A
distinctive
position among them was held by the autrustiones, who
were the descendants of the Germanic comites.
were the descendants of the Germanic comites.
Cambridge Medieval History - v2 - Rise of the Saracens and Foundation of the Western Empire
He
made himself master of Burgundy also, and appointed his own Icuden
to the countships and bishoprics of that country. In Aquitaine the
duke, Eudo, who had his seat at Toulouse, exercised an independent
authority; but Charles obliged him in 719 to acknowledge, at least in
name, the suzerainty of the northern Franks. Charles had thus acquired
great power, and during some years he even governed without a king.
His official title remained the same, Mayor of the Palace, but he was
already called, even by his contemporaries, princeps or subreguhis. He
presided over the royal court of justice, issued decrees in his own name
and had the disposal of every appointment, lay and ecclesiastical; he
summoned the assembly of the great men of the kingdom, decided
questions of peace and war and held the command of the army. He was
king in fact if not in name.
Charles was now to save from a serious danger the realm which
he had reunited. The Arabs had conquered Spain in 711; in 720
they had crossed the Pyrenees and seized Septimania, which was a
## p. 129 (#161) ############################################
732-739] Battle of Tours (Poitiers) 129
dependency of the kingdom of the Visigoths. Using this as a base they
had invaded Gaul. Eudo, duke of Aquitaine, had succeeded, by his able
policy, in holding them in check for some years, but in 732 a new watt
or governor 'Abd-ar-Rahman, belonging to a sect of extreme fanatics,
resumed the offensive. Eudo was vanquished on the banks of the
Garonne, Bordeaux was taken and its churches burnt, and the Arabs
then advanced, by way of the Gap of Poitiers, towards the north. Poitiers
resisted their attack, but the basilica of St Hilary, situated outside the
walls, was burnt. Without halting, 'Abd-ar-Rahman continued his.
march on Tours, the resting-place of the body of St Martin, which was,
as it were, the religious capital of Gaul. Eudo besought the aid of
Charles, who hurried up and posted himself at the junction of the Clain
and the Vienne. The two armies halted, facing one another, for seven
days. Then, on an October Saturday of 732—exactly a hundred years
after the death of Mahomet—the battle was joined, and Charles came
off victorious. 'Abd-ar-Rahman was slain on the field. This battle
became extremely celebrated and it is chiefly on account of it that later
chronicles give to Charles the surname of Tudites or Mariettas (Charles
Martel).
The day of Poitiers marks the turning-point in the fortunes of the
Arabs. Harassed during their retirement by Eudo and his Aquitanians,
they met with defeat after defeat. But to crown all, at this moment
internal dissensions broke out within the Arab Empire. The Ma'ddites
regained the ascendancy at the expense of their enemies the Yemenites,
but the Berbers in Africa refused to obey the new rulers and rose in
revolt. The Arabs, occupied with the suppression of this rebellion, were
thenceforth unable to throw powerful armies into Gaul.
Charles proceeded to take the offensive against the Muslims. In
737 he wrested from them the town of Avignon which they had seized,
and then attempted the conquest of Septimania, but in spite of strenuous
efforts he was unable to effect the capture of Narbonne. He had to
content himself with laying waste the country systematically and
destroying the fortifications of Agde, Beziers and Maguelonne. He set
fire to the amphitheatre at Nimes, and the marks of the fire are still
visible. In 739, the Arabs having attempted a new descent on
Provence and even threatened Italy, Charles marched against them once
more and drove them out. He allied himself against them with
Lautprand, king of the Lombards, who adopted the Frankish ruler
according to the Germanic custom.
Charles also completed the subjugation of the barbarian tribes of
Germany. He abolished the duchy of Alemannia, intervened in the
affairs of Bavaria, made expeditions into Saxony and even, in 738,
compelled some of the Saxon tribes to pay tribute. He gave a
safe-conduct to Boniface who preached Christianity in Thuringia, in
Alemannia and in Bavaria, and constantly befriended the devoted
C. MED. H. VOU II. CH. IV. 9
## p. 130 (#162) ############################################
130 Embassy of Gregory III [739-741
Anglo-Saxon missionaries. Boniface, like Willibrord, went to Rome to
receive investiture, and the Pope conferred on him successively the titles
of missionary, bishop, and archbishop. It may have been Boniface who
brought the papal see into relations with the Carolingians.
The circumstances were as follows. Liutprand king of the Lombards
was anxious to impose his authority on the dukes of Spoleto and Bene-
vento and to wrest from the Byzantine Empire its last remaining
possessions in Italy. He first attacked and defeated Thrasamund, duke
of Spoleto, who thereupon took refuge at Rome. Liutprand demanded
from Pope Gregory III the surrender of Thrasamund, and on Gregory's
refusal he laid siege to the Eternal City. The Pope, in distress, sent an
embassy to Charles, consisting of the bishop Anastasius and a priest
named Sergius, to implore him to deliver the people of Rome from the
Lombard oppression. By these ambassadors he sent to Charles "the
keys of the Confession of St Peter," portions of the chains of the Prince
of the Apostles and various magnificent gifts. The " keys * were a kind
of decoration which the pontiffs were accustomed to confer on illustrious
personages, while the chains were supposed to have miraculous virtues.
This embassy impressed the imagination of contemporaries, and the
continuator of Fredegar lays much stress on it. In return for the help
which he implored Gregory III offered to renounce the imperial suzerainty
and to confer upon the Mayor of the Palace a certain authority over
Rome, with the title of Roman Consul. Gregory III seems to have had
a kind of intuition of the great historic change which was afterwards
to take place when the popes were to turn away from the Emperor of
Byzantium and attach themselves to the king of the Franks. Charles
gave the papal envoys a cordial reception (789) and showered gifts upon
the Pope, sending them by the hands of Grimo, abbot of Corbie, and
Sigebert, a monk of St Denis. But that was all. He could not take
sides against Liutprand who had been his ally against the Arabs. In
vain did Gregory write to him in 740 two imploring letters: "I adjure
thee in the name of the true and living God, and by the keys of St
Peter's Confession which I sent thee, not to prefer the friendship of a
king of the Lombards to that of the Prince of the Apostles, but to come
quickly to our aid. " Charles turned a deaf ear to this new appeal, and
both he and the Pope died not long after.
When he felt his end approaching, Charles divided the kingdom
between his sons as if he had been sole master of it. The eldest,
Carloman, received Austrasia, Alemannia and Thuringia, with the
suzerainty of Bavaria; the younger, Pepin, had for his share Neustria,
Burgundy and Provence, with the suzerainty of Aquitaine. Not long
afterwards (22 October 741), Charles died at Quierzy-sur-Oise and
was buried at St Denis. His grandson, Charles the Great, bore his
name and closely resembled him in character; he inherited his great
vigour and martial ardour, but he had a higher conception of his
## p. 131 (#163) ############################################
741-751] Pepin becomes King 131
political duty and a wider outlook upon life. In the chansons de geste
the two personages were afterwards confused.
Charles' sons, Carloman and Pepin, rendered some service to France.
They defeated Hunald duke of Aquitaine, the successor of Eudo, and
when Hunald had retired to a monastery in the lie de Rhe they defeated
his son Waifar also. They took from the Alemans the last vestiges
of their independence. They forced Odilo duke of Bavaria to give up
to them a portion of his territories—doubtless the Nordgau—and obliged
him to acknowledge their suzerainty. They made a series of incursions
into Saxony. But the two brothers were not to govern jointly for long.
In 747 came an unexpected change. Carloman, fired by religious zeal,
relinquished his throne in order to become a monk. At Rome, which
was more and more coming to be considered the capital of Western
Europe, he received the priestly vestments from Pope Zachary, and
founded on Mount Soracte a monastery dedicated to St Sylvester, a
name full of significance since at that time the legend was widely current
of the Emperor Constantine's "donation of Italy" to Pope Sylvester.
Carloman had children, whom he had committed to the care of his
brother; but Pepin gradually got them out of the way and drew all
authority into his own hands.
Pepin, now sole Mayor of the Palace, from this time forward aimed
still higher. He desired the title of king. For two years a profound
peace had reigned—et quievit terra a proeliis minis duobus, says the
chronicler, borrowing the expression from the Book of Joshua The
moment seemed propitious for the decisive step. Pepin proceeded with
great caution. He was especially desirous of securing the approval
of the highest moral authority of the age. He sent to Pope Zachary
an embassy consisting of Fulrad, abbot of St Denis, and Burchard,
bishop of Worms, a disciple of St Boniface, and laid before him a question
regarding the kings who still nominally held the royal authority. The
Pope replied that it would be better that he should be king who held
the reality of power rather than he who only possessed the semblance
of royalty. Pope Zachary gave a written decision—auctoritas—to that
effect. Armed with this authoritative pronouncement Pepin called
together at Soissons in November 751 an assembly of the Franks.
There he was unanimously chosen king; unlike the Merovingians, there-
fore, he held his throne by right of election. But besides this he had
himself, like the Anglo-Saxon kings, consecrated by the bishops, and it
may safely be conjectured that St Boniface presided at the ceremony.
In virtue of this anointing, Pepin, king by election, became also king
"by the Grace of God. " King Childeric was shut up in the monastery
of St Bertin, and the manner of his death is unknown. The Merovingian
dynasty was ended: a new period opened in the history of France.
»—2
## p. 132 (#164) ############################################
132
CHAPTER V.
GAUL UNDER THE MEROVINGIAN FRANKS.
INSTITUTIONS.
Having narrated in the previous chapter the events of the Mero-
vingian period, we have now to explain what were the institutions of
that period, to shew the nature of the constitution and organisation
of the Church and describe the various classes of society.
There is one very important general question which arises in regard
to the Merovingian institutions. According to certain historians of
the Roman school, the Roman institutions were retained after the oc-
cupation of Gaul under Clovis. The Merovingian officials, according to
these writers, answer to the former Roman officials, the Mayor of the
Palace, for instance, representing the former praepositus sacri cubiculi;
the powers of the king were those formerly exercised by the Roman
Emperor; the Germans brought no new institutions into Gaul; after much
destruction they adopted the Roman. According to other historians,
on the contrary, those who form a Germanic school, all the institutions
which we find in the Merovingian period were of Germanic origin;
they are the same as those which Tacitus describes to us in the De
Moribus Germanorum. The Teutons, they assert, not only infused into
the decaying Gallo-Roman society the new blood of a young and
vigorous stock, but also brought with them from the German forests
a whole system of institutions proper to themselves. The historians
of both these schools have fallen into exaggeration. On the one hand,
in the time of the Roman Empire, Gaul had never had a centralised ad-
ministration of its own; it was nothing but a diocese (dioecesis) governed
from Rome. And when Gaul had to provide for its own needs, it
became necessary to create a new system of central administration;
even the local administration was greatly modified by the necessity of
holding the Gallo-Roman population in check, and the number of
officials had to be increased. On the other hand, the Germanic institu-
tions which had been suitable for small tribes on the further side of the
## p. 133 (#165) ############################################
Merovingian Royalty 133
Rhine were not fitted to meet the needs of a great State like the
Frankish kingdom. A more complicated machinery became necessary.
In point of fact the Merovingian institutions form a new system
composed of elements partly Roman, partly Germanic; and the powerful
influence of Christianity must not be left out of account. These
elements were combined in varying proportions according to circumstances,
and according to the needs and even the caprices of men. Moreover
we must be careful not to think of the institutions as fixed and
unchangeable. They are in a state of continual evolution, and those
which obtained in Gaul in the time of Charles Martel are strikingly
different from those which we find in the time of Clovis. It is the
business of the historian to observe and to explain these changes.
During the whole of the Merovingian period the State is ruled by
kings. The kingly office is hereditary and the sons succeed the father
by an undisputed right. Each son inherits equally, and the kingdom
is divided up into as many parts as there are sons. Daughters, who
were excluded from possessing land, could not succeed to the kingdom.
The people never interfered in the choice of the sovereign. It was only
in rare cases that the great men elevated the king, to whom they had
given their allegiance, on the shield and carried him round the camp.
This was done by the Ripuarians when they put themselves under the
rule of Clovis, after the assassination of their king; and again by the
nobles of Chilperic's kingdom when they acknowledged Sigebert as their
sovereign. In the case of an ordinary succession there was no special
ceremony at which the king was invested with authority. Anointing
was not practised in the Merovingian period. The kings merely adopted
the custom of making, on their accession, a progress through their
dominions and imposing an oath of fidelity upon their subjects. This
is called regnum circumire. Sons who were minors were placed under
the guardianship of their nearest relative. At twelve years old they
were declared, according to the provisions of the Salic law, to be of age,
and were thenceforth supposed to govern in their own name.
The king's official title was Rex Francorum, irrespective of the
particular part of the country which he ruled. Some epithet such as
gforiosus or vir inluster was usually added. The kings were distinguished
by their long hair, and the locks of a prince who was to be deprived of
his status were shorn. Chlotar I and Childebert I asked Clotilda whether
she would rather see the hair of her grandsons, the sons of Clodomir,
cut short, or see them put to death. The lance was also a royal
emblem. Guntram presented a lance to Childebert II in token that he
recognised him as heir to his dominions. Clovis wore a diadem. All
these kings surrounded themselves with great magnificence and sat
in state upon a golden throne. When they entered a town they
threw money among the crowd, and their subjects greeted them with
acclamations in various languages. The king ruled over Franks and
## p. 134 (#166) ############################################
134 The power of the King
Gallo-Romans alike. He ruled the former by right of birth, in virtue
of having sprung from the family to which this privilege appertained; he
ruled the latter, not, as has sometimes been suggested, by a delegated
authority conferred upon Clovis by the Emperor Anastasius, but by
right of conquest. Before long, too, all distinction between Franks
and Gallo-Romans disappeared, and the king ruled all his subjects by
hereditary right. The power of the king was almost absolute. He
caused the ancient customary law of the barbarian peoples to be
formulated or revised, as in the case of the Salic law and the laws
of the Hipuarians and the Alemans. He did not of course create
law; the customs which regulate the relations of men existed prior
to the law and it would be difficult to refuse to recognise them. But
the king ordered these customs to be formulated, and gave them,
when formulated, a new authority. Further, he amended these laws,
abrogating provisions which were contrary to the spirit of Christianity
or the advance of civilisation. Alongside of the laws peculiar to each
of the races he made edicts applicable to all his subjects without
exception. The capitularies begin long before the reign of Charles
the Great; we have some which go back to the Merovingian period.
The king who makes the law is also the supreme judge. He has his
own court of justice, and all other courts derive their authority from
him. He can even, in virtue of his absolute power, transgress the
ordinary rules of justice and order persons who appear to him to be
dangerous to be put to death without trial. Childebert II, for example,
once invited one of his great men, named Magnovald, to his palace at
Metz under the pretext of shewing him some animal hunted by a pack
of hounds, and while he was standing at a window enjoying this
spectacle the king had him struck down by one of his men with an
axe. Anyone who committed a crime by order of the king was declared
immune from penalty. The king made war and peace at will, levied
taxes at his pleasure, appointed all functionaries and confirmed the
election of bishops. All the forces of the State were in his hands.
All his orders—they were known as banni—must be obeyed; the
violation of any of them was punished with the extremely heavy fine
of 60 gold solidi. All persons belonging to the king's household were
protected by a xcergeld three times as great as ordinary persons of
the same class.
Against a despotic use of this power neither the great men nor the
people possessed any remedy save that of revolt; and such revolts are
frequent in the Merovingian period. No small number of these kings
perished by the assassin's knife. One day one of his subjects told king
Guntram, " We know where the axe is which cut off the heads of thy
brothers, and its edge is still keen; ere long it shall cleave thy skull. "
At Paris, on another occasion, Guntram assembled the people in a
church and addressed them thus: "I adjure you, men and women here
## p. 135 (#167) ############################################
The Campus Martius and Campus Madius 136
present, to remain faithful to me; slay me not as ye slew my brethren.
Suffer me to live yet three years that I may bring up my nephews. If
I die you will perish also, for you will have no king strong enough to
defend you. 11 The government was thus a despotism tempered by
assassination.
At the beginning of the Merovingian period there was no council
having the right to advise the king and set limits to his power. The
assemblies which Tacitus describes disappeared after the invasions.
From time to time the great men assembled for a military expedition,
and endeavoured to impose their will upon the king. In 556 Chlotar I
led an expedition against the Saxons. They tendered their submission,
offering him successively the half of their property, their flocks,
herds and garments, and finally all they possessed. The king was
willing to accept this offer, but his warriors forced their way into his
tent and threatened to kill him if he did not lead them against the
enemy. He was obliged to yield to their insistence and met with a
severe defeat. But that is a case of violent action on the part of an
army in revolt, not of advice given by an assembly regularly consulted.
Such assemblies do not appear until the close of the Merovingian period,
and then as a new creation. The bishops always made a practice of
meeting in council, and at these meetings they passed canons which
were authoritative for all Christians. During the civil wars the great
laymen also began to meet in order to confer upon their common
interests, and the bishops took part in these assemblies also. Each of
the three kingdoms—tria regno as they are called by the chroniclers—
had therefore its assemblies of this kind. The sovereign was obliged to
reckon with them, and consulted them on general matters. Subsequently
when the Carolingians had again united the kingdom, there was only
one assembly. It was summoned regularly in the month of March and
became known as the field of March—campus martins. The great
men came thither in arms, and if war was decided on they took the field
immediately against the enemy. Before long, however, as the cavalry
had great difficulty in finding fodder in March, the assembly was
transferred, about the middle of the seventh century, to the month of
May, when there was grass for the horses in the meadows, and the
campus martius became the campus madius. Those who were summoned
to this assembly brought to the king gifts in money or in kind,
which became the principal source of revenue of the State; they tried
persons accused of high treason, and before them were promulgated the
capitularies. The assembly was thus at once an army, a council and
a legal tribunal. The Carolingians made it the most important part
of the machinery of government.
The king was aided in the work of administration by numerous
officials who both held posts in the royal household and performed ad-
ministrative functions in the State. We may mention the Referendaries
## p. 136 (#168) ############################################
136 The Mayor of the Palace
who drew up and signed diplomas in the name of the king; the Counts
of the Palace, who directed the procedure before the royal tribunal; the
Cubicularies who had charge of the treasuries in which the wealth of the
king was laid up; the Seneschals, who managed (among other things)
the royal table; the Marshals, who had constables (comites stabuli) under
their orders, and were Masters of the Horse, etc. Among these officials
the foremost place was gradually taken by the Mayor of the Palace,
whose office was peculiar to the Merovingian courts. Landed proprietors
were in the habit of putting their various domains under the charge
of majores, mayors; and a major domus, placed over these various mayors,
supervised all the estates, and all the revenues from them were paid in
to him. The Mayor of the Palace was at first the overseer of all the
royal estates, and was also charged with maintaining discipline in the
royal household. Being always in close relation with the king, he soon
acquired political functions. If the king was a minor, it was his duty
as nutrkins to watch over his education. The dukes and counts, who
came from time to time to the palace, fell under his authority, and
before long he began to send them orders when they were in their
administrative districts; and he acquired an influence in their appoint-
ment. As the whole of the administration centred in the palace he
became in the end the head of the administration. He presided over
the royal court of justice and often commanded the army. In the
struggle of the great men against the royal house one of the points for
which they contended was the right to impose upon the sovereign a
mayor of the palace of their choice; and each division of Gaul (Neustria,
Burgundy and Austrasia) desired to have its own mayor. We have seen
that a single family, descended from Arnulf and Pepin I, succeeded in
getting the office of Mayor of the Palace into their own hands and
rendered it hereditary. From 687-751 the Mayors of this family
were the real rulers of the Frankish kingdom, and in 751 it was strong
enough to seize the crown.
The court was frequented by a considerable number of persons. The
young sons of the nobles were brought up there, being " commended"
to the care of one or other of the great officials of the palace. They
there served their apprenticeship to civil or military life, and might
look forward to receiving later some important post. The officials
engaged in local administration came frequently to the palace to receive
instructions. Other great men resided there in the hope of receiving
some favour. Besides these laymen, many ecclesiastics were there to be
met with, bishops coming from their dioceses, clergy of the royal chapel,
clergy in search of a benefice. All these persons were optimates of the
king, his faithful servants, his leudes, that is to say " his people" {leute).
A distinctive position among them was held by the autrustiones, who
were the descendants of the Germanic comites. They formed the king's
body-guard, and usually ate at the royal table. They took an oath to
## p. 137 (#169) ############################################
Local Administration 137
protect the king in all circumstances. They were often sent to defend
frontier fortresses, and thus formed a kind of small standing army.
They were also charged with important missions.
The kingdom was divided into districts known as pagi. In earlier
times the pagi corresponded to the former Gallo-Roman "cities," but
in the northern part of the kingdom their number was increased. At
the head of the pagus was the count, comes—in Teutonic graf. The
king appointed the counts at his own pleasure, and could choose them
from any class of society, sometimes naming a mere freedman. Leu-
dastes, the Count of Tours who quarrelled so violently with Bishop
Gregory, had been born on an estate belonging to the royal treasury
in the island of Rhe, and had been employed as a slave first in the
kitchen, and afterwards in the bakery of King Charibert. Having run
away several times he had been marked by having his ears clipped.
Chariberfs wife had only lately freed him when the king appointed him
Count of Tours. The counts were chosen not only from all classes
of society, but from the various races of the kingdom. Among those
who are known to us there are more Gallo-Romans than Franks.
Within his district the count exercised almost every kind of authority.
He policed it, and arrested criminals; he held a court of justice, he
levied taxes and made disbursements for public purposes, paying over
the residue each year into the royal treasury; he executed all the king's
commands, and took under his protection the widow and the orphan.
He was all-powerful alike for good and ill, and unfortunately the
Merovingian counts, greedy of gain and ill-supervised, did chiefly evil:
Leudastes of Tours was no isolated exception among them. To assist
them in their numerous duties the counts appointed "vicars. " The
vicar represented the count during his frequent absences; in some cases
he administered a part of the district, while the count administered the
remainder. Before long there were several vicars to each county and
it was regularly subdivided into districts called vicariates. The
"hundred-man" (centenarius) or thunginus of the Salic law was
identified with the vicar and the terms became synonymous.
Often it was necessary to concentrate in the hands of a single ad-
ministrator authority over several counties. In this case the king placed
over the counts a duke. The duke was principally a military leader; he
commanded the army, and the counts within his jurisdiction had to
march under his orders. The duchy did not form a permanent administra-
tive district like the county; it usually disappeared along with the
circumstances that gave rise to the appointment. In certain districts
however, in Champagne, in Alsace and beyond the Jura on the shores of
the Lake of Neuchatel, there were permanent duchies. In the kingdom
of Burgundy we find the title patricius as that of an official who
governed the part of Provence which was attached to Burgundy, and
also appears to have held the chief military command in that kingdom
## p. 138 (#170) ############################################
138 Barbarian Law
The official who held the command in that part of Provence, which was
a dependency of Austrasia, bore the title of rector. These titles were
doubtless borrowed from the Ostrogoths, who were the masters of
Provence from 508 to 536.
It remains to notice the organisation of justice, finance and the army.
The races of Merovingian Gaul were not all under one law. Each race
had its own ; the principle was that the system of law varied according to
the race of the persons who were to be judged. The Gallo-Romans
continued to be judged according to the Roman law, especially the
compilation made among the Visigoths and known under the name of
the Breviarium Alarici. As it was in the region south of the Loire
that the Gallo-Romans were least mixed with barbarian elements,
it was in Aquitaine that the Roman law longest maintained its
hold. The Burgundians and the Visigoths had already their own
systems of law at the time when their kingdoms were overthrown by
the Franks, and the men of these races continued to be judged by these
laws throughout the whole of the Merovingian period. The Merovingian
kings caused the customary laws of the other barbarian peoples to be
preserved in writing. In all probability the earliest redaction of the
Salic law goes back to Clovis, and is doubtless to be placed in the last
years of his reign, after his victory over the Visigoths, 507-511. We
cannot place it earlier, for the following reasons. The Germanic peoples
did not use the Latin language until after they had become mixed with
the Gallo-Roman population; in the scale of fines the monetary system
of solidi is used, which only makes its appearance in the Merovingian
period; further, the Salic law contains imitations of the Visigothic laws
of Euric (466-484); finally, it is evident that the Franks are masters
of the Visigoths, since they provide for the case of men dwelling beyond
the Loire—trans Ligerivi—being cited before the tribunals. On the
other hand, it is not possible to place the redaction much later, since
the law is not yet leavened with the Christian spirit; only in later redac-
tions does Christian influence appear. Similarly, there are incorporated in
these later redactions capitularies emanating from the immediate successors
of Clovis. The law of the Ripuarians, even in its most ancient portions,
is later than the reign of Clovis; that of the Alemans does not appear
to be earlier than the commencement of the eighth century, or that
of the Bavarians earlier than 744-748. Other laws, like those of the
Saxons and Thuringians, were not reduced to writing until the time of
Charles the Great. These collections of laws must not be regarded as
codes. ) The subjects are not co-ordinated; there are few rules of civil
law; they are chiefly occupied with scales of fines and rules of procedure.
Justice was administered in the smaller cases by the centeniers
or vicars, in the more important by the counts. Both classes of
officials held regular courts called in Latin placita, in Germanic mall or
malberg. The sittings of these courts took place at fixed periods and
## p. 139 (#171) ############################################
Justice 139
the dates were known beforehand. The vicars and counts were assisted by
freemen known as rachimburgi or boni homines who sat with the officials,
assisted them with their counsels, and intervened in the debates, and
it was they who fixed the amount of the fines to be paid by the guilty
party. At first the rachimburgi varied in number, before long however
the presence of seven of them was requisite in order that a judgment
might be valid. The rachimburgi were notables who gave a portion of
their time to the public service; Charles the Great made a far-reaching
reform when he substituted for them regular officials trained in legal
knowledge, known as scabini. The counts also made progresses through
their districts, received petitions from their subjects and gave immediate
judgment without observing the strict rules of procedure. Above the
count's court of justice was the king's. It was held in one of the royal
villae and presided over by the king, or, later on, by the Mayor of the
Palace. The president of the court was assisted by "auditors,'" more or
less numerous according to the importance of the case; these were
bishops, counts or other great personages present at the palace. The
king could call up before his court any cases that he pleased. He judged
regularly the high officials, men placed under his mundium, cases of
treason and cases in which the royal treasury was interested. He
received appeals from the sentences delivered in the count's court. The
king's court also exercised jurisdiction in certain matters of beneficence;
before it the slave was freed by the ceremony of manumission known
as per denarium, and manned persons made mutual donation of goods.
In addition to his regular jurisdiction the king made a practice of
travelling through his realm, hearing the complaints of his subjects,
and redressing their grievances without waiting for all the delays of
legal procedure. The Merovingian legal tribunals endeavoured to
introduce some degree of order into a state of society in which
crimes were rife, and to substitute the regular action of law for private
vengeance and family feud. Unfortunately they did not succeed.
Under the Merovingian kings the system of taxation established by
the Romans gradually fell into disuse. This is not difficult to explain
when we remember that this fiscal system was extremely complicated,
and that the kings had really very little to provide for in the way
of disbursements. The officials received no salaries, but had the
enjoyment of the revenues of certain villae belonging to the royal
treasury. When they went on circuit in the service of the king,
private persons were obliged to furnish them with food, lodging and
means of transport. The army cost the king nothing, for his warriors
had to provide their own equipment. The administration of justice
was a source of revenue to the king in the shape of the confiscations
and fines imposed by the courts. His expenses were limited to the
maintenance of his court and the donations made to the great men
and the churches, and these expenses were covered by his different
## p. 140 (#172) ############################################
140 Taxation
revenues, which came chiefly from the royal domains. The kings became
possessed of numerous viUae scattered over the various districts of Gaul,
and these properties were constantly augmented by purchases, donations
and advantageous exchanges. It is true that at the close of the
Merovingian epoch the kings, in order to conciliate the great men,
distributed among them a large number of these royal estates, and the
treasury became impoverished.
In the second place, the kings levied, at least at the beginning
of the period, a number of taxes direct and indirect, which were
adaptations of the former Roman imposts. They raised customs dues
(telonea) on the goods which passed through certain towns, others on
goods passing along the high-roads, by a public bridge, or trans-
ported by river, and on goods exposed for sale in markets. But these
dues were often made over to the churches, abbeys or private persons.
Sometimes also the king levied a tax on men who were not of free
condition. This was the old capitatio humana. Those who were liable
to it were inscribed in a public register known as the polyptychum. But
this impost gradually lost its importance. The queen Bathildis, who
lived at the period when Ebroin was Mayor of the Palace, and was
herself a former Breton slave, forbade the levying of this tax, because
parents killed their children rather than pay for them. The tax became
a customary due, of which the incidence was limited to certain persons;
traces of it are found in the time of Charles the Great. Similarly the
land tax, capitatio terrena, brought in less and less. Smitten by fear of
the divine wrath Chilperic himself burned the registers in order to win
back the favour of God. The capitatio terrena came to be limited to
certain lands, as the capitatio humana was to certain persons. At the
end of the Merovingian period it became necessary to create new imposts,
and then the warriors were required to bring to the spring assembly
gifts nominally voluntary, which soon became compulsory. The minting
of coinage was in the earlier part of the period another source of
revenue. For a long time the Prankish kings confined themselves to
imitating the imperial currency; Theodebert was the first to place his
name and effigy on the gold solidi. But his example was little followed.
Down to the seventh century coinage was minted in Gaul bearing the
names of former Emperors like Anastasius, Justin and Justinian, whose
types became permanent, or of contemporary Emperors like Heraclius
(610-641). From the middle of the seventh century onward we find
no coins bearing an effigy. On one side we find simply a man's name
—that of the monetarius—on the other that of the locality. More
than 800 local names are found on the Merovingian coins. Evidently
coining had become almost entirely free again; minters, provided with
a royal authorisation, went from place to place, converting ingots
into specie. Charles the Great however resumed the exclusive right of
coining.
## p. 141 (#173) ############################################
The Army 141
The composition of the army varied during the Merovingian period.
The army of Clovis with which he conquered Gaul was an army of
barbarians, to which some Roman soldiers, encamped in the country, had
joined themselves. These Roman troops long preserved their name,
their accoutrements, their insignia. Later it seems clear that certain of
the barbarian tribes were liable to special military obligations, and in
case of military expeditions were the first to take the field. The armies
which descended from Gaul upon Italy in the sixth century were principally
composed of Burgundian warriors. The Saxons established near Bayeux,
the Taifali, whose name is found in the Poitivin district of Tiffauges,
were for long distinctly military colonies whose members took the field
at the first alarm of war. But soon the Gallo-Romans, too, find a place
in the armies. Some of them doubtless asked leave to join an expedition
which was likely to bring back spoil; thenceforward their descendants
were under obligation to render military service. Others were obliged
by the count or the duke to equip themselves, and in this way a precedent
was created which bound their descendants. Thus certain free persons,
whether Gallo-Romans or barbarians, are subject to the obligation
of military service, just as certain persons are subject to the capitatio
humana and certain lands to the capitatio terrena. These persons were
obliged to arm themselves and march whenever the king summoned
them to do so. But they were rarely all summoned at one time; the
king first called on those who lived in the neighbourhood of the scene
of war. If it was for an expedition against Germany he summoned the
fighting-men of Austrasia, for a war against Brittany he summoned the
men of Tours, Poitiers, Bayeux, Le Mans and Angers. 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.
made himself master of Burgundy also, and appointed his own Icuden
to the countships and bishoprics of that country. In Aquitaine the
duke, Eudo, who had his seat at Toulouse, exercised an independent
authority; but Charles obliged him in 719 to acknowledge, at least in
name, the suzerainty of the northern Franks. Charles had thus acquired
great power, and during some years he even governed without a king.
His official title remained the same, Mayor of the Palace, but he was
already called, even by his contemporaries, princeps or subreguhis. He
presided over the royal court of justice, issued decrees in his own name
and had the disposal of every appointment, lay and ecclesiastical; he
summoned the assembly of the great men of the kingdom, decided
questions of peace and war and held the command of the army. He was
king in fact if not in name.
Charles was now to save from a serious danger the realm which
he had reunited. The Arabs had conquered Spain in 711; in 720
they had crossed the Pyrenees and seized Septimania, which was a
## p. 129 (#161) ############################################
732-739] Battle of Tours (Poitiers) 129
dependency of the kingdom of the Visigoths. Using this as a base they
had invaded Gaul. Eudo, duke of Aquitaine, had succeeded, by his able
policy, in holding them in check for some years, but in 732 a new watt
or governor 'Abd-ar-Rahman, belonging to a sect of extreme fanatics,
resumed the offensive. Eudo was vanquished on the banks of the
Garonne, Bordeaux was taken and its churches burnt, and the Arabs
then advanced, by way of the Gap of Poitiers, towards the north. Poitiers
resisted their attack, but the basilica of St Hilary, situated outside the
walls, was burnt. Without halting, 'Abd-ar-Rahman continued his.
march on Tours, the resting-place of the body of St Martin, which was,
as it were, the religious capital of Gaul. Eudo besought the aid of
Charles, who hurried up and posted himself at the junction of the Clain
and the Vienne. The two armies halted, facing one another, for seven
days. Then, on an October Saturday of 732—exactly a hundred years
after the death of Mahomet—the battle was joined, and Charles came
off victorious. 'Abd-ar-Rahman was slain on the field. This battle
became extremely celebrated and it is chiefly on account of it that later
chronicles give to Charles the surname of Tudites or Mariettas (Charles
Martel).
The day of Poitiers marks the turning-point in the fortunes of the
Arabs. Harassed during their retirement by Eudo and his Aquitanians,
they met with defeat after defeat. But to crown all, at this moment
internal dissensions broke out within the Arab Empire. The Ma'ddites
regained the ascendancy at the expense of their enemies the Yemenites,
but the Berbers in Africa refused to obey the new rulers and rose in
revolt. The Arabs, occupied with the suppression of this rebellion, were
thenceforth unable to throw powerful armies into Gaul.
Charles proceeded to take the offensive against the Muslims. In
737 he wrested from them the town of Avignon which they had seized,
and then attempted the conquest of Septimania, but in spite of strenuous
efforts he was unable to effect the capture of Narbonne. He had to
content himself with laying waste the country systematically and
destroying the fortifications of Agde, Beziers and Maguelonne. He set
fire to the amphitheatre at Nimes, and the marks of the fire are still
visible. In 739, the Arabs having attempted a new descent on
Provence and even threatened Italy, Charles marched against them once
more and drove them out. He allied himself against them with
Lautprand, king of the Lombards, who adopted the Frankish ruler
according to the Germanic custom.
Charles also completed the subjugation of the barbarian tribes of
Germany. He abolished the duchy of Alemannia, intervened in the
affairs of Bavaria, made expeditions into Saxony and even, in 738,
compelled some of the Saxon tribes to pay tribute. He gave a
safe-conduct to Boniface who preached Christianity in Thuringia, in
Alemannia and in Bavaria, and constantly befriended the devoted
C. MED. H. VOU II. CH. IV. 9
## p. 130 (#162) ############################################
130 Embassy of Gregory III [739-741
Anglo-Saxon missionaries. Boniface, like Willibrord, went to Rome to
receive investiture, and the Pope conferred on him successively the titles
of missionary, bishop, and archbishop. It may have been Boniface who
brought the papal see into relations with the Carolingians.
The circumstances were as follows. Liutprand king of the Lombards
was anxious to impose his authority on the dukes of Spoleto and Bene-
vento and to wrest from the Byzantine Empire its last remaining
possessions in Italy. He first attacked and defeated Thrasamund, duke
of Spoleto, who thereupon took refuge at Rome. Liutprand demanded
from Pope Gregory III the surrender of Thrasamund, and on Gregory's
refusal he laid siege to the Eternal City. The Pope, in distress, sent an
embassy to Charles, consisting of the bishop Anastasius and a priest
named Sergius, to implore him to deliver the people of Rome from the
Lombard oppression. By these ambassadors he sent to Charles "the
keys of the Confession of St Peter," portions of the chains of the Prince
of the Apostles and various magnificent gifts. The " keys * were a kind
of decoration which the pontiffs were accustomed to confer on illustrious
personages, while the chains were supposed to have miraculous virtues.
This embassy impressed the imagination of contemporaries, and the
continuator of Fredegar lays much stress on it. In return for the help
which he implored Gregory III offered to renounce the imperial suzerainty
and to confer upon the Mayor of the Palace a certain authority over
Rome, with the title of Roman Consul. Gregory III seems to have had
a kind of intuition of the great historic change which was afterwards
to take place when the popes were to turn away from the Emperor of
Byzantium and attach themselves to the king of the Franks. Charles
gave the papal envoys a cordial reception (789) and showered gifts upon
the Pope, sending them by the hands of Grimo, abbot of Corbie, and
Sigebert, a monk of St Denis. But that was all. He could not take
sides against Liutprand who had been his ally against the Arabs. In
vain did Gregory write to him in 740 two imploring letters: "I adjure
thee in the name of the true and living God, and by the keys of St
Peter's Confession which I sent thee, not to prefer the friendship of a
king of the Lombards to that of the Prince of the Apostles, but to come
quickly to our aid. " Charles turned a deaf ear to this new appeal, and
both he and the Pope died not long after.
When he felt his end approaching, Charles divided the kingdom
between his sons as if he had been sole master of it. The eldest,
Carloman, received Austrasia, Alemannia and Thuringia, with the
suzerainty of Bavaria; the younger, Pepin, had for his share Neustria,
Burgundy and Provence, with the suzerainty of Aquitaine. Not long
afterwards (22 October 741), Charles died at Quierzy-sur-Oise and
was buried at St Denis. His grandson, Charles the Great, bore his
name and closely resembled him in character; he inherited his great
vigour and martial ardour, but he had a higher conception of his
## p. 131 (#163) ############################################
741-751] Pepin becomes King 131
political duty and a wider outlook upon life. In the chansons de geste
the two personages were afterwards confused.
Charles' sons, Carloman and Pepin, rendered some service to France.
They defeated Hunald duke of Aquitaine, the successor of Eudo, and
when Hunald had retired to a monastery in the lie de Rhe they defeated
his son Waifar also. They took from the Alemans the last vestiges
of their independence. They forced Odilo duke of Bavaria to give up
to them a portion of his territories—doubtless the Nordgau—and obliged
him to acknowledge their suzerainty. They made a series of incursions
into Saxony. But the two brothers were not to govern jointly for long.
In 747 came an unexpected change. Carloman, fired by religious zeal,
relinquished his throne in order to become a monk. At Rome, which
was more and more coming to be considered the capital of Western
Europe, he received the priestly vestments from Pope Zachary, and
founded on Mount Soracte a monastery dedicated to St Sylvester, a
name full of significance since at that time the legend was widely current
of the Emperor Constantine's "donation of Italy" to Pope Sylvester.
Carloman had children, whom he had committed to the care of his
brother; but Pepin gradually got them out of the way and drew all
authority into his own hands.
Pepin, now sole Mayor of the Palace, from this time forward aimed
still higher. He desired the title of king. For two years a profound
peace had reigned—et quievit terra a proeliis minis duobus, says the
chronicler, borrowing the expression from the Book of Joshua The
moment seemed propitious for the decisive step. Pepin proceeded with
great caution. He was especially desirous of securing the approval
of the highest moral authority of the age. He sent to Pope Zachary
an embassy consisting of Fulrad, abbot of St Denis, and Burchard,
bishop of Worms, a disciple of St Boniface, and laid before him a question
regarding the kings who still nominally held the royal authority. The
Pope replied that it would be better that he should be king who held
the reality of power rather than he who only possessed the semblance
of royalty. Pope Zachary gave a written decision—auctoritas—to that
effect. Armed with this authoritative pronouncement Pepin called
together at Soissons in November 751 an assembly of the Franks.
There he was unanimously chosen king; unlike the Merovingians, there-
fore, he held his throne by right of election. But besides this he had
himself, like the Anglo-Saxon kings, consecrated by the bishops, and it
may safely be conjectured that St Boniface presided at the ceremony.
In virtue of this anointing, Pepin, king by election, became also king
"by the Grace of God. " King Childeric was shut up in the monastery
of St Bertin, and the manner of his death is unknown. The Merovingian
dynasty was ended: a new period opened in the history of France.
»—2
## p. 132 (#164) ############################################
132
CHAPTER V.
GAUL UNDER THE MEROVINGIAN FRANKS.
INSTITUTIONS.
Having narrated in the previous chapter the events of the Mero-
vingian period, we have now to explain what were the institutions of
that period, to shew the nature of the constitution and organisation
of the Church and describe the various classes of society.
There is one very important general question which arises in regard
to the Merovingian institutions. According to certain historians of
the Roman school, the Roman institutions were retained after the oc-
cupation of Gaul under Clovis. The Merovingian officials, according to
these writers, answer to the former Roman officials, the Mayor of the
Palace, for instance, representing the former praepositus sacri cubiculi;
the powers of the king were those formerly exercised by the Roman
Emperor; the Germans brought no new institutions into Gaul; after much
destruction they adopted the Roman. According to other historians,
on the contrary, those who form a Germanic school, all the institutions
which we find in the Merovingian period were of Germanic origin;
they are the same as those which Tacitus describes to us in the De
Moribus Germanorum. The Teutons, they assert, not only infused into
the decaying Gallo-Roman society the new blood of a young and
vigorous stock, but also brought with them from the German forests
a whole system of institutions proper to themselves. The historians
of both these schools have fallen into exaggeration. On the one hand,
in the time of the Roman Empire, Gaul had never had a centralised ad-
ministration of its own; it was nothing but a diocese (dioecesis) governed
from Rome. And when Gaul had to provide for its own needs, it
became necessary to create a new system of central administration;
even the local administration was greatly modified by the necessity of
holding the Gallo-Roman population in check, and the number of
officials had to be increased. On the other hand, the Germanic institu-
tions which had been suitable for small tribes on the further side of the
## p. 133 (#165) ############################################
Merovingian Royalty 133
Rhine were not fitted to meet the needs of a great State like the
Frankish kingdom. A more complicated machinery became necessary.
In point of fact the Merovingian institutions form a new system
composed of elements partly Roman, partly Germanic; and the powerful
influence of Christianity must not be left out of account. These
elements were combined in varying proportions according to circumstances,
and according to the needs and even the caprices of men. Moreover
we must be careful not to think of the institutions as fixed and
unchangeable. They are in a state of continual evolution, and those
which obtained in Gaul in the time of Charles Martel are strikingly
different from those which we find in the time of Clovis. It is the
business of the historian to observe and to explain these changes.
During the whole of the Merovingian period the State is ruled by
kings. The kingly office is hereditary and the sons succeed the father
by an undisputed right. Each son inherits equally, and the kingdom
is divided up into as many parts as there are sons. Daughters, who
were excluded from possessing land, could not succeed to the kingdom.
The people never interfered in the choice of the sovereign. It was only
in rare cases that the great men elevated the king, to whom they had
given their allegiance, on the shield and carried him round the camp.
This was done by the Ripuarians when they put themselves under the
rule of Clovis, after the assassination of their king; and again by the
nobles of Chilperic's kingdom when they acknowledged Sigebert as their
sovereign. In the case of an ordinary succession there was no special
ceremony at which the king was invested with authority. Anointing
was not practised in the Merovingian period. The kings merely adopted
the custom of making, on their accession, a progress through their
dominions and imposing an oath of fidelity upon their subjects. This
is called regnum circumire. Sons who were minors were placed under
the guardianship of their nearest relative. At twelve years old they
were declared, according to the provisions of the Salic law, to be of age,
and were thenceforth supposed to govern in their own name.
The king's official title was Rex Francorum, irrespective of the
particular part of the country which he ruled. Some epithet such as
gforiosus or vir inluster was usually added. The kings were distinguished
by their long hair, and the locks of a prince who was to be deprived of
his status were shorn. Chlotar I and Childebert I asked Clotilda whether
she would rather see the hair of her grandsons, the sons of Clodomir,
cut short, or see them put to death. The lance was also a royal
emblem. Guntram presented a lance to Childebert II in token that he
recognised him as heir to his dominions. Clovis wore a diadem. All
these kings surrounded themselves with great magnificence and sat
in state upon a golden throne. When they entered a town they
threw money among the crowd, and their subjects greeted them with
acclamations in various languages. The king ruled over Franks and
## p. 134 (#166) ############################################
134 The power of the King
Gallo-Romans alike. He ruled the former by right of birth, in virtue
of having sprung from the family to which this privilege appertained; he
ruled the latter, not, as has sometimes been suggested, by a delegated
authority conferred upon Clovis by the Emperor Anastasius, but by
right of conquest. Before long, too, all distinction between Franks
and Gallo-Romans disappeared, and the king ruled all his subjects by
hereditary right. The power of the king was almost absolute. He
caused the ancient customary law of the barbarian peoples to be
formulated or revised, as in the case of the Salic law and the laws
of the Hipuarians and the Alemans. He did not of course create
law; the customs which regulate the relations of men existed prior
to the law and it would be difficult to refuse to recognise them. But
the king ordered these customs to be formulated, and gave them,
when formulated, a new authority. Further, he amended these laws,
abrogating provisions which were contrary to the spirit of Christianity
or the advance of civilisation. Alongside of the laws peculiar to each
of the races he made edicts applicable to all his subjects without
exception. The capitularies begin long before the reign of Charles
the Great; we have some which go back to the Merovingian period.
The king who makes the law is also the supreme judge. He has his
own court of justice, and all other courts derive their authority from
him. He can even, in virtue of his absolute power, transgress the
ordinary rules of justice and order persons who appear to him to be
dangerous to be put to death without trial. Childebert II, for example,
once invited one of his great men, named Magnovald, to his palace at
Metz under the pretext of shewing him some animal hunted by a pack
of hounds, and while he was standing at a window enjoying this
spectacle the king had him struck down by one of his men with an
axe. Anyone who committed a crime by order of the king was declared
immune from penalty. The king made war and peace at will, levied
taxes at his pleasure, appointed all functionaries and confirmed the
election of bishops. All the forces of the State were in his hands.
All his orders—they were known as banni—must be obeyed; the
violation of any of them was punished with the extremely heavy fine
of 60 gold solidi. All persons belonging to the king's household were
protected by a xcergeld three times as great as ordinary persons of
the same class.
Against a despotic use of this power neither the great men nor the
people possessed any remedy save that of revolt; and such revolts are
frequent in the Merovingian period. No small number of these kings
perished by the assassin's knife. One day one of his subjects told king
Guntram, " We know where the axe is which cut off the heads of thy
brothers, and its edge is still keen; ere long it shall cleave thy skull. "
At Paris, on another occasion, Guntram assembled the people in a
church and addressed them thus: "I adjure you, men and women here
## p. 135 (#167) ############################################
The Campus Martius and Campus Madius 136
present, to remain faithful to me; slay me not as ye slew my brethren.
Suffer me to live yet three years that I may bring up my nephews. If
I die you will perish also, for you will have no king strong enough to
defend you. 11 The government was thus a despotism tempered by
assassination.
At the beginning of the Merovingian period there was no council
having the right to advise the king and set limits to his power. The
assemblies which Tacitus describes disappeared after the invasions.
From time to time the great men assembled for a military expedition,
and endeavoured to impose their will upon the king. In 556 Chlotar I
led an expedition against the Saxons. They tendered their submission,
offering him successively the half of their property, their flocks,
herds and garments, and finally all they possessed. The king was
willing to accept this offer, but his warriors forced their way into his
tent and threatened to kill him if he did not lead them against the
enemy. He was obliged to yield to their insistence and met with a
severe defeat. But that is a case of violent action on the part of an
army in revolt, not of advice given by an assembly regularly consulted.
Such assemblies do not appear until the close of the Merovingian period,
and then as a new creation. The bishops always made a practice of
meeting in council, and at these meetings they passed canons which
were authoritative for all Christians. During the civil wars the great
laymen also began to meet in order to confer upon their common
interests, and the bishops took part in these assemblies also. Each of
the three kingdoms—tria regno as they are called by the chroniclers—
had therefore its assemblies of this kind. The sovereign was obliged to
reckon with them, and consulted them on general matters. Subsequently
when the Carolingians had again united the kingdom, there was only
one assembly. It was summoned regularly in the month of March and
became known as the field of March—campus martins. The great
men came thither in arms, and if war was decided on they took the field
immediately against the enemy. Before long, however, as the cavalry
had great difficulty in finding fodder in March, the assembly was
transferred, about the middle of the seventh century, to the month of
May, when there was grass for the horses in the meadows, and the
campus martius became the campus madius. Those who were summoned
to this assembly brought to the king gifts in money or in kind,
which became the principal source of revenue of the State; they tried
persons accused of high treason, and before them were promulgated the
capitularies. The assembly was thus at once an army, a council and
a legal tribunal. The Carolingians made it the most important part
of the machinery of government.
The king was aided in the work of administration by numerous
officials who both held posts in the royal household and performed ad-
ministrative functions in the State. We may mention the Referendaries
## p. 136 (#168) ############################################
136 The Mayor of the Palace
who drew up and signed diplomas in the name of the king; the Counts
of the Palace, who directed the procedure before the royal tribunal; the
Cubicularies who had charge of the treasuries in which the wealth of the
king was laid up; the Seneschals, who managed (among other things)
the royal table; the Marshals, who had constables (comites stabuli) under
their orders, and were Masters of the Horse, etc. Among these officials
the foremost place was gradually taken by the Mayor of the Palace,
whose office was peculiar to the Merovingian courts. Landed proprietors
were in the habit of putting their various domains under the charge
of majores, mayors; and a major domus, placed over these various mayors,
supervised all the estates, and all the revenues from them were paid in
to him. The Mayor of the Palace was at first the overseer of all the
royal estates, and was also charged with maintaining discipline in the
royal household. Being always in close relation with the king, he soon
acquired political functions. If the king was a minor, it was his duty
as nutrkins to watch over his education. The dukes and counts, who
came from time to time to the palace, fell under his authority, and
before long he began to send them orders when they were in their
administrative districts; and he acquired an influence in their appoint-
ment. As the whole of the administration centred in the palace he
became in the end the head of the administration. He presided over
the royal court of justice and often commanded the army. In the
struggle of the great men against the royal house one of the points for
which they contended was the right to impose upon the sovereign a
mayor of the palace of their choice; and each division of Gaul (Neustria,
Burgundy and Austrasia) desired to have its own mayor. We have seen
that a single family, descended from Arnulf and Pepin I, succeeded in
getting the office of Mayor of the Palace into their own hands and
rendered it hereditary. From 687-751 the Mayors of this family
were the real rulers of the Frankish kingdom, and in 751 it was strong
enough to seize the crown.
The court was frequented by a considerable number of persons. The
young sons of the nobles were brought up there, being " commended"
to the care of one or other of the great officials of the palace. They
there served their apprenticeship to civil or military life, and might
look forward to receiving later some important post. The officials
engaged in local administration came frequently to the palace to receive
instructions. Other great men resided there in the hope of receiving
some favour. Besides these laymen, many ecclesiastics were there to be
met with, bishops coming from their dioceses, clergy of the royal chapel,
clergy in search of a benefice. All these persons were optimates of the
king, his faithful servants, his leudes, that is to say " his people" {leute).
A distinctive position among them was held by the autrustiones, who
were the descendants of the Germanic comites. They formed the king's
body-guard, and usually ate at the royal table. They took an oath to
## p. 137 (#169) ############################################
Local Administration 137
protect the king in all circumstances. They were often sent to defend
frontier fortresses, and thus formed a kind of small standing army.
They were also charged with important missions.
The kingdom was divided into districts known as pagi. In earlier
times the pagi corresponded to the former Gallo-Roman "cities," but
in the northern part of the kingdom their number was increased. At
the head of the pagus was the count, comes—in Teutonic graf. The
king appointed the counts at his own pleasure, and could choose them
from any class of society, sometimes naming a mere freedman. Leu-
dastes, the Count of Tours who quarrelled so violently with Bishop
Gregory, had been born on an estate belonging to the royal treasury
in the island of Rhe, and had been employed as a slave first in the
kitchen, and afterwards in the bakery of King Charibert. Having run
away several times he had been marked by having his ears clipped.
Chariberfs wife had only lately freed him when the king appointed him
Count of Tours. The counts were chosen not only from all classes
of society, but from the various races of the kingdom. Among those
who are known to us there are more Gallo-Romans than Franks.
Within his district the count exercised almost every kind of authority.
He policed it, and arrested criminals; he held a court of justice, he
levied taxes and made disbursements for public purposes, paying over
the residue each year into the royal treasury; he executed all the king's
commands, and took under his protection the widow and the orphan.
He was all-powerful alike for good and ill, and unfortunately the
Merovingian counts, greedy of gain and ill-supervised, did chiefly evil:
Leudastes of Tours was no isolated exception among them. To assist
them in their numerous duties the counts appointed "vicars. " The
vicar represented the count during his frequent absences; in some cases
he administered a part of the district, while the count administered the
remainder. Before long there were several vicars to each county and
it was regularly subdivided into districts called vicariates. The
"hundred-man" (centenarius) or thunginus of the Salic law was
identified with the vicar and the terms became synonymous.
Often it was necessary to concentrate in the hands of a single ad-
ministrator authority over several counties. In this case the king placed
over the counts a duke. The duke was principally a military leader; he
commanded the army, and the counts within his jurisdiction had to
march under his orders. The duchy did not form a permanent administra-
tive district like the county; it usually disappeared along with the
circumstances that gave rise to the appointment. In certain districts
however, in Champagne, in Alsace and beyond the Jura on the shores of
the Lake of Neuchatel, there were permanent duchies. In the kingdom
of Burgundy we find the title patricius as that of an official who
governed the part of Provence which was attached to Burgundy, and
also appears to have held the chief military command in that kingdom
## p. 138 (#170) ############################################
138 Barbarian Law
The official who held the command in that part of Provence, which was
a dependency of Austrasia, bore the title of rector. These titles were
doubtless borrowed from the Ostrogoths, who were the masters of
Provence from 508 to 536.
It remains to notice the organisation of justice, finance and the army.
The races of Merovingian Gaul were not all under one law. Each race
had its own ; the principle was that the system of law varied according to
the race of the persons who were to be judged. The Gallo-Romans
continued to be judged according to the Roman law, especially the
compilation made among the Visigoths and known under the name of
the Breviarium Alarici. As it was in the region south of the Loire
that the Gallo-Romans were least mixed with barbarian elements,
it was in Aquitaine that the Roman law longest maintained its
hold. The Burgundians and the Visigoths had already their own
systems of law at the time when their kingdoms were overthrown by
the Franks, and the men of these races continued to be judged by these
laws throughout the whole of the Merovingian period. The Merovingian
kings caused the customary laws of the other barbarian peoples to be
preserved in writing. In all probability the earliest redaction of the
Salic law goes back to Clovis, and is doubtless to be placed in the last
years of his reign, after his victory over the Visigoths, 507-511. We
cannot place it earlier, for the following reasons. The Germanic peoples
did not use the Latin language until after they had become mixed with
the Gallo-Roman population; in the scale of fines the monetary system
of solidi is used, which only makes its appearance in the Merovingian
period; further, the Salic law contains imitations of the Visigothic laws
of Euric (466-484); finally, it is evident that the Franks are masters
of the Visigoths, since they provide for the case of men dwelling beyond
the Loire—trans Ligerivi—being cited before the tribunals. On the
other hand, it is not possible to place the redaction much later, since
the law is not yet leavened with the Christian spirit; only in later redac-
tions does Christian influence appear. Similarly, there are incorporated in
these later redactions capitularies emanating from the immediate successors
of Clovis. The law of the Ripuarians, even in its most ancient portions,
is later than the reign of Clovis; that of the Alemans does not appear
to be earlier than the commencement of the eighth century, or that
of the Bavarians earlier than 744-748. Other laws, like those of the
Saxons and Thuringians, were not reduced to writing until the time of
Charles the Great. These collections of laws must not be regarded as
codes. ) The subjects are not co-ordinated; there are few rules of civil
law; they are chiefly occupied with scales of fines and rules of procedure.
Justice was administered in the smaller cases by the centeniers
or vicars, in the more important by the counts. Both classes of
officials held regular courts called in Latin placita, in Germanic mall or
malberg. The sittings of these courts took place at fixed periods and
## p. 139 (#171) ############################################
Justice 139
the dates were known beforehand. The vicars and counts were assisted by
freemen known as rachimburgi or boni homines who sat with the officials,
assisted them with their counsels, and intervened in the debates, and
it was they who fixed the amount of the fines to be paid by the guilty
party. At first the rachimburgi varied in number, before long however
the presence of seven of them was requisite in order that a judgment
might be valid. The rachimburgi were notables who gave a portion of
their time to the public service; Charles the Great made a far-reaching
reform when he substituted for them regular officials trained in legal
knowledge, known as scabini. The counts also made progresses through
their districts, received petitions from their subjects and gave immediate
judgment without observing the strict rules of procedure. Above the
count's court of justice was the king's. It was held in one of the royal
villae and presided over by the king, or, later on, by the Mayor of the
Palace. The president of the court was assisted by "auditors,'" more or
less numerous according to the importance of the case; these were
bishops, counts or other great personages present at the palace. The
king could call up before his court any cases that he pleased. He judged
regularly the high officials, men placed under his mundium, cases of
treason and cases in which the royal treasury was interested. He
received appeals from the sentences delivered in the count's court. The
king's court also exercised jurisdiction in certain matters of beneficence;
before it the slave was freed by the ceremony of manumission known
as per denarium, and manned persons made mutual donation of goods.
In addition to his regular jurisdiction the king made a practice of
travelling through his realm, hearing the complaints of his subjects,
and redressing their grievances without waiting for all the delays of
legal procedure. The Merovingian legal tribunals endeavoured to
introduce some degree of order into a state of society in which
crimes were rife, and to substitute the regular action of law for private
vengeance and family feud. Unfortunately they did not succeed.
Under the Merovingian kings the system of taxation established by
the Romans gradually fell into disuse. This is not difficult to explain
when we remember that this fiscal system was extremely complicated,
and that the kings had really very little to provide for in the way
of disbursements. The officials received no salaries, but had the
enjoyment of the revenues of certain villae belonging to the royal
treasury. When they went on circuit in the service of the king,
private persons were obliged to furnish them with food, lodging and
means of transport. The army cost the king nothing, for his warriors
had to provide their own equipment. The administration of justice
was a source of revenue to the king in the shape of the confiscations
and fines imposed by the courts. His expenses were limited to the
maintenance of his court and the donations made to the great men
and the churches, and these expenses were covered by his different
## p. 140 (#172) ############################################
140 Taxation
revenues, which came chiefly from the royal domains. The kings became
possessed of numerous viUae scattered over the various districts of Gaul,
and these properties were constantly augmented by purchases, donations
and advantageous exchanges. It is true that at the close of the
Merovingian epoch the kings, in order to conciliate the great men,
distributed among them a large number of these royal estates, and the
treasury became impoverished.
In the second place, the kings levied, at least at the beginning
of the period, a number of taxes direct and indirect, which were
adaptations of the former Roman imposts. They raised customs dues
(telonea) on the goods which passed through certain towns, others on
goods passing along the high-roads, by a public bridge, or trans-
ported by river, and on goods exposed for sale in markets. But these
dues were often made over to the churches, abbeys or private persons.
Sometimes also the king levied a tax on men who were not of free
condition. This was the old capitatio humana. Those who were liable
to it were inscribed in a public register known as the polyptychum. But
this impost gradually lost its importance. The queen Bathildis, who
lived at the period when Ebroin was Mayor of the Palace, and was
herself a former Breton slave, forbade the levying of this tax, because
parents killed their children rather than pay for them. The tax became
a customary due, of which the incidence was limited to certain persons;
traces of it are found in the time of Charles the Great. Similarly the
land tax, capitatio terrena, brought in less and less. Smitten by fear of
the divine wrath Chilperic himself burned the registers in order to win
back the favour of God. The capitatio terrena came to be limited to
certain lands, as the capitatio humana was to certain persons. At the
end of the Merovingian period it became necessary to create new imposts,
and then the warriors were required to bring to the spring assembly
gifts nominally voluntary, which soon became compulsory. The minting
of coinage was in the earlier part of the period another source of
revenue. For a long time the Prankish kings confined themselves to
imitating the imperial currency; Theodebert was the first to place his
name and effigy on the gold solidi. But his example was little followed.
Down to the seventh century coinage was minted in Gaul bearing the
names of former Emperors like Anastasius, Justin and Justinian, whose
types became permanent, or of contemporary Emperors like Heraclius
(610-641). From the middle of the seventh century onward we find
no coins bearing an effigy. On one side we find simply a man's name
—that of the monetarius—on the other that of the locality. More
than 800 local names are found on the Merovingian coins. Evidently
coining had become almost entirely free again; minters, provided with
a royal authorisation, went from place to place, converting ingots
into specie. Charles the Great however resumed the exclusive right of
coining.
## p. 141 (#173) ############################################
The Army 141
The composition of the army varied during the Merovingian period.
The army of Clovis with which he conquered Gaul was an army of
barbarians, to which some Roman soldiers, encamped in the country, had
joined themselves. These Roman troops long preserved their name,
their accoutrements, their insignia. Later it seems clear that certain of
the barbarian tribes were liable to special military obligations, and in
case of military expeditions were the first to take the field. The armies
which descended from Gaul upon Italy in the sixth century were principally
composed of Burgundian warriors. The Saxons established near Bayeux,
the Taifali, whose name is found in the Poitivin district of Tiffauges,
were for long distinctly military colonies whose members took the field
at the first alarm of war. But soon the Gallo-Romans, too, find a place
in the armies. Some of them doubtless asked leave to join an expedition
which was likely to bring back spoil; thenceforward their descendants
were under obligation to render military service. Others were obliged
by the count or the duke to equip themselves, and in this way a precedent
was created which bound their descendants. Thus certain free persons,
whether Gallo-Romans or barbarians, are subject to the obligation
of military service, just as certain persons are subject to the capitatio
humana and certain lands to the capitatio terrena. These persons were
obliged to arm themselves and march whenever the king summoned
them to do so. But they were rarely all summoned at one time; the
king first called on those who lived in the neighbourhood of the scene
of war. If it was for an expedition against Germany he summoned the
fighting-men of Austrasia, for a war against Brittany he summoned the
men of Tours, Poitiers, Bayeux, Le Mans and Angers. 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.
