CHAP. V.: In what Manner the Mayors obtained the Command of the Armies.

SO long as the kings commanded their armies in person, the nation never thought of chusing a leader. Clovis and his four sons were at the head of the Franks, and led them on through a series of victories. Theobald son of Theodobert, a young, weak, and sickly prince, was the first In the year 552. ^†1152 of our kings that confined himself to his palace. He refused to undertake an expedition into Italy against Narses, and had Leutharis vero et Butilinus, tametsi id regi ipsorum minime placebat, belli cum eis societatem inierunt. Agathias, book 1. Gregory of Tours, book iv. chap. 9. ^†1153 the mortification to see the Franks chuse themselves two chiefs, who led them against the enemy. Of the four sons of Clotharius I. Gontram Gontram did not even march against Gondovald, who stiled himself son of Clotharius, and claimed his share of the kingdom. ^†1154 was the least fond of commanding his armies; the other kings followed this example; and, in order to intrust the command without danger into other hands, they conferred it upon several chiefs or dukes Sometimes to the number of twenty. See Gregory of Tours, book v. chap. 27. book viii. chap. 18, and 30. book x. chap. 3. Dagobert, who had no mayor in Burgundy, observed the same policy, and sent against the Gascons ten dukes and several counts who had no dukes over them. Fredegarius’s Chronicle, chap. 78. in the year 636. ^†1155.

Innumerable were the inconveniencies which thence arose; all discipline was lost, no one would any longer

obey. The armies were dreadful only to their own country; they were loaden with spoils, before they had reached the enemy. Of these miseries we have a very lively picture in Gregory of Tours Gregory of Tours, book viii. chap. 30. and book x. chap. 3. Ibid. book viii. chap. 30. ^†1156. “How shall we be able to obtain a victory, says Gontram Ibid. ^†1157, we who do not so much as keep what our ancestors acquired? Our nation is no longer the same. . . . . .” Strange, that it should be on the decline so early as the reign of Clovis’s grand-children!

It was therefore natural they should determine at last upon an only duke, a duke invested with an authority over this prodigious multitude of feudal lords and vassals, who were now become strangers to their own engagements; a duke who was to establish the military discipline, and to put himself at the head of a nation unhappily practised in making war against itself. This power was conferred on the mayors of the palace.

The original function of the mayors of the palace, was the management of the king’s houshold. They had afterwards, in conjunction See the second supplement to the law of the Burgundians, tit. 13. and Gregory of Tours, book ix. chap. 36. ^†1158 with other officers, the political government of fiefs; and at length they obtained the sole disposal of them. They had also the administration of military affairs and the command of the armies; employments necessarily connected with the other two. In those days it was much more difficult to raise than to command the armies; and who but the dispenser of favours could have this authority? In this martial and independent nation, it was prudent to invite, rather than to compel; prudent to give away or to promise the fiefs, that should happen

to be vacant by the death of the possessor; prudent, in fine, to reward continually, and to raise a jealousy with regard to preferences. It was therefore right, that the person who had the superintendency of the palace, should also be general of the army.