with the anointing and in West Francia, where first a fixed ceremonial was developed, it became from the time of Charles the Bald an integral element of the ceremony, whereas in the Eastern Kingdom, where there is no evidence of a coronation either in the case of Louis the German, or of his sons and Arnulf, it did not perhaps become permanently the custom till after 900. As symbols of monarchical rule we find in addition sceptre and throne, which we may suppose to have first come into use in the Carlovingian time, together with the lance, attested as a royal symbol on the ring of Childeric, and the staff, distinguished at any rate in later times from sceptre and lance.

In the symbols and in the solemnity of the elevation, the change in the royal power is revealed. The spiritual element was placed in the foreground, its divine origin emphasised, and the priesthood played a ruling part. The personality of the monarchy stands forth quite distinct from the populace. The royal title is but simple, originally a continuation of that of the Merovingians, then, independently but from the very beginning, with the significant addition "by the grace of God” — a custom afterwards adopted not merely in the Empire of the Franks but in the whole of the West. The imperial title was exceedingly circumstantial: "Most noble Augustus, crowned of God, great and peace-bringing Emperor, who rules the Roman Empire and who, by the grace of God, is King of the Franks and of the Lombards." Superabundant are the epithets of virtue and exaltation which Charles applied to himself and with which he was saluted. Court ceremonial became the custom, and Byzantine influences served as the model. Whoever approached the Emperor for any official purpose was required to prostrate himself to the ground and kiss the knee and foot of majesty. But all that was a veneer of foreign and external splendour. Underneath is clearly visible the true Germanic character in the conception and accomplishment of national undertakings. The king was guardian of justice and peace. All stood beneath his protection. The king's peace was the general peace of the State, the king's protection covered every member of the State. But together with the general protection which ensured peace for everyone, went a special king's protection which was bestowed on individuals, placing the object of it in closer relation to the king and decreeing severer punishment for every injury to his

person.

The subject was bound to unconditional obedience to the king. An oath of allegiance was exacted, a custom not of Roman but of Merovingian origin, which had fallen into disuse, and was re-introduced by Charles the Great. Obedience was, however, claimed from every subject without oath, and disregard of the king's command was severely punished.

The king had the power to issue coercive ordinances and injunctions, he had the power to command, he had the power of the ban. This royal

Punishment of disobedience

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right of the ban is not to be derived from any special priestly or knightly prerogative, but is to be simply regarded as a natural adjunct of the supreme position. It lies in the very nature of kingship to issue coercive commands.

Obedience on the part of the subject flowed from the ordinary obligations of allegiance. Disobedience was disloyalty. Just as disloyalty was differently punished according to the enormity of the offence, even with banishment, confiscation, or death, so, in the same way, disobedience was differently punished, fixed punishments being appointed by law for definite offences, or else the sentence was referred to the monarch's arbitrary power of punishing. The power of the ban possessed by the Frankish kings was not simply the power to order or to forbid under threat of the old fine of sixty shillings. It was on the contrary much further reaching. It demanded obedience on the ground of allegiance, on the ground of the legal principle that the punishment for disloyalty, whatever it be, should light on the disobedient, and that in so far as special punishments were not already decreed by law the disobedient mighty suffer any punishment from the King's Court up to complete outlawry.

If the equivalent fine of sixty shillings was indicated by the king's "ban," that is not to be so understood to mean that disregard of the royal authority was punished by a fine limited to sixty shillings, or that the king could only pursue any who disregarded the royal command with infliction of these definite fines. The fact is rather to be explained in another manner. In the seventh century, and first in the Lex Ripuaria, a fine of sixty shillings was fixed by law for definite cases of disobedience to commands issued by authority, not necessarily by the royal authority. This fine, a moderate punishment for disobedience, was further extended in Carlovingian times. The many-sided care of the State for the social life, the growing need for the exaction of punishment by the State more frequently than hitherto, tended to the infliction of the sixty shilling "ban," the usual moderate punishment for disobedience, and in such a way that a trespass was legally explained as transgression of the king's command. So arose the different cases of ban in the eighth and ninth centuries. They originated in the sixty shilling fine of Ripuarian Folklaw which inflicted this fine on disregard of summons to the royal service, but their signification became very different. In the seventh century the sixty shilling punishment was inflicted when a definite ordinance was disregarded, but under Charles the Great if a definite transgression was defined by law as contempt of the king's command. Hence many instances of "ban" under the Carlovingians have nothing to do with disobedience to specific royal ordinances, but on the other hand the sixty shilling fine- the king's ban was not inflicted at all in processes against contemners of the royal command. But above all it must be clearly understood that the

authority of the Frankish king was never limited in such a way as to threaten the contemner of his ordinance with nothing worse than a fine of sixty shillings.

Amongst those who in the first place stood beside the monarch appear the superintendents of the four old court officers, the seneschal, the butler, the marshal, and the chamberlain, who not only performed their official duties in the narrower sense, but could be employed in the most varied capacities in times both of war and peace, as generals, ambassadors, judges amongst others. Then the chief doorkeeper (Magister ostiariorum), the quartermaster (Mansionarius), the chief huntsman, and less important officials. Of special importance for purely state business was the palsgrave, or rather the palsgraves, for several acted contemporaneously as deputy-presidents of the palace judicial Court, and of course also as ambassadors, generals, and in other similar official capacities.

Besides the judicial Court of the Palace the Chancery was of importance as a court with definite jurisdiction, the court for the preparation of documents. The president was no longer the lay referendary of Merovingian times, but an ecclesiastic, who even in the time of Charles the Great appears to have had no official title, but who was already of great importance and under Louis the Pious rose to much greater importance still. Hitherius, abbot of St Martin at Tours, Abbot Rado of St Vaast, Ercanbald, and Jeremiah, afterwards archbishop of Sens, acted as Charles' presidents of Chancery. Under these, the later chancellors, several deacons, and sub-deacons were employed as clerks and notaries. They were all attached to the royal chapel as court chaplains. Chapel, capella, was originally the name given to the place where the cappa (cloak) of St Martin of Tours was preserved with other treasures, and chaplains were the guardians of these relics. In a derived sense, the body of court ecclesiastics was next designated the chapel. At their head stood the most influential ecclesiastic of the court, the primicerius of the chapel, the arch-chaplain, as the title, at first varying, became established under Louis the Pious. The illustrious Abbot Fulrad of St Denis, who had taken so active a part in the elevation of Pepin to the throne, was also arch-chaplain at the beginning of the reign of Charles the Great. To him succeeded Bishop Angilram of Metz and then Archbishop Hildibald of Cologne, who were regarded as the chief advisers of the Emperor, not merely in ecclesiastical, but in other, matters as well.

Chancery and chapel were at first only in so far connected, that many chancery officials were also chaplains and that, as we may suppose, the chapel served also at the same time for the archives. In addition, the arch-chaplain like other high court officials had an active connexion with business dealt with in documents, and hence not unfrequently appears as the one who transmitted to the chancery the order for verification. But that implies no organic connexion between chancery and

chapel. Such a connexion was unknown under Charles the Great, and equally so under Louis the Pious. This connexion, so important for later times, was not effected till the time of Louis the German, when the arch-chaplain was placed in charge of the chancery, in 854 temporarily, in 860 permanently.

A court council did not exist in the time of Charles. The monarch summoned at his pleasure those about him and the nobles who were staying at the court, but a council, properly speaking, did not exist. The number of those who, in the wider sense of the word, were courtiers was unusually large. There were staying there the numerous ecclesiastics and scholars, the teachers and pupils of the palace school, the one class those whom the great Emperor had invited from afar, the other those who were living in preparation for the service of Church and State. But there were also numerous knights in attendance, who formed the body-guard of the monarch and were ready to undertake different duties within or without the court. In addition were the different vassals and servants of the courtiers, some free, some not; and also merchants who enjoyed the Emperor's special protection, and who had to supply the needs of the court and its numerous visitors; and moreover the adventurers, the travellers who were trying their fortune, the crowd of beggars, who in the Middle Ages appeared wherever there was active traffic.

Vigorous life was developed at Charles' court. We see there magnificence and genius, but immorality also. For Charles was not particular about the persons he drew round him. He was himself no model, and he suffered the greatest licence in those whom he liked and found useful. As "Holy Emperor" he was addressed, though his life exhibited little holiness. He is so addressed by Alcuin, who also praises the Emperor's beautiful daughter Rotrud as distinguished for her virtues in spite of her having borne a son to Count Roderic of Maine, though not his wife. Charles would not be separated from his daughters, he would not allow their marriage, and he was therefore obliged to accept the consequences. The other daughter Bertha also had two sons by the pious Abbot Angilbert of St Riquier. In fact the court of Charles was a centre of very loose life. It was one of the first acts of the pious Louis to cleanse the court of its foul elements and to issue a strict ordinance to put an end to this dissoluteness. Strictness of morals came, but the magnificence was gone. In truth it was on the personality of the monarch that all depended. The patriarchal tendency predominated, the central official world was in everything dependent on the varying decisions of the monarch himself, it had no independent position or strength. How could the foundation for a lasting absolute monarchy be laid under these circumstances?

Before the activity of the State in the provinces is considered, it is necessary to shew what material resources were available for the

monarch and in what manner the individual power of the people for national purposes was put in requisition. Amongst these stand in the first place the revenues from his estates. The Frankish king was the largest landowner in the kingdom. The royal property was continually increased through confiscations, through reversions to the crown for want of heirs, through reclamation of uncultivated territory. Though the king bestowed much land as gift or as fief, which was thereby withdrawn from his own use, what remained was sufficiently important.

On the royal domains also reigned that activity which was found on all large estates and which had developed in connexion with the circumstances of the later Roman Empire but also from the social and economic needs of the German peoples. There was no system of agriculture on a large scale. Only a comparatively small part of the domain was managed by the lord himself (terra salica, terra indominicata). The greater part was occupied by dependents, who cultivated for themselves and might work, at any rate in part, on their own account, and were only bound to certain payments and services (mansi serviles, litiles, ingenuiles). Charles constituted the management of his estates a definite organisation, which served as a model for the great landowners of later ages. As heads of the different farms held by socage, which served as intermediaries between the land which was cultivated independently and the land held under conditions of service and money payment, appeared sundry meier (maiores); several of the small farms with their district were united in "deaneries" under a "dean," but of a higher rank were the chief farms, the management of which was entrusted to a judex, or as he was generally called later, a villicus. A system of lower and chief farms was made. The surplus products were collected on the chief farms in order to be brought, according to definite regulations, to the king's farm, or on the other hand, to be either stored or sold.

Not at the end, but in the very first years of his reign Charles issued for his domains the famous ordinance, the Capitulare de villis, in which complete directions were given for all circumstances on the farms, for the use of every kind of farm produce, for book-keeping and accounts, and in which the monarch's active care, even for subordinate matters of agricultural work, is so characteristically shewn. A number of officials of the most different kinds for the cultivation of the royal lands, the fisci, both free and not free, come before us; the juniores and ministeriales, who stood as assistants beside the higher officials, the judices. Such were the foresters, the superintendents of the stores (cellerarii), the overseers of the studs, the poledrarii, and in addition the many artisans, the goldsmiths, the blacksmiths, the shoemakers, cartwrights, saddlers, etc., for whose presence in the districts the judices were to make provision and who had received a definite organisation under their own masters. Towards the end of his reign Charles compiled a complete register of the fisci, a general inventory of the crown lands.