Book XXXI.Theory of the Feudal Laws among the Franks, in the Relation They Bear to the Revolutions of their Monarchy
1. Changes in the Offices and in the Fiefs. The counts at first were sent into their districts only for a year; but they soon purchased the continuation of their offices. Of this we have an example in the reign of Clovis' grandchildren. A person named Peonius was count in the city of Auxerre;1 he sent his son Mummolus with money to Gontram, to prevail upon him to continue him in his employment; the son gave the money for himself, and obtained the father's place. The kings had already begun to spoil their own favours.
Though by the laws of the kingdom the fiefs were precarious, yet they were neither given nor taken away in a capricious and arbitrary manner: nay, they were generally one of the principal subjects debated in the national assemblies. It is natural, however, to imagine that corruption crept into this as well as the other case; and that the possession of the fiefs, like that of the counties, was continued for money.
I shall show in the course of this book,2 that, independently of the grants which the princes made for a certain time, there were others in perpetuity. The court wanted to revoke the former grants; this occasioned a general discontent in the nation, and was soon followed by that famous revolution in French history, whose first epoch was the amazing spectacle of the execution of Brunehault.
That this queen, who was daughter, sister and mother of so many kings, a queen to this very day celebrated for public monuments worthy of a Roman ?dile or proconsul, born with an admirable genius for affairs, and endowed with qualities so long respected, should see herself of a sudden exposed to so slow, so ignominious and cruel a torture,3 by a king whose authority was but indifferently established in the nation,4 would appear very extraordinary, had she not incurred that nation's displeasure for some particular cause. Clo-tharius reproached her with the murder of ten kings; but two of them he had put to death himself; the death of some of the others was owing to chance, or to the villainy of another queen;5 and a nation that had permitted Fredegunda to die in her bed,6 that had even opposed the punishment of her flagitious crimes, ought to have been very different with respect to those of Brunehault.
She was put upon a camel, and led ignominiously through the army; a certain sign that she had given great offence to those troops. Fredegarius relates that Protarius,7 Brunehault's favourite, stripped the lords of their property, and filled the exchequer with the plunder; that he humbled the nobility, and that no person could be sure of continuing in any office or employment. The army conspired against him, and he was stabbed in his tent; but Brunehault, either by revenging his death, or by pursuing the same plan,8 became every day more odious to the nation.9
Clotharius, ambitious of reigning alone, inflamed moreover with the most furious revenge, and sure of perishing if Brunehault's children got the upper hand, entered into a conspiracy against himself; and whether it was owing to ignorance, or to the necessity of his circumstances, he became Brunehault's accuser, and made a terrible example of that princess.
Warnacharius had been the very soul of the conspiracy formed against Brunehault. Being at that time mayor of Burgundy, he made Clotharius consent that he should not be displaced while he lived.10 By this step the mayor could no longer be in the same case as the French lords before that period; and this authority began to render itself independent of the regal dignity.
It was Brunehault's unhappy regency which had exasperated the nation. So long as the laws subsisted in their full force, no one could grumble at having been deprived of a fief, since the law did not bestow it upon him in perpetuity. But when fiefs came to be acquired by avarice, by bad practices and corruption, they complained of being divested, by irregular means, of things that had been irregularly acquired. Perhaps if the public good had been the motive of the revocation of those grants, nothing would have been said; but they pretended a regard for order while they were openly abetting the principles of corruption; the fiscal rights were claimed in order to lavish the public treasure; and grants were no longer the reward or the encouragement of services. Brunehault, from a corrupt spirit, wanted to reform the abuses of the ancient corruption. Her caprices were not owing to weakness; the vassals and the great officers, thinking themselves in danger, prevented their own by her ruin.
We are far from having all the records of the transactions of those days; and the writers of chronicles, who understood very nearly as much of the history of their time as our peasants know of ours, are extremely barren. Yet we have a constitution of Clotharius, given in the council of Paris,11 for the reformation of abuses,12 which shows that this prince put a stop to the complaints that had occasioned the revolution. On the one hand, he confirms all the grants that had been made or confirmed by the kings his predecessors;13 and on the other, he ordains that whatever had been taken from his vassals should be restored to them.14
This was not the only concession the king made in that council; he enjoined that whatever had been innovated, in opposition to the privileges of the clergy, should be redressed; and he moderated the influence of the court in the election of bishops.15 He even reformed the fiscal affairs, ordaining that all the new censuses should be abolished,16 and that they should not levy any toll established since the deaths of Gontram, Sigebert, and Chilperic;17 that is, he abolished whatever had been done during the regencies of Fredegunda and Brunehault. He forbad the driving of his cattle to graze in private people's grounds;18 and we shall presently see that the reformation was still more general, so as to extend even to civil affairs.
2. How the Civil Government was reformed. Hitherto the nation had given marks of impatience and levity with regard to the choice or conduct of her masters; she had regulated their differences and obliged them to come to an agreement among themselves. But now she did what before was quite unexampled; she cast her eyes on her actual situation, examined the laws coolly, provided against their insufficiency, repressed violence, and moderated the regal power.
The bold and insolent regencies of Fredegunda and Brunehault had less surprised than roused the nation. Fredegunda had defended her horried cruelties, her poisonings and assassinations, by a repetition of the same crimes; and had behaved in such a manner that her outrages were rather of a private than public nature. Fredegunda did more mischief: Brunehault threatened more. In this crisis the nation was not satisfied with rectifying the feudal system; she was also determined to secure her civil government. For the latter was rather more corrupt than the former; a corruption the more dangerous as it was more inveterate, and connected rather with the abuse of manners than with that of laws.
The history of Gregory of Tours exhibits, on the one hand, a fierce and barbarous nation; and on the other, kings remarkable for the same ferocity of temper. Those princes were bloody, iniquitous and cruel, because such was the character of the whole nation. If Christianity appeared sometimes to soften their manners, it was only by the circumstances of terror with which this religion alarms the sinner; the church supported herself against them by the miraculous operations of her saints. The kings would not commit sacrilege, because they dreaded the punishments inflicted on that species of guilt: but this excepted, either in the riot of passion or in the coolness of deliberation, they perpetrated the most horrid crimes and barbarities where divine vengeance did not appear so immediately to overtake the criminal. The Franks, as I have already observed, bore with cruel kings, because they were of the same disposition themselves; they were not shocked at the iniquity and extortions of their princes, because this was the national characteristic. There had been many laws established, but it was usual for the king to defeat them all, by a kind of letter called precepts,19 which rendered them of no effect; they were somewhat similar to the rescripts of the Roman Emperors; whether it be that our kings borrowed this usage from those princes, or whether it was owing to their own natural temper. We see in Gregory of Tours, that they perpetrated murder in cool blood, and put the accused to death unheard; how they gave precepts for illicit marriages;20 for transferring successions; for depriving relatives of their right; and, in fine, marrying consecrated virgins. They did not, indeed, assume the whole legislative power, but they dispensed with the execution of the laws.
Clotharius' constitution redressed all these grievances: no one could any longer be condemned without being heard:21 relatives were made to succeed, according to the order established by law;22 all precepts for marrying religious women were declared null;23 and those who had obtained and made use of them were severely punished. We might know perhaps more exactly his determinations with regard to these precepts, if the thirteenth and the next two articles of this decree had not been lost through the injury of time. We have only the first words of this thirteenth article, ordaining that the precepts shall be observed, which cannot be understood of those he had just abolished by the same law. We have another constitution by the same prince,24 which is in relation to his decree, and corrects in the same manner every article of the abuses of the precepts.
True it is that Baluzius, finding this constitution without date and without the name of the place where it was given, attributes it to Clotharius I. But I say it belongs to Clotharius II, for three reasons: 1. It says that the king will preserve the immunities granted to the churches by his father and grandfather.25 What immunities could the churches receive from Childeric, grandfather of Clotharius I, who was not a Christian, and who lived even before the foundation of the monarchy? But if we attribute this decree to Clotharius II, we shall find his grandfather to have been this very Clotharius I, who made immense donations to the church with a view of expiating the murder of his son Cramne, whom he had ordered to be burned, together with his wife and children.
2. The abuses redressed by this constitution were still subsisting after the death of Clotharius I and were even carried to their highest extravagance during the weak reign of Gontram, the cruel administration of Chilperic, and the execrable regencies of Fredegunda and Brunehault. Now, can we imagine that the nation would have borne with grievances so solemnly proscribed, without complaining of their continual repetition? Can we imagine she would not have taken the same step as she did afterwards under Childeric II,26 when, upon a repetition of the old grievances, she pressed him to ordain that law and customs in regard to judicial proceedings should be complied with as formerly.27
In fine, as this constitution was made to redress grievances, it cannot relate to Clotharius I, since there were no complaints of that kind in his reign, and his authority was perfectly established throughout the kingdom, especially at the time in which they place this constitution; whereas it agrees extremely well with the events that happened during the reign of Clotharius II, which produced a revolution in the political state of the kingdom. History must be illustrated by the laws, and the laws by history.
3. Authority of the Mayors of the Palace. I noticed that Clotharius II had promised not to deprive Warnacharius of his mayor's place during life; a revolution productive of another effect. Before that time the mayor was the king's officer, but now he became the officer of the people; he was chosen before by the king, and now by the nation. Before the revolution Protarius had been made mayor by Theodoric, and Landeric by Fredegunda;28 but after that the mayors29 were chosen by the nation.30
We must not therefore confound, as some authors have done, these mayors of the palace with such as were possessed of this dignity before the death of Brunehault; the king's mayors with those of the kingdom. We see by the law of the Burgundians that among them the office of mayor was not one of the most respectable in the state;31 nor was it one of the most eminent under the first Kings of the Franks.32
Clotharius removed the apprehensions of those who were possessed of employments and fiefs; and when, after the death of Warnacharius,33 he asked the lords assembled at Troyes, who is it they would put in his place, they cried out they would choose no one, but suing for his favour committed themselves entirely into his hands.
Dagobert reunited the whole monarchy in the same manner as his father; the nation had a thorough confidence in him, and appointed no mayor. This prince, finding himself at liberty and elated by his victories, resumed Brunehault's plan. But he succeeded so ill that the vassals of Austrasia let themselves be beaten by the Sclavonians, and returned home; so that the marches of Austrasia were left to prey to the barbarians.34
He determined then to make an offer to the Austrasians of resigning that country, together with a provincial treasure, to his son Sigebert, and to put the government of the kingdom and of the palace into the hands of Cunibert, Bishop of Cologne, and of the Duke Adalgisus. Fredegarius does not enter into the particulars of the conventions then made; but the king confirmed them all by charters, and Austrasia was immediately secured from danger.35
Dagobert, finding himself near his end, recommended his wife Nentechildis and his son Clovis to the care of Æga. The vassals of Neustria and Burgundy chose this young prince for their king.36 Æga and Nentechildis had the government of the palace;37 they restored whatever Dagobert had taken;38 and complaints ceased in Neustria and Burgundy, as they had ceased in Austrasia.
After the death of Æga, Queen Nentechildis engaged the lords of Burgundy to choose Floachatus for their mayor.39 The latter dispatched letters to the bishops and chief lords of the kingdom of Burgundy, by which he promised to preserve their honours and dignities for ever, that is, during life.40 He confirmed his word by oath. This is the period at which the author of the Treatise on the Mayors of the Palace fixes the administration of the kingdom by those officers.41
Fredegarius, being a Burgundian, has entered into a more minute detail as to what concerns the Mayors of Burgundy at the time of the revolution of which we are speaking, than with regard to the mayors of Austrasia and Neustria. But the conventions made in Burgundy were, for the very same reasons, agreed to in Neustria and Austrasia.
The nation thought it safer to lodge the power in the hands of a mayor whom she chose herself, and to whom she might prescribe conditions, than in those of a king whose power was hereditary.
4. Of the Genius of the Nation in regard to the Mayors. A government in which a nation that had an hereditary king chose a person to exercise the regal authority seems very extraordinary; but, independently of the circumstances of the times, I apprehend that the notions of the Franks in this respect were derived from a remote source.
The Franks were descended from the Germans, of whom Tacitus says42 that in the choice of their king they were determined by his noble extraction, and in that of their leader, by his valour. This gives us an idea of the kings of the first race, and of the mayors of the palace; the former were hereditary, the latter elective.
No doubt but those princes who stood up in the national assembly and offered themselves as the conductors of a public enterprise to such as were willing to follow them, united generally in their own person both the power of the mayor and the king's authority. By the splendour of their descent they had attained the regal dignity; and their military abilities having recommended them to the command of armies, they rose to the power of mayor. By the regal dignity, our first kings presided in the courts and assemblies, and enacted laws with the national consent; by the dignity of duke or leader, they undertook expeditions and commanded the armies.
In order to be acquainted with the genius of the primitive Franks in this respect, we have only to cast an eye on the conduct of Argobastes,43 a Frank by nation, on whom Valentinian had conferred the command of the army. He confined the emperor to his own palace, where he would suffer nobody to speak to him, concerning either civil or military affairs. Argobastes did at that time what was afterwards practised by the Pepins.
5. In what Manner the Mayors obtained the Command of the Armies. So long as the kings commanded their armies in person, the nation never thought of choosing a leader. Clovis and his four sons were at the head of the Franks, and led them on through a series of victories. Theobald, son of Theodobert, a young, weak, and sickly prince, was the first of our kings who confined himself to his palace.44 He refused to undertake an expedition into Italy against Narses, and had the mortification of seeing the Franks choose for themselves two chiefs, who led them against the enemy.45 Of the four sons of Clotharius I, Gontram was the least fond of commanding his armies;46 the other kings followed this example; and, in order to entrust the command without danger into other hands, they conferred it upon several chiefs or dukes.47
Innumerable were the inconveniences which thence arose; all discipline was lost, no one would any longer obey. The armies were dreadful only to their own country; they were laden with spoils before they had reached the enemy. Of these miseries we have a very lively picture in Gregory of Tours.48 "How shall we be able to obtain a victory," said Gontram,49 "we who do not so much as keep what our ancestors acquired? Our nation is no longer the same." …… Strange that it should be on the decline so early as the reign of Clovis' grandchildren!
It was therefore natural they should determine at last upon an only duke, a duke invested with an authority over this prodigious multitude of feudal lords and vassals who had now become strangers to their own engagements; a duke who was to establish the military discipline, and to put himself at the head of a nation unhappily practised in making war against itself. This power was conferred on the mayors of the palace.
The original function of the mayors of the palace was the management of the king's household. They had afterwards, in conjunction with other officers, the political government of fiefs; and at length they obtained the sole disposal of them.50 They had also the administration of military affairs, and the command of the armies; employments necessarily connected with the other two. In those days it was much more difficult to raise than to command the armies; and who but the dispenser of favours could have this authority? In this martial and independent nation, it was prudent to invite rather than to compel; prudent to give away or to promise the fiefs that should happen to be vacant by the death of the possessor; prudent, in fine, to reward continually, and to raise a jealousy with regard to preferences. It was therefore right that the person who had the superintendence of the palace should also be general of the army.
6. Second Epoch of the Humiliation of our Kings of the first Race. After the execution of Brunehault, the mayors were administrators of the kingdom under the sovereigns; and though they had the conduct of the war, the kings were always at the head of the armies, while the mayor and the nation fought under their command. But the victory of Duke Pepin over Theodoric and his mayor51 completed the degradation of our princes;52 and that which Charles Martel obtained over Chilperic and his mayor Rainfroy confirmed it.53 Austrasia triumphed twice over Neustria and Burgundy; and the mayoralty of Austrasia being annexed as it were to the family of the Pepins, this mayoralty and family became greatly superior to all the rest. The conquerors were then afraid lest some person of credit should seize the king's person, in order to excite disturbances. For this reason they kept them in the royal palace as in a kind of prison, and once a year showed them to the people.54 There they made ordinances, but these were such as were dictated by the mayor;55 they answered ambassadors, but the mayor made the answers. This is the time mentioned by historians of the government of the mayors over the kings whom they held in subjection.56
The extravagant passion of the nation for Pepin's family went so far that they chose one of his grandsons, who was yet an infant, for mayor;57 and put him over one Dagobert, that is, one phantom over another.
7. Of the great Offices and Fiefs under the Mayors of the Palace. The mayors of the palace were little disposed to establish the uncertain tenure of places and offices; for, indeed, they ruled only by the protection which in this respect they granted to the nobility. Hence the great offices continued to be given for life, and this usage was every day more firmly established.
But I have some particular reflections to make here in respect of fiefs: I do not question but most of them became hereditary from this time.
In the treaty of Andeli,58 Gontram and his nephew Childebert engage to maintain the donations made to the vassals and churches by the kings their predecessors; and leave is given to the wives, daughters, and widows of kings to dispose by will, and in perpetuity, of whatever they hold of the exchequer.
Marculfus wrote his formularies at the time of the mayors.59 We find several in which the kings make donations both to the person and to his heirs:60 and as the formularies represent the common actions of life, they prove that part of the fiefs had become hereditary towards the end of the first race. They were far from having in those days the idea of an unalienable demesne; this is a modern thing, which they knew neither in theory nor practice.
In proof hereof we shall presently produce positive fact; and if we can point out a time in which there were no longer any benefices for the army, nor any funds for its support, we must certainly conclude that the ancient benefices had been alienated. The time I mean is that of Charles Martel, who founded some new fiefs, which we should carefully distinguish from those of the earliest date.
When the kings began to make grants in perpetuity, either through the corruption which crept into the government or by reason of the constitution itself, which continually obliged those princes to confer rewards, it was natural they should begin with giving the perpetuity of the fiefs, rather than of the counties. For to deprive themselves of some acres of land was no great matter; but to renounce the right of disposing of the great offices was divesting themselves of their very power.
8. In what Manner the Allodial Estates were changed into Fiefs. The manner of changing an allodial estate into a fief may be seen in a formulary of Marculfus.61 The owner of the land gave it to the king, who restored it to the donor by way of usufruct, or benefice, and then the donor nominated his heirs to the king.
In order to find out the reasons which induced them thus to change the nature of the allodia, I must trace the source of the ancient privileges of our nobility, a nobility which for these eleven centuries has been enveloped with dust, with blood, and with the marks of toil.
They who were seized of fiefs enjoyed very great advantages. The composition for the injuries done them was greater than that of freemen. It appears by the formularies of Marculfus that it was a privilege belonging to a king's vassal, that whoever killed him should pay a composition of six hundred sous. This privilege was established by the Salic law,62 and by that of the Ripuarians;63 and while these two laws ordained a composition of six hundred sous for the murder of a king's vassal, they gave but two hundred sous for the murder of a person freeborn, if he was a Frank or Barbarian, or a man living under, the Salic law;64 and only a hundred for a Roman.
This was not the only privilege belonging to the king's vassals. We ought to know that when a man was summoned in court, and did not make his appearance nor obey the judge's orders, he was called before the king;65 and if he persisted in his contumacy, he was excluded from the royal protection,66 and no one was allowed to entertain him, nor even to give him a morsel of bread. Now, if he was a person of an ordinary condition, his goods were confiscated;67 but if he was the king's vassal, they were not.68 The first by his contumacy was deemed sufficiently convicted of the crime, the second was not; the former for the smallest crimes was obliged to undergo the trial by boiling water,69 the latter was condemned to this trial only in the case of murder.70 In fine, the king's vassal could not be compelled to swear in court against another vassal.71 These privileges were continually increasing, and the Capitulary of Carloman does this honour to the king's vassals, that they should not be obliged to swear in person, but only by the mouth of their own vassals.72 Moreover, when a person, having these honours, did not repair to the army, his punishment was to abstain from flesh-meat and wine as long as he had been absent from the service; but a freeman73 who neglected to follow his count was fined sixty sous,74 and was reduced to a state of servitude till he had paid it.
It is very natural, therefore, to believe that those Franks who were not the king's vassals, and much more the Romans, became fond of entering into the state of vassalage: and that they might not be deprived of their demesnes, they devised the usage of giving their allodium to the king, of receiving it from him afterwards as a fief, and of nominating their heirs. This usage was continued, and took place especially during the times of confusion under the second race, when every man being in want of a protector was desirous of incorporating himself with the other lords, and of entering, as it were, into the feudal monarchy, because the political no longer existed.75
This continued under the third race, as we find by several charters;76 whether they gave their allodium, and resumed it by the same act; or whether it was declared an allodium, and afterwards acknowledged as a fief. These were called fiefs of resumption.
This does not imply that those who were seized of fiefs administered them as a prudent father of a family would; for though the freemen grew desirous of being possessed of fiefs, yet they managed this sort of estates as usufructs are managed in our days. This is what induced Charlemagne, the most vigilant and considerate prince we ever had, to make a great many regulations in order to hinder the fiefs from being demeaned in favour of allodial estates.77 It proves only that in his time most benefices were but for life, and consequently that they took more care of the freeholds than of the benefices; and yet for all that, they did not choose rather to be the king's vassals than freemen. They might have reasons for disposing of some particular part of a fief, but they were not willing to be stripped of their dignity likewise.
I know, likewise, that Charlemagne laments in a certain capitulary, that in some places there were people who gave away their fiefs in property, and redeemed them afterwards in the same manner.78 But I do not say that they were not fonder of the property than of the usufruct; I mean only, that when they could convert an allodium into a fief, which was to descend to their heirs, as is the case of the formulary above-mentioned, they had very great advantages in doing it.
9. How the Church Lands were converted into Fiefs. The use of the fiscal lands should have been only to serve as a donation by which the kings were to encourage the Franks to undertake new expeditions, and by which, on the other hand, these fiscal lands were increased. This, as I have already observed, was the spirit of the nation; but these donations took another turn. There is still extant a speech of Chilperic,79 grandson of Clovis, in which he complains that almost all these lands had been already given away to the church. "Our exchequer," says he, "is impoverished, and our riches are transferred to the clergy;80 none reign now but the bishops, who live in grandeur while we are quite eclipsed."
This was the reason that the mayors, who durst not attack the lords, stripped the churches; and one of the motives alleged by Pepin for entering Neustria81 was his having been invited thither by the clergy to put a stop to the encroachments of the kings, that is, of the mayors, who deprived the church of all her possessions.
The Mayors of Austrasia, that is the family of the Pepins, had behaved towards the clergy with more moderation than those of Neustria and Burgundy. This is evident from our chronicles,82 in which we see the monks perpetually extolling the devotion and liberality of the Pepins. They themselves had been possessed of the first places in the church. "One crow does not pull out the eyes of another"; as Chilperic said to the bishops.83
Pepin subdued Neustria and Burgundy; but as his pretence for destroying the mayors and kings was the grievances of the clergy, he could not strip the latter without acting inconsistently with his cause, and showing that he made a jest of the nation. However, the conquest of two great kingdoms and the destruction of the opposite party afforded him sufficient means of satisfying his generals.
Pepin made himself master of the monarchy by protecting the clergy; his son, Charles Martel, could not maintain his power but by oppressing them. This prince, finding that part of the regal and fiscal lands had been given either for life, or in perpetuity, to the nobility, and that the church by receiving both from rich and poor had acquired a great part even of the allodial estates, he resolved to strip the clergy; and as the fiefs of the first division were no longer in being, he formed a second.84 He took for himself and for his officers the church-lands and the churches themselves; thus he remedied an evil which differed from ordinary diseases, as its extremity rendered it the more easy to cure.
10. Riches of the Clergy. So great were the donations made to the clergy that under the three races of our princes they must have several times received the full property of all the lands of the kingdom. But if our kings, the nobility, and the people found the way of giving them all their estates, they found also the method of getting them back again. The spirit of devotion established a great number of churches under the first race; but the military spirit was the cause of their being given away afterwards to the soldiery, who divided them among their children. What a number of lands must have then been taken from the clergy's mensalia/ The kings of the second race opened their hands, and made new donations to them; but the Normans, who came afterwards, plundered and ravaged all before them, wreaking their vengeance chiefly on the priests and monks, and devoting every religious house to destruction. For they charged those ecclesiastics with the destruction of their idols, and with all the oppressive measures of Charlemagne by which they had been successively obliged to take shelter in the north. These were animosities which the space of forty or fifty years had not been able to obliterate. In this situation, what losses must the clergy have sustained! There were hardly ecclesiastics left to demand the estates of which they had been deprived. There remained, therefore, for the religious piety of the third race, foundations enough to make, and lands to bestow. The opinions which were spread abroad and believed in those days would have deprived the laity of all their estates, if they had been but virtuous enough. But if the clergy were actuated by ambition, the laity were not without theirs; if dying persons gave their estates to the church, their heirs would fain resume them. We meet with continual quarrels between the lords and the bishops, the gentlemen and the abbots; and the clergy must have been very hard pressed, since they were obliged to put themselves under the protection of certain lords, who granted them a momentary defence, and afterwards joined their oppressors.
But a better administration having been established under the third race gave the clergy leave to augment their possessions; when the Calvinists started up, and having plundered the churches, they turned all the sacred plate into specie. How could the clergy be sure of their estates, when they were not even safe in their persons? They were debating on controversial subjects while their archives were in flames. What did it avail them to demand back of an impoverished nobility those estates which were no longer in possession of the latter, but had been conveyed into other hands by different mortgages? The clergy have been long acquiring, and have often refunded, and still there is no end of their acquisitions.
11. State of Europe at the Time of Charles Martel. Charles Martel, who undertook to strip the clergy, found himself in a most happy situation. He was both feared and beloved by the soldiery; he worked for them, having the pretext of his wars against the Saracens. He was hated, indeed, by the clergy, but he had no need of their assistance.85 The Pope, to whom he was necessary, stretched out his arms to him. Every one knows the famous embassy he received from Gregory III.86 These two powers were strictly united, because they could not do without each other: the Pope stood in need of the Franks to assist him against the Lombards and the Greeks; Charles Martel had occasion for the Pope, to humble the Greeks, to embarrass the Lombards, to make himself more respectable at home, and to guarantee the titles which he had, and those which he or his children might take. It was impossible, therefore, for his enterprise to miscarry.
St. Eucherius, Bishop of Orleans, had a vision which frightened all the princes of that time. I shall produce on this occasion the letter written by the bishops assembled at Rheims to Louis, King of Germany, who had invaded the territories of Charles the Bald;87 because it will give us an insight into the situation of things in those times, and the temper of the people. They say88 that "St. Eucherius, having been snatched up into heaven, saw Charles Martel tormented in the bottom of hell by order of the saints, who are to sit with Christ at the last judgment; that he had been condemned to this punishment before his time, for having stripped the church of her possessions and thereby charged himself with the sins of all those who founded these livings; that King Pepin held a council upon this occasion, and had ordered all the church-lands he could recover to be restored; that as he could get back only a part of them, because of his disputes with Vaifre, Duke of Acquitaine, he issued letters called precaria89 for the remainder, and made a law that the laity should pay a tenth part of the church-lands they possessed, and twelve deniers for each house; that Charlemagne did not give the church-lands away; on the contrary, that he published a capitulary, by which he engaged both for himself and for his successors never to make any such grant; that all they say is committed to writing, and that a great many of them heard the whole related by Louis the Debonnaire, the father of those two kings."
King Pepin's regulation, mentioned by the bishops, was made in the council held at Leptines.90 The church found this advantage in it, that such as had received those lands held them no longer but in a precarious manner; and moreover that she received the tithe or tenth part, and twelve deniers for every house that had belonged to her. But this was only a palliative, and did not remove the disorder.
Nay, it met with opposition, and Pepin was obliged to make another capitulary,91 in which he enjoins those who held any of those benefices to pay this tithe and duty, and even to keep up the houses belonging to the bishopric or monastery, under the penalty of forfeiting those possessions. Charlemagne renewed the regulations of Pepin.92
That part of the same letter which says that Charlemagne promised both for himself and for his successors never to divide again the church-lands among the soldiery is agreeable to the capitulary of this prince, given at Aix-la-Chapelle in the year 803, with a view of removing the apprehensions of the clergy upon this subject. But the donations already made were still in force.93 The bishops very justly add that Louis the Debonnaire followed the example of Charlemagne, and did not give away the church-lands to the soldiery.
And yet the old abuses were carried to such a pitch, that the laity under the children of Louis the Debonnaire preferred ecclesiastics to benefices, or turned them out of their livings94 without the consent of the bishops. The benefices were divided among the next heirs,95 and when they were held in an indecent manner the bishops had no other remedy left than to remove the relics.96
By the Capitulary of Compiègne97 it is enacted that the king's commissary shall have a right to visit every monastery, together with the bishop, by the consent and in presence of the person who holds it; and this shows that the abuse was general.
Not that there were laws wanting for the restitution of the church-lands. The Pope having reprimanded the bishops for their neglect in regard to the re-establishment of the monasteries, they wrote to Charles the Bald that they were not affected by this reproach, because they were not culpable;98 and they reminded him of what had been promised, resolved and decreed in so many national assemblies. In point of fact, they quoted nine.
Still they went on disputing; till the Normans came and made them all agree.
12. Establishment of the Tithes. The regulations made under King Pepin had given the church rather hopes of relief than effectually relieved her; and as Charles Martel found all the landed estates of the kingdom in the hands of the clergy, Charlemagne found all the church-lands in the hands of the soldiery. The latter could not be compelled to restore a voluntary donation, and the circumstances of that time rendered the thing still more impracticable than it seemed to be of its own nature. On the other hand, Christianity ought not to have been lost for want of ministers, churches, and instruction.99
This was the reason of Charlemagne's establishing the tithes,100 a new kind of property which had this advantage in favour of the clergy, that as they were given particularly to the church, it was easier in process of time to know when they were usurped.
Some have attempted to make this institution of a still remoter date, but the authorities they produce seem rather, I think, to prove the contrary. The constitution of Clotharius says101 only that they shall not raise certain tithes on church-lands;102 so far then was the church from exacting tithes at that time, that its whole pretension was to be exempted from paying them. The second council of Macon,103 which was held in 585, and ordains the payment of tithes, says, indeed, that they were paid in ancient times, but it says also that the custom of paying them was then abolished.
No one questions but that the clergy opened the Bible before Charlemagne's time, and preached the gifts and offerings in Leviticus. But I say that before that prince's reign, though the tithes might have been preached, they were never established.
I noticed that the regulations made under King Pepin had subjected those who were seized of church lands in fief to the payment of tithes, and to the repairing of the churches. It was a great deal to induce by a law, whose equity could not be disputed, the principal men of the nation to set the example.
Charlemagne did more; and we find by the capitulary de Villis104 that he obliged his own demesnes to the payment of the tithes; this was a still more striking example.