cerning which we have almost no other contemporary information. A few charters, the scanty notes for this time of Gregory of Tours and the Roman writers, the contents of a few graves-the most important that of Childerich, father of Clovis (481-511), found at Tournay in 1653—are all that we would otherwise have had to show the extent of civilization under the earliest Merovingian kings.

The Salic Law was composed under Clovis. It concerns itself, as will be seen from the extracts here given, with the most manifold branches of administration. The system of landholding, the nature of the early village community, the relations of the Germans to the Romans, the position of the king, the classes of the population, family life, the disposal of property, judicial procedure, the ethical views of the time, are all illustrated in its sixty-five articles. Directly and indirectly we can gather from it a great mass of information. How clearly, for instance, does the title on insults (p. 181) show the regard paid for personal bravery and for female chastity! The false charge of having thrown away one's shield was punished as severely as assault and battery-and the person who groundlessly called a woman unclean paid a fine second only in severity to that imposed for attempted murder!

No. II., the Capitulary of 802, is, in reality, nothing more nor less than the foundation charter of that longlived institution, the Holy Roman Empire. The latter, as will be remembered, began its existence on Christmas-day, 800, and ended it on August 6th, 1806. Already in Voltaire's time it had ceased to be "either holy, or Roman, or an empire," but its pretensions were kept up until all Germany fell asunder before the wars and the wiles of Napoleon.

This capitulary of Charlemagne is the programme, so to speak, of the young empire. It is the ideal-an ideal never once to be fulfilled-of what that empire should

have been. At the head of all things stands the emperor, whose greatest duty it is to provide for the welfare of his subjects. Every male being in his realm who is over twelve years of age has to plight his troth to him. In his hands are justice, morality, and religion. His realm is to be a haven of rest where all discords are to cease and no one to infringe on the rights of another. In his care are all the churches of God, all widows, orphans, and strangers, "for the emperor himself, after God and His saints, has been constituted their protector and defender."

Quite new, in the present document, is the introduction of the "missi dominici "-regular envoys who were to radiate from the emperor as a centre, and bring peace and justice to all parts of the realm. They were to overlook all the different officials, and to listen to complaints against them. So excellent was the institution that one similar to it was adopted in England, where in the time. of Henry II. the itinerant justices formed an important feature of the administration.

It is worth while to notice how completely, at this time, the clergy were under the rule of the emperor. The new empire was to be as much of a theocracy as the kingdom of that David whose name Charlemagne bore in the intimate circle of his learned friends. But too soon, alas, the elements of disruption were to make themselves felt. The clergy were to assert their allegiance to a King higher than any earthly monarch, whose commands, as issued and tampered with by His representative on earth, were to be at variance with all the best interests of the emperor. Nationality was to war with universalism, the accepted principles of heredity with the desire for the necessary unity; and with the death of the last Carolingian emperor the empire itself was irretrievably to be cleft and riven.

No. III. is the document by which Louis the Pious

decreed the division of the empire among his three sons, one of whom, however, was to bear the title of emperor and exercise a supervision over the other two. This was a compromise between the unity of the indivisible imperial power and the received principles of heredity.

The greatest advocates of unity had been the clergy, who looked upon the original establishment of the empire as the work of their head, the pope. It was, therefore, from them that the greatest opposition came when, twelve years later, a new son having in the meantime been born to him, Louis tried to nullify the document here given and to undo his own work. Again and again did the luckless emperor have to suffer for trying to disregard an agreement, drawn up and sanctioned, as this had been, by the nobles, the higher clergy and the pope. It is scarcely necessary to remind the reader of how the latter used his personal influence in favour of the elder sons, and of how on the Field of Lies, he successfully exercised his powers of seduction on the troops of the emperor.

After Louis's death the principles of heredity conquered at last the spirit of unity. By the treaty of Verdun (843)— of which unfortunately no authentic document remainsthe three separate kingdoms were called into being which afterwards developed into France, Italy and Germany. The empire waned away, but did not die, although for a time the emperors were little more than petty local potenIt was reserved for Otto the Great to restore it to its pristine glory.

tates.

No. IV. is a treaty, entered into in 870, regarding the subdivision of the central one of the three kingdoms founded by the treaty of Verdun. It is given here as showing the beginning of the thousand years' struggle between France and Germany for the possession of the border provinces. It was preliminary to the treaty of Mersen.

No. V. is the so-called Truce of God (Treuga Dei) puk

lished by the emperor Henry IV. in 1085 to put bounds to the numerous feuds which were looked upon-much as the duel is still looked upon by the German nobility—as the only possible means for wiping away the shame of certain real or fancied wrongs. To forbid such feuds absolutely was not feasible; no attempt was made to do so until the year 1495. The present effort to restrict them met with no success-certainly not in the reign of the unfortunate monarch who made it, and who was finally deposed, ostensibly because he was unable to restore peace and quiet to his land.

No. VI. is a similar document issued eighty years later by Frederick Barbarossa. It will be seen from § 10 that knights of good family might still engage in wager of battle against their equals, although, in other respects a breach of the peace was to be severely punished.

No. VII. concerns the establishment of the Duchy of Austria in 1156. Austria had hitherto been simply a margravate and been comprised in the duchy of Bavaria. The act was performed by Fred. Barbarossa as a compromise. There were two claimants for Bavaria-one the son of that Henry the Proud who had expected to be made king in 1137, and who had been rejected for the apparently paradoxical reason that he already was the most powerful noble in Germany. Conrad III. had been made king in his stead and had soon found cause to quarrel with his powerful rival, conferring Bavaria on his own half brother the margrave Liutpold. After the death of Henry the Proud there had been concessions and reconciliations with regard to Bavaria-but at the end of Conrad's reign the young Henry the Lion still considered himself the heir, while the duchy was actually held by the king's brother Henry of Austria, Frederick Barbarossa in 1156, intent on the Italian expedition which was to gain him the imperial crown, hastened to heal the discord between his

two powerful subjects. Henry the Lion received B and, in order to appease Henry Jasomirgott, a new was carved out for him. As will be seen from the c it was enriched with almost unheard of privileges. great as these were they did not satisfy one of the dukes of Austria; and some of the most success mediæval forgeries distorted in the 14th centur original terms of Frederick's grant.

The

No. VIII. is the charter issued by Frederick Barba at Gelnhausen in 1180. It commemorates a most portant event in German constitutional history. tition of Saxony was a death blow to the old ducal infl in Germany. There was, henceforth to be a new nob basing its claims on its services to the crown and not hereditary territorial power.

No. IX. is an interesting decision of a Nuremburg rendered in the year 1274. The election of Rudo Hapsburg after the long interregnum signified a renew the empire even though Rudolf never bore any title king of the Romans. But how curtailed were his pre tives compared to those of his predecessors! Future ca dates were to be bound more and more by engagements promises, to submit more and more to the arrogant assu tions of the electoral college. And in certain questions Count Palatine of the Rhine, and not the King of Romans was to speak the decisive word.

No. X., the Golden Bull of 1356, was issued for the I pose of determining the form for the election and coronat of the emperor, and also of regulating the duties, rights a privileges of the elector princes. It distinctly defines whom the electoral rights belong. There had been doubt about the three archbishoprics or about Bohem but disputes had arisen between rival lines both in Saxo and Brandenburg, and the seventh vote was claimed ali by Bavaria and by the Palatinate.