first he gave them abso-
lutely, but before long these lands were assimilated to the benefices.
This evolution took place especially at the time when Charles Martel
laid hands upon the property of the Church and distributed it in his
own name to his warriors. The property of the Church was inalienable,
it could not be given as an absolute possession. The warriors were only
the life-tenants of it, and at their death it reverted to the Church.
These estates were therefore simply ecclesiastical benefices, granted
by the king or the mayor. Once this precedent had been established,
estates granted by the king from his own lands were granted on the
same conditions, merely for the lifetime of the grantee.
## p. 154 (#186) ############################################
154 Charters of Immunity
Another great change took place about the same time. One reason
why Charles Martel made grants of ecclesiastical property to his warriors
was that they had now to support great expense. They served in his
armies no longer as foot soldiers but as cavalry, and their equipment was
very costly. The revenue of the lands which were granted to them
served as an indemnity against the expenses of military service. Thus
it came to be considered that the benefice carried with it the obligation
of military service. Under Charles the Great, the holders of royal lands
were bound to be first at the muster; and before long it was an under-
stood thing that, when a private person who had granted benefices
marched to the wars, all his beneficiaries, who were also his vassals, must
accompany him. Thus at the end of the Merovingian period the
characteristics of the later fief are taking shape. The eleventh century
fief is the direct descendant of the eighth century benefice, of which we
have just traced the origin.
Another characteristic of the fief is that the holder of it exercises
thereon all the powers of the State: he levies taxes, administers justice
and summons the men of the fief to follow him to war. Now even in the
Merovingian period on some of the great domains the State resigned a
portion of its rights to the proprietor or seignior, and thus we find present,
from this time onward, all the germs of the feudal system. We have
seen how great were the powers of the count and the other royal officials:
they often abused these powers, and the proprietors of the great estates
complained to the king of their tyranny. In many cases the king listened
to their complaints and gave them charters of immunity forbidding
all public officials to enter their estates, to claim right of lodging, to try
causes, to levy the Jredus or other impost, or to compel the men to attend
the muster of the royal army. Thenceforward the men of this privileged
territory had nothing more to do with the agents of the government;
the agents of the proprietpr took their place; and before long the
proprietor himself levied the former state-taxes, judged cases in his
private court and regarded it as within his competence to deal with all
offences committed upon his domain. He led his men in person to join
the royal army, and he was naturally tempted to use them also in
the prosecution of his private quarrels. If we remember the extent of
some of the domains, which comprised a number of villae and were some-
times as large as a modern canton, we see how great was the area which
was withdrawn from the authority of the royal officials, if not from that
of the king himself. The estates which enjoyed these immunities were
veritable seigniories. Alongside of the institutions of the State there had
thus arisen another set of institutions which came into collision with the
former and brought about the decay of the authority of the State. All
the elements of feudalism—commendations, benefices, and immunities
—are in existence without its being possible to say that feudalism is as
yet constituted, because the elements are not combined into a system.
## p. 155 (#187) ############################################
Industry and Commerce 155
But before this system came into operation Charles the Great was to
re-establish a strong centralised government; he was to make these social
forces serve the interests of the State itself, and by his genius was to
restore with incomparable brilliancy that Frankish monarchy which at
the close of the Merovingian period had seemed likely to disappear.
The Merovingian period as a whole is without doubt a melancholy
period. It marks in history what must be called an eclipse of civilisation,
and it deserves to be described as a barbaric era. Nevertheless, it must
not be imagined that the two hundred and seventy years, which it
includes were, so to speak, sunk in unbroken gloom. Even in this period
it is possible to note some facts concerning industry and commerce, arts
and letters.
Industry found refuge chiefly in the country districts, where each
estate produced for itself all the supplies necessary to agricultural work
and common life. The towns themselves took on a country-like air.
The ancient buildings—temples, basilicas, baths—had been destroyed
during the invasions and their ruins lay on the ground; the only con-
siderable buildings now erected were churches. A sparse population
occupied rather than filled the space surrounded by the half-ruined
walls. Many houses had disappeared and wide areas lay vacant;
these were turned into fields or vineyards, and thus in the interior
of formerly populous cities there were closes and culturae. Outside the
ramparts there rose, in many cases, a high-walled monastery—a sacred
city alongside of the secular city—and these monasteries became new
centres of population. Within the decayed cities we nevertheless find,
at all events at first, some traces of industry. There is mention in the
sixth and seventh centuries of workshops for the manufacture of cloth at
Treves, at Metz and at Rheims. There were also potteries, and numerous
specimens of their art have been found in the tombs. The Merovingians
had a taste for finely wrought arms, for sword-belt buckles of damascene
work, for jewellery and gold-plate. The Merovingian goldsmiths were
skilful. Eligius, son of a minter at Limoges, attained by the aid of his
art to the highest posts; he became the counsellor of Dagobert and bishop
of Noyon. There was also in the Merovingian period a certain amount
of commercial activity. The Franks imported from abroad spices,
papyrus and silk fabrics. This merchandise was either brought to the
ports of Marseilles, Aries and Narbonne, or came by way of the Black
Sea and the Danube. In the time of Dagobert a Frankish merchant
named Samo went to trade on the banks of the Elbe, and there formed
a great Slav kingdom which had its centre in Bohemia, and extended from
the Havel to the Styrian Alps. The merchants of the town of Verdun
formed an association in the time of Theudibert, about 540. The king
aided them by lending them, at the request of the bishop Desiderius, 7000
aurei. They were thus enabled to put their business on a sound footing.
## p. 156 (#188) ############################################
156 Kenantius Fortunatus
and in the time of Gregory of Tours the wealth of these merchants was
renowned. But commerce was chiefly in the hands of Byzantines and
Jews. The Byzantines, who were generally known by the name of
Syrians, whether they came from Asia or from Europe, had important
trading-stations at Marseilles, at Bordeaux, at Orleans. When in 585
Guntram made his entry into the last-named city he was welcomed with
cries of acclamation in the Syriac language. Simeon Stylites conversed
with Syrian merchants who had seen Ste Genevieve at Paris. In 591 a
Syrian named Eusebius was even appointed bishop of Paris, and gave
offices in the Church to his compatriots. The Jews, on their part, formed
prosperous colonies. Maintaining friendly relations with their co-
religionists in Italy, Spain, and the East, they were able to give a wide
extension to their business, and, as the Christian Church forbade the
lending of money at interest, all dealing in money, all banking business,
was soon in their hands. Five hundred Jews were settled at Clermont-
Ferrand; at Marseilles and Narbonne they were more numerous still.
The Jew Priscus acted as agent in purchases made by King Chilperic, who
held disputations with him concerning the Holy Trinity.
Intellectual culture naturally declined during the Merovingian
period. Nevertheless in the sixth century there are still two names
which are celebrated in the history of literature, those of the poet
Fortunatus and the historian Gregory of Tours. Fortunatus, it is
true, was born in Italy and educated in the Schools of Ravenna; but
his verses, with their wealth of mythological allusions, pleased the taste
of the Frankish lords and the Merovingian kings, of whom he was
to some extent a flatterer. He sang the praises of all the monarchs
of his period, Charibert, Sigebert and Chilperic; he even lavished
on Fredegund his paid panegyrics:
Omnibus excellens meritis Fredegundis ojnma.
Becoming the adviser of Queen Radegund he settled in her neigh-
bourhood at Poitiers. He there became first priest, and then bishop.
It was at this period that he wrote those charming notes in verse,
thanking Radegund for the delicacies which she sent him and describing,
with a slightly sensual gourmandise, the pleasure he derived from a good
dinner; but at the same time he finds a more energetic strain in which
to deplore the sorrows of Thuringia. And, also doubtless at the request
of his patroness, he wrote the fine hymns which the Church still uses in
the Vexilla regis prodeunt and the Pange lingua.
If Fortunatus was the sole poet of the Merovingian period Gregory
of Tours is almost the sole historian. In his work, the History of the
Franks, this troublous period lives again, with its vices, crimes and
passions. The portraits which he gives us of Chilperic, Guntram and
Brunhild are painted with extraordinary vividness. His work manifests
real literary power. Critics sometimes speak of the naivete of Gregory,
## p. 157 (#189) ############################################
Gregory of Tours 167
but we must not deceive ourselves; this naivete is a matter of deliberate
art Gregory does not of course observe strict grammatical correctness;
he is by no means Ciceronian; he writes the language as it was spoken
in his day. In a few passages only, where he is obviously writing with
conscious effort, he employs rare and poetical expressions, as for example
in the account of the baptism of Clovis, in the description of Dijon, in
the narrative of his quarrels with Count Leudastes. But to these we
prefer those pages where he lets himself go, and writes with his natural
vigour, where he slips in malicious reflexions as it were unconsciously, or
where he excoriates his adversaries. He has the real gift of story-telling
and has justly been called the barbarian Herodotus. After his day
all culture disappeared. A vast difference separates him from his
continuator, the chronicler who has been named—we do not know for
what reason—Fredegar. The chronicle of Fredegar is composed of
scraps and fragments from various sources. One of the authors from
whom extracts are made writes, "The world is growing old; the keenness
of intelligence is becoming blunted in us; no one in the present age can
compare with the orators of past times,'1 and this phrase might be applied
to the whole of the work. Nevertheless there are still found in Fredegar
attempts at portraits of some of the Mayors of the Palace, Bertoald,
Protadius, Aega, whereas in the last chronicler of the period, the Neustrian
who compiled the Liber Historiae Francorum, there is no longer any-
thing of that kind; it is a very meagre chronicle of the rois fainiants.
The lives of the saints, which are still numerous enough, are singularly
monotonous; they rarely inform us of any facts and are as like each
other as one ecclesiastical image is to another.
A certain number of churches were built during the Merovingian
period, such as those of Clermont, Nantes and Lyons, without counting
the abbey churches such as St Martin de Tours and St Vincent or
St Germain-des-Pres at Paris, but of these great buildings no trace
remains to us. The only remnants of buildings of this period belong to
less important edifices, such as the baptisteries of Riez in Provence and
St Jean de Poitiers, the crypt of St Laurent at Grenoble, and of
the abbey of Jouarre. The great churches which are known to us from
descriptions generally have a nave and two side-aisles with a transept, and
are in the form of a Latin cross. At the point of intersection of nave and
transept there was a tower, which at first served by way of "Lantern,''''
but afterwards to hang bells in. On the walls were placed numerous
inscriptions, sentences taken from the Scriptures, verses in honour of the
saints. Pictures recalled to the faithful the history of the saints or
scenes from Scripture. Often, instead of pictures the walls, as well as
the floor, were covered with mosaic-work in which gold was freely used;
a basilica at Toulouse was known for this reason as la Daurade. Sculpture
in high relief was unknown, even in bas-reliefs the human figure appears
very rarely after the sixth century. The artists could no longer even
## p. 158 (#190) ############################################
158 Merovingian Art
trace the outlines of animals, they drew conventional animals which are
difficult to recognise, geometrical designs or roseate and foliate forms.
Some houses which Fortunatus describes to us seem still to have had
a fine appearance. Such was the castle built by Nicetius, bishop of
Treves, on a hill overlooking the Moselle. The single entrance gate was
commanded by a tower; a mechanical contrivance raised water from the
river to turn a mill. This is quite a medieval donjon-keep. There
were great houses too at Bissonnum and Vereginis villa, belonging to
the bishop Leontius of Bordeaux, where under porticoes formed by
three rows of columns guests could promenade sheltered from rays of
the sun. But such dwellings must have been exceptional; the ordinary
houses surrounded by the necessary appurtenances must have resembled
farms rather than castles. Merovingian art however is mainly repre-
sented by the numerous pieces of jewellery which have been discovered,
as was mentioned earlier. This art is certainly of Oriental origin: it
was practised not among the Franks only, but among the other bar-
barian peoples of the West, and even here are found the same decorative
ornaments.
In art as well as in literature the seventh century and beginning
of the eighth are marked by a profound decadence. But just at the
period of blackest barbarism the Frankish kingdom came into contact
with Italy, the mother of arts and sciences, where the monuments of
antiquity were preserved; and with England, where the monks still
studied in their cloisters, and where the Venerable Bede had founded a
school of worthy disciples. The Anglo-Saxons and the Italians brought
to the Franks the treasures they had safely guarded; the Emperor
Charles the Great recognised that it belonged to the duties of his office
to spread enlightenment, to foster art and literature; and at length,
after this night of darkness, there shone forth the brilliance of a true
renaissance.
## p. 159 (#191) ############################################
159
CHAPTER VI.
SPAIN UNDER THE VISIGOTHS.
Of the Gothic kings, it was Euric who really conquered the Iberian
peninsula. We cannot indeed exactly determine the extent of his
conquests. If we accepted in their literal signification the words of
Jordanes, Mas Hispanias, we should have to believe that Euric ruled
over the whole peninsula; but those words are inexact, because we
must except not only the Suevic State, but also other territories of the
south and centre, which were not conquered by the Visigoths until
considerably later. St Isidore, with reference to the campaigns of Euric,
uses the words Hispania superior, which Hinojosa takes to mean Spain
with the exception of Vasconia, Cantabria, and possibly the two
Conventus of Saragossa and Clunia. Other writers allude to the con-
quest of districts in the north-east and south-east; and lastly, from the
decrees of various councils held between 516 and 546, and from other
evidence, we conclude that, near the end of the fifth century, the Visigoths
held in Spain practically the whole of the ancient province Tarraconensis
with the almost certain exception of part of Vasconia—most of the
provinces of Carthaginensis and some portion of Baetica and Lusitania,
and Galicia; while the rest of Lusitania remained in the hands of the
Sueves, and the Balearic Isles still belonged to the Empire. In Gaul
the Visigothic kingdom was bounded on the north-west by the Franks,
on the north-east by the kingdom of Syagrius, and on the east by the
Burgundians; thus it stretched from the Loire to the Pyrenees, and
from the Atlantic to Aries.
International complications immediately confronted the Visigothic
king, Alaric II (485-507). They originated in the ambition of the
Frankish king, Clovis, whose predecessors had fought against Euric.
The first encounter between the two powers was brought about by Clovis1
invasion (486) of the kingdom of Syagrius, whom he defeated, and
forced to take refuge in Toulouse, under the protection of Alaric.
