Page:Outlines of European History.djvu/448

 378 Outlines of European History Charle- magne's farms Origin of titles of nobility The dark century before Charle- magne Charlemagne's income, like that of all medieval rulers, came chiefly from his royal estates, as there was no system of general taxation such as had existed under the Roman Empire. He consequently took the greatest care that his numerous planta- tions should be well cultivated, and that not even a turnip or an ^g'g which was due him should be withheld. An elaborate set of regulations for his farms is preserved, which sheds much light upon the times.^ The officials upon whom the Frankish kings were forced to rely chiefly were the counts, the " hand and voice of the king " wherever he could not be in person. They were expected to maintain order, see that justice was done in their district, and raise troops when the king needed them. On the frontier were the counts of the march, or margraves (marquises), already mentioned. These titles, together with that of duke, still exist as titles of nobility in Europe, although they are no longer asso- ciated with any governmental duties except in cases where their holders have the right to sit in the upper House of Parliament. Charlemagne held assemblies of the nobles and bishops of his realm each spring or summer, at which the interests of the Empire were considered. With the sanction of his advisers he issued an extraordinary series of laws, called capitularies^ a num- ber of which have been preserved. With the bishops and abbots he discussed the needs of the Church, and, above all, the neces- sity of better schools for both the clergy and laity. The reforms which he sought to introduce give us an opportunity of learning the condition in which Europe found itself after four hundred years of disorder. Charlemagne was the first important king since Theodoric to pay any attention to book learning. About 650 the supply of papyrus — the kind of paper that the Greeks and Romans used — had been cut off, owing to the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs, and as our kind of paper had not yet been invented, 1 See extracts from these regulations, and an account of one of Charlemagne's farms, in Readings, chap. vii.