CHAP. IX.: How the Church-lands were converted into Fiefs.

THE use of the fiscal lands should have been only to serve as a donation, by which the kings were to encourage the Franks to undertake new expeditions, and by which, on the other hand, these fiscal lands were increased. This, as I have already observed, was the spirit of the nation; but these donations took another turn. There is still extant In Gregory of Tours, book vi. chap. 46. ^†1188 a speech of Chilperic, grandson of Clovis, in which he complains that almost all these lands had been already given away to the church. “Our exchequer,” says he, “is impoverished, and our riches are transferred to the clergy This is what induced him to annul the testaments made in favour of the clergy, and even the donations of his father; Gontram re-established them, and even made new donations. Gregory of Tours, book vii. chap. 7. ^†1189; none reign now but bishops, who live in grandeur, while ours is quite eclipsed.”

This was the reason that the mayors, who durst not attack the lords, stripped the churches; and one of the See the annals of Metz, year 687. Excitor imprimis querelis sacerdotum & servorum Dei, qui me sæpius adierunt ut pro sublatis injuste patrimoniis, &c. ^†1190 motives alledged by Pepin for entering Neustria,

was his having been invited thither by the clergy, to put a stop to the encroachments of the kings, that is, of the mayors, who deprived the church of all her possessions.

The mayors of Austrasia, that is the family of the Pepins, had behaved towards the clergy with more moderation than those of Neustria and Burgundy. This is evident from our chronicles See the annals of Metz. ^†1191, in which we see the monks perpetually extolling the devotion and liberality of the Pepins. They themselves had been possessed of the first places in the church. “One crow does not pull out the eyes of another;” as In Gregory of Tours. ^†1192 Chilperic said to the bishops.

Pepin subdued Neustria and Burgundy; but as his pretence for destroying the mayors and kings was the grievances of the clergy, he could not strip the latter, without acting contrary to his own declaration, and shewing that he made a jest of the nation. However, the conquest of two great kingdoms and the destruction of the opposite party, afforded him sufficient means of satisfying his generals.

Pepin made himself master of the monarchy by protecting the clergy; his son Charles Martel could not maintain his power, but by oppressing them. This prince finding that part of the regal and fiscal lands had been given either for life, or in perpetuity to the nobility, and that the church by receiving both from rich and poor, had acquired a great part even of the allodial estates, he resolved to strip the clergy; and as the fiefs of the first division were no longer in being, he formed a second Karolus plurima juri ecclesiastico detrahens prædia fisco sociavit, ac deinde militibus dispertivit. Ex Chronico Centulenst, lib. ii. ^†1193. He took for himself and for his officers the church-lands, and the churches themselves: thus he remedied an evil which differed from

ordinary diseases, as its extremity rendered it the more easy to cure.