This account seems liable to great objections.First, it may be asked how the king came to possess so much power as would enable him, at once, to acquire the entire property of the conquered lands? For it must be remembered that the conquest extended over the ancient inhabitants of the county, not over his own followers; and with respect to these last, the accounts given by Caesar and Tacitus of the German nations represent their princes as possessing a very limited authority.
2dly, Upon the supposition that all the conquered lands were originally held of the king during pleasure, his authority, immediately upon the settlement of these nations, must have been rendered altogether despotical.If the king had a power of dispossessing all his subjects of their landed estates, he must have been more absolute than any monarch at present upon the face of the earth.But the early history of the modern European nations gives an account of their government very different from this, and informs us that the nobility of each kingdom enjoyed great independence, and a degree of opulence, in many cases, little inferior to that of the monarch.
The idea that the king became originally proprietor of all the conquered lands seem now, upon a fuller examination of facts, to be in a great measure relinquished; and several writers of late have made it at least extremely probable that the land in the conquered provinces was at first occupied, according to circumstances, by different individuals, or distributed by lot among the warriors of each victorious tribe; and that each possessor became the full proprietor of that portion of land which had fallen to his share.See Le droit publique de France, eclairci par les monumens de l'antiquit? Par M.Bouquet.See also Observations sur l'histoire de France.Par M.L'Abb?de Mably.
It is true that, in the Modern kingdom of Europe, the proprietors of lands were early understood to be under an obligation of going out to war as often as the public interest required it.But this was a duty which they owed to the community as citizens, not to the kings as vassals; and their attendance was required, not by an order of the monarch, but in consequence of a determination of the national assembly, of which they themselves were the constituent members.
6.In France, under the Merovingian kings, all deeds of any importance, issuing from the crown, usually contained some such expression as these: Una cum nostris optimatibus pertractavimus.
De consensufidelium nostrorum.In nostra et procerum nostrorum praesentia.Obser.par M.de Mably.And there is good reason to believe that what is called the Salique Law was laid before the national assembly and received their approbation.'Dictaverunt Salicam legem Proceres ipsius gentis, qui tunc temporis apud eam erant rectores.' Praef.leg.Sal.See lettres historiques sur les fonctions essentielles du parlement.Boulainvilliers, let.sur le parl.de France.
7.Fidelis Deo propitio ille, ad nostram veniens praesentiam suggessit nobis, eo quod propter simplicitatem suam, Causas suas minime possit prosequi, vel admallare, clementiae regni nostri petiit, ut illustris vir ille omnes causas suas in vice ipsius, tam in pago, quam in palatio nostro admallandum prosequendumque recipere deberet, quod in praesenti per fistucam eas eidem visus est commendasse.Propterea jubemus, ut dum taliter utriusque decrevit voluntas, memoratus ille vir omnes causas lui, ubicumque prosequi vel admallare deberet, ut unicuique pro ipso, vel hominibus suis, reputatis conditionibus, et directum faciat, et ab aliis similiter in veritate recipiat.Sic tamen quamdiu amborum decrevit voluntas.Formul.Marculfi 21.-- Vid.Ibid.
Formul.13.See also L'Esprit de Loix, liv.31, chap.8.
8.'All the Franks continued without discrimination to have the right of entrance [into the national assembly]; but subsequently, their number having increased, and the distinction between Gauls and Franks having become gradually erased, each canton assembled separately; and scarcely any but those who held a certain rank in the state were admitted to the general assembly any more.' Let.
hist.sur les parl.
9.In early times the Wittenagemote is called 'infinita fidelium multitudo.'
