University of Virginia Library

Search this document 
  
expand section 
  
expand section 
  

expand section1. 
expand section2. 
expand section3. 
expand section4. 
expand section5. 
expand section6. 
expand section7. 
expand section8. 
expand section9. 
expand section10. 
expand section11. 
expand section12. 
expand section13. 
expand section14. 
expand section15. 
expand section16. 
collapse section17. 
 17.1. 
expand section17.2. 
expand section17.3. 
 17.4. 
expand section17.5. 
collapse section17.6. 
  
  
expand section17.7. 
expand section18. 
expand section19. 
expand section20. 
expand section21. 
expand section22. 
expand section23. 
expand section24. 
expand section25. 
expand section26. 
expand section27. 
expand section28. 
expand section29. 
expand section30. 
expand section31. 

31.4. 4. Of the Genius of the Nation in regard to the Mayors.

A government in which a nation that had an hereditary king chose a person to exercise the regal authority seems very extraordinary; but, independently of the circumstances of the times, I apprehend that the notions of the Franks in this respect were derived from a remote source.

The Franks were descended from the Germans, of whom Tacitus says [42] that in the choice of their king they were determined by his noble extraction, and in that of their leader, by his valour. This gives us an idea of the kings of the first race, and of the mayors of the palace; the former were hereditary, the latter elective.

No doubt but those princes who stood up in the national assembly and offered themselves as the conductors of a public enterprise to such as were willing to follow them, united generally in their own person both the power of the mayor and the king's authority. By the splendour of their descent they had attained the regal dignity; and their military abilities having recommended them to the command of armies, they rose to the power of mayor. By the regal dignity, our first kings presided in the courts and assemblies, and enacted laws with the national consent; by the dignity of duke or leader, they undertook expeditions and commanded the armies.

In order to be acquainted with the genius of the primitive Franks in this respect, we have only to cast an eye on the conduct of Argobastes, [43] a Frank by nation, on whom Valentinian had conferred the command of the army. He confined the emperor to his own palace, where he would suffer nobody to speak to him, concerning either civil or military affairs. Argobastes did at that time what was afterwards practised by the Pepins.

Footnotes

[42]

"De Moribus Germanorum," 7.

[43]

See Sulpicius Alexander, in Gregory of Tours, book ii.