He wrested the power from
Plectrude
and took the title of
Mayor of the Palace in his nephew's stead.
Mayor of the Palace in his nephew's stead.
Cambridge Medieval History - v2 - Rise of the Saracens and Foundation of the Western Empire
Between these two Guntram king of Orleans
and Burgundy adopted a waiting attitude, in order to maintain the
balance of power, and giving his aid at the opportune moment to the
weaker side to prevent it from being crushed. The rivalry of the two
brothers was intensified by that of their wives, which gives to these
struggles a peculiarly ruthless character. Sigebert, whose morals were
more respectable than those of his brothers, had sent an embassy to
Toledo to the king of the Visigoths, Athanagild, to ask the hand of
his daughter Brunhild (Brunehaut) in marriage. Brunhild renounced
Arianism, professed the Trinitarian faith, and brought to her husband
a very large dowry. The marriage was celebrated at Metz with great
magnificence. The young poet Fortunatus also, who had just left his
home at Treviso, indited an epithalamium in grandiloquent lines into
which he dragged all the divinities of Olympus. The new queen was
perhaps the only person present who understood these eulogies, for she
had been brilliantly educated and spoke Latin excellently. At the half-
barbarous court of Sigebert she made a profound impression. The news
of this marriage fired Chilperic with envy. He had espoused a somewhat
insignificant woman named Audovera, and had afterwards repudiated her
in order to live in low debauchery with a serving-woman named Fredegund.
But after the marriage of Sigebert, he asked of Athanagild the hand of
the latter's eldest daughter, Galswintha. The king of the Visigoths did
not dare to refuse. Galswintha came to Soissons, and at first her husband
loved her much "because she had brought great treasures. " Before long
however he went back to his mistress, and one morning Galswintha was
found strangled in her bed. Very shortly afterwards the king married
Fredegund, and ordered the execution of his first wife Audovera. In
this way arose a bitter quarrel between Fredegund and Brunhild, the
latter burning to avenge her sister; and it may well be conceived that a
peculiarly vindictive and relentless character was thus imparted to the
civil war. Almost at the beginning of the struggle Sigebert met his
death. He had defeated Chilperic, had conquered the greater part of
his kingdom and compelled him to shut himself up in Toumai; he was
about to be raised on the shield and proclaimed king at Vitry not far
from Arras, when two slaves sent by Fredegund struck him down with
poisoned daggers (scramasaon) (575).
The actors left upon the scene, from that time forward, were Chilperic
## p. 121 (#153) ############################################
561-584] Chilperic 121
who was now to get back his kingdom, and Brunhild who, after being
held prisoner for a time, succeeded after the most romantic adventures in
escaping from Rouen and reaching Austrasia, where her son, Childebert II
(still a child), had been proclaimed king.
Chilperic is the very type of a Merovingian despot. He had two
dominant passions, ambition and greed of gold. He desired to extend his
kingdom, he wished to accumulate treasure. He ground down his people
with taxes and caused a new assessment to be made. Many of his subjects
refused to submit to this increase of taxation, preferring to leave the
country and seek an easier life elsewhere. In his capacity as judge he
imposed especially heavy fines upon the rich as a means of confiscating
their property. He was envious of the great possessions of the Church,
complaining that "Our treasury is empty, all our wealth has passed over
to the churches; the bishops alone reign, our power is gone, it has been
transferred to the bishops of the cities. '1 He therefore pronounced void
all wills made in favour of the churches, he even revoked the gifts which
his father had left to them. He sold the bishoprics to the highest bidder,
and in his reign very few of the clergy attained to the episcopate; rich
laymen purchased the priestly office and passed in one day through the
various grades of orders. He was at once avaricious and debauched,
gourmand and cruel. He delighted in low amours and he made a god
of his belly. At the foot of his edicts he inscribes this formula:
"Whosoever sets at nought our order shall have his eyes put out. "
But with all this he was a man of original ideas. He desired that,
contrary to the strict provisions of the Salic law, women should in
certain cases be allowed to inherit land. He was no less ready to
attack religious dogma than ancient custom. He did not believe that
it is necessary to distinguish three Persons in God; he scoffed at the
anthropomorphic designations, the Father and the Son, as applied to the
Deity. He issued an edict forbidding the Trinity to be named in
prayer—the name God was alone to be used. Orthography as well as
dogma must bow to his decree. He added to the alphabet four letters,
borrowed from the Greek, to represent the long o, the "voiceless" th,
the as and the w. It was not the Germanic sounds which he wished to
represent more exactly: Chilperic despised the Germanic tongue, and
his reform was intended to apply to the Latin. He directed that children
were to be taught by the new methods; in ancient manuscripts the
writing was to be erased and reinserted with the additional letters. This
barbarian king was a devoted admirer of the Roman civilisation; he com-
posed poems in the manner of Sedulius, and wrote hymns which he also
set to music. His scepticism regarding the Trinity did not prevent him
from being superstitious: he believed in portents, in relics, in sorcerers.
He fancied himself able to outwit the Deity. Having sworn, for instance,
not to enter Paris without the consent of his brothers, he broke the
compact, but to avert misfortune he had a number of the bones of various
## p. 122 (#154) ############################################
122 Brunhild in Australia [576-487
saints carried in front of his troops. He was a fantastical and violent
man, of a strange and complex character; and it is no very flagrant
calumny when Gregory of Tours calls him the Nero and the Herod of
his time. From all these characteristics it can well be imagined that the
struggle which he carried on against Brunhild and her son was fierce
and merciless.
He wrested from them a number of towns, among them Poitiers
and Tours, and it was thus that Gregory became, to his intense
disgust, the subject of this debauched monarch, with whom he was
constantly at odds. It may well be supposed that Chilperic had stirred
up much wrath and many enmities and it is not surprising that he
died by violence. One day as he was returning from Chelles where he
had been hunting, a man came close to him and stabbed him twice with
a dagger (584). Who his assassin actually was, remained unknown.
While Chilperic succeeded in imposing his authority upon the
western Franks in the territories which formed the most recent
Frankish conquests—known a little later as Neustria, from the word
niugt "the newest"—Brunhild made strenuous efforts to preserve intact
all the prerogatives of the royal power in the eastern region, Austrasia.
Exceedingly ambitious, eager to secure her authority by every possible
means, it was she who in the name of her son Childebert II (575-596)
actually held the reins of power. The great men of the kingdom
threw themselves into an embittered struggle against her. Supported
by Chilperic and Neustria they refused to give obedience to a woman
and a foreigner. Ursio, Bertefried, Guntram-Boso and duke Rauching
placed themselves at their head and attacked the adherents of the royal
house, chief among whom was Lupus of Champagne. Brunhild tried in
vain to separate the combatants; the rebels answered brutally, "Woman,
get you gone, let it suffice you to have ruled during your husband's life-
time; now it is your son who reigns and it is not under your protection
but under ours that the kingdom is placed. Get you hence, or we shall
trample you under the hoofs of our horses. '" By vigorous action, how-
ever, the queen succeeded in re-establishing order. She formed an alliance
with Guntram king of Burgundy, who at Pompierre adopted his nephew
Childebert and recognised him as his heir (577). The pact was renewed
ten years later at Andelot (28 November 587). Brunhild got rid of
the most turbulent of her nobles by the aid of the assassin's knife;
and she suppressed the revolt of Gundobald, a bastard son of Chlotar I,
whom the nobles had brought back from Constantinople to set up in
opposition to Guntram and Childebert. Besieged in the little town of
Comminges situated in a valley of the Pyrenees, Gundobald was forced to
surrender, and a Frankish count dashed out his brains with a great stone
(585). Finally Brunhild besieged Ursio and Bertefried in a strong castle'
in Woevre. The former perished in the flames of the burning castle;
the latter took refuge at Verdun in the chapel of the bishop Agericus,
## p. 123 (#155) ############################################
584-613] Death of Brunhild 123
but the soldiers tore up the roofing and killed him with the tiles (587).
Thus, thanks to the inflexible determination of Brunhild, the Austrasian
aristocracy was vanquished. The queen also succeeded in baffling all
the plots devised against her and Childebert II by Fredegund, who since
584 had governed Neustria in the name of her infant son Chlotar II.
She succeeded so well that when Guntram died on 28 March 593,
Childebert was able to enter upon his heritage without the slightest
opposition. And when Childebert in turn was carried oft' by disease
while still young, Brunhild's authority was uncontested. Childeberfs
two sons Theodebert and Theodoric divided his kingdom between them,
the former taking Austrasia, and the latter, Burgundy. In reality their
grandmother Brunhild continued to rule in their name. Her authority
extended over both Austrasia and Burgundy and she imposed the same
measures upon both countries. The aristocracy, lay and ecclesiastical,
were obliged to conform to her laws. Regarding the royal authority
as a trust on behalf of her grandsons, she was determined on leaving it
to them intact. She had the satisfaction of seeing her rival Fredegund
die in 597; and her grandsons on several occasions defeated Chlotar II,
who lost the greater part of his territories.
But the great nobles of Austrasia rose in wrath against her, and
Theodebert himself repudiated her tutelage. The incensed Brunhild
withdrew to Burgundy, where she continued to rule. There she broke
down all resistance, had the patrician Egila put to death, exiled Didier,
bishop of Vienne, nominated her followers to every post of emolument,
and levied the taxes with the utmost rigour. But she knew that the
Burgundian rebels were encouraged by those of Austrasia. It was in
Austrasia that she must strike the decisive blow, and in her thirst for
power she did not hesitate to set Theodoric against Theodebert and so
to provoke a fratricidal struggle. The king of Austrasia was defeated
on the banks of the Moselle, in the neighbourhood of Toul, taken to
Zulpich and there put to death. Brunhild was now triumphant, but
just in the moment of her triumph her grandson Theodoric died (613)
in his palace of Metz, at the age of twenty-seven. Breaking with the
Merovingian tradition of dividing the kingdom, Brunhild caused the
eldest son to be declared sole king, in the hope of reigning in his name.
But all the living forces of Austrasia banded themselves together to
oppose her ambition. Arnulf, bishop of Metz, and Pepin, the two
founders of the Carolingian family, appealed to Chlotar II the son of
Fredegund. Brunhild made a magnificent effort to stand up against
the storm, but she found herself deserted on all hands, and was taken
prisoner on the shores of the Lake of Neuchatel. Her great-grandsons
were killed, or at any rate disappear from history. Brunhild herself
was tortured for three days, set upon a camel as a mark of derision,
and then tied by her hair, one arm, and one foot, to the tail of a vicious
horse, which was then lashed to fury.
## p. 124 (#156) ############################################
I
124 Chlotar II sole King [eu-629
Brunhild is undoubtedly the most forceful figure of this period,
and it would be a gross injustice to put her on the same footing with
Fredegund. It is true she was exceedingly ambitious and eager for
power, but she attempted by means of this power to carry out a policy.
She upheld with unrivalled energy the rights of the king against the
aristocracy. She treated the Church with firmness but with respect,
made gifts to the bishoprics and built a number of abbeys. She entered
into relations with Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) who addressed
to her a large number of letters, sent her relics, and requested her to
take under her protection the estates of the Church of Rome which lay
in Gaul. He urged her to reform the Frankish Church, to call councils
and to protect Augustine and his companions who were going across the
Channel to carry the Gospel to the pagan Anglo-Saxons. But while
maintaining these relations Brunhild knew how to control the Frankish
Church, as she did the lay aristocracy. She disposed of the episcopal
sees at her pleasure, and expelled from his monastery of Luxeuil the
abbot Columbanus who had refused to obey her orders. In short in all
her conduct Brunhild displayed the qualities of a great statesman.
After Brunhild's death Chlotar II found himself, as Clovis had
done before him, sole master of the whole of Gaul. But how different
are the two periods! Clovis had been strong in his recent victories,
victories due to his own courage and political ability. Chlotar II owed
his success not to himself but to the treason of the Austrasian and
Burgundian nobles, whom he was consequently obliged to conciliate.
In his constitution of 18 October 614, as well as in a praeceptio of
which the date is unknown, he had to make large concessions to the
aristocracy. He proclaimed, under certain restrictions, freedom of
episcopal elections, extended the competence of the ecclesiastical courts,
and promised to respect wills made by private persons in favour of
the Church. V He suppressed unjust taxes and pledged himself to choose
the counts from the districts they were to administer, which was equiva-
lent to making over this important office to the landed aristocracy.
Moreover Chlotar was forced to accord a measure of independence to
Austrasia and Burgundy; each of these countries had its own Mayor
of the Palace, who was as much the representative of the interests of
the local nobles as of those of the king. In 623 he was even obliged
to give the Austrasians a king in his young son Dagobert. In the
latter's name, Arnulf, bishop of Metz, and Pepin, the Mayor of the
Palace, exercised the actual authority. Thus ancient Gaul became once
more distinctly divided into three kingdoms: Neustria, Burgundy and
Austrasia, having each a distinct character and a separate administra-
tion. ' Already within these kingdoms the local officials, strong in
the possession of vast estates, were endeavouring to usurp the royal
prerogatives: already these three kingdoms were being parcelled out
into seigniories.
## p. 125 (#157) ############################################
629-639] Reign of Dagobert 125
Chlotar IPs son Dagobert (629-639), however, was still a king in
something more than name. Although he had a brother Charibert he
succeeded in reigning alone over the whole Frankish kingdom. He even
subjected it to the authority of a single Mayor of the Palace, by name
Aega. He made royal progresses through Austrasia, through Neustria
and through Burgundy, sitting in judgment each day, and doing strict
justice without respect of persons. In Aquitaine he left to his brother
Charibert the administration of the counties of Toulouse, Cahors, Agen,
Perigueux and Saintes, thus making him a kind of warden of the marches
on the Basque frontier. But on the death of Charibert in 632, he took
over the government of this district also—and up to about 670 Aquitaine
remained under the rule of the Frankish kings. After that date it
broke away, and the local nobles founded independent dynasties.
Dagobert caused many estates which had been usurped by the
seigniors and the Church to be restored to the royal domain. He kept
up a luxurious court, which gave, it must be said, anything but a good
example in regard to morals. He was a patron of the arts and took
great delight in the rich examples of goldsmith's work produced by his
treasurer Eligius (Eloi), whom he afterwards appointed bishop of Noyon.
Many abbeys were founded in his reign. There was a revival of missionary
activity, too, and St Amandus preached the Gospel to the Basques in
the south and to the inhabitants of Flanders and Hainault in the north.
Throughout the whole of the kingdom the royal authority was para-
mount. The duke of the Basques came to court to swear allegiance,
and Judicael, chief of the Doinnonce, was seen at the royal residence at
Clichy. Dagobert intervened not unsuccessfully in the affairs of the
Visigoths in Spain, and in those of the Lombards in Italy. He had
also relations with the Empire of Constantinople, taking an oath of
perpetual peace with Heraclius in 631; and the two rulers took
concerted action against the Bulgarian and Slavonic tribes who raided
by turns the Byzantine Empire and the regions of Germany which were
under the suzerainty of the Franks. Towards the close of his life,
in 634, Dagobert was obliged to give to the Austrasians a king of their
own in the person of his eldest son Sigebert. Ansegis, son of Arnulf
and of a daughter of Pepin, was appointed Mayor of the Palace and
governed in the name of this child in conjunction with Cunibert, bishop
of Cologne. In spite of this, when Dagobert died (19 January 639),
in his villa at Epinay, men held him to have been a very great prince.
And his fame was to grow still greater owing to the contrast between
his reign and the period which followed it.
This new period, which extends from 639 to 751, is marked by the
lamentable decadence of the Merovingian race. It is with justice that
the sovereigns who then reigned are known as the rois JavrUarUs. It
was a dynasty of children; they died at the age of 23, 24 or 25, worn
out by precocious debauchery. They were fathers at sixteen, fifteen and
## p. 126 (#158) ############################################
126 The faineant Kings [639-751
even at fourteen years, and their children were miserable weaklings. As
kings they had only the semblance of power; they remained shut up in
their villae surrounded by great luxury. Only at long intervals did
they go forth, in chariots drawn by oxen. The real authority was
thenceforth exercised by the Mayor of the Palace, or by the different
mayors who were at the head of the three kingdoms, Neustria, Burgundy
and Austrasia, whose separateness became more clearly marked. The
mayors made and unmade the kings as interest or caprice prompted;
sometimes they exiled them, only to recall them later. Apocryphal
Merovingians were often produced who had no connexion with the
sacred race. It is useless to make any further reference to these
sovereigns, who were nothing but shadows and whose names serve only
to date charters. The historian must direct his attention exclusively to
the Mayors of the Palace.
Among these mayors the most distinguished were those of Austrasia.
They were to make the office hereditary in their family and to found
a powerful dynasty which was destined gradually to supplant the
Merovingians. The two founders of that dynasty were, as has already
been said, Arnulf, bishop of Metz, and Pepin, who had been Mayor
of the Palace to the youthful Dagobert when the latter was king
of Austrasia only. Both were men of distinguished piety. Arnulf
ruled the city of Metz wisely and effected important reforms in the
Church. Pepin destined his daughters for the cloister; one of them,
Gertrude, founded the abbey of Nivelle in the district now known as
Brabant. In this neighbourhood is situated the estate of Landen;
whence the designation "of Landen" by which Pepin is distinguished
in later documents. Arnulf s son Ansegis, who was Mayor of the Palace
to the young Sigebert, married a daughter of Pepin whom the chronicles
later call Begga; of this marriage was born the second Pepin, known to
historians as Pepin of Heristal. -
At first however it seemed probable that the chief representative of
the family would be Pepin of Landen's own son Grimoald. For thirteen
years, from 643 to 656, he held the office of Mayor of the Palace in
Austrasia, while Sigebert continued to bear the title of king. On the
death of that prince Grimoald considered himself strong enough to
attempt a revolution. He had the locks of Dagobert, the young son
of Sigebert, shorn, sent him to an Irish monastery, and had his own
son proclaimed king of Austrasia. But the times were not yet ripe for
a change of this kind. The Austrasian nobles refused to obey a youth
who was not of the blood royal. They rose in revolt and gave up the.
Mayor of the Palace to the king of Neustria, Clovis II, who had him
put to death.
After this tragic event the families of Arnulf and Pepin remained in
the background for about twenty-five years. The stage of politics was
occupied by two men named Ebroin and Leodegar (Leger) who engaged
## p. 127 (#159) ############################################
670-637] Battle of Tertry 127
in a desperate rivalry. Ebroin, Mayor of the Palace in Neustria, was
intent on maintaining, for his own advantage, the unity of the Frankish
kingdom and exercising a commanding influence in Austrasia and
Burgundy as well as in Neustria. His schemes failed first in Austrasia
where he had to acknowledge a king and a Mayor of the Palace,
Wulfoald by name. In Burgundy Leodegar, bishop of Autun, placed
himself at the head of the nobles. He was at first successful and
shut up his rival in the monastery of Luxeuil (670). The principle
was accepted that each country was to keep its own laws and customs,
that no official was to be sent from one country to another, that no one
should aspire to absolute power, and that the post of Mayor of the
Palace should be held by each of the great men in turn. But Ebroin
was to take a signal vengeance. Escaping from Luxeuil, he besieged
Leodegar in Autun, and captured the town and the bishop with it. After
the lapse of a considerable time he caused the prelate to be put to
death. The Church revered Leodegar as a saint, and many monasteries
were dedicated to him. Ebroin remained master of Burgundy and
Neustria until at length, in 681, he fell by the dagger of an assassin.
But in the later portion of his life Ebroin had encountered an
obstinate resistance in Austrasia; and now the second Pepin appears
upon the scene. In Austrasia his authority was almost absolute, and
after the death of Ebroin he kept himself fully informed regarding the
affairs of Neustria and plotted against the successive Mayors of the
Palace in that country. Finally he took the field against the mayor
Berthar, and gained a decisive victory over him at Tertry on the
Omignon in the neighbourhood of St Quentin (687). Many historians
have represented this battle as a victory of the Germans of the east over
the Gallo-Romans of the west and have seen in Pepin IPs expedition
something in the nature of a second Germanic invasion. But in point
of fact there were many Germans in Neustria, while a large part of
Austrasia was occupied by Gallo-Romans. In its capital, Metz, the
Latin tongue—now in process of transformation-into the lingua Ro-
mano—was alone spoken. The victory of Pepin over Berthar is rather
a victory of the aristocracy over the Merovingian royal house; and in
fact Pepin was to find many supporters among the Neustrian nobles.
Pepin, having won the victory, now proceeded to set up again, for
his own advantage, the power which he had overthrown; in fact,
this battle marks the fall of the Merovingians and the real accession
of the new dynasty, which, from its most illustrious representative,
Charles the Great, was to be known as the Carolingian. Some chronicles
have this entry: "In the year 687 Pepin began to reign. '"
The reign of Pepin over this Merovingian kingdom which he had
succeeded in reuniting was not lacking in brilliance. He defeated the
Frisians, dispossessed them of a portion of their territory, and caused
Christianity to be preached among them. In this last work he found
CH. IV.
## p. 128 (#160) ############################################
128 Charles Martel Mayor of the Palace [714-741
a valuable auxiliary in the Anglo-Saxon Willibrord. Born on the banks
of the Humber, Willibrord had gone to Rome to have his mission
sanctioned by Pope Sergius I; for the Anglo-Saxons, who had been
converted to Christianity by the missionaries of Pope Gregory I, shewed
their gratitude by attaching to the papal see the barbarian peoples
whom they evangelised. Willibrord founded the see of Utrecht and
pointed out the way which Boniface was to follow later on. Pepin also
wished to make the Germans on the right bank of the Rhine, who
during the recent period of anarchy had cast off their allegiance,
recognise again the suzerainty of the Franks. He subjugated the
Alemans, and he established once more a member of the noble family
of the Agilolfings in the duchy of Bavaria. It was at this period
that the church of Salzburg was founded by St Rupert; and about the
same time Kilian preached the Gospel in Franconia on the banks of the
Main. Pepin protected all these missionaries and cherished the project
of assembling councils to reform the Church. From 687 till his death
in 714 Pepin II was undisputed master of the whole of Gaul, with the
exception of Aquitaine, which alone maintained an independent position.
Pepin II had appointed one grandson (Theodebald) as Mayor of the
Palace in Neustria, two others (Arnulf and Hugo)—all under the
regency of his widow Plectrude—in Austrasia. But the great men
refused to fall in with this arrangement and there ensued a period of
anarchy. Charles, an illegitimate son of Pepin, restored order, and was
the real executor of his father's policy. His name signifies valiant,
bold, ahd as the continuator of Fredegar remarks, the name fitted the
man.
He wrested the power from Plectrude and took the title of
Mayor of the Palace in his nephew's stead. He defeated the Neustrians
at Ambleve near Liege (716), at Vincy near Cambrai (717), and again
at Soissons, in 719, and forced them to recognise his authority. 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.
and Burgundy adopted a waiting attitude, in order to maintain the
balance of power, and giving his aid at the opportune moment to the
weaker side to prevent it from being crushed. The rivalry of the two
brothers was intensified by that of their wives, which gives to these
struggles a peculiarly ruthless character. Sigebert, whose morals were
more respectable than those of his brothers, had sent an embassy to
Toledo to the king of the Visigoths, Athanagild, to ask the hand of
his daughter Brunhild (Brunehaut) in marriage. Brunhild renounced
Arianism, professed the Trinitarian faith, and brought to her husband
a very large dowry. The marriage was celebrated at Metz with great
magnificence. The young poet Fortunatus also, who had just left his
home at Treviso, indited an epithalamium in grandiloquent lines into
which he dragged all the divinities of Olympus. The new queen was
perhaps the only person present who understood these eulogies, for she
had been brilliantly educated and spoke Latin excellently. At the half-
barbarous court of Sigebert she made a profound impression. The news
of this marriage fired Chilperic with envy. He had espoused a somewhat
insignificant woman named Audovera, and had afterwards repudiated her
in order to live in low debauchery with a serving-woman named Fredegund.
But after the marriage of Sigebert, he asked of Athanagild the hand of
the latter's eldest daughter, Galswintha. The king of the Visigoths did
not dare to refuse. Galswintha came to Soissons, and at first her husband
loved her much "because she had brought great treasures. " Before long
however he went back to his mistress, and one morning Galswintha was
found strangled in her bed. Very shortly afterwards the king married
Fredegund, and ordered the execution of his first wife Audovera. In
this way arose a bitter quarrel between Fredegund and Brunhild, the
latter burning to avenge her sister; and it may well be conceived that a
peculiarly vindictive and relentless character was thus imparted to the
civil war. Almost at the beginning of the struggle Sigebert met his
death. He had defeated Chilperic, had conquered the greater part of
his kingdom and compelled him to shut himself up in Toumai; he was
about to be raised on the shield and proclaimed king at Vitry not far
from Arras, when two slaves sent by Fredegund struck him down with
poisoned daggers (scramasaon) (575).
The actors left upon the scene, from that time forward, were Chilperic
## p. 121 (#153) ############################################
561-584] Chilperic 121
who was now to get back his kingdom, and Brunhild who, after being
held prisoner for a time, succeeded after the most romantic adventures in
escaping from Rouen and reaching Austrasia, where her son, Childebert II
(still a child), had been proclaimed king.
Chilperic is the very type of a Merovingian despot. He had two
dominant passions, ambition and greed of gold. He desired to extend his
kingdom, he wished to accumulate treasure. He ground down his people
with taxes and caused a new assessment to be made. Many of his subjects
refused to submit to this increase of taxation, preferring to leave the
country and seek an easier life elsewhere. In his capacity as judge he
imposed especially heavy fines upon the rich as a means of confiscating
their property. He was envious of the great possessions of the Church,
complaining that "Our treasury is empty, all our wealth has passed over
to the churches; the bishops alone reign, our power is gone, it has been
transferred to the bishops of the cities. '1 He therefore pronounced void
all wills made in favour of the churches, he even revoked the gifts which
his father had left to them. He sold the bishoprics to the highest bidder,
and in his reign very few of the clergy attained to the episcopate; rich
laymen purchased the priestly office and passed in one day through the
various grades of orders. He was at once avaricious and debauched,
gourmand and cruel. He delighted in low amours and he made a god
of his belly. At the foot of his edicts he inscribes this formula:
"Whosoever sets at nought our order shall have his eyes put out. "
But with all this he was a man of original ideas. He desired that,
contrary to the strict provisions of the Salic law, women should in
certain cases be allowed to inherit land. He was no less ready to
attack religious dogma than ancient custom. He did not believe that
it is necessary to distinguish three Persons in God; he scoffed at the
anthropomorphic designations, the Father and the Son, as applied to the
Deity. He issued an edict forbidding the Trinity to be named in
prayer—the name God was alone to be used. Orthography as well as
dogma must bow to his decree. He added to the alphabet four letters,
borrowed from the Greek, to represent the long o, the "voiceless" th,
the as and the w. It was not the Germanic sounds which he wished to
represent more exactly: Chilperic despised the Germanic tongue, and
his reform was intended to apply to the Latin. He directed that children
were to be taught by the new methods; in ancient manuscripts the
writing was to be erased and reinserted with the additional letters. This
barbarian king was a devoted admirer of the Roman civilisation; he com-
posed poems in the manner of Sedulius, and wrote hymns which he also
set to music. His scepticism regarding the Trinity did not prevent him
from being superstitious: he believed in portents, in relics, in sorcerers.
He fancied himself able to outwit the Deity. Having sworn, for instance,
not to enter Paris without the consent of his brothers, he broke the
compact, but to avert misfortune he had a number of the bones of various
## p. 122 (#154) ############################################
122 Brunhild in Australia [576-487
saints carried in front of his troops. He was a fantastical and violent
man, of a strange and complex character; and it is no very flagrant
calumny when Gregory of Tours calls him the Nero and the Herod of
his time. From all these characteristics it can well be imagined that the
struggle which he carried on against Brunhild and her son was fierce
and merciless.
He wrested from them a number of towns, among them Poitiers
and Tours, and it was thus that Gregory became, to his intense
disgust, the subject of this debauched monarch, with whom he was
constantly at odds. It may well be supposed that Chilperic had stirred
up much wrath and many enmities and it is not surprising that he
died by violence. One day as he was returning from Chelles where he
had been hunting, a man came close to him and stabbed him twice with
a dagger (584). Who his assassin actually was, remained unknown.
While Chilperic succeeded in imposing his authority upon the
western Franks in the territories which formed the most recent
Frankish conquests—known a little later as Neustria, from the word
niugt "the newest"—Brunhild made strenuous efforts to preserve intact
all the prerogatives of the royal power in the eastern region, Austrasia.
Exceedingly ambitious, eager to secure her authority by every possible
means, it was she who in the name of her son Childebert II (575-596)
actually held the reins of power. The great men of the kingdom
threw themselves into an embittered struggle against her. Supported
by Chilperic and Neustria they refused to give obedience to a woman
and a foreigner. Ursio, Bertefried, Guntram-Boso and duke Rauching
placed themselves at their head and attacked the adherents of the royal
house, chief among whom was Lupus of Champagne. Brunhild tried in
vain to separate the combatants; the rebels answered brutally, "Woman,
get you gone, let it suffice you to have ruled during your husband's life-
time; now it is your son who reigns and it is not under your protection
but under ours that the kingdom is placed. Get you hence, or we shall
trample you under the hoofs of our horses. '" By vigorous action, how-
ever, the queen succeeded in re-establishing order. She formed an alliance
with Guntram king of Burgundy, who at Pompierre adopted his nephew
Childebert and recognised him as his heir (577). The pact was renewed
ten years later at Andelot (28 November 587). Brunhild got rid of
the most turbulent of her nobles by the aid of the assassin's knife;
and she suppressed the revolt of Gundobald, a bastard son of Chlotar I,
whom the nobles had brought back from Constantinople to set up in
opposition to Guntram and Childebert. Besieged in the little town of
Comminges situated in a valley of the Pyrenees, Gundobald was forced to
surrender, and a Frankish count dashed out his brains with a great stone
(585). Finally Brunhild besieged Ursio and Bertefried in a strong castle'
in Woevre. The former perished in the flames of the burning castle;
the latter took refuge at Verdun in the chapel of the bishop Agericus,
## p. 123 (#155) ############################################
584-613] Death of Brunhild 123
but the soldiers tore up the roofing and killed him with the tiles (587).
Thus, thanks to the inflexible determination of Brunhild, the Austrasian
aristocracy was vanquished. The queen also succeeded in baffling all
the plots devised against her and Childebert II by Fredegund, who since
584 had governed Neustria in the name of her infant son Chlotar II.
She succeeded so well that when Guntram died on 28 March 593,
Childebert was able to enter upon his heritage without the slightest
opposition. And when Childebert in turn was carried oft' by disease
while still young, Brunhild's authority was uncontested. Childeberfs
two sons Theodebert and Theodoric divided his kingdom between them,
the former taking Austrasia, and the latter, Burgundy. In reality their
grandmother Brunhild continued to rule in their name. Her authority
extended over both Austrasia and Burgundy and she imposed the same
measures upon both countries. The aristocracy, lay and ecclesiastical,
were obliged to conform to her laws. Regarding the royal authority
as a trust on behalf of her grandsons, she was determined on leaving it
to them intact. She had the satisfaction of seeing her rival Fredegund
die in 597; and her grandsons on several occasions defeated Chlotar II,
who lost the greater part of his territories.
But the great nobles of Austrasia rose in wrath against her, and
Theodebert himself repudiated her tutelage. The incensed Brunhild
withdrew to Burgundy, where she continued to rule. There she broke
down all resistance, had the patrician Egila put to death, exiled Didier,
bishop of Vienne, nominated her followers to every post of emolument,
and levied the taxes with the utmost rigour. But she knew that the
Burgundian rebels were encouraged by those of Austrasia. It was in
Austrasia that she must strike the decisive blow, and in her thirst for
power she did not hesitate to set Theodoric against Theodebert and so
to provoke a fratricidal struggle. The king of Austrasia was defeated
on the banks of the Moselle, in the neighbourhood of Toul, taken to
Zulpich and there put to death. Brunhild was now triumphant, but
just in the moment of her triumph her grandson Theodoric died (613)
in his palace of Metz, at the age of twenty-seven. Breaking with the
Merovingian tradition of dividing the kingdom, Brunhild caused the
eldest son to be declared sole king, in the hope of reigning in his name.
But all the living forces of Austrasia banded themselves together to
oppose her ambition. Arnulf, bishop of Metz, and Pepin, the two
founders of the Carolingian family, appealed to Chlotar II the son of
Fredegund. Brunhild made a magnificent effort to stand up against
the storm, but she found herself deserted on all hands, and was taken
prisoner on the shores of the Lake of Neuchatel. Her great-grandsons
were killed, or at any rate disappear from history. Brunhild herself
was tortured for three days, set upon a camel as a mark of derision,
and then tied by her hair, one arm, and one foot, to the tail of a vicious
horse, which was then lashed to fury.
## p. 124 (#156) ############################################
I
124 Chlotar II sole King [eu-629
Brunhild is undoubtedly the most forceful figure of this period,
and it would be a gross injustice to put her on the same footing with
Fredegund. It is true she was exceedingly ambitious and eager for
power, but she attempted by means of this power to carry out a policy.
She upheld with unrivalled energy the rights of the king against the
aristocracy. She treated the Church with firmness but with respect,
made gifts to the bishoprics and built a number of abbeys. She entered
into relations with Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) who addressed
to her a large number of letters, sent her relics, and requested her to
take under her protection the estates of the Church of Rome which lay
in Gaul. He urged her to reform the Frankish Church, to call councils
and to protect Augustine and his companions who were going across the
Channel to carry the Gospel to the pagan Anglo-Saxons. But while
maintaining these relations Brunhild knew how to control the Frankish
Church, as she did the lay aristocracy. She disposed of the episcopal
sees at her pleasure, and expelled from his monastery of Luxeuil the
abbot Columbanus who had refused to obey her orders. In short in all
her conduct Brunhild displayed the qualities of a great statesman.
After Brunhild's death Chlotar II found himself, as Clovis had
done before him, sole master of the whole of Gaul. But how different
are the two periods! Clovis had been strong in his recent victories,
victories due to his own courage and political ability. Chlotar II owed
his success not to himself but to the treason of the Austrasian and
Burgundian nobles, whom he was consequently obliged to conciliate.
In his constitution of 18 October 614, as well as in a praeceptio of
which the date is unknown, he had to make large concessions to the
aristocracy. He proclaimed, under certain restrictions, freedom of
episcopal elections, extended the competence of the ecclesiastical courts,
and promised to respect wills made by private persons in favour of
the Church. V He suppressed unjust taxes and pledged himself to choose
the counts from the districts they were to administer, which was equiva-
lent to making over this important office to the landed aristocracy.
Moreover Chlotar was forced to accord a measure of independence to
Austrasia and Burgundy; each of these countries had its own Mayor
of the Palace, who was as much the representative of the interests of
the local nobles as of those of the king. In 623 he was even obliged
to give the Austrasians a king in his young son Dagobert. In the
latter's name, Arnulf, bishop of Metz, and Pepin, the Mayor of the
Palace, exercised the actual authority. Thus ancient Gaul became once
more distinctly divided into three kingdoms: Neustria, Burgundy and
Austrasia, having each a distinct character and a separate administra-
tion. ' Already within these kingdoms the local officials, strong in
the possession of vast estates, were endeavouring to usurp the royal
prerogatives: already these three kingdoms were being parcelled out
into seigniories.
## p. 125 (#157) ############################################
629-639] Reign of Dagobert 125
Chlotar IPs son Dagobert (629-639), however, was still a king in
something more than name. Although he had a brother Charibert he
succeeded in reigning alone over the whole Frankish kingdom. He even
subjected it to the authority of a single Mayor of the Palace, by name
Aega. He made royal progresses through Austrasia, through Neustria
and through Burgundy, sitting in judgment each day, and doing strict
justice without respect of persons. In Aquitaine he left to his brother
Charibert the administration of the counties of Toulouse, Cahors, Agen,
Perigueux and Saintes, thus making him a kind of warden of the marches
on the Basque frontier. But on the death of Charibert in 632, he took
over the government of this district also—and up to about 670 Aquitaine
remained under the rule of the Frankish kings. After that date it
broke away, and the local nobles founded independent dynasties.
Dagobert caused many estates which had been usurped by the
seigniors and the Church to be restored to the royal domain. He kept
up a luxurious court, which gave, it must be said, anything but a good
example in regard to morals. He was a patron of the arts and took
great delight in the rich examples of goldsmith's work produced by his
treasurer Eligius (Eloi), whom he afterwards appointed bishop of Noyon.
Many abbeys were founded in his reign. There was a revival of missionary
activity, too, and St Amandus preached the Gospel to the Basques in
the south and to the inhabitants of Flanders and Hainault in the north.
Throughout the whole of the kingdom the royal authority was para-
mount. The duke of the Basques came to court to swear allegiance,
and Judicael, chief of the Doinnonce, was seen at the royal residence at
Clichy. Dagobert intervened not unsuccessfully in the affairs of the
Visigoths in Spain, and in those of the Lombards in Italy. He had
also relations with the Empire of Constantinople, taking an oath of
perpetual peace with Heraclius in 631; and the two rulers took
concerted action against the Bulgarian and Slavonic tribes who raided
by turns the Byzantine Empire and the regions of Germany which were
under the suzerainty of the Franks. Towards the close of his life,
in 634, Dagobert was obliged to give to the Austrasians a king of their
own in the person of his eldest son Sigebert. Ansegis, son of Arnulf
and of a daughter of Pepin, was appointed Mayor of the Palace and
governed in the name of this child in conjunction with Cunibert, bishop
of Cologne. In spite of this, when Dagobert died (19 January 639),
in his villa at Epinay, men held him to have been a very great prince.
And his fame was to grow still greater owing to the contrast between
his reign and the period which followed it.
This new period, which extends from 639 to 751, is marked by the
lamentable decadence of the Merovingian race. It is with justice that
the sovereigns who then reigned are known as the rois JavrUarUs. It
was a dynasty of children; they died at the age of 23, 24 or 25, worn
out by precocious debauchery. They were fathers at sixteen, fifteen and
## p. 126 (#158) ############################################
126 The faineant Kings [639-751
even at fourteen years, and their children were miserable weaklings. As
kings they had only the semblance of power; they remained shut up in
their villae surrounded by great luxury. Only at long intervals did
they go forth, in chariots drawn by oxen. The real authority was
thenceforth exercised by the Mayor of the Palace, or by the different
mayors who were at the head of the three kingdoms, Neustria, Burgundy
and Austrasia, whose separateness became more clearly marked. The
mayors made and unmade the kings as interest or caprice prompted;
sometimes they exiled them, only to recall them later. Apocryphal
Merovingians were often produced who had no connexion with the
sacred race. It is useless to make any further reference to these
sovereigns, who were nothing but shadows and whose names serve only
to date charters. The historian must direct his attention exclusively to
the Mayors of the Palace.
Among these mayors the most distinguished were those of Austrasia.
They were to make the office hereditary in their family and to found
a powerful dynasty which was destined gradually to supplant the
Merovingians. The two founders of that dynasty were, as has already
been said, Arnulf, bishop of Metz, and Pepin, who had been Mayor
of the Palace to the youthful Dagobert when the latter was king
of Austrasia only. Both were men of distinguished piety. Arnulf
ruled the city of Metz wisely and effected important reforms in the
Church. Pepin destined his daughters for the cloister; one of them,
Gertrude, founded the abbey of Nivelle in the district now known as
Brabant. In this neighbourhood is situated the estate of Landen;
whence the designation "of Landen" by which Pepin is distinguished
in later documents. Arnulf s son Ansegis, who was Mayor of the Palace
to the young Sigebert, married a daughter of Pepin whom the chronicles
later call Begga; of this marriage was born the second Pepin, known to
historians as Pepin of Heristal. -
At first however it seemed probable that the chief representative of
the family would be Pepin of Landen's own son Grimoald. For thirteen
years, from 643 to 656, he held the office of Mayor of the Palace in
Austrasia, while Sigebert continued to bear the title of king. On the
death of that prince Grimoald considered himself strong enough to
attempt a revolution. He had the locks of Dagobert, the young son
of Sigebert, shorn, sent him to an Irish monastery, and had his own
son proclaimed king of Austrasia. But the times were not yet ripe for
a change of this kind. The Austrasian nobles refused to obey a youth
who was not of the blood royal. They rose in revolt and gave up the.
Mayor of the Palace to the king of Neustria, Clovis II, who had him
put to death.
After this tragic event the families of Arnulf and Pepin remained in
the background for about twenty-five years. The stage of politics was
occupied by two men named Ebroin and Leodegar (Leger) who engaged
## p. 127 (#159) ############################################
670-637] Battle of Tertry 127
in a desperate rivalry. Ebroin, Mayor of the Palace in Neustria, was
intent on maintaining, for his own advantage, the unity of the Frankish
kingdom and exercising a commanding influence in Austrasia and
Burgundy as well as in Neustria. His schemes failed first in Austrasia
where he had to acknowledge a king and a Mayor of the Palace,
Wulfoald by name. In Burgundy Leodegar, bishop of Autun, placed
himself at the head of the nobles. He was at first successful and
shut up his rival in the monastery of Luxeuil (670). The principle
was accepted that each country was to keep its own laws and customs,
that no official was to be sent from one country to another, that no one
should aspire to absolute power, and that the post of Mayor of the
Palace should be held by each of the great men in turn. But Ebroin
was to take a signal vengeance. Escaping from Luxeuil, he besieged
Leodegar in Autun, and captured the town and the bishop with it. After
the lapse of a considerable time he caused the prelate to be put to
death. The Church revered Leodegar as a saint, and many monasteries
were dedicated to him. Ebroin remained master of Burgundy and
Neustria until at length, in 681, he fell by the dagger of an assassin.
But in the later portion of his life Ebroin had encountered an
obstinate resistance in Austrasia; and now the second Pepin appears
upon the scene. In Austrasia his authority was almost absolute, and
after the death of Ebroin he kept himself fully informed regarding the
affairs of Neustria and plotted against the successive Mayors of the
Palace in that country. Finally he took the field against the mayor
Berthar, and gained a decisive victory over him at Tertry on the
Omignon in the neighbourhood of St Quentin (687). Many historians
have represented this battle as a victory of the Germans of the east over
the Gallo-Romans of the west and have seen in Pepin IPs expedition
something in the nature of a second Germanic invasion. But in point
of fact there were many Germans in Neustria, while a large part of
Austrasia was occupied by Gallo-Romans. In its capital, Metz, the
Latin tongue—now in process of transformation-into the lingua Ro-
mano—was alone spoken. The victory of Pepin over Berthar is rather
a victory of the aristocracy over the Merovingian royal house; and in
fact Pepin was to find many supporters among the Neustrian nobles.
Pepin, having won the victory, now proceeded to set up again, for
his own advantage, the power which he had overthrown; in fact,
this battle marks the fall of the Merovingians and the real accession
of the new dynasty, which, from its most illustrious representative,
Charles the Great, was to be known as the Carolingian. Some chronicles
have this entry: "In the year 687 Pepin began to reign. '"
The reign of Pepin over this Merovingian kingdom which he had
succeeded in reuniting was not lacking in brilliance. He defeated the
Frisians, dispossessed them of a portion of their territory, and caused
Christianity to be preached among them. In this last work he found
CH. IV.
## p. 128 (#160) ############################################
128 Charles Martel Mayor of the Palace [714-741
a valuable auxiliary in the Anglo-Saxon Willibrord. Born on the banks
of the Humber, Willibrord had gone to Rome to have his mission
sanctioned by Pope Sergius I; for the Anglo-Saxons, who had been
converted to Christianity by the missionaries of Pope Gregory I, shewed
their gratitude by attaching to the papal see the barbarian peoples
whom they evangelised. Willibrord founded the see of Utrecht and
pointed out the way which Boniface was to follow later on. Pepin also
wished to make the Germans on the right bank of the Rhine, who
during the recent period of anarchy had cast off their allegiance,
recognise again the suzerainty of the Franks. He subjugated the
Alemans, and he established once more a member of the noble family
of the Agilolfings in the duchy of Bavaria. It was at this period
that the church of Salzburg was founded by St Rupert; and about the
same time Kilian preached the Gospel in Franconia on the banks of the
Main. Pepin protected all these missionaries and cherished the project
of assembling councils to reform the Church. From 687 till his death
in 714 Pepin II was undisputed master of the whole of Gaul, with the
exception of Aquitaine, which alone maintained an independent position.
Pepin II had appointed one grandson (Theodebald) as Mayor of the
Palace in Neustria, two others (Arnulf and Hugo)—all under the
regency of his widow Plectrude—in Austrasia. But the great men
refused to fall in with this arrangement and there ensued a period of
anarchy. Charles, an illegitimate son of Pepin, restored order, and was
the real executor of his father's policy. His name signifies valiant,
bold, ahd as the continuator of Fredegar remarks, the name fitted the
man.
He wrested the power from Plectrude and took the title of
Mayor of the Palace in his nephew's stead. He defeated the Neustrians
at Ambleve near Liege (716), at Vincy near Cambrai (717), and again
at Soissons, in 719, and forced them to recognise his authority. 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.
