Charlemagne in the partition
[164]
mentioned in the preceding chapter ordained that after his death the
vassals belonging to each king should be permitted to receive benefices
in their own sovereign's dominion, and not in those of another;
[165]
whereas they may keep their allodial estates in any of their
dominions.
[166]
But he adds
[167]
that every freeman might, after the
death of his lord, do homage in any of three kingdoms he pleased, as
well as he that never had been subject to a lord. We find the same
regulations in the partition which Louis the Debonnaire made among his
children in the year 817.
But though the freeman had done homage for a fief, yet the count's
militia was not thereby weakened: the freeman was still obliged to
contribute for his allodium, and to get people ready for the service
belonging to it, at the proportion of one man to four manors; or else to
procure a man that should do the duty of the fief in his stead. And when
some abuses had been introduced upon this head, they were redressed, as
appears by the constitutions of Charlemagne,
[168]
and by that of Pepin,
King of Italy, which explain each other.
[169]
The remark made by historians that the battle of Fontenay was the
ruin of the monarchy, is very true; but I beg leave to cast an eye on
the unhappy consequences of that day.
Some time after the battle, the three brothers, Lothairius, Louis,
and Charles, made a treaty,
[170]
wherein I find some clauses which must
have altered the whole political system of the French government.
1. In the declaration
[171]
which Charles made to the people of the
part of the treaty relating to them, he says that every freeman might
choose whom he pleased for his lord,
[172]
whether the king or any of the
nobility. Before this treaty the freeman might do homage for a fief; but
his allodium still continued under the immediate power of the king, that
is, under the count's jurisdiction; and he depended on the lord to whom
he vowed fealty, only on account of the fief which he had obtained.
After that treaty every freeman had a right to subject his allodium to
the king, or to any other lord, as he thought proper. The question is
riot in regard to those who put themselves under the protection of
another for a fief, but to such as changed their allodial into a feudal
land, and withdrew themselves, as it were, from the civil jurisdiction
to enter under the power of the king, or of the lord whom they thought
proper to choose.
Thus it was that those who formerly were only under the king's
power, as freemen under 'the count, became insensibly vassals one of
another, since every freeman might choose whom he pleased for his lord,
the king or any of the nobility.
2. If a man changed an estate which he possessed in perpetuity into
a fief, this new fief could no longer be only for life. Hence we see, a
short time after, a general law for giving the fiefs to the children of
the present possessor:
[173]
it was made by Charles the Bald, one of the
three contracting princes.
What has been said concerning the liberty every freeman had in the
monarchy, after the treaty of the three brothers, of choosing whom he
pleased for his lord, the king or any of the nobility, is confirmed by
the acts subsequent to that time.
In the reign of Charlemagne,
[174]
when the vassal had received a
present of a lord, were it worth only a sou, he could not afterwards
quit him. But under Charles the Bald, the vassals might follow what was
agreeable to their interests or their inclination with entire
safety;
[175]
and so strongly does this prince explain himself on the
subject that he seems rather to encourage them in the enjoyment of this
liberty than to restrain it. In Charlemagne's time, benefices were
rather personal than real; afterwards they became rather real than
personal.
