31.17. 17. A particular Circumstance in the Election of the Kings of the
Second Race.
We find by the formulary of Pepin's coronation that Charles
and Carloman were also anointed,
[120]
and blessed, and that the French
nobility bound themselves, on pain of interdiction and excommunication,
never to choose a prince of another family.
[121]
It appears by the wills of Charlemagne and Louis the Debonnaire,
that the Franks made a choice among the king's children, which agrees
with the above-mentioned clause. And when the empire was transferred
from Charlemagne's family, the election, which before had been
restricted and conditional, became pure and simple, so that the ancient
constitution was departed from.
Pepin, perceiving himself near his end, assembled the lords, both
temporal and spiritual, at St. Denis, and divided his kingdom between
his two sons, Charles and Carloman.
[122]
We have not the acts of this
assembly, but we find what was there transacted in the author of the
ancient historical collection, published by Canisius, and in the writer
of the annals of Metz,
[123]
according to the observation of
Baluzius.
[124]
Here I meet with two things in some measure
contradictory; that he made this division with the consent of the
nobility, and afterwards that he made it by his paternal authority. This
proves what I said, that the people's right in the second race was to
choose in the same family; it was, properly speaking, rather a right of
exclusion than that of election.
This kind of elective right is confirmed by the records of the
second race. Such is this capitulary of the division of the empire made
by Charlemagne among his three children, in which, after settling their
shares, he says,
[125]
"That if one of the three brothers happens to have
a son, such as the people shall be willing to choose as a fit person to
succeed to his father's kingdom, his uncles shall consent to it."
This same regulation is to be met with in the partition which Louis
the Debonnaire made among his three children, Pepin, Louis, and Charles,
in the year 837, at the assembly of Aix-la-Chapelle;
[126]
and likewise
in another partition, made twenty years before, by the same emperor, in
favour of Lotharius, Pepin, and Louis.
[127]
We may likewise see the oath
which Louis the Stammerer took at Compigne at his coronation. "I, Louis,
by the divine mercy, and the people's election, appointed king, do
promise"
[128]
... What I say is confirmed by the acts of the Council of
Valence, held in the year 890, for the election of Louis, son of Bo-on,
to the kingdom of Arles.
[129]
Louis was there elected, and the principal
reason they gave for choosing him is that he was of the imperial
family,
[130]
that Charles the Fat had conferred upon him the dignity of
king, and that the Emperor Arnold had invested him by the sceptre, and
by the ministry of his ambassadors. The kingdom of Arles, like the other
dismembered or dependent kingdoms of Charlemagne, was elective and
hereditary.
Footnotes
[120]
"Historians of France" by the Benedictines, vol. v, p. 9.
[123]
Tome ii, lectionis antiquæ.
[124]
Edition of the "Capitularies," tome i, p. 188.
[125]
In the 1st Capitulary of the year 806. Baluzius's edition, p.
439, art. 5.
[126]
In Goldast, "Constit. Imperial.," tome ii, p. 19.
[127]
Baluzius's edition, p. 574, art. 14.
[128]
Capitulary of the year 877. Baluzius's edition, p. 272.
[129]
In Father Labbe's "Councils," tome ix, col. 424; and in Dumont's "Corp.
Diplomat.," tome ii, art. 36.
[130]
By the mother's side.
