SECTION III. MONARCHY OF THE FRANKS, 450-768 a. C. 1. [AMONG the states which rose on the ruins of the Roman Empire, that of the Franks acquired the preponderance; and, for several ages sustained the character of being the most powerful kingdom in Europe.] The Franks were originally those tribes of Germans who inhabited the districts between the Lower Rhine, the Maine, the Weser, and the Elbe; and who, in the time of Tacitus, passed under the names of Chauci, Cherusci, Catti, Sicambri, &c. They assumed the name or appellation of Franks, or freemen, from their temporary union to resist the dominion of the Romans. [They overran Gaul in the time of Valerian and Gratian, 253-378, and took possession of some of the finest provinces of the empire. They were soon, however, taken into the pay of the Romans, and faithfully and valiantly protected their frontiers, particularly upon the invasion of Radagaisus, in 406.] Legendary chronicles record a Pharamond, a Clodion, and a Meroveus; the last the head of the first race of the kings of France, termed the Merovingian; but the authentic history of the Franks commences only with his grandson Clovis (son of Childerick I.), who began to reign in 481. While only in the twentieth year of his age, Clovis achieved the conquest of Gaul, by the defeat of Syagrius, the Roman governor, near Soissons, in 486, and marrying Clotilda, daughter of Chilperic king of Burgundy, soon added that province to his dominions, by dethroning his father-in-law. He was converted by Clotilda; and the Franks, till then idolaters, became Christians, after their sovereign's example. The Visigoths, professing Arianism, were masters at this time of Aquitaine, the country between the Rhone and the Loire. The intemperate zeal of Clovis prompted the extirpation of these heretics, who retreated across the Pyrenees into Spain, and the province of Aquitaine became part of the kingdom of the Franks. They did not long retain it; for Theodoric the Great (king of the Ostrogoths and of Italy), defeating Clovis in the battle of Arles, added Aquitaine to his own dominions. Clovis dishonoured the latter part of his reign by many acts of cruelty, and died in 511 A. C. [The kingdom which nominally acknowledged his authority extended from the Rhine to the Pyrenees, and from the Alps to the Ouan. The Franks, who were the voluntary followers of Clovis, obtained allotments of the conquered lands in full property; but their mutual security and preservation made it necessary that each should become bound to take arms in defence of the community. This led to the establishment of the Feudal System. The towns were allowed to retain their municipal government and the use of the Roman laws, whilst general assemblies of the Franks were held to determine on all public affairs. Clovis revised the Salic law, which is said to have been made by the Salian Franks in the time of Pharamond, by which males only were entitled to inherit.] 2. The four sons of Clovis, Thierry (Theodoric), Clodomir, Childebert, and Clotaire, divided the monarchy, [making Metz, Orleans, Paris, and Soissons, the capitals of their respective territories.] They were perpetually at war with each other, which led to many acts of savage cruelty and barbarity. A series of weak and wicked princes succeeded, and Gaul for some ages was characterized under its Frank sovereigns by more than ancient barbarism. On the death of Dagobert II., in 715, who left two infant sons, the government, during their minority, fell into the hands of their chief officers, termed Mayors of the Palace; and these ambitious men founded a new power, which for some generations held the Frank sovereigns in absolute subjection, and left them little more than the title of king. The kingdom of the Franks at this time was separated into two great divisions or provinces; the eastern part was called Austrasia, and the western part Neustria.* They were nominally governed by Thierry, but in reality by Pepin d' Heristal, mayor of the Palace and duke of the Franks, who, restricting his sovereign to a small domain, ruled France for thirty years with great wisdom and good policy, and with a power hitherto unknown to the monarchy. [He died in 714, and left his infant grandson, Theodwald, the heir to his authority, under the guardianship of his widow. The Neustrian chiefs divested them of their sovereignty, and elected Rainfroy to the office of Mayor; but their triumph was only of short duration. Charles Martel (the Hammerer), a natural son of Pepin, caused himself to be proclaimed duke of the Franks and mayor of the Palace. He then engaged in a war with Chilperick II. and his mayor Rainfroy, defeated them successively at Stauclo, Vinci near Cambray, and Soissons, 716-718, which made him master of the throne and of the sovereign authority. On Chilperick being delivered up to him, he confirmed anew the title of king to that prince.] Charles was victorious over all his domestic foes, his arms kept in awe the surrounding nations, and he delivered France from the incursions of the Saracens,† whom he entirely defeated, between Tours and Poictiers, in 732. He was brave and politic, and under the title of mayor he governed for twenty-six years with ability and success, and increased the glory of the French name. He died in 741. Austrasia, latinized from Oster-rike, Eastern kingdom, included all that part of Gaul between the Meuse, the Scheld, and the Rhine; as well as the German provinces beyond the Rhine. Neustria, from Ne-oster-rike, North-eastern kingdom, included the country lying between the Meuse, the Loire, and the Ocean. The remaining provinces of Gaul retained their ancient name, and formed several inde pendent states. The Saracens after the conquest of Africa crossed over into Spain in 713, and destroyed the kingdom which the Goths had founded. They then crossed the 3. Charles Martel bequeathed the government of France, as an undisputed inheritance, to his two sons, Pepin (the Short), and Carloman, who governed under the same title of Mayor, the one Austrasia, and the other Neustria and Burgundy. On the re signation of Carloman, Pepin succeeded to the sole administration; and, ambitious of adding the title of king to the power which he already enjoyed, proposed the question to pope Zachary, whether he or his soverign Childeric was most worthy of the throne? Zachary, having his own interest in view, decided that "he who possessed the power should also bear the title of king." Childeric III. was then deposed, and confined to a monastery for life, 752 A. c. With him ended the first or Merovingian race of the kings of France, which had filled the throne for 334 years. 4. [The first king of the Carlovingian dynasty, with the intention of rendering his person sacred and inviolable, was the first sovereign who had recourse to the ceremony of consecration. He was consecrated and crowned in the cathedral of Soissons, by the celebrated St. Boniface, first archbishop of Mayence. The example of Pepin was followed soon after by several princes and sovereigns of Europe.] To recompense the service done him by the pope, he turned his arms against the Lombards; and, stripping them of the exarchate of Ravenna, he made a donation of that and other considerable territories to the Holy See, which were the first, as is alleged, of its temporal possessions, [-the pretended gift of Constantine, being held to be a fable.] Conscious of his defective title, it was the principal object of Pepin the Short to conciliate the affections of the people whom he governed. The legislative power among the Franks was vested in the people assembled in their Champs de Mars. Under the Merovingian race the regal authority had sunk to nothing, while the power of the nobles had attained to an inordinate extent. Pepin found it his best policy to acknowledge and ratify those rights, which he could not without danger have invaded; and thus, under the character of guardian of the powers of all the orders of the state, he exalted the regal office to its proper elevation, and founded it on the securest basis. On his death bed, he called a council of the grandees, and obtained their consent to a division of his kingdom between his two sons, Charles and Carloman. He died in 768, at the age of fifty-three, after a reign of seventeen years from the death of Childeric III., and an administration of twenty-seven from the death of his father Charles Martel. Pyrenees, and appeared in vast numbers under the walls of Toulouse, where they were totally defeated by Eudes, duke of Aquitaine, in 721. The Saracens again invaded France in 731, and penetrated as far as Sens, when Charles Martel went to the assistance of Eudes, and gained the complete victory between Tours and Poitiers in which 300,000 Mohammedans are hyperbolically asserted to have fallen. But notwithstanding that slaughter, they soon made another irruption, when they were again defeated, which finally arrested their progress. REFLECTIONS ON THE SECTION IV. STATE OF FRANCE DURING THE MERO- 1. THE manners of the Franks were similar to those of the other Germanic nations described by Tacitus. Though under the command of a chief or king, their government was extremely democratical, and they acknowledged no other than a military subordination. The legislative authority resided in the General Assembly of the people (having the privilege of carrying arms), or Champ de Mars, so called from being held annually on the 1st day of March; a council in which the king had but a single suffrage, equally with the meanest soldier. But when in arms against the enemy, his power was absolute in enforcing military discipline. 2. After the establishment of the Franks in Gaul, some changes took place from their new situation. They reduced the Gauls to absolute subjection; yet they left many in possession of their lands, because the new country was too large for its conquerors. They left them likewise in the use of their existing laws, which were those of the Roman code, while they themselves were governed by the Salique and Ripuarian laws, ancient institutions in observance among the Franks before they left their original seats in Germany. Hence arose that extraordinary diversity of local laws and usages in the kingdom of France, which continued down to modern times, and gave occasion to numberless inconveniences. 3. The ancient Germans had the highest veneration for their priests or Druids. It was natural that the Franks, after their conversion to Christianity, should have the same reverence for their bishops, to whom accordingly they allowed the first rank in the national assembly. These bishops were generally chosen from among the native Gauls; for, having adopted from this nation their new religion, it was natural that their priests should be chosen from the same people. The influence of the clergy contributed much to ameliorate the condition of the conquered Gauls, and to humanize their conquerors; and in a short space of time the two nations were thoroughly incorporated. 4. At this period a new system of policy is visible among this united people, which by degrees extended itself over most of the nations of Europe, the Feudal System. By this expression is properly meant that tenure or condition on which the proprietors of land held their possessions, viz. an obligation to perform military service, whenever required by the chief or over-lord to whom they owed allegiance. Many modern writers attribute the origin of this institution or policy to the kings of the Franks, who, after the conquest of Gaul, are supposed to have divided the lands among their followers, on this condition of military service. But this notion is attended with insurmountable difficulties. For, in the first place, it proceeds on this false idea, that the conquered lands belonged in property to the king, and that he had the right of bestowing them in gifts, or dividing them among his followers; whereas it is a certain fact, that among the Franks the partition of conquered lands was made by lot, as was the division even of the spoil or booty taken in battle; and that the king's share, though doubtless a larger portion than that of his captains, was likewise assigned him by lot.* Secondly, if we should suppose the king to have made those gifts to his captains out of his own domain, the creation of a very few beneficia would have rendered him a poorer man than his subjects. We must therefore have recourse to another supposition for the origin of the fiefs; and we shall find that it is to be traced to a source much more remote than the conquest of Gaul by the Franks. 5. Among all barbarous nations, with whom war is the chief occupation, we remark a strict subordination of the members of a tribe to their chief or leader. It was observed by Cæsar as peculiarly strong among the Gaulish nations, and as subsisting not only between the soldiers and their commander, but between the inferior towns or villages and the canton or province to which they belonged. In peace every man cultivated his land, free of all taxation, and subject to no other burden than that of military service when required by his chief. When the province was at war, each village, though taxed to furnish only a certain number of soldiers, was bound to send, on the day appointed for a general muster, all its males capable of bearing arms, and from these its rated number was selected by the chief of the province. The clientela subsisted among the Franks as well as among the Gauls. It subsisted among the Romans, who, in order to secure their distant conquests, were obliged to maintain fixed garrisons on their frontiers, to check the inroads of the barbarian nations. To each officer in these garrisons it was customary to assign a portion of land as the pledge and pay of his service. These gifts were termed beneficia, and their proprietors beneficiarii, Plin. Ep. lib. 10. ep. 32. The beneficia were at first granted only for life. Alexander Severus was the first that allowed them to descend to heirs, on the like condition of military service, and Constantine the Great in like manner made gifts of land to his principal officers, perpetual and hereditary. The well-known story of the Vase of Soissons, is an illustration of this. When the plunder taken in Clovis's invasion of Gaul was set out for distribution, he begged for himself a precious vessel, belonging to the church of Rheims. The army having expressed their willingness to consent: "You shall have nothing here," exclaimed a soldier, striking it with his battle-axe, "but what falls to your share by lot." Clovis took the vessel, without marking his resentment; but found an opportunity next year of revenging himself, by the death of the soldier. T |