Page:Bury J B The Cambridge Medieval History Vol 2 1913.djvu/163

Rh present, to remain faithful to me; slay me not as ye slew my brethren. Suffer me to live yet three years that I may bring up my nephews. If I die you will perish also, for you will have no king strong enough to defend you." The government was thus a despotism tempered by assassination.

At the beginning of the Merovingian period there was no council having the right to advise the king and set limits to his power. The assemblies which Tacitus describes disappeared after the invasions. From time to time the great men assembled for a military expedition, and endeavoured to impose their will upon the king. In 556 Chlotar I led an expedition against the Saxons. They tendered their submission, offering him successively the half of their property, their flocks, herds, and garments, and finally all they possessed. The king was willing to accept this offer, but his warriors forced their way into his tent and threatened to kill him if he did not lead them against the enemy. He was obliged to yield to their insistence and met with a severe defeat. But that is a case of violent action on the part of an army in revolt, not of advice given by an assembly regularly consulted. Such assemblies do not appear until the close of the Merovingian period, and then as a new creation. The bishops always made a practice of meeting in council, and at these meetings they passed canons which were authoritative for all Christians. During the civil wars the great laymen also began to meet in order to confer upon their common interests, and the bishops took part in these assemblies also. Each of the three kingdoms — tria regna as they are called by the chroniclers — had therefore its assemblies of this kind. The sovereign was obliged to reckon with them, and consulted them on general matters. Subsequently when the Carolingians had again united the kingdom, there was only one assembly. It was summoned regularly in the month of March and became known as the field of March — campus martius. The great men came thither in arms, and if war was decided on they took the field immediately against the enemy. Before long, however, as the cavalry had great difficulty in finding fodder in March, the assembly was transferred, about the middle of the seventh century, to the month of May, when there was grass for the horses in the meadows, and the campus martius became the campus madius. Those who were summoned to this assembly brought to the king gifts in money or in kind, which became the principal source of revenue of the State; they tried persons accused of high treason, and before them were promulgated the capitularies. The assembly was thus at once an army, a council, and a legal tribunal. The Carolingians made it the most important part of the machinery of government.

The king was aided in the work of administration by numerous officials who both held posts in the royal household and performed administrative functions in the State. We may mention the Referendaries