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GAUL UNDER THE MEROVINGIAN FRANKS
INSTITUTIONS
HAVING narrated in the previous chapter the events of
the Merovingian period, we have now to explain what were the institutions of that
period, to show 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 occupation
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 administration 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 institutions which had been suitable for small tribes
on the further side of the 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 gloriosus 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
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
Campus Martius and Campus Madius
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 regna 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
martius. 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
Mayor of the Palace
The king was aided in the work of administration by
numerous officials who both held posts in the royal household and performed administrative
functions in the State. We may mention the Referendaries 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 under their order, 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 nutricius 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 appointment. As the whole of the administration centred in
the palace he became in the end the head of the administration. He presided
over the royal court of justice and often commanded the army. In the struggle
of the great men against the royal house one of the points for which they
contended was the right to impose upon the sovereign a mayor of the palace of
their choice; and each division of Gaul (Neustria, Burgundy, and Austrasia)
desired to have its own mayor. We have seen that a single family, descended
from Arnulf and Pepin I, succeeded in getting the office of Mayor of the Palace
into their own hands and rendered it hereditary. From 687-751, the Mayors of
this family were the real rulers of the Frankish kingdom, and in 751 it was
strong enough to seize the crown.
The court was frequented by a considerable number of
persons. The young sons of the nobles were brought up there, being
"commended" to the care of one or other of the great officials of the
palace. They there served their apprenticeship to civil or military life, and
might look forward to receiving later some important post. The officials engaged
in local administration came frequently to the palace to receive instructions.
Other great men resided there in the hope of receiving some favour. Besides
these laymen, many ecclesiastics were there to be met with, bishops coming from
their dioceses, clergy of the royal chapel, clergy in search of a benefice. All
these persons were optimates of the king, his faithful servants, his leudes, that
is to say "his people" (leute). A distinctive position among them was
held by the autrustiones, who were the descendants of the Germanic comites. They
formed the king's body-guard, and usually ate at the royal table. They took an
oath to protect the king in all circumstances. They were often sent to defend frontier
fortresses, and thus formed a kind of small standing army. They were also
charged with important missions.
The kingdom was divided into districts known as pagi. In earlier times the pagi corresponded to the former Gallo-Roman "cities," but in the northern part of the kingdom their number was increased. At the head of the pagus was the count. The king appointed the counts at his own pleasure, and could choose them from any class of society, sometimes naming a mere freedman. Leudastes, the Count of Tours who quarrelled so violently with Bishop Gregory, had been born on an estate belonging to the royal treasury in the island of Rhe, and had been employed as a slave first in the kitchen, and afterwards in the bakery of King Charibert. Having run away several times he had been marked by having his ears clipped. Charibert's wife had only lately freed him when the king appointed him Count of Tours.
The counts were chosen not only from all classes of society,
but from the various races of the kingdom. Among those who are known to us
there are more Gallo-Romans than Franks. Within his district the count
exercised almost every kind of authority. He policed it, and arrested criminals; he held a court of justice, he levied taxes and made disbursements for public
purposes, paying over the residue each year into the royal treasury; he
executed all the king's commands, and took under his protection the widow and
the orphan. He was all-powerful alike for good and ill, and unfortunately the Merovingian
counts, greedy of gain and ill-supervised, did chiefly evil: Leudastes of
Tours was no isolated exception among them. To assist them in their numerous
duties the counts appointed "vicars." The vicar represented the
count during his frequent absences; in some cases he administered a part of
the district, while the count administered the remainder. Before long there
were several vicars to each county and it was regularly subdivided into
districts called vicariates. The "hundred-man" (centenarius) or thunginus
of the Salic law was identified with the vicar and the terms became synonymous.
Often it was necessary to concentrate in the hands of a single administrator authority over several counties. In this case the king placed over the counts a duke. The duke was principally a military leader; he commanded the army, and the counts within his jurisdiction had to march under his orders. The duchy did not form a permanent administrative district like the county; it usually disappeared along with the circumstances that gave rise to the appointment. In certain districts however, in Champagne, in Alsace; and beyond the Jura on the shores of the Lake of Neuchatel, there were permanent duchies. In the kingdom of Burgundy we find the title patricius as that of an official who governed the part of Provence which was attached to Burgundy, and also appears to have held the chief military command in that kingdom.
Barbarian
Law
The official who held the command in that part of Provence, which was a
dependency of Austrasia, bore the title of rector. These titles were doubtless
borrowed from the Ostrogoths, who were the masters of Provence from 508 to 536.
It remains to notice the organisation of justice,
finance, and the army. The races of Merovingian Gaul were not all under one
law. Each race had its own; the principle was that the system of law varied
according to the race of the persons who were to be judged. The Gallo-Romans
continued to be judged according to the Roman law, especially the compilation
made among the Visigoths and known under the name of the Breviarium Alarici. As
it was in the region south of the Loire that the Gallo-Romans were least mixed
with barbarian elements, it was in Aquitaine that the Roman law longest
maintained its hold. The Burgundians and the Visigoths had already their own systems
of law at the time when their kingdoms were overthrown by the Franks, and the
men of these races continued to be judged by these laws throughout the whole of
the Merovingian period. The Merovingian kings caused the customary laws of the
other barbarian peoples to be preserved in writing. In all probability the
earliest redaction of the Salic law goes back to Clovis, and is doubtless to be
placed in the last years of his reign, after his victory over the Visigoths,
507-511. We cannot place it earlier, for the following reasons. The Germanic
peoples did not use the Latin language until after they had become mixed with the
Gallo-Roman population; in the scale of fines the monetary system of solidi is
used, which only makes its appearance in the Merovingian period; further, the
Salic law contains imitations of the Visigothic laws of Euric (466-484); finally,
it is evident that the Franks are masters of the Visigoths, since they provide
for the case of men dwelling beyond the Loire being cited
before the tribunals. On the other hand, it is not possible to place the
redaction much later, since the law is not yet leavened with the Christian
spirit; only in later redactions does Christian influence appear. Similarly,
there are incorporated in these later redactions capitularies emanating from
the immediate successors of Clovis. The law of the Ripuarians, even in its most
ancient portions, is later than the reign of Clovis; that of the Alemans does
not appear to be earlier than the commencement of the eighth century, or that of
the Bavarians earlier than 744-748. Other laws, like those of the Saxons and
Thuringians, were not reduced to writing until the time of Charles the Great.
These collections of laws must not be regarded as codes. The subjects are not
co-ordinated; there are few rules of civil law; they are chiefly occupied
with scales of fines and rules of procedure.
Justice was administered in the smaller cases by the
centeniers or vicars, in the more important by the counts. Both classes of officials
held regular courts called in Latin placita, in Germanic mall or malberg. The
sittings of these courts took place at fixed periods and the dates were known beforehand. The vicars and counts
were assisted by freemen known as rachimburgi or boni homines who sat with the
officials, assisted them with their counsels, and intervened in the debates,
and it was they who fixed the amount of the fines to be paid by the guilty party.
At first the rachimburgi varied in number, before long however the presence of
seven of them was requisite in order that a judgment might be valid. The rachimburgi
were notables who gave a portion of their time to the public service; Charles
the Great made a far-reaching reform when he substituted for them regular
officials trained in legal knowledge, known as scabini. The counts also made
progresses through their districts, received petitions from their subjects, and
gave immediate judgment without observing the strict rules of procedure. Above
the count's court of justice was the king's. It was held in one of the royal villae
and presided over by the king, or, later on, by the Mayor of the Palace. The
president of the court was assisted by "auditors," more or less
numerous according to the importance of the case; these were bishops, counts,
or other great personages present at the palace. The king could call up before
his court any cases that he pleased. He judged regularly the high officials,
men placed under his mundium, cases of treason, and cases in which the royal
treasury was interested. He received appeals from the sentences delivered in
the count's court. The king's court also exercised jurisdiction in certain
matters of beneficence; before it the slave was freed by the ceremony of
manumission known as per denarium, and married persons made mutual donation of
goods. In addition to his regular jurisdiction the king made a practice of
travelling through his realm, hearing the complaints of his subjects, and
redressing their grievances without waiting for all the delays of legal
procedure. The Merovingian legal tribunals endeavoured to introduce some degree
of order into a state of society in which crimes were rife, and to substitute
the regular action of law for private vengeance and family feud. Unfortunately
they did not succeed.
Under the Merovingian kings the system of taxation
established by the Romans gradually fell into disuse. This is not difficult to
explain when we remember that this fiscal system was extremely complicated, and
that the kings had really very little to provide for in the way of
disbursements. The officials received no salaries, but had the enjoyment of the
revenues of certain villae belonging to the royal treasury. When they went on
circuit in the service of the king, private persons were obliged to furnish
them with food, lodging, and means of transport. The army cost the king
nothing, for his warriors had to provide their own equipment. The
administration of justice was a source of revenue to the king in the shape of
the confiscations and fines imposed by the courts. His expenses were limited to
the maintenance of his court and the donations made to the great men and the
churches, and these expenses were covered by his different
revenues, which came chiefly from the royal domains. The kings became possessed
of numerous villae scattered over the various districts of Gaul, and these
properties were constantly augmented by purchases, donations, and advantageous
exchanges. It is true that at the close of the Merovingian epoch the kings, in
order to conciliate the great men, distributed among them a large number of these
royal estates, and the treasury became impoverished.
In the second place, the kings levied, at least at the
beginning of the period, a number of taxes direct and indirect, which were
adaptations of the former Roman imposts. They raised customs dues (telonea) on
the goods which passed through certain towns, others on goods passing along the
high-roads, by a public bridge, or transported by river, and on goods exposed
for sale in market. But these dues were often made over to the churches,
abbeys, or private persons. Sometimes also the king levied a tax on men who
were not of free condition. This was the old capitatio humana. Those who were
liable to it were inscribed in a public register known as the polyptychum. But this
impost gradually lost its importance. The queen Bathildis, who lived at the
period when Ebroin was Mayor of the Palace, and was herself a former Breton
slave, forbade the levying of this tax, because parents killed their children
rather than pay for them. The tax became a customary due, of which the
incidence was limited to certain persons; traces of it are found in the time
of Charles the Great. Similarly the land tax, capitatio terrena, brought in
less and less. Smitten by fear of the divine wrath Chilperic himself burned
the registers in order to win back the favour of God. The capitatio terrena came
to be limited to certain lands, as the capitatio humana was to certain persons.
At the end of the Merovingian period it became necessary to create new imposts,
and then the warriors were required to bring to the spring assembly gifts
nominally voluntary, which soon became compulsory. The minting of coinage was
in the earlier part of the period another source of revenue. For a long time
the Frankish kings confined themselves to imitating the imperial currency;
Theodebert was the first to place his name and effigy on the gold solidi. But
his example was little followed. Down to the seventh century coinage was minted
in Gaul bearing the names of former Emperors like Anastasius, Justin, and Justinian,
whose types became permanent, or of contemporary Emperors like Heraclius (610-641).
From the middle of the seventh century onward we find no coins bearing an
effigy. On one side we find simply a man's name —that of the monetarius — on the
other that of the locality. More than 800 local names are found on the
Merovingian coins. Evidently coining had become almost entirely free again;
minters, provided with a royal authorisation, went from place to place,
converting ingots into specie. Charles the Great however resumed the exclusive
right of coining.
The Army
The composition of the army varied during the
Merovingian period. The army of Clovis with which he conquered Gaul was an army
of barbarians, to which some Roman soldiers, encamped in the country, had joined
themselves. These Roman troops long preserved their name, their accoutrements,
their insignia. Later it seems clear that certain of the barbarian tribes were
liable to special military obligations, and in case of military expeditions were
the first to take the field. The armies which descended from Gaul upon Italy in
the sixth century were principally composed of Burgundian warriors. The Saxons
established near Bayeux, the Taifali, whose name is found in the Poitivin
district of Tiffauges, were for long distinctly military colonies whose members
took the field at the first alarm of war. But soon the Gallo-Romans, too, find
a place in the armies. Some of them doubtless asked leave to join an expedition
which was likely to bring back spoil; thenceforward their descendants were
under obligation to render military service. Others were obliged by the count
or the duke to equip themselves, and in this way a precedent was created which
bound their descendants. Thus certain free persons, whether Gallo-Romans or
barbarians, are subject to the obligation of military service, just as certain
persons are subject to the capitatio humana and certain lands to the capitatio
terrena. These persons were obliged to arm themselves and march whenever the
king summoned them to do so. But they were rarely all summoned at one time;
the king first called on those who lived in the neighbourhood of the scene of
war. If it was for an expedition against Germany he summoned the fighting-men
of Austrasia, for a war against Brittany he summoned the men of Tours,
Poitiers, Bayeux, Le Mans, and Angers. All the men thus mustered served at
their own expense and remained on campaign all summer; in winter they
returned to their homes, to be recalled, if need were, the following spring.
Charles the Great made a great reform in the military organisation. He based
the obligation to military service upon property, the principle being that
everyone who possessed a certain number of mansi was obliged to serve. The
number varied from year to year according to the number of fighting-men
required.
We thus see how these institutions were incessantly
transformed by the influence of circumstances and by human action. Roman and
Germanic elements were combined in them in various proportions, and new
elements were added to them. The Merovingian institutions thus came to form a
new system; and from them arise by a series of transformations the
institutions of Charles the Great.
Organisation
of the Church
Only the Church, which connects itself with the Gallo-Roman Church, presents an appearance of greater fixity, since the Church claims to hold always the same dogmas and to be founded on stable principles. Nevertheless even the Church underwent an evolution along with the society which it endeavoured to guide. We shall give our attention successively to the secular Church and the religious Orders.
No one could become a member of the secular clergy without the permission
of the king. Anyone who desired the clerical office must also give certain
guarantees of his moral fitness. His conduct must be upright and pure, and he
must possess a certain amount of education. To have married a second time, or
to have married a widow, debarred a man from the clerical office, and those who
were married must break off all relations with their wives. Clerics were
distinguished from laymen by their tonsure, they wore a special costume, the habitus
clericalis, and they were judged according to the Roman Law. Each cleric was attached
to a special church, which he ought not to leave without the written permission
of his bishop; the councils impose the severest penalties upon priests
wandering at large (gyrovagi).
The chief of the clergy was the bishop, who was placed
over a diocese — parochia, as it was called in the Merovingian period. Theoretically
there were as many bishops as there had been civitates in Roman Gaul, but the
principle was not rigorously carried out. A number of the small cities
mentioned in the Notitia Galliarum, had no bishop in the Merovingian period,
for their territory was united to that of a neighbouring city. This was the
case in regard to the civitas Rigomagensium (Thorame) and the civitas
Salinensium (Castellane) in the province of the Alpes Maritimae. On the other
hand some of the cities were divided up. St Remigius established a bishopric at
Laon which was not a Gallo-Roman city. Similarly a bishopric was created at
Nevers. Out of the civitas of Nimes were carved the bishoprics of Uzes, Agde,
and Maguelonne; out of Narbonne that of Carcassonne; out of Nyons that of
Belley. This creation of new bishoprics was due to the progress of
Christianity. Certain bishoprics which the Merovingian kings created in order
to make the boundaries of the dioceses coincide with those of their share of
the kingdom — such as that of Melun, formed out of that of Sens, and of
Chateaudun, formed out of that of Chartres — had only a transient existence.
Theoretically the bishops were elected by the clergy
and people of the city. The election took place in the cathedral, under the
presidency of the metropolitan or of a bishop of the province; the faithful
acclaimed the candidate of their choice, who immediately took possession of the
episcopal chair. But under the Merovingians it is observable that the kings
acquire little by little an influence in the elections. The sovereign made
known his choice to the electors; in many cases he directly designated the
prelate. He might, of course, choose the man most worthy of the post, but
usually he was content to be bribed. "At this time," says Gregory of
Tours, "that seed of iniquity began to bear fruit that the episcopal
office was sold by the kings or bought by the clerics." In face of these
pretentious of the monarchy the first councils of the Merovingian period, those
of 533 and 538, did not fail to assert the ancient canonical rights. Before
long however the bishops saw that they
must take things as they were and make the best of them. They were
prepared to recognise the intervention of the king as legitimate, while insisting
that the king should not sell the episcopate and should observe the canonical
regulations. "None shall buy the episcopal dignity for money," runs
the pronouncement of the Fifth Council of Orleans, of 549; "the bishop
shall, with the king's consent and according to the choice of the clergy and
the people, be consecrated by the metropolitan and the other bishops of the
province." These principles were recalled at the famous council of 614,
but without the mention of the king: "On the decease of a bishop there
shall be appointed in his place whoever shall have been elected by the
metropolitan, the bishops of the province, and the clergy and people of the
city, without hindrance and without gift of money." Chlotar II in the
edict confirming these canons modified the tenor of this article. While
recognising the right of election of the persons interested, he maintained the
right of intervention of the prince. "If the elected person is worthy, he
shall be consecrated, upon the order of the prince." From that time
forward the established procedure was as follows. On the death of a prelate the
citizens and the people of the civitas assemble, under the presidency of the
metropolitan and the other bishops of the province. They choose the successor
and make known to the king the act of election — consensus civium pro
episcopatu. If the king approves, he transmits to the metropolitan the order to
consecrate the bishop-elect, and invites the other bishops of the province to
be present at the ceremony. If he is dissatisfied with the election, he requests
the electors to choose another candidate, and sometimes he himself nominates
him.
The power of the bishop was very great. All the clergy
of the diocese were under his control, and in the episcopal city a certain number
of clerics lived in the bishop's house and ate at his table. Chrodegang, bishop
of Metz, laid down about the middle of the eighth century a very strict rule
for these clergy, requiring them to live as a community: this was the origin
of secular canons. Throughout the whole diocese the bishop reserved to himself
certain religious functions. He alone had power to consecrate altars and
churches, to bless the holy oils, to confirm the young and to ordain clergy. All
other functions he delegated to the archpriests, whose appointment was either
made or sanctioned by him. Only these archpriests had the right to baptise, and
at the great festivals they alone had the right to say mass. The district under
the authority of the archpriest soon came to be considered as a smaller parochia
within the larger parochia. The archpriests were generally placed in the vici, the
large country-towns. Under them were the clerics who served the oratories of
the villae; these clerics were presented by the proprietors of the villae for
institution by the bishop. The bishop was assisted in his work by an archdeacon
who exercised oversight among the clergy and judged contentions arising among them. It was the bishop, too, who
administered Church property, and this property was of large extent. Never were
donations to the Church more abundant than in the Merovingian period. The
benefactors of the Church were, first, the bishops themselves; Bertramn of
Mans left to his see thirty-five estates. Then there were the kings, who hoped
to atone for their crimes by pious donations, and rich laymen who to provide
for the salvation of their souls despoiled their heirs. All property acquired by
the Church was, according to the canons of the councils, inalienable. The
Church always received and never gave back. In addition to landed property, the
Church received from the kings certain financial privileges, such as exemption
from customs-dues and market-tax. Often, too, the sovereign made over to the
Church the right to levy dues at specified places. Further, since Moses had
granted to the tribe of Levi, that is to say to the priests, the right of
levying tithes upon the fruits of the earth and the increase of the cattle, the
Merovingian Church claimed a similar contribution, and threatened with excommunication
anyone who should fail to pay it. The tithe was generally paid by the faithful,
but it was not made obligatory by the State. It only acquired that character in
the time of Charles the Great. All this property was theoretically in the
charge of the bishop of the diocese. He was required to divide it into four
parts, one for the maintenance of the bishop and his household, one for the
payment of the clergy of his diocese, one for the poor, and one for the
building and repair of churches. Little by little, however, property became
attached to secondary parishes and even to mere oratories.
The bishop had great influence within his city as well
as in the State. In the city he acted as an administrator and carried out works
of public utility. Sidonius of Mainz built an embankment along the Rhine, Felix
of Nantes straightened the course of the Loire, Didier of Cahors constructed
aqueducts. The bishop thus took the place of the former municipal magistrates,
whose office had died out; he received the town to govern (ad gubernandum), by
the end of the Merovingian period certain cities are already episcopal cities.
The bishop maintains the cause of his parishioners before the officials of the
State, and even before the king himself; he obtains for them alleviation of
imposts and all kinds of favours. The bishops' protection was especially
extended to a class of persons who formed as it were their clientage — widows, orphans,
the poor, slaves, and captives. The poor of the city were formed into a
regularly organised body, their names were inscribed on the registers of the
Church, and they were known as the matricularii.
The bishops and the clergy in general enjoyed
important legal privileges. From 614 onwards the clergy could only be judged on
criminal charges by their bishops; the bishops themselves could only be cited
before councils of the Church. But, still more important, laymen were glad to make the bishop the arbiter of their differences; they
knew that they would find in him a judge more just and better instructed than
the count. The Church could also give protection to malefactors; the criminal,
once he had crossed the sacred threshold, could not be torn thence; it was
commonly believed that frightful chastisements had smitten those who attempted
to violate the rights of sanctuary.
It would be easy to show how grossly immoral was the
Frankish race — the history of Gregory of Tours is filled with the record of horrible
crimes — but at the same time they were profoundly credulous and superstitious.
On Sundays, at the sound of the bells, they rushed in crowds to the churches.
They frequently received the communion, and it was a terrible punishment to be
deprived of it. Apart from the Church services the Franks were constantly at
prayer. They believed not only in God but in the saints, whom they continually invoked,
and they believed in their intervention in the affairs of this world. They were
eager to procure relics, which had healing power. The Church had in its control
sacraments, religion, healing virtue, and the bishop held the first place in
the Church; he was felt to be invested with supernatural power, and the
faithful held him in awe.
Above the bishop was the metropolitan. With a few rare
exceptions, the metropolitan had his seat at the chief town of the Roman province.
In the course of the fifth century, the province of Vienne was cut in two:
there was one metropolitan at Vienne, another at Arles. The latter annexed to
his jurisdiction the provinces of the Alpes Maritimae (Embrun) and of
Narbonensis II (Aix). Thenceforward twelve metropolitan sees were
distinguished: Vienne, Arles, Treves, Rheims, Lyons (to which was united
Besancon), Rouen, Tours, Sens, Bourges, Bordeaux, Eauze and Narbonne. The
metropolitan had the right to convoke provincial councils, and presided at
them. He exercised a certain oversight over the bishops of the province, and it
was to him that it naturally fell to act as judge among them. His title was
simply that of bishop: the title archbishop does not appear until quite the
end of the Merovingian period. The authority of the metropolitans was
subordinate to that of the Frankish Church as a whole, which had as its organs
the national councils. These councils were always convoked by the king, who
exercised much influence in their deliberations. We have the cannons of
numerous councils held between 511 and 614, which give us a mass of information
regarding ecclesiastical organisation and discipline. These canons are not much
concerned with doctrine ; they recall the clergy to their duties, safeguard
the property of the churches against the covetousness of laymen, and censure
pagan customs such as augury and sortes sanctorum.
Relations with the Papacy
The Frankish Church honoured the Papacy and regarded
the bishop of Rome as the successor of St. Peter, but the Papacy had no effective
power over this Church, except perhaps in the province of Arles. Reading the
work of Gregory of Tours, which is so full of life and reflects so exactly the
passions and ideas of the time, we do not find that the Pope plays any part in
the narrative. The bishops are appointed without his intervention and they
govern their churches without entering into relations with him. At the end of
the sixth century, as we saw earlier, Gregory the Great maintained an active
correspondence with Brunhild. He gives her advice, and his advice was, without doubt,
listened to with respect. The pope takes no direct action, but he urges the
queen to act. It is not difficult to see however that he was quite ready to
supersede Brunhild in the task of directing the Frankish Church; he would like
to make Candidus, who was the administrator of the papal patrimony in Provence,
a kind of legate beyond the Alps. There can be no doubt that Gregory I, had he
lived, would have succeeded by his able policy in re-establishing in Gaul the
papal authority as it had been exercised by Leo I before the fall of the Empire.
But after the death of Gregory in 604 relations between Rome and the Franks
became very rare for more than a century. There are only one or two instances
of such relations to which we can point. Pope Martin I (649-655), for example,
requested the sons of Dagobert to assemble councils in order to combat the
Monothelete heresy, which was supported by the Byzantine Emperors. Relations were
not effectively resumed until the eighth century, but they were then to have an
immense influence upon general history.
We have already seen how, in their opposition to the
Emperors of Constantinople, the popes sought the aid of the Mayors of the
Palace, and how this alliance was concluded. We have also noticed, in passing, how
Boniface brought under the authority of the Holy See the Germanic races whom he
converted to the Christian faith. But, besides this, with the aid of Carloman
and Pepin (after 739), Boniface accomplished another task. After the death of Dagobert
the Frankish Church had fallen into profound decadence, and Charles Martel had
sunk it still lower by conferring bishoprics and abbeys on rude and ignorant
laymen. These bishops and abbots never wore clerical vestments, but always
sword and baldric. They dissipated the property of the Church and sought to
bequeath their offices to their bastards. For eighty years no council was
called. Every vestige of education and civilization was in danger of being
swamped. A complete reform of the Church was necessary in the interests of
society itself. To Carloman and Pepin belongs the merit of having perceived
this, and they entrusted this great work to Boniface. Once more a series of
councils was held, in the dominions of Carloman as well as in those of Pepin;
there was even a general council of the whole kingdom in March 745 at Estinnes
in Hainault. The ecclesiastical hierarchy was restored, measures were taken against
priests of scandalous life; the clergy were encouraged to
become better educated. Above all, this reformed
clergy was placed under the authority of the Papacy; the road to Rome became
familiar to them. On the one hand there was a political alliance between the popes
and the Mayors of the Palace; on the other relations were renewed between the
clergy of what had been Gaul and the Papacy. Thus was recovered the idea of
Christian unity in one sole Church under the authority of the Pope, as the
successor of the apostle Peter.
Monasteries
We have hitherto spoken chiefly of the secular Church,
but in even a summary account of the Church of the Merovingian period a place must
be found for the monasteries. As early as the fifth century, before the
conquest of Clovis, famous abbeys had arisen upon Gallic soil. Such were Ligugé
near Poitiers, Marmoutier and St. Martin in the territory of Tours, St. Honorat
on one of the islands of Lerins, St. Victor at Marseilles. In the time of Clovis
Caesarius founded in the town of Arles one monastery for men and another for
women. Under Clovis and his successors monasteries rapidly increased in number.
Childebert I founded that of St. Vincent, close to the gates of Paris, afterwards
to be known as St. Germain-des-Près; Chlotar I founded St. Medard of Soissons,
while Radegund, the Thuringian wife whom he had repudiated, built Ste Croix of
Poitiers. To Guntram is due the foundation of St. Marcel of Chalon-sur-Saône,
and the extension of St. Benignus of Dijon. Private persons followed the example
of the kings. Aridius, a friend of Gregory of Tours, founded on one of his estates
the monastery which from his name was known as St. Yrieix. All these monasteries
were placed under the charge of the bishop, who visited them and if necessary
recalled the monks to their duty. At the head of the household was placed an
abbot, generally chosen by the founder or his descendants, but in some cases elected
by the community, subject to the bishop's confirmation. Each monastery was
independent of the rest, and had a rule — regula — of its own, based upon
principles borrowed from the early monks in Egypt, from Pachomius, Basil and
the writings of Cassian and Caesarius of Arles. The abbeys did not as yet form
congregations obeying the same rule. Since they confined themselves to serving
as a refuge for souls wounded in the battle of life, they had no influence on
the outside world. They were not centres of the religious life radiating an
influence beyond the walls of the cloister and exercising a direct action upon
the Church. This type of monastic life was the creation of an Irish monk, Columbanus, who landed on the Continent about the year 585. He settled in the kingdom
of Guntram, and established, in the neighbourhood of the Vosges, three
monasteries, Annegray, Luxeuil (known in Roman times for its medicinal baths),
and Fontaines. These three houses were under his direction and he gave them a
common rule, which was distinguished by its extreme severity. Obedience was
required of the monk "even unto death," according to the example of
Christ, who was faithful to His Father even unto the death of the cross. The
smallest peccadillo, the least negligence in service, was punished with strokes
of the rod. The monk must have no possessions; he must never even use the word
"my." This rule became common to all the other abbeys which were founded
subsequently by Columbanus himself or his disciples. For Columbanus did not
remain undisturbed within the walls of Luxeuil. Twice he was torn from his
refuge by Brunhild, whose orders he refused to obey. He wandered through
Champagne, and under his influence a monastery arose at Rebais and convents for
women at Faremoutiers and Jouarre. Later he found his way to the shores of the Lake
of Constance in Alemannia where his disciple Gallus founded the monastery which
bore his name, St. Gall. He ended his days on 23 November 615 in Italy, where
the monastery of Bobbio claims him as its founder. Loyal disciples of his had
reformed or founded in Gaul a large number of monasteries; in no similar
period were so many founded as between the years 610 and 650. We can mention
only the most famous — Echternach, Prüm, Etival, Senones, Moyenmoutier, St Mihiel-sur-Meuse,
Malmédy, and Stavelot. Many of these monasteries received from one hundred to
two hundred monks.
Spread of the Benedictine Rule
All these abbeys obeyed the same rule and were
animated by the same spirit; they formed a sort of congregation. In general
they declared themselves independent of the bishop — ad modum Luxovensium. They
chose their abbots and administered their property freely. Moreover these monks
did not confine themselves within the walls of their monasteries; they desired
to play a part in the Church. St. Wandrille claimed that the monks should not
merely be allowed to count the years which they spent in the cloister, but
those also in which they travelled in the service of God. The disciples of
Columbanus were preachers like himself; they proclaimed the necessity of
penance, the expiation of every mistake according to a fixed scale, as in the
rule of the monastery, and at this time penitentials began to be widely
circulated. The sense of sin became very keen among the people, and they
multiplied gifts to the Church in order to atone for their transgressions. The
monks also became missionaries; each abbey was, so to speak, the head-quarters
of a mission. St. Gall completed the conversion of the Alemans, Eustasius abbot
of Luxeuil converted the heretical Warasci in the neighbourhood of Besancon and
went to preach the Gospel in Bavaria. But the very number of these monasteries
caused the defects of the rule of Columbanus to be quickly perceived. This
rule did not provide for the administration of the monastery; it did not
prescribe, hour by hour, the employments of the day; then, again, it was too
severe, too crushing, and often reduced men to despair. Now, about a hundred
years earlier (c. 529), Benedict of Nursia had given to the monastery of Monte Cassino
an admirable rule; this rule was not known in France until after the death of
Columbanus and the remarkable growth of monasteries connected with him, but
once known its advantages were soon recognised. All the questions which
Columbanus had left unsettled here received a practical solution. It regulated
the relations of the abbot with the monks and of the monks with one another; it
prescribed the employments of the day and the hours to be divided between
prayer, manual work, and study. Mystical speculations are left aside; there is
something of the legal spirit of ancient Rome in these clearly-drawn precepts. The
rule of St. Benedict at first appeared as a rival alongside of that of St
Columbanus; but after the great ecclesiastical reform associated with the name
of Boniface it reigned alone; and a little later Louis the son of Charles the
Great imposed it (817) upon all the monasteries of his realm. The impetuous
torrent which Columbanus had let loose was thus turned into a wide channel, in
which its waters could flow calmly.
Merovingian society was composed of remarkably
definite gradations, each man having his fixed price, so to speak, marked by
the wergeld. At the bottom of the scale was the slave. The Germans as well as
the Romans had possessed slaves, and their number was increased in the Merovingian
period. After a war the prisoners were often reduced to servitude; many of
these unfortunates belonged to the Slav race, and the name slave gradually took
the place of servus. There were also slave-dealers who went to seek their human
merchandise overseas; young Anglo-Saxons were much sought after on account of
their beauty. Then again, a man who could not pay his debts, or a fine
inflicted by the courts, fell into servitude; and a freeman who married a slave
lost his freedom. Slaves were looked on as chattels; the master could sell
them or give them away at his pleasure. Anyone who stole or killed a slave paid
a fine of thrity solidi, just the same amount as was paid for stealing a horse,
and this compensation was paid to the master: the slave was not considered to
have any family. Slaves were often very cruelly treated by their masters; Duke
Rauching for example made his slaves put out torches by pressing them against
their naked legs. The Church however took up their cause; it declared unions
between slaves which had been blessed by the priest to be legitimate, and
earnestly exhorted masters not to separate husband and wife, parents and
children.
Slaves could escape from their condition by
enfranchisement. In the Merovingian period there were two kinds of solemn
enfranchisement, that per denarium before the king, by which the former slave
acquired the rights of a Frankish freeman, and that of the Church, by which he
became a free Roman. In both cases he was discharged from all obligation
towards his former master, but remained in a certain dependence on the king,
who fell heir to the property of slaves if they had no children born after
their enfranchisement. But usually the slave was simply freed by a written
statement to that effect given by the master, and a freedman of this kind,
known as libertus or lidus, remained in a position of close dependence upon his
former master. He could, it is true, plead in the courts and enter into binding
agreements, but he paid his patron a yearly fee known as the lidimonium, and if
he died without issue his patron became his heir. The freedman usually retained
the land which he had cultivated as a slave, but instead of being a servilis holding
it became a lidilis holding.
On the large estates there was a third class of
holding, the mansi ingenuiles. These were held by the coloni, the descendants
of the former Roman coloni. Theoretically these coloni were free, but they were
bound to their holdings ; they could not quit them without the permission of
the owner, and if they ran away they were brought back by force. But, on the
other hand, so long as they paid their rent, they could not be expelled from
their holdings and might cultivate them as they chose. They thus form an
intermediate class between the slaves who were tied to one place and the
freemen, to whom all roads stood open.
The freemen might belong either to the conquering
race, the Franks, or the conquered race, the Gallo-Romans; and the two races
were under different laws. The Salic law fixes the wergeld of a Salian Frank at
two hundred solidi, that of the Roman at one hundred only. But we must not
conclude from this that there was a great gulf fixed between the two races.
Where both parties to a case were Gallo-Romans, they were judged according to
the Roman law; when a Gallo-Roman was accused by a Frank, judgment was still
given according to the Roman law; it was only in a case where a Frank was the
defendant that the Salic law was applied, and it is quite natural that this law
should be more severe upon the murder of a man of the same race than on that of
a Roman. Besides, the further we advance in Merovingian history, the more the
two races become intermingled. The Franks admired the Roman civilisation and
endeavoured to assimilate it; they learned the common language of Gaul, which
was in process of becoming Romanic; they even prided themselves on learning to
speak pure Latin. The
Gallo-Romans, on their part, adopted the military customs of the barbarians. They
frequently gave Germanic names to their children. Both nations were Christian,
and the common faith contributed to bring them together.
In theory
all these freemen were equal, but little by little distinctions arose among
them. In default of a nobility with hereditary privileges, there grew up an
aristocracy, potentes, priores, who exercised a powerful influence. These great
men belonged generally to the ancient Gallo-Roman senatorial families, who held
vast estates and possessed great wealth. From
these families the king chose the great officers of state and the people of the
cities chose their bishops; thus there was added to their wealth political
power, or the veneration attaching to the sacred office of the priesthood. The Franks who possessed
large estates became assimilated to these Roman senators and there thus grew up
an aristocracy composed of members of the two races.
Origin of
Vassalage
In consequence of the troublous times which were the
rule in Gaul in the seventh century, the poor and the weak could not depend on
the protection of the State, and sought protection from one or other of these powerful
personages. They
put themselves under his mundeburdis as it was called in Germanic; they
"commended" themselves to him, according to the expression borrowed
from Roman usage, and this expression is suitable enough, for they became in
fact clients of these great men. The patron undertook to maintain his clients,
to support them in law cases, to further their interests; in return, the
client promised to serve his patron on all occasions, to defend him if he were
attacked, and to take the field along with him if he attacked anyone else. Each
of these great personages had thus under his orders a more or less numerous
body of men. To mark these new social conditions new terms were created, or a
new sense was given to ancient terms. The protector was
called the senior; the client was called vassus. In the Salic law the term vassal simply
meant a slave attached to the personal service of his master; at the close of
the Merovingian period it always means one of these voluntary dependents. Those
who felt the need of protection could "commend" themselves not only
to wealthy private persons but also to royal officers, to the dukes and counts,
to the officials of the palace; but above all they could commend themselves to the
king himself. In that case the sovereign exercised a double authority over them; first, his public authority as king, and secondly a more special protection,
parallel, in so far, to that of the seignior. In time the strength of the king
came to depend in large measure on the number of his vassals. The subjection of
the individual to the State was replaced by a personal subjection to the king,
and the population of the country came to be composed of groups of men bound to
one another by personal ties. Thus we find the germs of the feudal system
already present in the seventh century.
A time was
to come when to this subordination of persons there should be added a
subordination of lands. In order to understand this evolution, which was to
have so great a historical importance, we must first examine the conditions on
which property was held.
The
Merovingian Villa
With the exception of the towns the soil of Gaul was
divided, in the Merovingian period, into large estates, called villae or fundi.
These estates usually bore the name of their original holder; thus the villae called
Victoriacus had belonged to a man named Victorius, and the modern villages
which have descended from these villae have kept the old names. Variously transformed
according to the district in which they lie, they are known today as Vitrac,
Vitrec, Vitre, Vitrey or Vitry. Similarly villae bearing
the name Sabiniacus have become our villages of Savignae, Savignec, Sevigne,
Savigneux. Many
of these estates, especially in the north and east, changed their names after
the invasions, taking the names of their barbarian owners. Thus Theodonis
villa, Thionville, Ramberti villare, Rambervillers, Arnulfi curtis, Harcourt, Bodegiseli
vallis, Bougival near Paris. In the seventh century some estates took the name
of the saint to whom the church was dedicated: Dompiere, Dommartin, St Pierre,
St Martin. Some villae again took their names from some particular variety of
trees or plantations; Roboretum has become Rouvray, Rouvres; Rosariae and Cannaberiae
have given us the names of our modern villages Rosieres and Chennevieres. It
often happened that through sale, exchange, or division among brothers, a villa
was divided between several owners, but it none the less retained its unity and
organisation.
The lands
of the villa were divided into two portions. One, consisting of the lands lying
round about the house of the owner, was farmed directly by him. The other
portion was divided up into lots or holdings (mansi), of which the owner gave
the use to his slaves, his lidi, or to freemen; whence comes the distinction
between mansi serviles, lidiles and ingenuiles, of which we have spoken above.
Each tenant cultivated his holding for his own profit, but in return for its
use was obliged to pay a rent to the owner and to render him certain services.
The houses occupied by the tenants were either isolated, in the mountainous
districts, or grouped together within a small area. A villa was self-sufficing; besides the cultivators there were the workmen who made or repaired the tools
and implements. There was a mill and a wine-press which served the whole
population of the villa, and often there was a forge also. It had its own
chapel, of which the priest (often born on the estate) was appointed by the master,
with the consent of the bishop. The woods surrounding the villa remained in
possession of the landowner, but he gave the tenants rights of user. Over all
the dwellers on the estate he exercised a seigniorial jurisdiction.
There still
existed, no doubt, alongside of the great estates or villae a number of small
estates belonging to freemen. But these small estates tended to disappear in
the course of the seventh century. The fact was that
the small proprietors were unable to defend their estates; they had no
inducement to sell them, for money would have been of little value to them;
accordingly they "commended themselves" to some great man of the
neighbourhood, handing over their property to him. He in turn gave them the
use of it for life, and thus they were at lest certain of occupying it in
security until the end of their days. Previously they had held their lands ex
alode or de alode parentum, by inheritance from their ancestors, with the right
of using it as they chose ; henceforth they held it per beneficium, in
consequence of a grant made by the great seignior. When
agreements of this kind became frequent, two varieties of landed property were
distinguished, allodial lands which were held by the owner in person, and
"benefices," of which the use was granted by a large proprietor to
another person during the lifetime of the latter.
Origin of the Benefice
Many circumstances contributed to multiply these
benefices. The
Church, which had large estates and could not get them all cultivated by its
serfs, lidi and coloni, let parts of them to freemen, who cultivated them, and
at the death of the tenant the land returned, in an improved condition, into
the hands of the Church. This mode of tenure was already known to the Roman law
(precarium). It sometimes happened that in exchange for a grant of this kind,
the grantee made a gift to the Church of an estate of similar value belonging
to himself. Thenceforward he had the usufruct of both estates, that of the
Church as well as his own; but at his death the Church took possession of
both. The grantee had the advantage during his life of a doubled income, and on
his death the Church doubled its property. But it often happened that the
Church, which was, as we know, very powerful, received the lands of private
persons in the manner described without adding anything of its own, only
conceding to the former owner a life-use of the property. Thus in various ways
the allodial lands disappeared, and benefices became every day more numerous.
Up to this
point we have seen the beneficiaries solicit the benefice and take the
initiative in obtaining it. These beneficiaries remained bound by ties of
gratitude to their benefactor, they exerted themselves to serve him and marched
with him when he went to battle; they were his vassi. Before long a man's
power was measured by the number of his vassi, the army of his clients; and
then the great men, in order to increase their clientage, and consequently
their influence, began themselves to offer benefices to those whom they desired
to attach to themselves and gain as adherents.
The king,
or the Mayor of the Palace who replaced him, needed to be able to count on the
great men for the wars, whether foreign or civil, in which he engaged.
Obligation towards the State was too abstract a conception to be understood,
and the mere sense of duty was not strong enough to keep the great men loyal.
The king therefore began to distribute lands to these great men. At first he
gave them absolutely, but before long these lands were assimilated to the
benefices. This evolution took place especially at the time when Charles Martel
laid hands upon the property of the Church and distributed it in his own name
to his warriors. The property of the Church was inalienable, it could not be
given as an absolute possession. The warriors were only the life-tenants of it,
and at their death it reverted to the Church. These estates were therefore
simply ecclesiastical benefices, granted by the king or the mayor. Once this
precedent had been established, estates granted by the king from his own lands
were granted on the same conditions, merely for the lifetime of the grantee.
Charters of
Immunity
Another great change took place about the same time. One reason why Charles
Martel made grants of ecclesiastical property to his warriors was that they had
now to support great expense. They served in his armies no longer as foot
soldiers but as cavalry, and their equipment was very costly. The revenue of
the lands which were granted to them served as an indemnity against the
expenses of military service. Thus it came to be considered that the benefice
carried with it the obligation of military service. Under Charles the Great,
the holders of royal lands were bound to be first at the muster; and before long
it was an understood thing that, when a private person who had granted
benefices marched to the wars, all his beneficiaries, who were also his
vassals, must accompany him. Thus at the end of the Merovingian period the
characteristics of the later fief are taking shape. The eleventh century fief
is the direct descendant of the eighth century benefice, of which we have just
traced the origin.
Another characteristic of the fief is that the holder
of it exercises thereon all the powers of the State: he levies taxes,
administers justice, and summons the men of the fief to follow him to war. Now even in the Merovingian
period on some of the great domains the State resigned a portion of its rights
to the proprietor or seignior, and thus we find present, from this time onward,
all the germs of the feudal system. We have seen how great were the powers of
the count and the other royal officials: they often abused these powers, and
the proprietors of the great estates complained to the king of their tyranny.
In many cases the king listened to their complaints and gave them charters of
immunity, forbidding all public officials to enter their estates, to claim
right of lodging, to try causes, to levy the fredus or other impost, or to
compel the men to attend the muster of the royal army. Thenceforward the men of
this privileged territory had nothing more to do with the agents of the
government; the agents of the proprietor took their place; and before long the
proprietor himself levied the former state-taxes, judged cases in his private
court, and regarded it as within his competence to deal with all offences
committed upon his domain. He led his men in person to join the royal army, and
he was naturally tempted to use them also in the prosecution of his private
quarrels. If we remember the extent of some of the domains, which comprised a
number of villae and were sometimes as large as a modern canton, we see how
great was the area which was withdrawn from the authority of the royal
officials, if not from that of the king himself. The estates which enjoyed
these immunities were veritable seigniories. Alongside of the institutions of
the State there had thus arisen another set of institutions which came into
collision with the former and brought about the decay of the authority of the
State. All the elements of feudalism—commendations, benefices, and immunities —are
in existence without its being possible to say that feudalism is as yet
constituted, because the elements are not combined into a system.
Industry
and Commerce
But before this system came into operation Charles the
Great was to re-establish a strong centralised government; he was to make
these social forces serve the interests of the State itself, and by his genius
was to restore with incomparable brilliancy that Frankish monarchy which at the
close of the Merovingian period had seemed likely to disappear.
The
Merovingian period as a whole is without doubt a melancholy period. It marks in
history what must be called an eclipse of civilization, and it deserves to be
described as a barbaric era. Nevertheless, it must not be imagined that the two
hundred and seventy years which it includes were, so to speak, sunk in unbroken
gloom. Even in this period it is possible to note some facts concerning
industry and commerce, arts and letters.
Industry
found refuge chiefly in the country districts, where each estate produced for
itself all the supplies necessary to agricultural work and common life. The
towns themselves took on a country-like air. The ancient buildings — temples,
basilicas, baths — had been destroyed during the invasions and their ruins lay
on the ground; the only considerable buildings now erected were churches. A
sparse population occupied rather than filled the space surrounded by the
half-ruined walls. Many houses had disappeared and wide areas lay vacant; these
were turned into fields or vineyards, and thus in the interior of formerly
populous cities there were closes and culturae. Outside
the ramparts there rose, in many cases, a high-walled monastery — a sacred city
alongside of the secular city - and
these monasteries became new centres of population. Within the decayed
cities we nevertheless find, at all events at first, some traces of industry.
There is mention in the sixth and seventh centuries of workshops for the
manufacture of cloth at Trêves, at Metz, and at Rheims. There were also
potteries, and numerous specimens of their art have been found in the tombs.
The Merovingians had a taste for finely wrought arms, for sword-belt buckles of
damascene work, for jewellery, and gold-plate. The Merovingian goldsmiths were skilful.
Eligius, son of a minter at Limoges, attained by the aid of his art to the
highest posts; he became the counsellor of Dagobert and bishop of Noyon. There
was also in the Merovingian period a certain amount of commercial activity. The
Franks imported from abroad spices, papyrus, and silk fabrics. This merchandise
was either brought to the ports of Marseilles, Arles, and Narbonne, or came by
way of the Black Sea and the Danube. In the time of Dagobert a Frankish
merchant named Samo went to trade on the banks of the Elbe, and there formed a
great Slav kingdom which had its centre in Bohemia, and extended from the Havel
to the Styrian Alps. The merchants of the town of Verdun formed an association
in the time of Theudibert, about 540. The king aided them by lending them, at
the request of the bishop Desiderius, 7000 aurei. They
were thus enabled to put their business on a sound footing, and in the time of
Gregory of Tours the wealth of these merchants was renowned. But commerce was chiefly
in the hands of Byzantines and Jews. The Byzantines, who were generally known
by the name of Syrians, whether they came from Asia or from Europe, had
important trading-stations at Marseilles, at Bordeaux, at Orleans. When in 585 Guntram
made his entry into the last-named city he was welcomed with cries of
acclamation in the Syriac language. Simeon Stylites conversed with Syrian
merchants who had seen Ste Geneviêve at Paris. In 591 a Syrian named Eusebius
was even appointed bishop of Paris, and gave offices in the Church to his
compatriots. The Jews, on their part, formed prosperous colonies. Maintaining
friendly relations with their co-religionists in Italy, Spain, and the East,
they were able to give a wide extension to their business, and, as the
Christian Church forbade the lending of money at interest, all dealing in
money, all banking business, was soon in their hands. Five hundred Jews were
settled at Clermont-Ferrand; at Marseilles and Narbonne they were more numerous
still. The Jew Priscus acted as agent in purchases made by King Chilperic, who held
disputations with him concerning the Holy Trinity.
Venantius
Fortunatus
Intellectual culture naturally declined during the
Merovingian period. Nevertheless
in the sixth century there are still two names which are celebrated in the
history of literature, those of the poet Fortunatus and the historian Gregory
of Tours. Fortunatus, it is true, was born in Italy and educated in the Schools
of Ravenna; but his verses, with their wealth of mythological allusions,
pleased the taste of the Frankish lords and the Merovingian kings, of whom he
was to some extent a flatterer. He sang the praises of
all the monarchs of his period, Charibert, Sigebert, and Chilperic; he even
lavished on Fredegund his paid panegyrics :Omnibus
excellens meritis Fredegundis opima.
Becoming
the adviser of Queen Radegund he settled in her neighbourhood at Poitiers. He
there became first priest, and then bishop. It was at this period that he wrote
those charming notes in verse, thanking Radegund for the delicacies which she
sent him and describing, with a slightly sensual gourmandise, the pleasure he
derived from a good dinner; but at the same time he finds a more energetic
strain in which to deplore the sorrows of Thuringia. And, also doubtless at the
request of his patroness, he wrote the fine hymns which the Church still uses
in the Vexilla regis prodeunt and the Pange lingua.
Gregory of
Tours
If Fortunatus was the sole poet of the Merovingian
period Gregory of Tours is almost the sole historian. In his work, the History
of the Franks, this troublous period lives again, with its vices, crimes, and passions.
The portraits which he gives us of Chilperic, Guntram, and Brunhild are painted
with extraordinary vividness. His work manifests real literary power. Critics sometimes speak of the naiveté of Gregory, but we must not
deceive ourselves; this naïveté is a matter of deliberate art. Gregory does not
of course observe strict grammatical correctness; he is by no means Ciceronian;
he writes the language as it was spoken in his day. In a few passages only,
where he is obviously writing with conscious effort, he employs rare and
poetical expressions, as for example in the account of the baptism of Clovis,
in the description of Dijon, in the narrative of his quarrels with Count
Leudastes. But to these we prefer those pages where he lets himself go, and
writes with his natural vigour, where he slips in malicious reflexions as it
were unconsciously, or where he excoriates his adversaries. He has the real
gift of story-telling and has justly been called the barbarian Herodotus. After
his day all culture disappeared. A vast difference separates him from his continuator,
the chronicler who has been named — we do not know for what reason — Fredegar.
The chronicle of Fredegar is composed of scraps and fragments from various
sources. One of the authors from whom extracts are made writes: "The
world is growing old; the keenness of intelligence is becoming blunted in us;
no one in the present age can compare with the orators of past times," and
this phrase might be applied to the whole of the work. Nevertheless there are
still found in Fredegar attempts at portraits of some of the Mayors of the
Palace, Bertoald, Protadius, Aega, whereas in the last chronicler of the
period, the Neustrian who compiled the Liber Historiae Francorum, there is no
longer anything of that kind; it is a very meagre chronicle of the rois
fainéants. The lives of the saints, which are still numerous enough, are
singularly monotonous; they rarely inform us of any facts and are as like each
other as one ecclesiastical image is to another.
A certain
number of churches were built during the Merovingian period, such as those of
Clermont, Nantes, and Lyons, without counting the abbey churches such as St.
Martin de Tours and St Vincent or St Germain-des-Près at Paris, but of these
great buildings no trace remains to us. The only remnants of buildings of this
period belong to less important edifices, such as the baptisteries of Riez in
Provence and St Jean de Poitiers, the crypt of St Laurent at Grenoble, and of the
abbey of Jouarre. The great churches which are known to us from descriptions
generally have a nave and two side-aisles with a transept, and are in the form
of a Latin cross. At the point of intersection of nave and transept there was a
tower, which at first served by way of "Lantern," but afterwards to
hang bells in. On the walls were placed numerous inscriptions, sentences taken
from the Scriptures, verses in honour of the saints. Pictures recalled to the
faithful the history of the saints or scenes from Scripture. Often, instead of
pictures, the walls, as well as the floor, were covered with mosaic-work in
which gold was freely used; a basilica at Toulouse was known for this reason
as la Daurade. Sculpture in high relief was unknown, even in bas-reliefs the
human figure appears very rarely after the sixth century. The artists could no longer even trace the outlines of animals, they
drew conventional animals which are difficult to recognise, geometrical designs
or roseate and foliate forms.
Merovingian
Art
Some houses which Fortunatus describes to us seem
still to have had a fine appearance. Such was the castle built by Nicetius, bishop of
Treves, on a hill overlooking the Moselle. The single entrance gate was
commanded by a tower; a mechanical contrivance raised water from the river to
turn a mill. This is quite a medieval donjon-keep. There were great houses too
at Bissonnum and Vereginis villa, belonging to the bishop Leontius of Bordeaux,
where under porticoes formed by three rows of columns guests could promenade
sheltered from rays of the sun. But such dwellings must have been exceptional;
the ordinary houses surrounded by the necessary appurtenances must have
resembled farms rather than castles. Merovingian art, however, is mainly represented
by the numerous pieces of jewellery which have been discovered, as was
mentioned earlier. This art is certainly of Oriental origin: it was practised
not among the Franks only, but among the other barbarian peoples of the West,
and even here are found the same decorative ornaments.
In art as
well as in literature the seventh century and beginning of the eighth are
marked by a profound decadence. But just at the period of blackest barbarism
the Frankish kingdom came into contact with Italy, the mother of arts and
sciences, where the monuments of antiquity were preserved; and with England,
where the monks still studied in their cloisters, and where the Venerable Bede
had founded a school of worthy disciples. The Anglo-Saxons and the Italians
brought to the Franks the treasures they had safely guarded; the Emperor Charles
the Great recognised that it belonged to the duties of his office to spread
enlightenment, to foster art and literature; and at length, after this night of
darkness, there shone forth the brilliance of a true renaissance.
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