It is not to be supposed that the Norman baron, when he had received his
fief, proceeded to carve it out into demesne and tenants' land as if he
were making a new settlement in an uninhabited country. He might indeed
build his castle and enclose his chase with very little respect to the
rights of his weaker neighbors, but he did not attempt any such radical
change as the legal theory of the creation of manors seems to presume.
The name "manor" is of Norman origin: but the estate to which it was
given existed, in its essential character, long before the Conquest; it
received a new name as the shire also did, but neither the one nor the
other was created by this change. The local jurisdictions of the thegns
who had grants of _sac_ and _soc_, or who exercised judicial functions
among their free neighbors, were identical with the manorial
jurisdictions of the new owners.
It may be conjectured with great probability that in many cases the
weaker freemen, who had either willingly or under constraint attended
the courts of their great neighbors, were now, under the general
infusion of feudal principle, regarded as holding their lands of them as
lords; it is not less probable that in a great number of grants the
right to suit and service from small land-owners passed from the king to
the receiver of the fief as a matter of course; but it is certain that
even before the Conquest such a proceeding was not uncommon; Edward the
Confessor had transferred to St. Augustine's monastery a number of
allodiaries in Kent, and every such measure in the case of a church must
have had its parallel in similar grants to laymen. The manorial system
brought in a number of new names; and perhaps a duplication of offices.
The _gerefa_ of the old thegn, or of the ancient township, was replaced,
as president of the courts, by a Norman steward or seneschal; and the
_bydel_ of the old system by the bailiff of the new; but the gerefa and
bydel still continued to exist in a subordinate capacity as the _grave_
or reeve and the _bedell_; and when the lord's steward takes his place
in the county court, the reeve and four men of the township are there
also. The common of the township may be treated as the lord's waste, but
the townsmen do not lose their customary share.
The changes that take place in the state have their resulting analogies
in every village, but no new England is created; new forms displace but
do not destroy the old, and old rights remain, although changed in title
and forced into symmetry with a new legal and pseudo-historical theory.
The changes may not seem at first sight very oppressive, but they opened
the way for oppression; the forms they had introduced tended, under the
spirit of Norman legality and feudal selfishness, to become hard
realities, and in the profound miseries of Stephen's reign the people
learned how completely the new theory left them at the mercy of their
lords; nor were all the reforms of his successor more stringent or the
struggles of the century that followed a whit more impassioned than were
necessary to protect the English yeoman from the men who lived upon his
strength.
In attempting thus to estimate the real amount of change introduced by
the feudalism of the Conquest, many points of further interest have been
touched upon, to which it is necessary to recur only so far as to give
them their proper place in a more general view of the reformed
organization. The Norman king is still the king of the nation. He has
become the supreme landlord; all estates are held of him mediately or
immediately, but he still demands the allegiance of all his subjects.
The oath which he exacted at Salisbury in 1086, and which is embodied in
the semi-legal form already quoted, was a modification of the oath taken
to Edmund, and was intended to set the general obligation of obedience
to the king in its proper relation to the new tie of homage and fealty
by which the tenant was bound to his lord.
All men continued to be primarily the king's men, and the public peace
to be his peace. Their lords might demand their service to fulfil their
own obligations, but the king could call them to the _fyrd_, summon them
to his courts, and tax them without the intervention of their lords; and
to the king they could look for protection against all foes. Accordingly
the king could rely on the help of the bulk of the free people in all
struggles with his feudatories, and the people, finding that their
connection with their lords would be no excuse for unfaithfulness to the
king, had a further inducement to adhere to the more permanent
institutions.
In the department of law the direct changes introduced by the Conquest
were not great. Much that is regarded as peculiarly Norman was developed
upon English soil, and although originated and systematized by Norman
lawyers, contained elements which would have worked in a very different
way in Normandy. Even the vestiges of Carlovingian practice which appear
in the inquests of the Norman reigns are modified by English usage. The
great inquest of all, the _Domesday_ survey, may owe its principle to a
foreign source; the oath of the reporters may be Norman, but the
machinery that furnishes the jurors is native; "the king's barons
inquire by the oath of the sheriff of the shire, and of all the barons
and their Frenchmen, and of the whole hundred, the priest, the reeve,
and six _ceorls_ of every township."
The institution of the collective Frank pledge, which recent writers
incline to treat as a Norman innovation, is so distinctly colored by
English custom that it has been generally regarded as purely indigenous.
If it were indeed a precaution taken by the new rulers against the
avoidance of justice by the absconding or harboring of criminals, it
fell with ease into the usages and even the legal terms which had been
common for other similar purposes since the reign of Athelstan. The
trial by battle, which on clearer evidence seems to have been brought in
by the Normans, is a relic of old Teutonic jurisprudence, the absence of
which from the Anglo-Saxon courts is far more curious than its
introduction from abroad.
The organization of jurisdiction required and underwent no great change
in these respects. The Norman lord who undertook the office of sheriff
had, as we have seen, more unrestricted power than the sheriffs of old.
He was the king's representative in all matters judicial, military, and
financial in his shire, and had many opportunities of tyrannizing in
each of those departments: but he introduced no new machinery. From him,
or from the courts of which he was the presiding officer, appeal lay to
the king alone; but the king was often absent from England and did not
understand the language of his subjects. In his absence the
administration was intrusted to a _judiciar_, a regent, or lieutenant,
of the kingdom; and the convenience being once ascertained of having a
minister who could in the whole kingdom represent the king, as the
sheriff did in the shire, the judiciar became a permanent functionary.
This, however, cannot be certainly affirmed of the reign of the
Conqueror, who, when present at Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, held
great courts of justice as well as for other purposes of state; and the
legal importance of the office belongs to a later stage. The royal
court, containing the tenants-in-chief of the crown, both lay and
clerical, and entering into all the functions of the witenagemot, was
the supreme council of the nation, with the advice and consent of which
the King legislated, taxed, and judged.
In the one authentic monument of William's jurisprudence, the act which
removed the bishops from the secular courts and recognized their
spiritual jurisdictions, he tells us that he acts "with the common
council and counsel of the archbishops, bishops, abbots, and all the
princes of the kingdom." The ancient summary of his laws contained in
the _Textus Roffensis_ is entitled "_What William, King of the English,
with his Princes enacted after the Conquest of England_"; and the same
form is preserved in the tradition of his confirming the ancient laws
reported to him by the representatives of the shires. The _Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle_ enumerates the classes of men who attended his great courts:
"There were with him all the great men over all England, archbishops and
bishops, abbots and earls, thegns and knights."
The great suit between Lanfranc as Archbishop of Canterbury and Odo as
Earl of Kent, which is perhaps the best reported trial of the reign, was
tried in the county court of Kent before the King's representative,
Gosfrid, bishop of Coutances; whose presence and that of most of the
great men of the kingdom seem to have made it a witenagemot. The
archbishop pleaded the cause of his Church in a session of three days on
Pennenden Heath; the aged South-Saxon bishop, Ethelric, was brought by
the King's command to declare the ancient customs of the laws; and with
him several other Englishmen skilled in ancient laws and customs. All
these good and wise men supported the archbishop's claim, and the
decision was agreed on and determined by the whole county. The sentence
was laid before the King, and confirmed by him. Here we have probably a
good instance of the principle universally adopted; all the lower
machinery of the court was retained entire, but the presence of the
Norman justiciar and barons gave it an additional authority, a more
direct connection with the king, and the appearance at least of a joint
tribunal.
The principle of amalgamating the two laws and nationalities by
superimposing the better consolidated Norman superstructure on the
better consolidated English substructure, runs through the whole policy.
The English system was strong in the cohesion of its lower organism, the
association of individuals in the township, in the hundred, and in the
shire; the Norman system was strong in its higher ranges, in the close
relation to the Crown of the tenants-in-chief whom the King had
enriched. On the other hand, the English system was weak in the higher
organization, and the Normans in England had hardly any subordinate
organization at all. The strongest elements of both were brought
together.
DECAY OF THE FRANKISH EMPIRE
DIVISION INTO MODERN FRANCE, GERMANY, AND ITALY
A.D. 843-911
FRANÇOIS P.G. GUIZOT
(The period with which the following article deals may be said to mark
the end of distinctively Frankish history. A striking mixture of races
entered into the formation of this people, and the beginnings of the
great modern nations into which the Frankish empire was divided brought
to them varied elements of strength and a diversity of constituents that
were to be commingled in new national characters and careers.
In 840 Charles the Bald became King of France, and his reign, both as
king and afterward as emperor, continued for thirty-seven years, during
which he proved himself to be lacking in those qualities which his
responsibilities and the wants of his people demanded. He had great
obstacles to contend against; for besides the ambitions of various
districts for separate nationality, which led to insurrections in many
quarters, Greek pirates ravaged the South, where the Saracens also
wrought havoc, while in the North and West the Northmen burned and
pillaged, laying waste a wide region and leaving many towns in ruins.
It was an age of turbulence in Europe, and the violence of predatory
invaders brought woes upon many peoples. On the east of Charles' empire
the Hungarians, successors of the Huns, began to threaten. In the midst
of all these distractions and dangers, assailed by enemies without and
within, Charles found it a task far beyond his abilities to construct a
state upon foundations of unity. He bore many titles and held several
crowns, but his actual dominion was narrowly restricted, and his nominal
subjects were in a state of political subdivision almost amounting to
dismemberment. After various futile efforts during his later years to
unify his empire, Charles died from an illness which seized him in 877,
on his return to France from a fruitless campaign of subjugation and
pillage in Italy. In the subsequent division of the empire, according to
the terms of the treaty of Verdun, the several portions included Italy,
the nucleus of France, and that of the present Germany.
Already suffering from the devastating expeditions of the Norse or
Northmen, the Carlovingian empire, now weakened by division, became an
easier prey for the invaders. Emboldened by success, the Northmen at
length commenced to settle in the regions they invaded, no longer
returning, as formerly, to their northern homes in winter. Among
chieftains of the early Norman invaders who settled in France was
Hastings, who became Count of Chartres; later came Rou, Rolf, or Rollo
the Rover, to whom Charles the Simple of France gave Normandy, whence
sprang the conquerors and rulers of England, who laid the foundation of
the English-speaking nations of today.)
The first of Charlemagne's grand designs, the territorial security of
the Gallo-Frankish and Christian dominion, was accomplished. In the East
and the North, the Germanic and Asiatic populations, which had so long
upset it, were partly arrested at its frontiers, partly incorporated
regularly in its midst. In the South, the Mussulman populations which,
in the eighth century, had appeared so near overwhelming it, were
powerless to deal it any heavy blow. Substantially France was founded.
But what had become of Charlemagne's second grand design, the
resuscitation of the Roman Empire at the hands of the barbarians that
had conquered it and become Christians?
Let us leave Louis the Debonair his traditional name, although it is not
an exact rendering of that which was given him by his contemporaries.
They called him Louis the Pious. And so, indeed, he was, sincerely and
even scrupulously pious; but he was still more weak than pious, as weak
in heart and character as in mind; as destitute of ruling ideas as of
strength of will, fluctuating at the mercy of transitory impressions or
surrounding influences or positional embarrassments. The name of
_Débonnaire_ is suited to him; it expresses his moral worth and his
political incapacity both at once.
As king of Aquitaine in the time of Charlemagne, Louis made himself
esteemed and loved; his justice, his suavity, his probity, and his piety
were pleasing to the people, and his weaknesses disappeared under the
strong hand of his father. When he became emperor, he began his reign by
a reaction against the excesses, real or supposed, of the preceding
reign. Charlemagne's morals were far from regular, and he troubled
himself but little about the license prevailing in his family or his
palace. At a distance, he ruled with a tight and heavy hand. Louis
established at his court, for his sisters as well as his servants,
austere regulations. He restored to the subjugated Saxons certain of the
rights of which Charlemagne had deprived them. He sent out everywhere
his commissioners with orders to listen to complaints and redress
grievances, and to mitigate his father's rule, which was rigorous in its
application and yet insufficient to repress disturbance, notwithstanding
its preventive purpose and its watchful supervision.
Almost simultaneously with his accession, Louis committed an act more
serious and compromising. He had, by his wife Hermengarde, three sons,
Lothair, Pépin, and Louis, aged respectively nineteen, eleven, and
eight. In 817, Louis summoned at Aix-la-Chapelle the general assembly of
his dominions; and there, while declaring that "neither to those who
were wisely minded nor to himself did it appear expedient to break up,
for the love he bare his sons and by the will of man, the unity of the
empire, preserved by God himself," he had resolved to share with his
eldest son, Lothair, the imperial throne. Lothair was in fact crowned
emperor; and his two brothers, Pépin and Louis, were crowned king, "in
order that they might reign, after their father's death and under their
brother and lord, Lothair, to wit: Pépin, over Aquitaine and a great
part of Southern Gaul and of Burgundy; Louis, beyond the Rhine, over
Bavaria and the divers peoples in the east of Germany." The rest of Gaul
and of Germany, as well as the kingdom of Italy, was to belong to
Lothair, Emperor and head of the Frankish monarchy, to whom his brothers
would have to repair year by year to come to an understanding with him
and receive his instructions. The last-named kingdom, the most
considerable of the three, remained under the direct government of Louis
the Debonair, and at the same time of his son Lothair, sharing the title
of emperor. The two other sons, Pépin and Louis, entered,
notwithstanding their childhood, upon immediate possession, the one of
Aquitaine and the other of Bavaria, under the superior authority of
their father and their brother, the joint emperors.
Charlemagne had vigorously maintained the unity of the empire, for all
that he had delegated to two of his sons, Pépin and Louis, the
government of Italy and Aquitaine with the title of king. Louis the
Debonair, while regulating beforehand the division of his dominion,
likewise desired, as he said, to maintain the unity of the empire. But
he forgot that he was no Charlemagne.
It was not long before numerous mournful experiences showed to what
extent the unity of the empire required personal superiority in the
emperor, and how rapid would be the decay of the fabric when there
remained nothing but the title of the founder.
In 816 Pope Stephen IV came to France to consecrate Louis the Debonair
emperor. Many a time already the popes had rendered the Frankish kings
this service and honor. The Franks had been proud to see their King,
Charlemagne, protecting Adrian I against the Lombards; then crowned
emperor at Rome by Leo III, and then having his two sons, Pépin and
Louis, crowned at Rome, by the same Pope, kings respectively of Italy
and of Aquitaine. On these different occasions Charlemagne, while
testifying the most profound respect for the Pope, had, in his relations
with him, always taken care to preserve, together with his political
greatness, all his personal dignity. But when, in 816, the Franks saw
Louis the Pious not only go out of Rheims to meet Stephen IV, but
prostrate himself, from head to foot, and rise only when the Pope held
out a hand to him, the spectators felt saddened and humiliated at the
sight of their Emperor in the posture of a penitent monk.
Several insurrections burst out in the empire; the first among the
Basques of Aquitaine; the next in Italy, where Bernard, son of Pépin,
having, after his father's death, become king in 812, with the consent
of his grandfather Charlemagne, could not quietly see his kingdom pass
into the hands of his cousin Lothair at the orders of his uncle Louis.
These two attempts were easily repressed, but the third was more
serious. It took place in Brittany among those populations of Armorica
who were still buried in their woods, and were excessively jealous of
their independence. In 818 they took for king one of their principal
chieftains, named Morvan; and, not confining themselves to a refusal of
all tribute to the King of the Franks, they renewed their ravages upon
the Frankish territories bordering on their frontier. Louis was at that
time holding a general assembly of his dominions at Aix-la-Chapelle; and
Count Lantbert, commandant of the marches of Brittany, came and reported
to him what was going on. A Frankish monk, named Ditcar, happened to be
at the assembly: he was a man of piety and sense, a friend of peace,
and, moreover, with some knowledge of the Breton king Morvan, as his
monastery had property in the neighborhood. Him the Emperor commissioned
to convey to the King his grievances and his demands. After some days'
journey the monk passed the frontier and arrived at a vast space
enclosed on one side by a noble river, and on all the others by forests
and swamps, hedges and ditches. In the middle of this space was a large
dwelling, which was Morvan's. Ditcar found it full of warriors, the King
having, no doubt, some expedition on hand. The monk announced himself as
a messenger from the Emperor of the Franks. The style of announcement
caused some confusion at first, to the Briton, who, however, hastened to
conceal his emotion under an air of good-will and joyousness, to impose
upon his comrades. The latter were got rid of; and the King remained
alone with the monk, who explained the object of his mission. He
descanted upon the power of the emperor Louis, recounted his complaints,
and warned the Briton, kindly and in a private capacity, of the danger
of his situation, a danger so much the greater in that he and his people
would meet with the less consideration, seeing that they kept up the
religion of their pagan forefathers. Morvan gave attentive ear to this
sermon, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and his foot tapping it from
time to time. Ditcar thought he had succeeded; but an incident
supervened. It was the hour when Morvan's wife was accustomed to come
and look for him ere they retired to the nuptial couch. She appeared,
eager to know who the stranger was, what he had come for, what he had
said, what answer he had received. She preluded her questions with
oglings and caresses; she kissed the knees, the hands, the beard, and
the face of the King, testifying her desire to be alone with him. "O
King and glory of the mighty Britons, dear spouse of mine! what tidings
bringeth this stranger? Is it peace, or is it war?"
"This stranger," answered Morvan, with a smile, "is an envoy of the
Franks; but bring he peace or bring he war is the affair of men alone;
as for thee, content thee with thy woman's duties." Thereupon Ditcar,
perceiving that he was countered, said to Morvan: "Sir King, 'tis time
that I return; tell me what answer I am to take back to my sovereign."
"Leave me this night to take thought thereon," replied the Breton chief,
with a wavering air. When the morning came, Ditcar presented himself
once more to Morvan, whom he found up, but still half drunk and full of
very different sentiments from those of the night before. It required
some effort, stupefied and tottering as he was with the effects of wine
and the pleasures of the night, to say to Ditcar: "Go back to thy King,
and tell him from me that my land was never his, and that I owe him
naught of tribute or submission. Let him reign over the Franks; as for
me, I reign over the Britons. If he will bring war on me, he will find
me ready to pay him back."
The monk returned to Louis the Debonair and rendered account of his
mission. War was resolved upon, and the Emperor collected his
troops--Alemannians, Saxons, Thuringians, Burgundians, and Aquitanians,
without counting Franks or Gallo-Romans. They began their march, moving
upon Vannes; Louis was at their head, and the Empress accompanied him,
but he left her, already ill and fatigued, at Angers. The Franks entered
the country of the Britons, searched the woods and morasses, found no
armed men in the open country, but encountered them in scattered and
scanty companies, at the entrance of all the defiles, on the heights
commanding pathways, and wherever men could hide themselves and await
the moment for appearing unexpectedly. The Franks heard them, from amid
the heather and the brushwood, uttering shrill cries, to give warning
one to another or to alarm the enemy. The Franks advanced cautiously,
and at last arrived at the entrance of the thick wood which surrounded
Morvan's abode. He had not yet set out with the pick of the warriors he
had about him; but, at the approach of the Franks, he summoned his wife
and his domestics, and said to them: "Defend ye well this house and
these woods; as for me, I am going to march forward to collect my
people; after which to return, but not without booty and spoils." He put
on his armor, took a javelin in each hand, and mounted his horse. "Thou
seest," said he to his wife, "these javelins I brandish: I will bring
them back to thee this very day dyed with the blood of Franks.
Farewell." Setting out he pierced, followed by his men, through the
thickness of the forest, and advanced to meet the Franks.