The Campus Martius and Campus Madius

135

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." 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 regna as they are called by the chroniclershad 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 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

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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 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, comes in Teutonic graf. The king appointed the counts at his own pleasure, and could choose them from any class of society, sometimes naming a mere freedman. 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 Rhé, 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 Neuchâtel, 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.

The official who held the command in that part of Provence, which was a dependency of Austrasia, bore the title of rector. These titles were doubtless borrowed from the Ostrogoths, who were the masters of Provence from 508 to 536.

It remains to notice the organisation of justice, finance, and the army. The races of Merovingian Gaul were not all under one law. Each race had its own; the principle was that the system of law varied according to the race of the persons who were to be judged. The Gallo-Romans continued to be judged according to the Roman law, especially the compilation made among the Visigoths and known under the name of the Breviarium Alarici. As it was in the region south of the Loire that the Gallo-Romans were least mixed with barbarian elements, it was in Aquitaine that the Roman law longest maintained its hold. The Burgundians and the Visigoths had already their own systems of law at the time when their kingdoms were overthrown by the Franks, and the men of these races continued to be judged by these laws throughout the whole of the Merovingian period. The Merovingian kings caused the customary laws of the other barbarian peoples to be preserved in writing. In all probability the earliest redaction of the Salic law goes back to Clovis, and is doubtless to be placed in the last years of his reign, after his victory over the Visigoths, 507-511. We cannot place it earlier, for the following reasons. The Germanic peoples did not use the Latin language until after they had become mixed with the Gallo-Roman population; in the scale of fines the monetary system of solidi is used, which only makes its appearance in the Merovingian period; further, the Salic law contains imitations of the Visigothic laws of Euric (466-484); finally, it is evident that the Franks are masters of the Visigoths, since they provide for the case of men dwelling beyond the Loire-trans Ligerim- 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. 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.

The

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