Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/315

 FEUDAL STATES OF EUROPE 269 Taving been anointed king by the Church, he also claimed
 * he right to protect it everywhere in the kingdom. He

ilepended a good deal on the bishops and monks, made gen- erous grants to the Church, and also secured revenue from t even outside his own domains. The Church for its part found the king on the whole a better friend and defender
 * han the general run of feudal lords, who were prone to be a

jtodless set of plunderers. Situated in whole or in part within the boundaries of inodern France were some forty feudal states, whose lords Ivere practically independent sovereigns, though Feudal states i:hey might nominally recognize the overlordship of France bf king or emperor. We shall take up in detail about a third bf this number, which were ruled by hereditary dynasties pf dukes and counts and which were of the most importance. But some mere visco unts and seigneurs had the right to jdeclare peace and war, had supreme legislative and admin- istrative power, judicial power in the last resort, the right bf coinage, and claimed authority over the churches within ftheir districts. Then there were ecclesiastical states where officials of the Church were also the supreme governing power, although these states never became so great and bumerous as the ecclesiastical principalities in Germany. The compact possessions of the Counts of Flanders in- icluded portions of present France, but more of Belgium, jand both the Flemish with their German patois and the Walloons with their French dialect. The count was a vassal of the Capetian king for some of his ■lands; others he held as fiefs from the Holy Roman Em- peror. He had no strong vassals of his own to weaken him land about 1100 began to call himself "Monarch of the Flemings." Before this, in 1030, he had issued a decree that all within his territories must keep the peace — the first such order extant in the history of the Holy Roman Empire. He also deprived the lords of feudal castles in Flanders of most of their judicial powers, which were henceforth exer- cised by baillis of his own selection, and his example in this reform was afterwards widely followed in western Europe,,