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course of the establishment of hereditary fiefs, these counties gave birth to the hereditary counties of feudalism. Thus the internal organization of feudal society, itself founded upon the regime of proprietorship, conformed more and more to the general political regime. In the most Romanized part of Gaul the names of the greater part of the pagi were borrowed from those of their chief places. In the north, on the contrary, where the conquering ele- ment predominated, the name is often that of the principal water- course of the district : Aargau, Breisgau, Oscheret, Orcrois. The conquerors had established themselves along the water-courses, but, as always, upon both banks in such a way that the water- course did not bound the pagus, but crossed it.

Before the accession of Hugo Capet, France comprised nine large principal fiefs : Flanders, Normandy, France, Burgundy, Guienne, Gascony, Toulouse, the march of Gothia, and the Spanish march. Among these there was the private domain of the Carolingian kings. This lay to the north of the Seine; it comprised the county of Laon, and the royal towns in the basin of the Oise. It was surrounded on all sides by the possessions of the count of Vermandois, and those of the other lords of the same race. Hugo Capet, before becoming king, had his duchy of France. This duchy had itself sprung from a military command held in the time of Charlemagne and his immediate successors in this region, which was then called the duchy of Mans, or the march of Brittany. The military march had created the military function, the dux, and the latter the duchy, which became here- ditary. The duchy of Brittany was itself divided, in 911, by the creation of the duchy of Normandy a creation indicating that from this time the march had become useless.

Hugo, upon becoming king, possessed accordingly his duchy of France, the private domain bf the Carolingians : Paris, Orleans, Etamps, Dreux, Senlis, Montreuil-sur-Mer, important abbeys such as those of St. Martin-de-Tours, St. Germain-des-Pres, St Denis. He had for direct vassals the counts of Blois, of Anjou, and of Maine. Among his rear-vassals figured the Breton counts of Rennes and of Nantes. These possessions embraced several basins, but only in part, and had no physical or natural frontier.