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Rh protected their subjects against external and internal enemies.

Scholars have argued for generations over the origins of feudalism, and are still far from agreement on many points. This much seems certain, that the local lord—the great man of the township or the county—appears at the very dawn of European history. Rich in land and in cattle, protector of his people, chief of the warriors of his community, he is known to the early Italians and Celts as well as to the primitive Germans. The Roman government had curtailed the military and political power of the local magnates, but had not destroyed their influence and prestige; the Germans, with no bureaucratic state to take on the work of local government, had preserved the old system of chiefs and retainers. The German occupation of the Western Empire naturally strengthened the old tendency toward local lordship. Remnants of Roman ideas and Roman methods of government acted as a restraining influence for a while, but withered away from lack of direction by the kings and lack of support by their subjects. When the Carolingians came to power, local magnates were far stronger than the weak Merovingian kings. They obeyed royal orders only when it pleased them and frequently rebelled against unpopular mayors of the palace. They had almost complete control over the men who lived on their lands, but they took little responsibility for governing them.

The Carolingians recognized these facts, and adjusted their government to them. They could not destroy the power of the local lords; they could hope to use it for their own purposes. Since the magnates controlled the best fighting men, they were asked to bring their troops to the royal army and to act as commanders of the free men of their districts. Since the idea of lordship had destroyed the Roman concept of obedience to administrative agents sent out by the central government, the Carolingians ordered all men to choose a lord. The Carolingians themselves were to be the supreme lords, and thus a hierarchy of personal relationships between lord and man was to replace the old