Formation of a barbarian kingdom. State of the Franks
FRANKISH KINGDOM FRANKISH KINGDOM
FRANKIAN KINGDOM (Frankish state) (lat. Regnum Francorum), barbarian kingdom founded in Gaul by the Franks (cm. FRANKI) in the end 5th century To the beginning 6th century The kings of the Salic Franks (the Salic branch of the Frankish tribe had several kings until the 6th century) expanded their possessions to the Seine and Loire and extended their power to a vast territory along the middle and upper Rhine. In 496 Clovis (cm. CLOVIG I) together with a thousand Franks, he was baptized and entered into an alliance with the Catholic bishops, which was of great importance for strengthening the Frankish kingdom.
The alliance with the church provided Clovis with the support of the influential elite of the Gallo-Roman population and people dependent on it in the fight against the barbarian Arian kings (cm. ARIANITY). Under the sons and grandsons of Clovis, the conquest of Gaul was gradually completed, with the exception of what remained with the Visigoths (cm. Visigoths) Septimania, Thuringia was conquered, Alemannia and Bavaria were subordinated, although the Bavarians retained their rights and their tribal leaders as part of the Frankish kingdom.
In the 1st half. 6th century The Frankish kingdom was a large political entity. The Frankish king exercised government power at the center and locally through his servants. Royal clerks, who oversaw the correct receipt of contributions to the royal treasury - deductions from trade transactions, court fines, etc. - turned into government bodies and replaced the ancient elected positions.
The bulk of the population of the Frankish state in the era of its formation were free Franks and Gallo-Romans. Below them on the social ladder stood litas, freedmen and slaves. Ancestral nobility among the Salic Franks during the Merovingian dynasty (cm. MEROVINGIANS) there was none, but the serving nobility very quickly emerged from among the royal warriors and trusted servants endowed with large land holdings.
After the death of King Dagobert I in 639, there were constant internecine wars between representatives of the powerful aristocracy. At the same time, each surrounded himself with vassals, ruled as a small sovereign, involving the sections of the population dependent on him into internecine strife. In each of the three parts into which the Frankish state was divided - in Burgundy (cm. BURGUNDY (historical region)), Neustria (cm. Neustria) and Austrasia (cm. AUSTRASIA), there were special commanders of the palace - mayordomos (cm. MAYORDOM), who, being representatives of the nobility, actually led the foreign and domestic policy of the state, ignoring royal power and fighting with each other. In the beginning 640s Thuringia, Alemannia and Bavaria were separated from the Frankish kingdom, ca. 670 Aquitaine became independent, which began to be governed by its independent dukes.
In the process of internecine struggle among representatives of the aristocracy, the strongest of them rose to power - Pepin of Geristal, Major of Austrasia, who in 687 became the single Major of all three parts of the Frankish state. The title was left to the kings of the Merovingian house, and all actual power passed to the mayors. Relying on their enormous land wealth and many free vassals, Pepin and his successors brought the nobility to obedience and strengthened the military power of the Frankish kingdom. Pepin himself, having dealt with the nobility, successfully acted against the Germans in the east; he subjugated part of the Frisian territory to his power (cm. FRIES) and again established Frankish influence in Alemannia and Bavaria.
Pepin's son, Major Charles Martell (cm. CARL MARTELL)(715–741), distributing as military benefices (cm. BENEFICE) to his warriors from the land of the Frankish Church, created a well-organized army with which he could undertake the most difficult campaigns. He conquered all of Friesland, strengthened the power of the Franks in Thuringia, and even imposed tribute on the warlike Saxons. He established close ties with Catholic missionaries who spread Christianity among the Germans and consolidated the successes of Frankish weapons across the Rhine.
In the south of the state, Charles Martell won at Poitiers (cm. POITIERS) in 732 a brilliant victory over the Arabs who moved to Gaul from Spain they had conquered. The Battle of Poitiers was a turning point, after which further Arab advances into Europe were stopped. He again subjugated Aquitaine to the Franks.
Charles Martel's son, Pepin the Short (cm. PIPIN Short)(741-768), finally expelled the Arabs from Gaul, conquered Septimania, and continued to consolidate the successes of the Franks across the Rhine. He completed the conquest of Thuringia, following the example of his father in the closest alliance with the church.
The Frankish mayor, with the support of a friendly pope, imprisoned the last Merovingian king in a monastery and in 751 he himself took the throne. The new Frankish king, from whom came the new Carolingian dynasty (cm. CAROLINGIANS), helped, in turn, the pope in the fight against the Lombards (cm. LANGOBARDS) and gave him the region taken from the Lombards (the former Zarchate of Ravenna) to the pope as a secular sovereign. Thus, Pepin laid the foundation for the penetration of Frankish influence into Italy.
The Frankish state reached its peak under Charlemagne (cm. CHARLES the Great)(768-814), who sought to unite all the Roman and Germanic peoples of the West, using the fighting power of the Franks and the support of the Church. In 773-774, Charlemagne conquered Northern Italy and annexed it to the Frankish state, declaring himself king of the Franks and Lombards, the very fact of this conquest making the papal throne completely dependent on his power. Of the Germanic tribes, only the Saxons, who occupied almost all of Lower Germany and preserved the ancient Germanic system, remained independent. For as long as 33 years (772-804), Charlemagne introduced Christianity and Frankish rule among the Saxons with iron and blood, until he finally broke their tenacity. Having conquered Saxony and undertaken a series of campaigns into the Slavic lands, Charles built several fortresses on the border, which later became strongholds for the spread of the Germans to the east.
Charles's Danube campaigns led to the destruction of the independence of Bavaria (788) and the defeat (final in 799) of the Avar Khaganate (cm. AVAR KHAGANATE). In the south, Charles, continuing the struggle of his predecessors with the Arabs, undertook several campaigns in Spain and extended Frankish rule here to the river. Ebro. The conquests of Charlemagne, which brought all Western European Christian countries (with the exception of England) under the rule of the king of the Franks, gave him the opportunity to move to first place among the rulers of Europe and allowed him to achieve the imperial title as the successor of the Western Roman emperors. Charlemagne's assumption of the imperial title in 800 formalized his conquests and cemented his hegemony in Europe.
The collapse of the Frankish state began immediately after the death of Charlemagne. Under his successor Louis the Pious (cm. LOUIS the Pious) Frankish possessions were divided among his sons. The partition led to strife, which especially intensified after the death of Louis. After the Treaty of Verdun (cm. TREATY OF VERDEN)(843) between the sons of the deceased king, the final division of the Frankish state into three independent states took place: the East Frankish state (Germany), the West Frankish state (France), Italy and Burgundy (the state of Lothair, the Kingdom of Italy). Italy and Burgundy at times united under one government, at times they split into two independent states.
Encyclopedic Dictionary. 2009 .
See what the "FRANK KINGDOM" is in other dictionaries:
The Frankish state at the death of Pippin 768 and the conquest of Charlemagne The Frankish state (French Empire carolingien, German Fränkisches Reich, Italian Impero carolingio) is the conventional name of the state in Western and Central Europe from V to ... Wikipedia
This term has other meanings, see Burgundy (meanings). The Kingdom of Burgundy is a Frankish kingdom that arose as a result of the collapse of the Frankish state under the Merovingians in 561. The territory roughly corresponded to... ... Wikipedia
The final resettlement of the "barbarian" tribes of Europe ends with the founding of new states. This is how it was with the resettlement of the Goths, and this is how the migration of the Angles, Saxons, Burgundians and Franks ended.
Beginning in 276, the Franks - a combined tribe of Germans - came to Roman Gaul, first as captives, then as co-
allies of the Romans and later as conquerors and creators of the kingdom-empire. In the second half of the 4th century. The Franks united with the Sal tribe, who came from the coastal Germans.
The first kings of the Franks gained experience in state and military administration from the Romans. In the Roman Empire, tax collection was supervised by officials who were supported in their actions by the army and, together with the army, received remuneration and allowances from the government. The barbarian leader had nowhere to hire such officials and had nothing to pay them with. Therefore, having taken the Roman title rex (king), he entrusted his close military leaders (comites and counts) with supervision of everything that happened in the territories under their control. At the same time, they were allowed to collect taxes from local residents, and they, in turn, entrusted this collection to smaller commanders or warriors.
The military leaders of the territories swore an oath to the rex (king) that they would not betray him in peacetime and would not abandon him in times of war. In response to this, the king also swore an oath as their patron lord (senior) that he would not take away the feud (land and power over its inhabitants) either from the military leader (vassal) or from his heirs and would protect his peasants from enemies and robbers and judge disputes between them. The oath was pronounced in the name of the tribal gods, and subsequently in the name of Christ.
The most famous and successful king of the Salic Franks, Clovis (484-511), was the grandson of the founder of the Merovingian dynasty named Merovey (god of the Sea), his father Childeric was a king and ally of the Romans and served in the Roman army. The remains of war horses (a rite of the Germans of the 5th century) were discovered in the burial of Childeric. He was buried with long hair, a shell and a half-damment, the attire of Roman commanders. Also found in the burial were weapons and jewelry made according to the canons of the Danube Germans, and a golden cross-shaped fibula (clasp) - a sign of high status in a Christian state (in this case, the Eastern Roman Empire). The burial procedure was generally pagan, and the burial place was chosen according to the Roman model: next to the road and outside the city limits.
Clovis was a famous and brave warrior, his name meaning “brave in battle.” After the death of his father, he inherited power from him with the right to punish, pardon and command (the two most important pillars of power in the Middle Ages), although he initially had to share military command with the Roman commander. At the Battle of Soissons, a memorable episode occurred with the division of military spoils. As the guardian and guarantor of military spoils, Clovis, at the request of the local bishop, committed a violation - you
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Nulled the captured church vase. Noticing this, one of his warriors approached him, snatched a vase, cut it with a sword and declared that, according to the rules, the spoils of war were subject to fair distribution by lot.
Clovis took revenge on him at one of the military reviews, offering to correct the ammunition, and when the warrior bowed his head, the leader cut it off with his sword. Here, in Soissons, he collected taxes into the treasury, received income from minting coins with the name of the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, and here he began to seize government lands in order to place his soldiers on them.
For safety reasons, he had to conclude a non-aggression treaty with the Burgundian king Gundobad (493) and marry his niece Chlodelfilda (Clotilda), a zealous Catholic, who had a significant influence on his decision to convert to Christianity. Clovis was baptized on December 25, 498 (?), after one decisive battle for him, before which he, perhaps in imitation of Emperor Constantine, announced that in case of victory he vowed to be baptized. He was baptized by the Bishop of Reims and at the same time uttered memorable and often quoted words: “Bow down, Sicambre (one of the names of the barbarian tribes). Honor what you expelled, expel what you venerated.” Thus arose the tradition of forming a community that would be called the Christian people (populus Christianus). His subjects declared their desire to follow the immortal God and reject the mortal gods. The king himself now became the representative of the one God for all people and enlisted the support of the Catholic Church as an influential supra-tribal institution.
After the death of Clovis in 511, his kingdom, greatly expanded by the annexation of Aquitaine (a region in South-Western Gaul previously occupied by the Visigoths), was divided among his sons. The struggle for power and the throne brought forward a new political force - royal officials who managed the affairs of the royal court (major domus) and the rulers of the border regions. At the time of the next threat of the collapse of the Merovingian kingdom, luck favored one of the dukes (voivodes) - Major Pepin II, whose son, also a Major, Charles Martell became famous for his brilliant victory over the Arab invaders in 732 at the Battle of Poitiers. In November 571, his son Pepin III the Short was anointed king by the Pope and the royal throne finally passed to the Carolingians, so named in honor of Charles Martell.
As summarized by Stefan Lebecq, the history of the Franks on the way from Frankia to France can be represented in three main periods: the long Sixth century (481-613), marked by
Topic 12. Western Europe at the beginning of the Middle Ages
the united aspirations of Clovis and his heirs against the background of the aggressive aspirations of Byzantium, which captured most of Western Europe; the long Seventh Century (613-714) with the reigns of Clothar II and Dagbert, the true creators of medieval France and its structural elements; the great Eighth century (714-814) - the reign of the Pepins, when the social and economic currents of the North merged with political and cultural structures borrowed from the South.
The Carolingian kingdom reached its highest power and territorial expansion during the reign of Charlemagne (742-814), who became the founder of a thousand-year empire, later known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. This ruler, even before he was declared emperor (800) of the Roman Empire being recreated in new historical conditions, relied on a combination of military force and spiritual supremacy. He himself convened church councils, as some Roman emperors had done before him (Constantine, Justinian ), and controlled their internal governance. “The job of the king is to govern the church and protect it, and the job of the pope is to pray for it,” he told Pope Leo III. The laying on of the imperial crown on December 25, 800 symbolized the creation of a new empire, the successor of the Roman one. with the amendment that it was supposed to unite the entire Western European Christian world in one state and under the mentorship of one church.
During his lifetime, Charles was called the Great and the anointed of God. His reign was marked by an increased interest in ancient literature and education; at his court, through the efforts of Alcuin, Paul the Deacon and others, the five liberal arts received a second life. The administration of the empire during his tenure included the use of legislative royal regulations and the customary law of those peoples and tribes that united the empire - the Franks, Burgundians, Alemanni, Bavarians, Thuringians, Frisians, etc. The western part of the empire began to be called France, and the middle served as the basis for a new German nation - Deutsch (from ancient German "people").
Charlemagne's powers as emperor included the "protection of peace", and in case of violation, he was called upon to ensure "right peace for the church, widows and orphans and the weak", as well as due punishment for those responsible in the form of "robbers, murderers, adulterers and incestuous." To ensure this task, he issued his regulations (capitularies), sent his personal controllers over the courts and church communities ("sovereign envoys"), and organized the persecution of persons who had insulted the Christian faith and its servants.
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Salic truth
The Salic Truth (c. 510) is a record of the ancient customs of the maritime Franks, and therefore it can be called a law book of the Franks. It is composed of specific judicial cases (incidents), which, as a result of repeated repetitions over a long period of time, have turned into judicial customs. The Code of Law, called in Latin the Salic Law (Lex Salica) and the Salic Legal Pact (Pactus Legibus Salicae), consists of a Prologue, 65 titles and an Epilogue. Subsequently, Clovis's successors increased its volume by adding several chapters during the 6th-9th centuries.
The main areas of judicial control were crimes on a personal or property basis and the corresponding punishments for them, property obligations and inheritance of allod (family land ownership), the obligations of relatives to provide assistance in compensating for property damage or personal and bodily harm, the procedure for administering justice, and the evaluation of witness testimony. and the responsibility of territorial communities for compensation for damage caused on their territory by an escaped criminal.
The Salic law is not a collection of political laws, since it does not contain laws about the succession to the throne, about the remnants of paganism, or about the protection of the Christian faith. According to legend, the Salic truth was compiled by four elected men from different parts of the kingdom, who compiled it completely in three sessions.
The collection was written in Latin, and this made it possible to borrow from Roman legal structures with the general integrity and preservation of the good old law (i.e., folk legal customs). The immediate area of application of the code of law was the northern part of the kingdom, occupied by the Salami newcomers, while in the south the code of Alarikha was in force, which Clovis ordered to be applied in the affairs of the Gallo-Romans.
There were eight population groups living in the Frankish kingdom during this period. This can be judged with the greatest degree of probability based on the rate of injuries and punishments. In the northern part, there were groups of free Franks, semi-free (litas), slaves, and three groups of royal employees (military officials, palace employees, warriors). The deprivation of life of a free franc was assessed by a fine of 200 solids, murder in a crowd - 600 solids and murder in a military campaign - 1800 solids. The ransom price for a murder was called ver-geld (the price of a person by birth). The life of a slave was equal to the value of an ox or horse and amounted to 30 solidi.
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The semi-free litas were a unique social group. Dependent on their master, they were in contractual relations with him, participated in court and military enterprises. However, the litha was judged according to the same rules as a slave.
In the southern part of the kingdom, where the Gallo-Romans lived, there were groups of Romans - royal diners, Roman landowners, Roman tributarii (taxpayers). A special group consisted of persons of clergy rank. The murder of a bishop was assessed with a fine of 900 solids, of a priest - 600.
The entire collection is filled mainly with a list of punishments and fines for harm caused to person or property. Only two articles from 65 of the first edition are devoted to civil legal relations; they regulate the procedure for transfer of property and the procedure for inheritance (Articles 46 and 49, respectively). The code of law was intended as a guide in judicial proceedings, more reliable than legal custom, since customs could vary from locality to locality (cf. Old Russian “no matter the city, no norov”). The advantage of written law was that it was able to absorb the most widespread and most acceptable of existing legal customs. It always has the same form, not susceptible to gross distortion on one side or the other.
The Salic law, thus, appears primarily as a code of law, and not as a complete code of laws. These are records of judicial customs, either made for the first time, or with traces of processing under the pen of lawyers, as well as ministers of the Roman church. The incompleteness and lack of ordering of individual provisions (the same thing is said in 3-6 places) is combined in some editions (about 350 lists in total) with distortions and insertions by copyists. Subsequently, the code of law was clarified and supplemented by special royal regulations - capitularies, edicts, extravagances (transitional provisions). The predominant form of presentation is casuistic, with this form there are no generalizing abstract concepts, for example, the concepts of guilt, crime and punishment, intent or negligence, etc.
Salic truth is a later set of laws among the codes of three allied peoples - the Burgundians, Franks and Visigoths, located in the southern part of Gaul. The Burgundians were the first to compose their own code of laws (443). They did this with the help of the Gallo-Roman aristocrat Syagrius. They adopted Christianity somewhat earlier than the Franks. The Visigoths by this time already had the Code of Eric (475) and the Breviary of Alaric (506). The latter became, at the direction of Clovis, the acting leadership for the Gallo-Romans of the Frankish kingdom.
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Judicial device. The administration of justice was marked by considerable simplicity at the time the code of law was compiled. In each canton and hundred, the court consisted of all free people, Franks. The Gallo-Romans at this time were divided into Romans - royal table-fellows, possessors-landowners and tributaries-taxpayers, with the latter making up the bulk. The hundred-strong assembly (mal) sat in a designated place with stone benches (malberg). The meeting was presided over by a tungin (chief chosen by a hundred), but the highest power belonged to the count, a dignitary appointed by the king to manage a pagus (department) in which several hundred were united.
Those free people who were in the assembly to resolve matters were called Rakhinburgs. They sat on stone benches arranged in a square. The decision was made by a majority vote. In each court of the Franks, specially authorized royal officials called sa-cebarons also sat. Their responsibility was to collect a share of each award that was awarded by the court. This share was due to the royal tax service and was called fredum. The last name is close in meaning to the words fritus and fre-tus, which meant a violation of the royal peace (see Chapter XIII, 6 and Chapter L, 3).
The executors of court decisions were the lower servants of the court, as well as soldiers and local police (milites). Subsequently, and quite soon, this organization was replaced by a more centralized and bureaucratic one. The chairmanship of the court passed from the tungin to the count, who from now on was obliged to alternately visit different hundreds of his pagus. The king became the supreme judge, and his court became the court for especially important persons of the kingdom. This transformation went parallel to the transformation of the role of written law, in particular, its further clarifications, changes and corrections.
Punishments as compensation for harm (composition). At the earliest stages of social life, compensation for harm was perceived as the result of a settlement agreement, a settlement deal, or, as the French legal historian R. Darest believes, the result of a “peace treaty between the warring parties” - the family of the victim and the family of the offender. The amount of compensation was established depending on the circumstances and by agreement of the parties involved or through intermediaries. This nature of composition (compensation) is presented in the poems of Homer and in the northern sagas. But already by the time of Tacitus, the Germanic tribes had a desire to put a certain fixed limit on the disputes about the amount of compensation and assign a fixed list of them, among which
Topic 12 Western Europe at the beginning of the Middle Ages
contributions to the state were also provided for. In the Salic law, compensation is divided into two parts - into faid, issued to the victim or his representatives in the form of a ransom for private (including blood) revenge, and fredum, received by the state for its intervention. Fredum constituted a third of the total amount. In addition to ransom, there was also restitution (return or restoration of what was violated) and reimbursement of costs.
Among the Celts, who lived in Gaul even before the Roman invasion, and among the Germans, compensation was initially calculated in heads of cattle. The Salic law supplements this calculation with gold and silver coins. For this purpose, he uses the Roman gold coin solidus, which was equal to 40 silver dinars. The typical compensation was 15 solidi in gold. Almost all other types of compensation were calculated by increasing or decreasing this amount. It could be 3 solidi or 600 solidi, and sometimes even 1800 solidi.
During the period of the Salic law, 3 solidi were equal to the value of a cow, sighted and healthy, or a mare, sighted and healthy, or a sword without a sheath or an untamed hawk. A sighted and healthy horse was valued at 12 solids, and good armor cost the same.
The compensation tariff can serve as an indirect characteristic of the prestige and security of various social strata or levels of the social hierarchy. Thus, if it was a crime against a person in the royal service, then the compensation increased 3 times. Compensation to the relatives of the murdered person was perceived not as state punishment, but as private compensation to the injured party (the family of the victim). An ordinary wergeld (from the words “faith” and “geld” - the price of a person at birth) among the Franks was 200 solidi, and the wergeld of a Roman was halved. At the same time, the Ripuarians (another Germanic tribe, which also had their own consolidated written law) had a difference in the Wergeld for a Frank and a Burgundian, as well as for an Alemannic, Bavarian or Saxon. In this way, a line was drawn between friends and foes, between the Frank (tribesman) and foreigners (Romans, Bavarians, etc.).
In addition to mandatory monetary compensation for Damage caused, there were other penalties, for example those associated with evasion of appearing in court or executing a court decision. In this case, there was only one sanction - putting the disobedient outlaw. The Athenians equated this situation with flight; the Romans reduced the punishment to “deprivation of fire and water.” A disobedient person who found himself outside the law was subject to extermination as a dangerous wild animal. From this practice arose the sanction in the form of the death penalty, and it was necessary
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The ultimate consequence of being outlawed or condemned to death was the confiscation of property.
Corporal punishment was first used to repress unruly slaves. Then the scope of their application expanded. For example, the one who frees a still living condemned person from the gallows must himself be hanged in his place. For murder committed by an armed gang, a wergeld of 600 solids is imposed. This is characterized by the distribution of responsibility between the accomplices of the crime.
If the victim received three wounds or more, then it was considered that three murders had actually occurred. As a result of this bill, three people were taken from the gang that attacked a person, each of whom had to pay a standard wergeld, then three more who paid 90 solids, and three more who paid 45 solids.
There are many interpretations of this counting system. According to the Swedish laws of the medieval period, in such cases only one person was prosecuted as the murderer. It was he who was awarded the basic standard fine of 40 marks. However, the court simultaneously chose to fine another person from the gang, who paid the fine as the one who gave the advice, as well as a third person from the gang as an accomplice who held the victim at the moment when she was killed. According to some generalizations, the same idea served as the principle for determining the punishment for murder by a gang in the Salic law, which, not unreasonably, increases the sanction for murder by a gang. According to Darest, it establishes a kind of “maximum compensation” for the injured party.
Property relations. The chapters related to the field of civil law of the Franks regulate the procedure for the return of stolen or lost (lost) things and the sale of disputed property. In the latter case, the sellers of the disputed property are summoned to a meeting within 40 to 80 days, depending on the distance, and the buyer is removed from the case. The seller of the disputed item pays compensation and returns the amount received from the buyer. If the seller, summoned to court to clear the buyer's intentions, does not appear, then he is convicted in absentia. The ancient Greeks did the same.
Salic law distinguishes between two types of contractual obligations: regarding things and regarding oral agreements based on trust. In the first case, the creditor, with witnesses, is obliged to force the debtor to fulfill his obligations 3 times at intervals of seven nights. Each of these demands is not without consequences, since it subjects the debtor to a fine of 3 solids. Then comes an appeal to the court, and if necessary
Topic 12. Western Europe at the beginning of the Middle Ages
Nick still persists in fulfilling his obligations, then he is sentenced to pay the amount of the debt and another 15 solids fine, regardless of the 9 solids already imposed as a result of three times non-fulfillment. Thus, the execution of even ordinary | contracts were secured by a punitive claim. The return of the amount is only an addition to the punishment. And this remains from J primitive legal custom. Among the Greeks and Romans, a debtor who denied his debt was sentenced to a fine of two, and sometimes even three and four times the amount of the debt.
Another type of fulfillment of obligations is also associated with the possibility of coercion, but in a different order. After the period has passed, the creditor goes to the debtor’s house along with witnesses and demands payment. If the refusal follows, the debtor pays a fine of 15 solids. Then, every nine days, three demands follow, stated in the meeting and repeated each time at the debtor’s home. A new evasion of payment imposes on the debtor a new fine of 3 euros each time.
Even at the first demand, the creditor receives from the Tungin the right to protest in the presence of witnesses against any payment to anyone and against any pledge that can be made to his detriment by his debtor. Finally, the creditor goes to the count, who, together with him and seven Rahinburgs, goes to the debtor’s house, seizes his property and transfers to the creditor property commensurate with the amount of the debt. The third part of the fine goes to the count as a fredus (fine for breaking the peace).
In ch. 44 on the marriage of widows, the required procedure included the presentation of a claim in court from the participants in the procedure, after which the marriage was concluded in the form of a sale for a price of 3 solids and one denarius with the consent of the three mentioned participants in the session. Such a marriage among the Romans (coemptio) and other primitive peoples is due to the fact that in their practice there was no conclusion of a purely consensual contract - a contract by consent of the parties.
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- Lecture 16: Early medieval monarchies. State of the Franks.
A typical example of an early feudal monarchy was Frankish state, states in Western and Central Europe from the 5th to the 9th centuries. It was formed on the territory of the Western Roman Empire simultaneously with other barbarian kingdoms. This territory has been inhabited by the Franks since the 3rd century. Due to the continuous military campaigns of the mayor of the Franks - Charles Martella, his son - Pepin the Short, as well as grandson - Charlemagne, the territory of the Frankish empire reached its largest size by the beginning of the 9th century.
The Kingdom of the Franks lasted much longer than all the other barbarian states of continental Europe. Two and a half centuries later, having reached Charlemagne its highest power and its maximum territorial extent. Frankish Empire was the ancestral home of a number of modern Western European states - France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, etc.
The rapid formation of the Frankish state in the form early feudal monarchy contributed to the victorious wars and class differentiation of Frankish society. Since the Frankish state entered the era of feudalism in the process of decomposition of the primitive communal system, bypassing the stage of slavery in its development, elements of the old communal organization and tribal democracy still remained in it. The society was characterized multi-structure(a combination of slaveholding, tribal, communal, feudal relations) and the incompleteness of the process of creating basic classes of feudal society.
The genesis of feudalism among the Franks
The processes of feudalization among the Franks are developing during the wars of conquest of the 6th - 7th centuries. The right to dispose of the conquered land in Northern Gaul is concentrated in the hands of the king. Serving nobility and royal warriors, bound by vassalage to the king, became large owners of lands, livestock, slaves, and colones (small tenants of land). The nobility is replenished by the Gallo-Roman aristocracy, which went into the service of the Frankish kings. The development of feudal relations accelerated due to the clash between the communal orders of the Franks and the private property orders of the Gallo-Romans.
In the middle of the 7th century. in Northern Gaul begins to take shape feudal estate with its characteristic division of land into master's and peasant's. The royal land fund was reduced due to the distribution of land by kings to their vassals. The growth of large landholdings was accompanied by infighting among landowners, which showed the fragility of the Merovingian kingdom. During this period, state power was concentrated in the hands of the nobility, who seized all the main positions and, above all, the post of mayor. Mayordom under the Merovingians he was the highest official. Initially, he was appointed by the king and headed the palace administration.
With the weakening of royal power, his powers expand, and the mayor becomes the actual head states. At the turn of the 7th–8th centuries, this position became the hereditary property of a noble and wealthy family, which laid the foundation for the Carolingian dynasty.
Period of the Merovingian monarchy (VI-VII centuries)
Leader of the Western (Salic) Franks tribe Clovis from the family of Merovey, he defeated the Romans at the Battle of Soissons and subjugated Northern Gaul (486). He and his squad converted to Christianity according to the papal rite (496). The Merovingians had two goals:
- elimination of tribal separatism, unification of all parts of the state;
- the elimination of old forms of government, the subordination of the country, divided into territorial districts, to royal officials and judges.
The legal code of the Salic Franks was Salic truth . The land, previously considered the property of the clan, turned into allodium - property of a specific family (late VT century). Allod could be bequeathed, sold, bought.
The head of state was king. His government consisted of: the first councilor of the kingdom ( majordomo); legal adviser to the king (palace count); manager of the office (referendar); commander of the royal cavalry (marshal). The king's lieutenants in a certain district (counts) were judges and tax collectors.
After the death of Clovis, internecine wars began, as a result of which the kings were almost completely removed from governing the country. The period is coming "lazy kings" . The actual head of state becomes the major.
Mayordom Charles Martell carried out reforms. Having confiscated part of the church and monastery lands, he began to distribute them as benefices - grants of land under the condition of performing military service and performing certain duties. As a result, a standing army was created. This is how the connection began to develop: the king ( senor) and the beneficiary subordinate to him ( vassal).
Period of the Carolingian monarchy (8th century - first half of the 9th century)
The transfer of royal power to the Carolingians was ensured by successes Charles Martella , who was the mayor of the Frankish state in 715 - 741. He restored the political unity of the kingdom and actually concentrated the supreme power in his hands. The lands confiscated from rebellious magnates and monasteries, together with the peasants who lived on them, are transferred to them for conditional lifelong tenure - benefice .
Beneficiary - holder of the beneficiary - was obliged to perform service, mainly military, sometimes administrative, in favor of the person who awarded the land. Refusal to serve or treason against the king was deprived of the right to an award. The reform led to the growth of feudal land ownership and increased enslavement of peasants, and also gave impetus to education vassalage systems - feudal hierarchical ladder, a special system of subordination: contractual relations were established between the beneficiary (vassal) and the person who handed over the land (seigneur).
Charlemagne (768 - 814)
Son of Charles Martel Pepin the Short was proclaimed king of the Franks (751). With his son Charlemagne The Frankish kingdom reaches its peak (768-814). He takes the title emperor(800). The territory of the state grew due to conquests. Italy (774), Bavaria (788), northeastern Spain (801), Saxony (804) were annexed, and the Avar Khaganate in Pannonia was defeated (796-803).
Under Charlemagne, the traditions of ancient culture are being revived. Schools for boys are opened, and an Academy is established in Aachen. The Romanesque style in architecture is being formed.
At the head of the state was the king - the supreme overlord of all feudal lords. The vassals of the first level were large secular and spiritual feudal lords: dukes, counts, princes, archbishops, bishops. Vassals of the second level are barons. The knights (petty nobles) did not have their own vassals; they were directly subordinate to the peasants, to whom they gave the land to hold.
The peasant paid rent to the landowner. Forms of rent: labor (corvée), food, cash.
The basis of vassalage was the allotment fief- hereditary land property, which was given under the condition of military service, military or monetary assistance and loyalty to one’s overlord.
Collapse of the Frankish Empire
The grandchildren of Charlemagne, according to the Treaty of Verdun, divided the empire into three parts (843).
- Senior - Lothair received possession of Italy, Burgundy and Lorraine - lands along the river. Rhine.
- Second - Louis the German- land beyond the river Rhine (Saxony, Bavaria).
- Third - Karl Baldy- lands of the Frankish kingdom itself.
The Treaty of Verdun marked the beginning of the formation of three future European countries - France, Germany, Italy. The Carolingian dynasty had five branches:
- Lombard, founded by Pepin of Italy, son of Charlemagne. After his death his son Bernard ruled Italy as king. His descendants settled in France, where they had the titles of counts of Valois, Vermandois, Amiens, and Troyes.
- Lorraine descended from Emperor Lothair, the eldest son of Louis the Pious. With his death, the Middle Kingdom was divided among his sons, who received Italy, Lorraine and Lower Burgundy. Since the new rulers had no sons left, in 875 their lands were divided between the German and French branches.
- Aquitaine, founded by Pepin of Aquitaine, son of Louis the Pious. Since he died before his father, Aquitaine went not to Pepin’s sons, but to his younger brother Charles the Tolstoy. The sons left no descendants, and in 864 the dynasty died out.
- German descended from Louis the German, ruler of the East Frankish kingdom, son of Louis the Pious. He divided his possessions between his three sons, who received the duchies of Bavaria, Saxony and Swabia. His youngest son Karl Tolstoy briefly reunited the western and eastern kingdoms of the Franks, which were finally separated with his death.
- French- descendants of Charles the Bald, son of Louis the Pious. They owned the West Frankish kingdom, the reign of the dynasty was interrupted after the death of Karl Tolstoy and during the usurpation of the throne by the Robertines (twice) and the Bosonids. After the death of Louis V in 987, representatives of the French branch of the Carolingians lost the royal throne.
With the collapse of the Frankish Empire in Europe, a period began feudal fragmentation . With the growth of feudal land ownership, individual lords, large landowners, received privileges - immunity , which consisted in possessing the rights of military, judicial and financial power over the peasants living on their lands. The estates of the feudal lord who received the king's immunity letter were not subject to the activities of government officials, and all state powers were transferred to the owner of the estate. In the processes of establishing the power of large landowners over peasants in Western Europe, she played a huge role, becoming herself a large land owner. The stronghold of the dominant position of the church were monasteries, and the secular nobility - fortified castles, which became patrimonial centers, a place for collecting rent from peasants, and a symbol of the power of the lords.
Lesson summary "The Frankish state as a typical example of an early feudal state."
Security questions
Salic truth. In parallel with the formation of statehood, the Frankish tribes were creating law. For this purpose, a written recording of ancient Germanic customs was carried out - a recording of the customary law of Germanic tribes. Thus, the “barbarian laws (truths)” were written down: Salic, Ripuarian, Burgundian, Allemannian, etc.
Chapter 8. State of the Salic Franks
Section III. State and law of medieval Europe
Part two. History of the medieval state and law
Literature for the first part
1. Anners E. History of European law / Trans. from Swedish M., 1994;
·2. Polybius. General history. Book 1. Sharing history. The benefits of general history // General history: In 3 volumes. T.1. SPb. 1994.
·3. Toynbee A. Comprehension of history (Introduction. Comparative study of civilizations). M., 1992.
·4. Sorokin P.A. Human. Civilization. Society (Thinkers of the 20th century). / Per. from English - - M., 1992.
·5. Jaspers K. The meaning and purpose of history (Thinkers of the 20th century) / Trans. with him. - M., 1991.
6. Lurie I.M. Essays on ancient Egyptian law. XVI- -X centuries: Monuments and research. - -M., 1960.
7. Anners E. History of European law. - -M., 1995 (Chapter 1).
8. Derett J.D.V. Dharmasastra and Juridical Literature. - -Wiesbaden, 1973.
9. Vasiliev L.S. History of the East: In 2 volumes - M., 1993, Vol. 1. Ch. 11 - - 12.
10. World Scripture: Comparative anthology of sacred texts / Trans. from English - -M., 1995 (Chapter 20).
11. David R. Basic legal systems of our time / Trans. from French - -M., 1966.
12. From magical power to moral imperative: the category of de in Chinese culture. - -M., 1998.
13. Views of supporters of the combination of Confucian and legal approaches to law // Anthology of world legal thought: In 5 volumes. T. 1. Ancient world and Eastern civilizations. - -M., 1999. P. 515- -524.
14. Kalinina E.A. History of the slave state and law. State and law of the Ancient East. Egypt, Babylon, India and China. - -Mn., 1997.
15. Bogoslovsky E.S. State regulation of the social structure of Ancient Egypt // Peoples of Asia and Africa. 1981. No. 1.
16. http://www.kemet.ru/.- - Culture, history and art of Ancient Egypt.
Periodization of the statehood of the Salic Franks. Scientists believe that the formation of the Frankish state occurred relatively quickly. In many ways, this process was facilitated by victorious wars of conquest and, as a consequence, the class differentiation of Frankish society, the initial stage in education Frankish state there was a conquest of part of Gaul in 486 by the Salic Franks, led by a king (later king) Clovis, founder of the dynasty Merovingian(481 - 511).
By 510, Clovis became the ruler of the lands and ruler of a single kingdom, stretching from the middle reaches of the Rhine to the Pyrenees. He acquires the right to dictate his own laws, levy taxes from the local population, etc. It was written down with him Salic truth -- code of customary law of the Salic Franks.
In fact, by its type, the state of the Franks is early feudal monarchy. It contains elements of the old communal organization and institutions of tribal democracy, since it arises in a society that entered the era of feudalism at the stage of decomposition of the primitive communal system without the development of the stage of slavery. Such a society was characterized by multistructure (a combination of slaveholding, tribal, communal, feudal relations) and the incompleteness of the process of creating the main classes of feudal society.
In the history of the Frankish state, two periods can be distinguished , each of which is associated with the reign of a specific dynasty:
· from the end of the 5th century. until the 7th century - - Merovingian monarchy;
· from the 8th century to the 9th century - - Carolingian Empire.
Dynasty Merovingian ruled in the Frankish state from the end of the 5th century to 751. During her reign, the Franks began to develop feudal relations. In the V - VI centuries. communal tribal ties are still preserved; relations of exploitation among the Franks themselves have not been developed. The Frankish service nobility, formed during the military campaigns of Clovis, was also small.
Salic truth, recorded at the beginning of the 6th century. by order of Clovis, who had already mentioned the existence of the following among the Franks social groups:
· serving nobility - - close associates of the king;
Free Franks, community members;
· semi-free (litas);
It should be noted that the main differences between them were related to the origin and legal status of the person or social group to which he belonged. Over time, a factor influencing the legal differences of the Franks became membership in the royal service, the royal squad, and the emerging state apparatus.
A feature of the V--VI centuries. in Western Europe is the beginning of the onset of Christian influence churches. The growing ideological and economic role of the church began to manifest itself in its power claims. The church at this time was not yet a political entity and did not have a unified organization, but it had already begun to become a large landowner, receiving numerous land donations. Religious power during this period became more and more closely intertwined with secular power.
During the wars of conquest of the 6th-7th centuries, when a significant part of the Gallo-Roman estates in Northern Gaul passed into the hands of the Frankish kings, the serving aristocracy and royal warriors, the processes of feudalization among the Franks developed. The serving nobility, bound by vassalage to the king, became a major owner of lands, livestock, slaves, and colones (small tenants of land).
The ranks of the Frankish nobility were replenished by the Gallo-Roman aristocracy, who went into the service of the kings. At the same time, the creation of feudal relations was accelerated due to the clash between the communal orders of the Franks and the private property orders of the Gallo-Romans. In the middle of the 7th century. in Northern Gaul begins to take shape feudal estate with its characteristic division of land into master's and peasant's.
The growth of large landholdings was accompanied by infighting among landowners, which showed the fragility of the Merovingian kingdom. The royal land fund decreased due to the distribution of land by the kings, and state power gradually concentrated in the hands of the nobility, who seized all the main positions and, above all, the post majordomo. The mayordomo under the Merovingians was the highest official. Initially, he was appointed by the king and headed the palace administration. With the weakening of royal power, his powers expand, and the majordomo becomes the de facto head of state. At the turn of the 7th - 8th centuries. this position became the hereditary property of a noble and wealthy family, which laid the foundation for the Carolingian dynasty.
Royal and imperial dynasty Carolingian replaced the Merovingians in 751, and ceased to exist in the 10th century. in the territories of the divided state of the Franks.
The transfer of royal power to the Carolingians was ensured by the success of the reform Charles Martella, one of the representatives of this family, who was the mayor of the Frankish state in 715-741. He restored the political unity of the kingdom and actually concentrated the supreme power in his hands.
To strengthen state centralization and strengthen the military power of the kingdom, Charles Martel put an end to the previous procedure for donating lands as undivided property. Instead, the lands confiscated from rebellious magnates and monasteries, together with the peasants who lived on them, were transferred to the king's servants for a conditional life-long tenure - benefice. The beneficiary - - the beneficiary holder - - was obliged to perform service, mainly military, sometimes administrative in favor of the king. Refusal to serve or treason against the king was deprived of the right to an award.
The reform led to the growth of feudal land ownership and the resulting enslavement of peasants, and also gave impetus to education vassalage systems- - feudal hierarchical ladder, a special system of subordination, according to which contractual relations were established between the beneficiary (vassal) and the person who handed over the land (seigneur).
With the growth of feudal land ownership, individual lords, large landowners, received immunities - privileges that consisted of having the rights of military, judicial and financial power over the peasants living on their lands. The estates of the feudal lord who received the king's immunity letter were not subject to the influence of government officials, and all powers were transferred to the owner of the estate himself.
In the process of establishing the power of large landowners over peasants in Western Europe, the Christian Church played a huge role, which itself became a large land owner. The stronghold of the dominant position of the church were monasteries, and the stronghold of the secular nobility were fortified castles, which became patrimonial centers, a place for collecting rent from peasants and an expressive symbol of the power of the lords.
Government of the Frankish monarchy. Since in the Frankish state no distinction had yet been made between general state issues and the affairs of the royal palace, the main managers of the royal household - ministerials- began to acquire the importance of senior officials of the state and actually headed public administration and the court. The most important ministerials were the following:
· ward mayor, or mayor, - chief steward of the royal palace and later head of the royal administration. The holders of this office abolished it after they themselves took the royal throne;
· palace count, or palatine,- - at first he supervised the royal servants, and later began to perform judicial functions (led judicial duels, execution of sentences) and headed the palace court;
· thesaurary- - State Treasurer, who supervised the accounting of material assets at the disposal of the king;
· marshal- - chief of the cavalry army;
· archchaplain- - spiritual mentor of the king, senior among the palace clergy, member of the royal council (diagram 1).
System local government free francs were gradually replaced over time by a system of appointed officials - commissioners of the king.
The main territorial unit of the country has become the rural district(paga), which included several hundreds. Included hundreds included communities (brands), originally representing the unification of the households of free peasants on the neighborly principle and maintaining self-government: people's assemblies of hundreds, chaired by an elected centurion, resolved military, administrative and other issues. The administration of the district was headed by the count, who had at his disposal a military detachment and commanded the pagi militia. Under Merovingian rule, elected officials are replaced by appointed individuals - - centenaries in the North and vicars in the South. They obeyed the count and exercised his authority within a hundred.
On the borders of the country were created duchies, consisting of several districts. Their management was entrusted dukes, who were also commanders of the local militia. They were entrusted with the defense of the borders (diagram 2).
Supreme judicial power carried out monarch together with representatives of the nobility. The most dangerous crimes were in the jurisdiction royal council.
The main judicial institutions of the country were local courts - - "hundreds of courts." They considered the vast majority of cases, since at first members of the hundred participated in administration and legal proceedings. People's Assembly of Hundreds - - malus- - chose judges from among themselves - - Rakhinburgov, as a rule, wealthy, respected people. The trial was conducted under the leadership of an elected chairman - - tungina. All free and full-fledged residents of the hundred were present at the court hearing.
Under the Carolingians, general judicial assemblies were replaced by jury panels appointed from above: the king's envoys - - missions- - received the right to appoint members of the court instead of Rakhinburgs - - skabins. The obligation of free people to attend the trial was abolished. Over time, judicial power was concentrated in the hands of feudal lords. At first, the count or vicar only convened the malus and monitored the correctness of the proceedings. Gradually, the king's representatives become chairmen of the courts instead of the Tungins.
Only the possessions of lords who enjoyed immunity were withdrawn from subordination to counts and margraves. Votchinniki - - immunists (seniors, as well as the highest hierarchs of the church) had full judicial power over the peasants living on their lands.
During feudalization, the structure of the Frankish language changed troops. All-Frankish military gatherings of the people's militia of free Frankish peasants were finally replaced by annual reviews of the feudal knightly militia. The participation of ordinary free people in the militia was also limited.
The reform of Charles Martell led to the formation of a large, well-armed cavalry knightly army, consisting of beneficiary holders, who also helped in the fight against popular uprisings (Table 1).
The most prominent representative of the Carolingian dynasty was Charlemagne(768-814). Under him, the Carolingian state experienced its greatest prosperity. In 774, after a successful campaign in Italy, Charles annexed the Lombard kingdom to the Frankish state. In 788 he included the territory of Bavaria into the Frankish state. Quite a long time - - from 772 to 802. - Charlemagne fought with the Saxons, as a result of which he conquered Saxony.
The Franks were a large tribal union formed from several more ancient Germanic tribes (Sigambri, Hamavs, Bructeri, Tencteri, etc.). They lived east of the lower reaches of the Rhine and were divided, like a wall, by the Charbonniere forests into two groups: the Salii and the Ripuarii. In the second half of the 4th century. The Franks occupied Toxandria (the area between the Meuse and the Scheldt), settling here as federates of the empire.
Orange shows the territory inhabited by the Ripuarian Franks in the second half of the 5th century.
During the great migration of peoples, the Merovingian dynasty took the leading position among the Salians. At the end of the 5th century, one of its representatives, Clovis (466-511), stood at the head of the Salic Franks. This cunning and enterprising king laid the foundation for the powerful Frankish monarchy.
Reims Cathedral - where kings take their oaths
The first king to be crowned in Reims was the Frankish leader Clovis. This happened in 481. Tradition tells that on the eve of the coronation a miracle happened: a dove sent from heaven brought in its beak a vial full of oil necessary to anoint the king as king.
The last Roman possession in Gaul was Soissons and its surrounding territories. Holdwig, who knew from the experience of his father about the untouched riches of the cities and villages of the Paris Basin, and about the precariousness of the authorities that remained the heirs of the Roman Empire, in 486. in the battle of Soissons, he defeated the troops of the Roman governor in Gaul, Syagrius, and seized power in this region of the former empire.
To expand his possessions to the lower reaches of the Rhine, he goes with an army to the Cologne region against the Alemanni, who have ousted the Ripuarian Franks. The Battle of Tolbiac took place on the Wollerheim Heath field near the German town of Zulpich. This battle is extremely important in its consequences. Clovis's wife, the Burgundian princess Clotilde, was a Christian and had long convinced her husband to leave paganism. But Clovis hesitated.
They say that in the battle with the Alemanni, when the enemy began to gain the upper hand, Clovis vowed in a loud voice to be baptized if he won. There were many Gallo-Roman Christians in his army; upon hearing the vow, they were inspired and helped win the battle. The Alemanni king fell in battle, his warriors, in order to stop the murder, turn to Clovis with the words: “Have mercy, we obey you” (Gregory of Tours).
This victory makes the Alemanni dependent on the Franks. The territory along the left bank of the Rhine, the area of the Neckar River (the right tributary of the Rhine) and the lands to the lower reaches of the Main pass to Clovis...
François-Louis Hardy Dejuynes - The Baptism of Clovis at Reims in 496
Holdvig donated a lot of wealth to the church and replaced the white banner on his banner, which depicted three golden toads, with a blue one, later, with the image of a fleur-de-lis, which was a symbol of St. Martin, the patron saint of France. Clovis allegedly chose this flower as a symbol of purification after baptism.
Along with the king, a significant part of his squad was baptized. The people, after the king’s speech, exclaimed: “Dear king, we renounce mortal gods and are ready to follow the immortal God whom Remigius preaches.” The Franks received baptism from the Catholic clergy; Thus, they became of the same faith with the Gallo - Roman population, and could merge with them into one people. This clever political move provided Clovis with the opportunity, under the banner of the fight against heresy, to oppose the neighboring Visigoth tribe and other barbarian tribes.
In 506, Clovis created a coalition against the Visigothic king Alaric II, who owned a quarter of south-west Gaul. In 507, he defeated Alaric's army at Vouillet, near Poitiers, pushing the Visigoths beyond the Pyrenees. For this victory, the Byzantine Emperor Anastasius I granted him the honorary title of Roman consul, sending him the signs of this rank: a crown and a purple mantle, and thereby, in the eyes of the Gallic population, seemed to confirm the power of Clovis in the newly conquered regions. He enjoys the support of the bishops, who see Clovis as a winner in the fight against Arianism, which they consider heresy.
Many of the Roman and Gallic nobility hastened to recognize the power of Clovis, thanks to which they retained their lands and dependent people. They also helped Clovis rule the country. The rich Romans became related to the Frankish leaders and gradually began to form a single ruling stratum of the population. At the same time, the Eastern Empire was primarily focused on its own benefits, primarily in foreign policy terms.
The efforts of imperial diplomacy around the Frankish “kingdom” of Clovis were aimed both at achieving a favorable balance of power in the West and at creating a stronghold here against other Germans, in particular the Goths. In this regard, Byzantine diplomacy continued the traditional policy of the Roman Empire: it was preferable to deal with the barbarians with their own hands.
By order of Clovis, the law was codified, the ancient judicial customs of the Franks and the new decrees of the king were recorded. Clovis became the sole supreme ruler of the state. Not only all Frankish tribes, but also the population of the entire country now submitted to him. The power of the king was much stronger than the power of the military leader. The king passed it on as inheritance to his sons. Actions against the king were punishable by death. In each region of the vast country, Clovis appointed rulers from people close to him - counts. They collected taxes from the population, commanded detachments of warriors, and supervised the courts. The highest judge was the king.
In order to conquer and, most importantly, retain new lands, a military leader must rely on the proven loyalty of his military retinue, which accompanies and protects him everywhere. Only a full treasury can give him such an opportunity, and only the seizure of funds contained in the treasury of his rivals can make him able to acquire the loyalty of new warriors, and this is necessary if territorial claims extend to the whole of Gaul. Clovis and his successors, strengthening their power and ensuring themselves the ability to control the acquired territories, generously gave away lands to their associates and warriors as a reward for their service. The result of such donations was a sharp intensification of the natural process of “settlement of the squad to the ground.” The endowment of warriors with estates and their transformation into feudal landowners took place in almost all countries of feudal Europe. Very soon, noble people turned into large landowners.
At the same time, Clovis tried to unite the Frankish tribes subordinate to the other Merovingians under his rule. He achieved this goal by cunning and atrocities, destroying the Frankish leaders who were his allies in the conquest of Gaul, while showing a lot of cunning and cruelty. The Merovingians were called “long-haired kings” because, according to legend, they did not have the right to cut their hair, since this could bring misfortune to the kingdom and was punishable by immediate deprivation of the throne. Therefore, at first the rulers of the Franks did not kill their rivals, but simply cut off their hair. But the hair grew back quickly... and soon they began to cut it off along with the head. The beginning of this “tradition” was laid by the son of Childeric and the grandson of Merovey - Clovis, who exterminated almost all the relatives - the leaders of the Salic Franks: Syagray, Hararic, Ragnahar and their children, his brothers Rahar and Rignomer and their children.
He eliminated the king of the Ripuarian Franks, Sigebert, by persuading his own son to kill his father, and then sent assassins to his son. After the murder of Sigebert and his son, Clovis also proclaimed himself king of the Ripuarian Franks. At the end of the 5th century, tribes of Germans calling themselves Franks formed a new state (the future France), which, under the Merovingians, covered the territory of present-day France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and part of Germany.
The long-awaited moment came for Clovis - he became the sole ruler of the Franks, but not for long, he died in the same year. He was buried in Paris in the Church of the Holy Apostles, which he himself built with his wife (now the Church of Saint Genevieve).
Considering the kingdom as his own, he left it to his four sons. Thierry, Chlodomir, Childebert and Chlothar inherited the kingdom and divided it among themselves into equal parts, only occasionally uniting for joint campaigns of conquest. There were several kings, the kingdom was still one, although divided into several parts, to which German historians gave the name “Shared Kingdom”. The power of the Frankish kings underwent changes in the period from the end of the 5th to the middle of the 6th century. Being at first only a power over one people or nationality, uniting people for war, it became a power over a certain territory, and because of this, a permanent power over several peoples.
The fragmentation of the kingdom did not prevent the Franks from uniting their efforts for joint action against the Burgundians, whose state was conquered after a protracted war in 520-530. The annexation of the region of the future Provence, which turned out to be bloodless, also dates back to the time of the sons of Clovis. The Merovingians managed to achieve the transfer of these lands from the Ostrogoths, who were embroiled in a long war against Byzantium. In 536, the Ostrogothic king Witigis abandoned Provence in favor of the Franks. In the 30s In the 6th century, the Alpine possessions of the Alemanni and the lands of the Thuringians between the Weser and Elbe were also conquered, and in the 50s. - lands of the Bavarians on the Danube.
But the apparent unity could no longer hide the signs of future strife. An inevitable consequence of the partition was civil strife in the Merovingian family. These civil strife were accompanied by cruelties and treacherous murders.
Jean-Louis Besard as Childebert I, third son of King Clovis I and Clotilde of Burgundy
In 523-524. Together with his brothers, he took part in two campaigns against Burgundy. After the death of Chlodomer during the second campaign, a bloody conspiracy between Childeber and Chlothar occurred, who plotted to kill their nephews and divide their inheritance among themselves. So Childebert became king of Orleans, recognizing Chlothar as his heir.
In 542, Childebert, together with Chlothar, organized a campaign in Spain against the Visigoths. They captured Pamplona and besieged Zaragoza, but were forced to retreat.
From this campaign, Childebert brought to Paris a Christian relic - the tunic of St. Vincent, in whose honor he founded a monastery in Paris, later known as the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. In 555, together with his nephew Temple, Childebert rebelled against Chlothar I and plundered part of his lands. After Childebert's death, Chlothar took possession of his kingdom.
In 558, all of Gaul was united under the rule of Clothar I. He also had four heirs, which led to a new division of the state into three parts - Burgundy, Austrasia and Neustria. In the southeast was Aquitaine, which was considered the common territory of all three Frankish kings. The Merovingian power was an ephemeral political entity. It lacked not only economic and ethnic community, but also political and judicial-administrative unity. The social system of different parts of the Frankish state was not the same. At the beginning of the 7th century, under King Clothar II, the landed nobility obtained from him major concessions listed in the edict of 614, and thereby limited his power.
The last significant Merovingian king was Dagobert (son of Clothar II). The Merovingians who followed were more insignificant than each other. Under them, the decision of state affairs passes into the hands of the mayors, appointed by the king in each kingdom from representatives of the most noble families. Amid this chaos and turmoil, one position particularly stood out and achieved the highest power: that of the palace manager. The manager of the palace, the chamber mayor, or major domus, in the 6th century did not yet stand out from many other positions; in the 7th century he began to occupy first place after the king.
The Frankish state split into two main parts: the eastern, Austrasia, or the German lands proper, and the western, Neustria, or Gaul.
One Austrasian mayor, Pishsh of Geristal, was already so powerful that he forced himself to be recognized as mayor in Neustria. As a result of his campaigns of conquest, he expanded the territory of the state and the tribes of the Saxons and Bavarians paid him tribute. His son Charles, by his side wife Alpaida, also kept both halves under his rule.
In 725 and 728, Charles Pepin undertook two campaigns in Bavaria, as a result of which it was subordinated to his kingdom, although it continued to be governed by its duke. In the early 730s he conquered Alemannia, which in the past was part of the Frankish state.
Charles significantly strengthened the military power of the Frankish kingdom. Under him, the military art of the Franks received further development. This was due to the appearance of heavily armed cavalry of the Frankish nobility - which in the near future became knightly cavalry.
Karl came up with an original move. He began to issue state lands not as full, but as conditional ownership. Thus, in the Frankish state, a special type of land ownership developed - benefices. The condition was complete “self-arming” and performing mounted military service. If the owner of the land refused, for whatever reason, his plot was confiscated back to the state.
Charles carried out a wide distribution of benefices. The fund for these grants was at first the lands confiscated from the rebellious magnates, and when these lands dried up, he carried out partial secularization (the removal of something from ecclesiastical, spiritual jurisdiction and transfer to the secular, civil), due to which he allocated a large number of beneficiaries. Using part of the church lands to strengthen the beneficiary system, Charles at the same time actively contributed to the spread of Christianity and the enrichment of churchmen in the lands he conquered, and saw in the church a means of strengthening his power. His patronage of the missionary activities of St. is known. Boniface - "Apostle of Germany".
The Arabs, having conquered Spain, invaded Gaul. Near the city of Poitiers in 732, the troops of the Frankish mayor Charles defeated the army of the Andalusian emir Abderrahman al-Ghafaki, who decided to punish the Duke of Aquitaine Ed.
A battle took place in which the desperate courage of the Muslims was crushed by the fortress of the Franks. The battle turned out to be in many ways a turning point in the history of medieval Europe. The Battle of Poitiers saved it from Arab conquest, and at the same time demonstrated the full power of the newly created knightly cavalry. The Arabs returned to Spain and stopped advancing north of the Pyrenees. Only a small part of Southern Gaul - Septimania - was now left in the hands of the Arabs. It is believed that it was after this battle that Charles received the nickname “Martell” - Hammer.
In 733 and 734 he conquered the lands of the Frisians, accompanying the conquest with the active planting of Christianity among them. Repeatedly (in 718, 720, 724, 738) Charles Martell made campaigns across the Rhine against the Saxons and imposed tribute on them.
However, he stood only on the threshold of the true historical greatness of the Frankish state. Before his death, he divided the Frankish kingdom between his two sons, Carloman and Pepin the Short, the first of them received majordom in Austrasia, Swabia and Thuringia, the second in Neustria, Burgundy and Provence.
Charles Martell was succeeded by his son Pitsch the Short, so nicknamed for his small stature, which did not prevent him from possessing great physical strength. In 751, Major Pepin the Short imprisoned the last Merovingian (Childeric III) in a monastery and turned to the Pope with the question: “Who should be called king - the one who has only the title, or the one who has real power?” and the understanding dad answered exactly as the questioner wanted. This seemingly simple question challenged the ancestral sacredness of the Franks embodied in the Merovingians.
Francois Dubois - Anointing of Pepin the Short in the Abbey of Saint-Denis
Holy Bishop Boniface anointed Pepin as king, and then Pope Stephen II, who arrived to ask for help against the Lombards, himself repeated this rite of anointing. In 751, at a meeting of the Frankish nobility and his vassals in Soissons, Pepin was officially proclaimed king of the Franks. Pepin knew how to be grateful: by force of arms he forced the Lombard king to give the pope the cities of the Roman region and the lands of the Ravenna exarchate that he had previously captured. On these lands in Central Italy, the Papal State arose in 756. So Pepin became a monarch, and the pope who sanctioned the coup received an invaluable gift, a hugely important precedent for the future: the right to remove kings and entire dynasties from power.
Charles Martel and Pepin the Short understood that the spread of Christianity and the establishment of church government in the German countries would bring the latter closer to the Frankish state. Even earlier, individual preachers (missionaries), especially from Ireland and Scotland, came to the Germans and spread Christianity among them.
After the death of Pepin the Short in 768, the Crown passed to his son Charles, who was later called the Great. The mayors of Austrasia from the house of Pipinids (descendants of Pepin of Geristal), becoming the rulers of the united Frankish state, laid the foundation for a new dynasty of Frankish kings. After Charles, the Pipinid dynasty was called the Carolingians.
During the reign of the Carolingians, the foundations of the feudal system were laid in Frankish society. The growth of large-scale land ownership accelerated due to social stratification within the community where it remained, the ruin of the mass of free peasants who, losing their allods, gradually turned into landed and then personally dependent people. This process, which began under the Merovingians, in the 8th-9th centuries. took on a violent character.
Continuing the aggressive policy of his predecessors, Charles in 774 made a campaign in Italy, overthrew the last Lombard king Desiderius and annexed the Lombard kingdom to the Frankish state. In June 774, after another siege, Charles took Pavia, proclaiming it the capital of the Italian kingdom.
Charlemagne went from defensive to offensive and against the Arabs in Spain. He made his first trip there in 778, but was only able to reach Saragossa and, without taking it, was forced to return beyond the Pyrenees. The events of this campaign served as the plot basis for the famous medieval French epic “Songs of Roland”. Its hero was one of Charles’s military leaders, Roland, who died in a skirmish with the Basques along with the rearguard of the Frankish troops, covering the Franks’ retreat in the Roncesvalles Gorge. Despite the initial failure, Charles continued to try to advance south of the Pyrenees. In 801, he managed to capture Barcelona and establish a border territory in the northeast of Spain - the Spanish March.
Charles fought the longest and bloodiest wars in Saxony (from 772 to 802), located between the Ems and Lower Rhine rivers in the west, the Elbe in the east and the Eider in the north. In order to break the rebellious, Charles entered into a temporary alliance with their eastern neighbors, the Polabian Slavs, the Obodrites, who had long been at enmity with the Saxons. During the war and after its completion in 804, Charles practiced mass migrations of Saxons to the internal regions of the Frankish kingdom, and Franks and Obodrites to Saxony.
Charles's conquests were also directed to the southeast. In 788, he finally annexed Bavaria, eliminating the ducal power there. Thanks to this, the influence of the Franks spread to neighboring Carinthia (Horutania), inhabited by the Slavs - the Slovenes. On the southeastern borders of the expanding Frankish state, Charles encountered the Avar Khaganate in Pannonia. The nomadic Avars carried out constant predatory raids on neighboring agricultural tribes. In 788, they also attacked the Frankish state, marking the beginning of the Frankish-Avar wars, which continued intermittently until 803. A decisive blow to the Avars was dealt by the capture of a system of ring-shaped fortifications called “hrings”, surrounded by stone walls and a palisade made of thick logs; Many settlements were located among these fortifications. Having stormed the fortifications, the Franks enriched themselves with countless treasures. The main hring was protected by nine successive walls. The war with the Avars lasted for many years, and only the alliance of the Franks with the southern Slavs allowed them, with the participation of the Khorutan prince Voinomir, who led this campaign, to defeat the central fortress of the Avars in 796. As a result, the Avar state collapsed, and Pannonia temporarily found itself in the hands of the Slavs.
Charlemagne is the first ruler who decided to unite Europe. The Frankish state now covered a vast territory. It extended from the middle reaches of the Ebro River and Barcelona in the southwest to the Elbe, Sala, the Bohemian Mountains and the Vienna Woods in the east, from the border of Jutland in the north to Central Italy in the south. This territory was inhabited by many tribes and nationalities, varying in level of development. From the moment of its inception, the administrative organization of the new Frankish empire was aimed at universal education, the development of art, religion and culture. Under him, capitularies were issued - acts of Carolingian legislation, and land reforms were carried out that contributed to the feudalization of Frankish society. By forming border areas - the so-called Marches - he strengthened the defense capability of the state. The era of Charles went down in history as the era of the “Carolingian Renaissance”. It was at this time that the Frankish Empire became the link between antiquity and medieval Europe. Scientists and poets gathered at his court, he promoted the spread of culture and literacy through monastic schools and through the activities of monastic educators.
Under the leadership of the great Anglo-Saxon scientist Alcuin, and with the participation of such famous figures as Theodulf, Paul the Deacon, Eingard and many others, the education system was actively revived, which was called the Carolingian Renaissance. He led the church's struggle against the iconoclasts and insisted that the pope include the filioque (the provision of the procession of the Holy Spirit not only from the Father, but also from the Son) in the Creed.
Architectural art is experiencing a great boom; numerous palaces and temples are being built, the monumental appearance of which was characteristic of the early Romanesque style. It should be noted, however, that the term “Renaissance” can be used here only conditionally, since Charles’s activities took place in the era of the spread of religious-ascetic dogmas, which for several centuries became an obstacle to the development of humanistic ideas and the true revival of cultural values created in the ancient era.
Through his vast conquests, Charlemagne demonstrated a desire for imperial universality that found its religious counterpart in the universality of the Christian Church. This religious and political synthesis, in addition to being symbolic, also had great practical significance for organizing the internal life of the state and ensuring the unity of its heterogeneous parts. Secular power, when necessary, used the authority of the church to assert its prestige. However, this was an unstable union: the church, seeing its support in the state, laid claim to political leadership. On the other hand, the secular power, whose strength gradually grew, sought to subjugate the papacy. Therefore, the relationship between church and state in Western Europe included confrontation and inevitable conflict situations.
Charles could no longer rule numerous countries and peoples while continuing to bear the title of King of the Franks. In order to reconcile and merge together all the heterogeneous elements in his kingdom - the German tribes of the Franks, Saxons, Frisians, Lombards, Bavarians, Alamanni with the Roman, Slavic and other components of the state - Charles needed to accept a new, so to speak, neutral title that could would give it undeniable authority and significance in the eyes of all subjects. Such a title could only be that of a Roman emperor, and the only question was how to obtain it. The proclamation of Charles as emperor could only happen in Rome, and the opportunity soon presented itself. Taking advantage of the fact that Pope Leo III, fleeing from the hostile Roman nobility, took refuge at the court of the Frankish king, Charles undertook a campaign to Rome in defense of the pope. The grateful pope, not without pressure from Charles, crowned him with the imperial crown in 800 in St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome, solemnly placing on him the imperial crown with the title "Charles Augustus, crowned by God, the great and peace-making Roman Emperor."
Charlemagne's new Roman Empire was half the size of the previous one, Charlemagne was German rather than Roman, preferring to rule from Aachen or wage war. The Holy Roman Empire of the German nation lasted a thousand years until it was destroyed by another great conqueror - Napoleon, who called himself the successor of Charlemagne.
The word king did not exist before Charlemagne. It came from his name. The anagram of Charlemagne encrypts his name - Karolus.
Despite the efforts of Charlemagne, the Frankish state never achieved political unity, and weakening as a result of external threats accelerated its collapse. From that time on, only church unity was preserved in Europe, and culture found refuge in monasteries for a long time.
The fragmentation of the empire by the grandchildren of Charlemagne in 843 meant the end of the political unity of the Frankish state. Charlemagne's empire collapsed due to feudalization. Under the weak sovereigns, who turned out to be his son and grandsons, the centrifugal forces of feudalism tore it apart.
According to the Treaty of Verdun in 843, it was divided between the descendants of Charlemagne into three large parts: the West Frankish, East Frankish kingdoms and an empire that included Italy and the lands along the Rhine (the empire of Lothair, one of Charles's grandsons). The partition marked the beginning of the history of three modern European states - France, Germany and Italy.
The formation of the “kingdom” of the Franks is a kind of result of the long historical path traversed by the West German tribal world over hundreds of years. Of all the “states” formed by the Germans, the state of the Franks lasted the longest and played the most important role. Perhaps this is explained by the fact that the Franks settled in large numbers, completely displacing the “Roman” population from certain territories.
In place of the slaveholding territories of Ancient Rome, free peasant communities were formed, the formation of large feudal estates began - the era of feudalism, or the era of the Middle Ages, began. And the formation of French civilization begins, as part of European civilization.
In modern Europe, Charlemagne is considered one of the forerunners of European integration. Since 1950, the annual Charlemagne Prize for contributions to European unity has been awarded in Aachen, the capital of Charles' empire.
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