Hitherto the nation had given marks of impatience and levity with regard to the choice or
conduct of her masters; she had regulated their differences and obliged
them to come to an agreement among themselves. But now she did what
before was quite unexampled; she cast her eyes on her actual situation,
examined the laws coolly, provided against their insufficiency,
repressed violence, and moderated the regal power.
The bold and insolent regencies of Fredegunda and Brunehault had
less surprised than roused the nation. Fredegunda had defended her
horried cruelties, her poisonings and assassinations, by a repetition of
the same crimes; and had behaved in such a manner that her outrages were
rather of a private than public nature. Fredegunda did more mischief:
Brunehault threatened more. In this crisis the nation was not satisfied
with rectifying the feudal system; she was also determined to secure her
civil government. For the latter was rather more corrupt than the
former; a corruption the more dangerous as it was more inveterate, and
connected rather with the abuse of manners than with that of laws.
The history of Gregory of Tours exhibits, on the one hand, a fierce
and barbarous nation; and on the other, kings remarkable for the same
ferocity of temper. Those princes were bloody, iniquitous and cruel,
because such was the character of the whole nation. If Christianity
appeared sometimes to soften their manners, it was only by the
circumstances of terror with which this religion alarms the sinner; the
church supported herself against them by the miraculous operations of
her saints. The kings would not commit sacrilege, because they dreaded
the punishments inflicted on that species of guilt: but this excepted,
either in the riot of passion or in the coolness of deliberation, they
perpetrated the most horrid crimes and barbarities where divine
vengeance did not appear so immediately to overtake the criminal. The
Franks, as I have already observed, bore with cruel kings, because they
were of the same disposition themselves; they were not shocked at the
iniquity and extortions of their princes, because this was the national
characteristic. There had been many laws established, but it was usual
for the king to defeat them all, by a kind of letter called
precepts,
[19]
which rendered them of no effect; they were somewhat
similar to the rescripts of the Roman Emperors; whether it be that our
kings borrowed this usage from those princes, or whether it was owing to
their own natural temper. We see in Gregory of Tours, that they
perpetrated murder in cool blood, and put the accused to death unheard;
how they gave precepts for illicit marriages;
[20]
for transferring successions; for depriving relatives of their right; and, in fine,
marrying consecrated virgins. They did not, indeed, assume the whole
legislative power, but they dispensed with the execution of the laws.
Clotharius' constitution redressed all these grievances: no one
could any longer be condemned without being heard:
[21]
relatives were made to succeed, according to the order established by law;
[22]
all precepts for marrying religious women were declared null;
[23]
and those who had obtained and made use of them were severely punished. We might
know perhaps more exactly his determinations with regard to these
precepts, if the thirteenth and the next two articles of this decree had
not been lost through the injury of time. We have only the first words
of this thirteenth article, ordaining that the precepts shall be
observed, which cannot be understood of those he had just abolished by
the same law. We have another constitution by the same prince,
[24]
which is in relation to his decree, and corrects in the same manner every
article of the abuses of the precepts.
True it is that Baluzius, finding this constitution without date and
without the name of the place where it was given, attributes it to
Clotharius I. But I say it belongs to Clotharius II, for three reasons:
1. It says that the king will preserve the immunities granted to the
churches by his father and grandfather.
[25]
What immunities could the
churches receive from Childeric, grandfather of Clotharius I, who was
not a Christian, and who lived even before the foundation of the
monarchy? But if we attribute this decree to Clotharius II, we shall
find his grandfather to have been this very Clotharius I, who made
immense donations to the church with a view of expiating the murder of
his son Cramne, whom he had ordered to be burned, together with his wife
and children.
2. The abuses redressed by this constitution were still subsisting
after the death of Clotharius I and were even carried to their highest
extravagance during the weak reign of Gontram, the cruel administration
of Chilperic, and the execrable regencies of Fredegunda and Brunehault.
Now, can we imagine that the nation would have borne with grievances so
solemnly proscribed, without complaining of their continual repetition?
Can we imagine she would not have taken the same step as she did
afterwards under Childeric II,
[26]
when, upon a repetition of the old
grievances, she pressed him to ordain that law and customs in regard to
judicial proceedings should be complied with as formerly.
[27]
In fine, as this constitution was made to redress grievances, it
cannot relate to Clotharius I, since there were no complaints of that
kind in his reign, and his authority was perfectly established
throughout the kingdom, especially at the time in which they place this
constitution; whereas it agrees extremely well with the events that
happened during the reign of Clotharius II, which produced a revolution
in the political state of the kingdom. History must be illustrated by
the laws, and the laws by history.
