30.5. 5. Of the Conquests of the Franks.
It is not true that the Franks
upon entering Gaul took possession of the whole country to turn it into
fiefs. Some have been of this opinion because they saw the greatest part
of the country towards the end of the second race converted into fiefs,
rear-fiefs, or other dependencies; but such a disposition was owing to
particular causes which we shall explain hereafter.
The consequence which sundry writers would infer thence, that the
barbarians made a general regulation for establishing in all parts the
state of villainage is as false as the principle from which it is
derived. If at a time when the fiefs were precarious, all the lands of
the kingdom had been fiefs, or dependencies of fiefs; and all the men in
the kingdom vassals or bondmen subordinate to vassals; as the person
that has property is ever possessed of power, the king, who would have
continually disposed of the fiefs, that is, of the only property then
existing; would have had a power as arbitrary as that of the Sultan is
in Turkey; which is contradictory to all history.
