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 at the same time as other barbarian kingdoms. The area has been inhabited by the Franks since the 3rd century. As a result of the continuous military campaigns of the mayor of the Franks - Karla Martella, his son Pippin 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 others barbarian states continental Europe. Two and a half centuries later, reaching 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 victorious wars and class differentiation of Frankish society. Since the Frankish state entered the era of feudalism in the process of the 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. Society was characterized multiformity(a combination of slaveholding, tribal, communal, feudal relations) and the incompleteness of the process of creating the main classes of feudal society.

The Genesis of Feudalism Among the Franks

The processes of feudalization among the Franks are developing during the period of aggressive wars of the VI-VII 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 vassal dependence on the king, become large owners of land, livestock, slaves, colons (small tenants of land). The nobility is replenished by the Gallo-Roman aristocracy, which has switched to the service of the Frankish kings. The development of feudal relations accelerated due to the clash between the communal order of the Franks and the private property order of the Gallo-Romans.

In the middle of the 7th century in northern Gaul begins to take shape feudal fiefdom with its characteristic division of land into master and peasant. The royal land fund was reduced by the distribution of land by kings to their vassals. The growth of large landownership was accompanied by strife among the landowners, who showed the fragility of the Merovingian kingdom. State power during this period is 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 an 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.

The period of the Merovingian monarchy (VI-VII centuries)

Leader of the Western (Salic) Franks Clovis from the Merovean family at the battle of Soissons, he defeated the Romans and subjugated Northern Gaul (486). He and his squad converted to Christianity according to the papal rite (496). The Merovingians had two goals:

• the elimination of tribal separatism, the 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 - the property of a particular family (late VT c.). Allod could be bequeathed, sold, bought.

At the head of the state was king. His government consisted of: First Councilor of the Realm ( mayor); legal adviser to the king (palace count); manager of the office (referendary); commander of the royal cavalry (marshal). The governors of the king in a certain district (earls) were judges and tax collectors.

After the death of Clovis, internecine wars begin, as a result of which the kings were almost completely removed from governing the country. There comes a period "lazy kings" . The mayor becomes the de facto head of state.

Mayordom Karl Martell carried out reforms. Having confiscated part of the church and monastery lands, he began to distribute them as beneficiaries - grants of lands 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 take shape: the king ( senior) and the beneficiary reporting to him ( vassal).

The period of the Carolingian monarchy (VIII century - first half of the IX century)

The transition of royal power to the Carolingians ensured success Karla Martella , former majordomo Frankish state in 715 - 741 years. He restored the political unity of the kingdom and in fact concentrated the supreme power in his hands. The lands confiscated from recalcitrant magnates and monasteries, together with the peasants who lived on them, are transferred to them for conditional lifelong holding - benefice .

Beneficiary - the holder of the beneficiary - was obliged in favor of the person who handed over the land to serve, mainly military, sometimes administrative. Refusal to serve or betrayal of the king was deprived of the right to an award. The reform led to the growth of feudal landownership and increased enslavement of peasants, and also gave impetus to the formation vassalage systems - the 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 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, the Avar Khaganate in Pannonia (796-803) was defeated.

Under Charlemagne, the traditions of ancient culture are being revived. Schools for boys are opened, an Academy is established in Aachen. Romanesque style in architecture is being formed.

At the head of the state was the king - the supreme overlord of all the feudal lords. Vassals of the first stage were large secular and spiritual feudal lords: dukes, counts, princes, archbishops, bishops. Vassals of the second stage - barons. The knights (petty nobles) did not have their own vassals; they were directly subordinate to the peasants, to whom they gave land to hold.

The peasant paid rent to the landowner. Forms of rent: labor rent (corvée), food, cash.

At the heart of vassalage lay the endowment 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 grandsons of Charlemagne, by the Treaty of Verdun, divided the empire into three parts (843).

• Older - Lothar received possession of Italy, Burgundy and Lorraine - lands along the river. Rhine.
• Second - Louis the German- land for the river. Rhine (Saxony, Bavaria).
• Third - Karl the Bald- the lands of the Frankish kingdom proper.

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, 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 by the German and French branches.
• Aquitaine founded by Pepin of Aquitaine, son of Louis the Pious. Since he died before his father, Aquitaine did not go 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 Fat briefly reunited the western and eastern kingdoms of the Franks, which were finally disunited with his death.
• french- descendants of Charles the Bald, son of Louis the Pious. They owned the West Frankish kingdom, the rule of the dynasty was interrupted after the death of Charles the Tolstoy and during the usurpation of the throne by the Robertins (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 landownership, individual lords, large landowners, received privileges - immunity , consisting in the possession of the rights of military, judicial and financial power over the peasants who lived on their lands. The possessions of a feudal lord who received an immunity letter from the king were not subject to the activities of state 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, a huge role was played, which itself became a large landowner. The stronghold of the dominant position of the church was the monasteries, and the secular nobility - fortified castles, which became patrimonial centers, a place for collecting rent from the peasants, a symbol of the power of the lords.

Lesson summary "The Frankish state as a typical example of an early feudal state".

Many barbarian tribes were scattered over the vast territory of the Roman Empire: Goths, Franks, Burgundians, Alamanni, Anglo-Saxons, etc.

The Romans increasingly used the Germans as mercenary soldiers and settled them on their frontiers. In the 5th century the highest ranks Roman magistrates began to be worn by the leaders of the barbarian tribes, who led the allied armies of Rome, which concluded an agreement on the transition under the rule of Rome.

The decline of imperial power, the ever-increasing unpopularity of Roman rule created favorable conditions for the kings - allies of Rome to expand their powers, to satisfy their political claims. They often, with reference to the imperial order, appropriated full power, levied taxes from the local population, etc.

The Visigoths, for example, settled by Rome as their federates in 412 in Aquitaine (Southern France), subsequently expanded the territory of their kingdom of Toulouse through territorial conquests recognized in 475 by the Roman emperor. In 507, this kingdom was conquered by the Franks. In 476, power in the Western Roman Empire was seized by one of the barbarian commanders Odoacer. He was killed in 493 by Theodoric I, the founder of the Ostrogothic kingdom, who established his sole rule over all of Italy. This kingdom fell in 555. Other "tribal states" of the barbarians arose and were absorbed as a result of bloody wars, internecine strife.

But a special role in Western Europe was destined to be played by the Salic (coastal) Franks, who were part of the union of Germanic tribes that took shape in the 3rd century. on the northeastern border of Gaul, a province of the Roman Empire.

The Salian Franks, led by their leader Clovis (481-511), as a result of victorious wars in Gaul, sometimes in confrontation, sometimes in alliance with Rome, create a vast kingdom that stretched by 510 from the middle reaches of the Rhine to the Pyrenees. Clovis, having established himself as a representative of the Roman emperor, becomes the ruler of the lands, the ruler of a single, no longer tribal, but territorial kingdom. He acquires the right to dictate his own laws, collect taxes from the local population, etc.

Gaul, however, remained under the shadow of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) for a long time. Only in the 8th century the title of Roman emperor was given to the Frankish king Charlemagne. Thanks to the influence of Rome and the Roman Christian Church, Gaul, in spite of geographical fragmentation, maintained a kind of unity over the centuries, turning in the course of a long evolutionary process into that Franconia, which became the progenitor future France and Germany, as well as the territorial foundation of the development of Western Christian civilization.

Formation of a feudal society and the state of the Franks. The Frankish wars of conquest accelerated the process of creating the Frankish state. The deepest reasons for the formation of the Frankish statehood were rooted in the decomposition of the Frankish free community, in its class stratification, which began in the first centuries of the new era.

The state of the Franks in its form was early feudal monarchy. It arose in a transitional society from communal to feudal society, which in its development passed the stage of slavery. This society is characterized by a multistructural structure (a combination of slave-owning, tribal, communal, feudal relations), and the incompleteness of the process of creating the main classes of feudal society. Because of this, the early feudal state bears a significant imprint of the old communal organization, the institutions of tribal democracy.

The state of the Franks went through two main periods in its development (from the end of the 5th to the 7th century and from the 8th to the middle of the 9th century). The line separating these periods is characterized not only by the change of ruling dynasties (the Merovingians were replaced by the Carolingians). It marked the beginning of a new stage in the deep socio-economic and political restructuring of Frankish society, during which a feudal state proper was gradually taking shape in the form of a seigneurial monarchy.

In the second period, the creation of large-scale feudal land ownership, the two main classes of feudal society, is basically completed: the closed, hierarchically co-subordinate class of feudal lords, bound by vassal ties, on the one hand, and the dependent peasantry exploited by it, on the other. The relative centralization of the early feudal state is being replaced by feudal fragmentation.

In the V-VI centuries. the Franks still retained communal, tribal ties, relations of exploitation among the Franks themselves were not developed, and the Frankish service nobility, which formed into the ruling elite during the military campaigns of Clovis, was not numerous.

The most striking social class differences in. In the early class society of the Franks, as evidenced by the Salic truth, the legal monument of the Franks, dating back to the 5th century, manifested itself in the position of slaves. Slave labor, however, was not widespread. A slave, in contrast to a free community-franc, was considered a thing. His theft was equivalent to the theft of an animal. The marriage of a slave to a free man entailed the loss of freedom by the latter.

Salic truth also points to the presence of other social groups among the Franks: serving nobility, free francs(community) and semi-free litas. The differences between them were not so much economic as socio-legal. They were mainly related to the origin and legal status of a person or the social group to which this person belonged. An important factor influencing the legal differences of the Franks was belonging to royal service, the royal squad, to the emerging state apparatus. These differences were most clearly expressed in the system of monetary compensation, which served to protect the life, property and other rights of individuals.

Along with slaves, there was a special category of persons - semi-free litas, whose life was estimated by half a free wergeld, at 100 solidi. Lit was an inferior resident of the Frankish community, who was personally and materially dependent on his master. Litas could enter into contractual relations, defend their interests in court, participate in military campaigns together with their master. Lit, like a slave, could be freed by his master, who, however, had his property. For a crime, a litu was supposed, as a rule, the same punishment as a slave, for example the death penalty for the kidnapping of a free man.

The law of the Franks also testifies to the beginning of the property stratification of Frankish society. The Salic Truth speaks of the master's servants or yard servants-slaves (vine growers, grooms, swineherds, and even goldsmiths) serving the master's economy.

At the same time, the Salic truth testifies to the sufficient strength of the communal order, to communal ownership of fields, meadows, forests, wastelands, to the equal rights of communal peasants to communal land allotment. The very concept of private ownership of land in the Salic truth is absent. It only fixes the origin of the allod, providing for the right to transfer the allotment by inheritance through the male line. The further deepening of social class differences among the Franks was directly related to the transformation of the allod into the original form of private feudal land ownership. Allod - the alienable, inheritable land ownership of the free Franks - took shape in the process of decomposition of communal ownership of land. It underlay the emergence, on the one hand, of the patrimonial land tenure of feudal lords, and on the other hand, the land holding of peasants dependent on them.

The processes of feudalization among the Franks receive a powerful impetus during the wars of conquest of the 6th-7th centuries, when a significant part of the Gallo-Roman estates in Northern Gaul passes into the hands of the Frankish kings, the serving aristocracy, and royal warriors. Serving nobility, connected to some extent by vassal dependence on the king, who seized the right to dispose of the conquered land, becomes a major owner of land, livestock, slaves, colonies. It is replenished with a part of the Gallo-Roman aristocracy, which goes into the service of the Frankish kings.

The clash of the communal orders of the Franks and the late Roman private property orders of the Gallo-Romans, the coexistence and interaction of social structures so different in nature, accelerated the creation of new feudal relations. Already in the middle of the 7th century. in northern Gaul, a feudal patrimony began to take shape with its characteristic division of land into master (domain) and peasant (hold). The stratification of the "ordinary freemen" during the period of the conquest of Gaul also took place due to the transformation of the communal elite into small estates due to the appropriation of communal land.

The processes of feudalization in the VI-VII centuries. in the south of Gaul n received such rapid development as in the north. At that time, the size of the Frankish colonization here was insignificant, the vast estates of the Gallo-Roman nobility remained, the labor of slaves continued to be widely used n. columns, but deep social changes took place here, mainly due to the widespread growth of large church landownership.

5th-6th centuries in Western Europe were marked by the beginning of a powerful ideological offensive of the Christian Church. The ministers of dozens of newly emerging monasteries and churches preached about human brotherhood, helping the poor and suffering, and about other moral values.

The population of Gaul, under the spiritual influence of the clergy, headed by bishops, began to perceive more and more Christian dogmas, the idea of ​​redemption, relying on the intercession of the holy fathers for the sake of gaining forgiveness during the transition to another world. In the era of endless wars, destruction, widespread violence, diseases, under the dominance of religious consciousness, people's attention naturally focused on such issues as death, posthumous judgment, retribution, hell and heaven. The church began to use the fear of purgatory and hell in its own selfish interests, collecting and accumulating numerous donations, including land donations, at the expense of both rulers and ordinary people. The growth of church landownership began with land denials to the church by Clovis.

The growing ideological and economic role of the church could not fail to manifest itself sooner or later in its power claims. However, the church at that time was not yet a political entity, did not have a single organization, representing a kind of spiritual community of people led by bishops, of which, according to tradition, the bishop of Rome was considered the most important, who later received the title of pope.

In the activities of the church as "Christ's governors" on earth, kings also increasingly interfered, who, in order to strengthen their extremely unstable power, appointed bishops from their close associates, convened church councils, presided over them, sometimes speaking on theological problems. In 511, at the Orleans church council convened by Clovis, it was decided that not a single layman could be. introduced into the church without royal permission. The subsequent decision of the Orleans Church Council in 549 finally secured the right of kings to control the appointment of bishops.

It was a time of increasingly close intertwining of secular and religious power, when bishops and other religious figures sat in government bodies, and local civil administration was carried out by diocesan administrations.

Under Dagobert I at the beginning of the 7th century. the administration of church functions became an integral part of the path to honor, after which the king's close associates became local rulers - counts and bishops at the same time; it was not uncommon for bishops to rule cities and the surrounding rural settlements, mint money, collect taxes from taxable lands, control market trade, etc.

The bishops themselves, owning large church holdings, began to occupy an ever higher place in the emerging feudal hierarchy, which was facilitated by the unforbidden marriages of priests with laity, representatives of the feudal elite.

The rapid growth of feudal relations is characterized by the 7th-9th centuries. At this time, in Frankish society there is agricultural revolution, which led to the widespread establishment of large-scale feudal land ownership, to the loss of land and freedom by the community, to the growth of the private power of feudal magnates. This was facilitated by the action of a number of historical factors. Started from the VI - VII centuries. the growth of large landownership, accompanied by strife among landowners, revealed the fragility of the Merovingian kingdom, in which internal borders arose here and there as a result of the disobedience of the local nobility or the resistance of the population to the collection of taxes. Moreover, by the end of the 7th c. the Franks lost a number of lands and actually occupied the territory between the Loire and the Rhine.

One of the attempts to solve the problem of strengthening state unity in the face of widespread disobedience to the central authorities was the church council of "prelates and noble people", held in Paris in 614. The edict adopted by the council called for "severe suppression of rebellions and impudent attacks of malefactors", threatened with punishment for "embezzlement and abuse of power to officials, tax collectors in trading places", but at the same time limited the right of civil judges and tax collectors on church lands thus laying the legislative basis for their immunity. Bishops, moreover, according to the decision of the council, were henceforth to be elected "by the clergy and the people," while retaining for the king only the right to approve the results of the elections.

The weakening of the power of the Frankish kings was primarily due to the depletion of their land resources. Only on the basis of new awards, the granting of new rights to landowners, the establishment of new seigneurial-vassal ties, could the strengthening of royal power and the restoration of the unity of the Frankish state at that time take place. Such a policy was pursued by the Carolingians, who actually ruled the country even before the transfer of the royal crown to them in 751.

Reform of Charles Martel. Mayor Charles Martell (715-741) began his work by pacifying internal unrest in the country, by confiscating the lands of his political opponents, and by partially secularizing church lands. At the same time, he took advantage of the right of kings to fill the highest church positions. Due to the creation of the land fund, which in this way began to be distributed to the new nobility, land grants for life conditional holding - beneficiaries good deed, mercy) when performing one or another service (most often horse military). The land was given to those who could serve the king and bring an army with them. Refusal to serve or betrayal of the king entailed the loss of an award. The beneficiary received land with dependent people who carried corvee in his favor or paid dues. The use of the same form of grants by other large landowners led to the formation of relations of suzerainty-vassalage between large and small feudal lords.

Expansion of feudal landownership in the VIII century. contributed to the new wars of conquest, accompanied by a new wave of Frankish colonization. Moreover, if in the Frankish colonization of the VI-VII centuries. In the 16th century, since the top of Frankish society took part, the colonization of the 7th-9th centuries, which took place on a much larger scale, attracted wealthy allodists, due to whom the class of feudal lords was replenished at that time with equestrian chivalry.

From the middle of the 8th century the period begins prior to the completion of the process of stratification of Frankish society into a class of feudal landowners and a class of peasants dependent on them, relations of patronage, domination and subordination, arising on the basis of special agreements, become widespread commendations, pre-caria, self-enslavement. The development of patronage relations was greatly influenced by the Roman institution - clientella, patronage. The relations of patronage and patronage among the Franks were brought to life by the collapse of old tribal ties, the impossibility of the economic independence of the small-peasant economy, ruined by wars, robberies of feudal lords. Patronage entailed the establishment of the personal and property dependence of the peasants on the landowners-tycoons, since the peasants transferred to them the ownership of their land plots, receiving them back on the terms of performing certain duties, paying dues, etc.

In the processes of establishing the power of large landowners over the peasants in Western Europe, the Christian Church, which itself became a large landowner, played an enormous role. The stronghold of the dominant position of the church was the monasteries, and the secular nobility - fortified castles, which became patrimonial centers, a place for collecting rent from the peasants, a symbol of the power of the lords.

Treaties of commendation (patronage) arose primarily in the relations of peasants with the church and monasteries. They were not always directly related to the loss of freedom and property rights to the land plot of the seconded person, as was the case in the case of the self-enslavement agreement. But once under such patronage, the free peasants gradually lost their personal freedom and after a few generations, most of them became serfs.

The contract of precaria was directly related to the transfer of land. It entailed the emergence of a conditional holding of land transferred for temporary use, was accompanied by the emergence of certain duties of a precarist in favor of a large landowner (to work for fields of the master, to give him part of the harvest). In the face of the precarists, a transitional layer was created from free allodists to dependent peasants. There were three forms of precaria: "precaria given" - a kind of land lease, on the basis of which a landless or land-poor peasant received a plot of land for temporary use. According to the "reimbursed precarious" agreement, the precarist initially gave his piece of land to the landowner and received it back into possession. This type of precaria arose, as a rule, as a result of the pledge of land as security for a debt. According to the “precarious donated” agreement, the precarist (most often under direct pressure from the landowner), who had already fallen into economic dependence, gave his plot to the master, and then received from him his own and an additional plot of land, but already as a holding.

The owner of the precaria had the right of judicial protection against third parties, but not against the landowner. The precarium could be taken back by the landowner at any moment. As the number of people subject to the magnate (precarists, commandees) grew, he gained more and more power over them.

The state did everything possible to strengthen this power. In the capitulary of 787, for example, it was forbidden for anyone to take under the protection of people who left the lord without his permission. Gradually, vassal ties, or relations of dependence, cover all the free. In 808 they were ordered to go to war with their lord or with the count.

Later "barbarian truths" also testify to other changes in the social structure of barbarian societies, taking place in connection with the development of new feudal relations. In the Alaman and Bavarian truths (VIII century), the figure of a column is increasingly mentioned. The column or slave planted on the ground was also known to Roman law, which deprived him of economic independence, the right to conclude contracts, sign documents, etc.

Visigoths in the V-VI centuries. adopted these prohibitions from Rome. But the Ostrogoths began to move away from them. According to Art. 121 of the Ostrogothic Truth, for example, "if someone lent money to a colonel or a slave, without the knowledge of the master, then he could repay the debt from the peculium," that is, from the property that he owned.

A new feudal form of the colony arose, differing from the previous one in that not only a slave or a landless tenant, but also a free peasant could become a colony. According to the Alaman Pravda (22, 3) "the colon is self-employed, but must pay taxes in kind to the church or work off corvée 3 days a week.

There are also changes in the legal status of slaves. Weakened, for example, strict prohibitions on the marriage of slaves with the free. If, according to Roman law, a free woman was enslaved for having a relationship with a slave, and according to the Salic truth, she could be killed with impunity, then the Alamannic truth gave such a woman the right to object to the “slave work of a servant” (18.2).

And finally, in the ninth century. large beneficiaries seek the right to transfer beneficiaries by inheritance. Benefits are being replaced feud. Large feudal lords are turning into sovereigns with political power in their domains.

Political system. In the processes of formation and development of the state apparatus of the Franks, three main directions can be identified. The first direction, especially characteristic of initial stage(V-VII centuries), manifested itself in the degeneration of the bodies of the tribal democracy of the Franks into the bodies of a new, public authority, to government agencies. The second - was determined by the development of patrimonial administration, the third - was associated with the gradual transformation of the state power of the Frankish monarchs into the "private" power of sovereign sovereigns with the formation of a seigneurial monarchy, which was fully revealed at the final stage of the development of Frankish society (VIII-IX centuries) .

The conquest of Gaul served as a powerful impetus for the creation of a new state apparatus among the Franks, for it required the organization of the administration of the conquered regions and their protection. Clovis was the first Frankish king to establish his exclusive position as sole ruler. From a simple commander, he turns into a monarch, achieving this position by all means: treachery, cunning, the destruction of relatives, other tribal leaders. One of the most important political actions of Clovis, which strengthened the position of the Frankish state through the support of the Gallo-Roman clergy, was the adoption of Christianity.

With the adoption of Christianity by Clovis, the church becomes a powerful factor in strengthening royal power. It was the church that gave into the hands of the Frankish kings such a justification for the wars of conquest as a reference to the "true faith", the unification in the faith of many peoples under the auspices of a single king as the supreme, not only secular, but also the spiritual head of their peoples.

The gradual transition of the Gallic elite to the Christian faith also becomes an important historical factor in the unification of Gaul, the development of a special regional feudal-Christian, Western European (Romano-Germanic) civilization.

Socio-economic, religious, ideological, ethnographic and other changes in Gallic society had a direct impact on the processes of folding and development of specific features of the state apparatus of the Frankish empire, which absorbed in the VIII-IX centuries. most of the barbarian states of Western Europe. Already in the 5th century among the Franks, the place of the old tribal community finally comes to the territorial community (mark), and with it the territorial division into districts (pagi), hundreds. Salic truth already speaks of the existence of officials of the kingdom: counts, satsebarons, etc. At the same time, it testifies to the significant role of communal administration. At that time, the Franks no longer had a tribal people's assembly. It was replaced by a review of the troops - first in March ("March ^ ^ "Fields"), then (under the Carolingians) in May ("May fields"). But on the ground, hundreds of meetings ("malus") continued to exist, performing judicial functions under chairmanship tungins, which, together with rahinburgs, connoisseurs of law ("sentencing"), were representatives of the community.

The role of the community in court cases was exceptionally great. The community was responsible for the murder committed on its territory, exhibited jurors, testifying to the good name of its member; the relatives themselves brought their relative to the court, together with him they paid

wergeld.

The king acted primarily as a "guardian of the world", as an executor of the court decisions of the community. His counts, satsebarons performed mainly police and fiscal functions. Salic truth provided punishment for royal officials who refused to meet the demand of a free man and apply power to offenders. At the same time, protecting to a certain extent the independence of the community on the part of the royal officials, the Salic truth forbade, for example, that more than three satse barons should come to one community meeting.

Royal prescriptions, according to the Salic truth, relate to an insignificant range of state affairs - conscription into the army, summons to court. But Salic truth also testifies to the strengthening of the power of kings. So, for example, the performance of royal service justifies the failure of the accused to appear in the community court. Moreover, the king directly intrudes into the internal affairs of the community, into its land relations, and allows a stranger to settle on the communal land.

The power of the Frankish kings began to be inherited. In the VI-VII centuries. under the direct influence of the late Roman orders, the legislative powers of kings are strengthened, and in the capitularies, not without the influence of the church, the sacred nature of royal power, the unlimitedness of its legislative powers, is already spoken of. It is significant that the concept of treason against the king, which is classified as a serious crime, also appears there.

However, the king at this time is first of all a military leader, a military leader, whose main concern is "order" in the kingdom, the pacification of the local nobility that is out of obedience. The lack of effective bodies of the central administration, the treasury, and independent royal courts with appellate functions was also associated with the limited royal functions. .

The emerging state apparatus is still distinguished by its extreme amorphousness, the absence of clearly delineated official powers, subordination, and organization of office work. The threads of state administration are concentrated in the hands of royal servants and associates. Among them stand out the palace count, the referendary, the chamberlain. Palace Count performs mainly judicial functions, directs judicial fights, oversees the execution of sentences. referendary(speaker), keeper of the royal seal, in charge of royal documents, draws up acts, orders of the king, etc. Camerarius monitors the receipts to the royal treasury, the safety of the property of the palace.

In the VI-VII centuries. the chief administrator of the royal palace, and then the head of the royal administration, was the ward mayor, or majordomo, whose power was strengthened in every possible way in the conditions of the incessant campaigns of the king, who ruled his territories "from the saddle". |^H

The formation of local authorities takes place at this time under the significant influence of the late Roman orders. Merovingian counts begin to rule the districts as Roman governors. They have police, military and judicial functions. In the capitularies, the tungin is almost never mentioned as a judge. The concepts of "count" "judge" become unambiguous, their appointment is within the exclusive competence of the royal power.

At the same time, the newly emerging bodies of the state apparatus of the Franks, copying some of the late Roman state orders, had a different character and social purpose. These were authorities expressing the interests primarily of the German service nobility and large Gallo-Roman landowners. They were built on other organizational foundations. For example, they are widely used in public service the king's companions. Initially, the retinue, which consisted of the royal military detachment of free Franks, and, consequently, the state apparatus, was subsequently replenished not only by Romanized Gauls, who were distinguished by their education, knowledge of local law, but also by slaves, freedmen who made up the royal court staff. All of them were interested in strengthening royal power, in destroying the old tribal separatism, in strengthening the new order, which promised them enrichment and social prestige.

In the second half of the 7th c. develops new system political domination and control, a kind of "democracy of the nobility", which involves the direct participation of the top of the emerging class of feudal lords in government.

The expansion of the participation of the feudalizing nobility in government, the "seignorization" of state positions led to the loss of the royal power of the relative independence that it had previously enjoyed. This did not happen immediately, but precisely in the period when large-scale landownership had already acquired significant proportions. At this time, the previously created royal council, consisting of representatives of the service nobility and the higher clergy. Without the consent of the Council, the king could not actually take a single serious decision. The nobility is gradually transferred to key positions in management, not only in the center, but also in the field. Together with the weakening of the power of kings, counts, dukes, bishops, and abbots, who became large landowners, acquire more and more independence, administrative and judicial functions. They begin to appropriate taxes, duties, court fines.

As early as 614, the aforementioned edict (Article 12) forbade the appointment of an official - probably a duke or count, as well as a person subordinate to him, "if they were not local landowners. In 673, the secular nobility achieved the confirmation of Chilperic II of this article of the edict. Functions management, thus, were assigned to large local feudal lords.

In later truths, local rulers - dukes and counts - are given no less attention than the king. A fine under the Alaman truth threatens anyone for failing to comply with the requirements of the duke or earl, for "neglecting their agenda with a seal." The special title of the 2nd Bavarian Truth is dedicated to the dukes, "whom the people appointed or elected"; it testifies to the breadth of those cases "which concern them." It provides for punishment in the form of a significant fine not only for non-compliance, but also for "negligence" in carrying out their orders (2, 13), in particular, it refers to impunity in the event that the duke's order to kill a person is carried out (2, 6), probably "acting against the law" (2, 2).

Moreover, according to the Alaman truth, the position of duke is inherited by his son, who, however, is threatened with "exile and disinheritance" for trying to "seize it extortionately" (25, 1-2), however, the king could "forgive his son ... and transfer his inheritance" (34, 4). Over time, all the most important positions in the state apparatus became hereditary.

The obedience of the local nobility to the king, which was preserved to one degree or another, began to be increasingly determined by its personal relations with the royal court, vassal dependence on the king as a lord.

From the middle of the 7th century, in the era of the so-called lazy kings, the nobility directly takes the reins of government into their own hands, removing the king. First, this is done by increasing the role and importance of the post of mayordom, and then by directly removing the king. A vivid example of this is the very change of the royal dynasty among the Franks. Back in the 7th century with their power, land wealth, the Pipinid family of majordoms began to stand out. One of them, Charles Martel, actually already ruled the country. Thanks to the reforms, he managed for a certain time to strengthen the unity of the Frankish state, which was going through a long period of political destabilization and dismemberment. The son and successor of Charles Martell, not even wanting to formally recognize the king, carried out a coup d'etat, imprisoned the last reigning Merovingian in a monastery and took his throne.

Agrarian revolution of the 8th century. contributed to the further development of the feudal state, the administrative system in which the patrimonial administration began to play the main role. The new restructuring of the administrative apparatus was facilitated by the widespread use of immunity certificates, by virtue of which the territory belonging to the holder of immunity was withdrawn (partially or completely) from the jurisdiction of state authorities in judicial, tax, administrative cases. The votchinnik thus gained political power over his peasants. Immunity letters, as a rule, sanctioned the already established relations of political dependence of the peasants on their lords-patrimonials.

Formation of the Frankish state

Tribal union of the Franks formed in the 3rd century. in the lower reaches of the Rhine. It included the Hamavs, Brukters, Sugambrs and some other tribes. In the IV century. the Franks settled in northeastern Gaul as allies of the Roman Empire. They lived apart from the Gallo-Roman population and were not subjected to Romanization at that time.

Franks They were divided into two groups - Salic, who lived near the sea coast, and Ripuarian, who settled east of the Meuse River. Separate regions were headed by independent princes. Of the princely dynasties, the most powerful were Merovingians who ruled among the Salian Franks. Merovei (“born of the sea”) was considered their legendary ancestor. The third representative of the Merovingian dynasty Clovis (481-511) extended his power to all the Franks. With the help of bribery, betrayal, violence, he destroyed all the other princes, among them many of his relatives, and began to rule as a single king. Gathering a large army Clovis defeated the Roman sovereign prince Syagrius, captured Soissons and all of Northern Gaul up to the Loire River.

Thus, in 486, as a result of the Frankish conquest in Northern Gaul the Frankish state emerged , headed by the leader of the Salic Franks Clovis (486-511) from the Merovean clan (hence the Merovingian dynasty). Thus began the first period history of the Frankish state - from the end of the 5th to the end of the 7th century, - commonly called Merovingian period .

Under Clovis, Aquitaine was conquered (507), under his successors - Burgundy (534); Ostrogoths ceded Provence to the Franks (536). By the middle of the VI century. Frankish state included almost the entire territory of the former Roman province of Gaul. The Franks also subjugated a number of Germanic tribes living beyond the Rhine: the Thuringians, Alemanni and Bavarians recognized the supreme power of the Franks; the Saxons were forced to pay them an annual tribute. Frankish state lasted much longer than all other barbarian kingdoms of continental Europe, many of which (first part of the Visigoth and Burgundy, then Langobard) it included in its composition.

History of the Frankish state allows you to trace the path of development of feudal relations from the earliest stage to its completion. The process of feudalization took place here in the form of a synthesis of decaying late Roman and German tribal relations. The ratio of those and others was not the same in the north and in the south of the country.

North of the Loire, where francs with their still rather primitive social system, they occupied continuous territories and made up a significant part of the population, late antique and barbarian elements interacted in approximately the same proportion. Since the Franks settled here in isolation from the Gallo-Roman population, they retained the social orders they brought with them, in particular the free community, longer than in the south.

In areas south of the Loire francs were few in number, and the Visigoths and Burgundians who settled here earlier remained in the minority. These latter, long before the Frankish conquest, lived in constant and close contact with the Gallo-Roman population. Therefore, the influence of late antique relations played a much more significant role in the process of synthesis here than in the north of the country, and the decomposition of barbarian social orders proceeded faster.

History of France:

Social structure of the Frankish state. Salic Truth (LEX SALICA)

The most important source for studying social order francs (mainly Northern Gaul) in the Merovingian period is one of the most famous barbarian truths - "The Salic Truth" ("Lex Salica") . It is a record of the judicial customs of the Salic Franks, which is believed to have been made at the beginning of the 6th century, i.e., during the lifetime (and possibly by order) of Clovis. Roman influence was much less pronounced here than in other barbarian truths, and is found mainly in external features: the Latin language, fines in Roman monetary units.

"Salic Truth" in a more or less pure form reflects the archaic orders of the primitive communal system that existed among the Franks even before the conquest. But in it we also find new data - information about the origin of property and social inequality, private ownership of movable property, the right to inherit land and, finally, the state. During the VI-IX centuries. Frankish kings made more and more new additions to the Salic Truth, therefore, in combination with other sources of a later period, it also allows us to trace further evolution of Frankish society from the primitive communal system to feudalism.

During this period, the Franks have a fully developed private ownership of movable property. This is evidenced, for example, by the high fines imposed "Salic Truth" for stealing bread, livestock, poultry, boats, nets. But private ownership of land, with the exception of household plots, "Salic Truth" doesn't know yet. The owner of the main land fund of each village was the collective of its inhabitants - free small farmers who made up the community. In the first period after the conquest of Gaul, according to the oldest text "Salic Truth" , the Frankish communities were settlements of very different sizes, consisting of families related to each other. In most cases, these were large (patriarchal) families, which included close relatives, usually of three generations - the father and adult sons with their families, running the household together. But there were already small individual families. Houses and household plots were privately owned by individual large or small families, and arable and sometimes meadow plots were in their hereditary private use. These allotments were usually surrounded by a fence, wattle and were protected from intrusions and encroachments by high fines. However, the right to freely dispose of hereditary allotments belonged only to the entire collective of the community.

Individual-family ownership of land among the Franks at the end of the 5th and in the 6th century. was just being born. Chapter IX testifies to this. "Salic Truth" - "On allods" according to which land inheritance, land (terra), in contrast to movable property (it could be freely inherited or donated) was inherited only through the male line - by the sons of the deceased head of a large family; female offspring were excluded from the inheritance of the land. In the absence of sons, the land passed to the disposal of the community. This is clearly seen from the edict of King Chilperic (561-584), which, in a change to the above chapter "Salic Truth" established that in the absence of sons, the land should be inherited by the daughter or brother and sister of the deceased, but “not neighbors” (as was obviously the case before).

The community also had a number of other rights to the lands that were in the individual use of its members. Apparently, the Franks had an “open field system”: all arable plots after harvesting and meadow plots after haymaking turned into a common pasture, and for this time all hedges were removed from them. The fallow land also served as a public pasture. Such an order is associated with striping and forced crop rotation for all members of the community. Lands that were not part of the household plots and arable and meadow allotments (forests, wastelands, swamps, roads, undivided meadows) remained in common ownership, and each member of the community had an equal share in the use of these lands.

Contrary to the claims of some historians late XIX and XX century. (N.-D. Fustel de Coulange, V. Wittich, L. Dopsh, T. Mayer, K. Bosl, O. Brunner and others) that the Franks in the 5th-6th centuries. dominated by complete private ownership of land, a number of chapters "Salic Truth" definitely testifies to the presence of a community among the Franks. So chapter XLV “On Settlers” reads: “If someone wants to move to a villa (in this context, “villa” means a village) to another, and if one or more of the residents of the villa want to accept him, but there is at least one who opposes the resettlement, he will not have the right to settle there.” If the stranger still settles in the village, then the protester can bring legal proceedings against him and expel him through the courts. "Neighbors" here act in this way as members of the community, regulating all land relations in their village.

The community, which was "Salic Truth" the basis of the economic and social organization of the Frankish society, was in the V-VI centuries. a transitional stage from an agricultural community (where collective ownership of all land, including the arable plots of large families, was preserved) to a neighboring community-mark, in which the ownership of individual small families to allotment arable land already dominates, while maintaining communal ownership of the main fund of forests, meadows, wastelands, pastures, etc.

Before the conquest of Gaul, the owner of the land among the Franks was the clan, which broke up into separate large families (this was the agricultural community). Long campaigns during the period of conquest and settlement in the new territory accelerated the beginning of the 2nd-4th centuries. the process of weakening and disintegration of tribal and the formation of new, territorial ties, on which the later developed neighborhood community-mark .

AT "Salic Truth" tribal relations are clearly traced: even after the conquest, many communities consisted largely of relatives; relatives continued to play a large role in the life of the free franc. A close union consisted of them, including all relatives “up to the sixth generation” (the third generation in our account), all members of which, in a certain order, were obliged to act in court as jurors (taking an oath in favor of a relative). In the case of the murder of a franc, not only the family of the murdered or murderer, but also their closest relatives, both on the father’s side and on the mother’s side, participated in receiving and paying the wergeld.

In the same time "Salic Truth" already shows the process of decomposition and decline of tribal relations. Among the members of the tribal organization, property differentiation is outlined. The chapter "On a handful of land" provides for the case when an impoverished relative cannot help his relative in paying the wergeld: in this case, he must "throw a handful of land on someone from the more prosperous, so that he pays everything according to the law." There is a desire on the part of more prosperous members to leave the union of relatives. Chapter IX "Salic Truth" describes in detail the procedure for renunciation of kinship, during which a person must publicly, in a court session, renounce conjugal affiliation, participation in the payment and receipt of wergeld, inheritance and other relations with relatives.

In the event of the death of such a person, his inheritance does not go to relatives, but to the royal treasury.

The development of property differentiation among relatives leads to a weakening of tribal ties, to the disintegration of large families into small individual families. At the end of the VI century. the hereditary allotment of free Franks turns into a complete, freely alienable landed property of small individual families - allod. Earlier, in "Salic Truth" , this term denoted any inheritance: in relation to movables, allod at that time was understood as property, but in relation to land - only as a hereditary allotment, which cannot be freely disposed of. The edict of King Chilperic already mentioned above, having significantly expanded the right of individual inheritance of the community members, in essence, deprived the community of the right to dispose of the allotment land of its members. It becomes the object of wills, gifts, and then sale and purchase, that is, it becomes the property of a community member. This change was of a fundamental nature and led to a further deepening of property and social differentiation in the community, to its disintegration.

With the emergence of the allod, the transformation of the agricultural community into a neighboring or territorial community, usually called brand community , which no longer consists of relatives, but of neighbors. Each of them is the head of a small individual family and acts as the owner of his allotment - allod. The rights of the community extend only to undivided land marks (forests, wastelands, swamps, public pastures, roads, etc.), which continue to be in the collective use of all its members. By the end of the VI century. meadow and forest plots often also pass into the allodial property of individual community members.

The community-mark that has developed among the Franks By the end of the 6th century, it represents the last form of communal land tenure, within which the decomposition of the primitive communal system is completed and class feudal relations are born.

History of France:

State structure Franks in the VI-VII centuries.

Before the conquest of Gaul, the Franks had not yet developed a state organization. The supreme power was exercised by military leaders, public and judicial affairs were decided at public meetings with the participation of all male warriors. This primitive patriarchal structure proved unsuitable for organizing domination over the conquered country and its population, which had previously been under the rule of the Roman slave state. "The organs of the tribal system were therefore to become organs of the state."

State structure under the Merovingians (VI-VII centuries) was relatively primitive. The local court remained popular, the army consisted of a militia of all free Franks and the royal squad. There was no clear separation of management functions. Administration, fiscal and police service, higher judicial branch carried out by the same bodies and persons. The kingship was already quite strong. The throne was inherited. The population took an oath to the king. All management affairs were in charge of the royal court. Legislation was carried out by the king with the consent of the magnates. Twice a year - in spring and autumn - meetings of the nobility took place, at which published legislative acts were announced and new laws were discussed. General meetings of all the soldiers turned into military reviews (March Fields). The barbaric truths written down in different time at the behest of the kings.

The administration of regions and districts was carried out by counts and centurions, whose main duty was to collect taxes, fines and duties for the royal treasury. In places of Frankish settlements, counties and hundreds were created on the basis of the German judicial and military organization, in Central and Southern Gaul - on the basis of the Roman provincial structure.

At first, free francs were only required to carry military service. But already at the end of the VI century. they began to be taxed on a par with the Gallo-Roman population. This caused mass discontent and popular uprisings.

Created as a result of the conquest Frankish political system served primarily the interests of the feudalized Frankish nobility. It ensured dominance over the conquered population and made it possible to keep their own people in obedience.

The beginning of the feudalization of Frankish society accompanied by the emergence of the early feudal state.

Governments of the Franks , inherent in the primitive communal system at the stage of military democracy, gradually give way to the increased power of the military leader, who is now turning into a king. This transformation was accelerated by the very fact of the conquest, which brought the Franks face to face with the conquered Gallo-Roman population, which had to be kept in subjection. In addition, in the conquered territory, the Franks faced a developed class society, the continued existence of which required the creation of a new state power to replace the state apparatus of the slave empire destroyed by the Franks.

The king has everything in his hands functions government controlled in the state of the Franks centered on the royal court. The power of the king was based primarily on the fact that he was the largest landowner in the state and was at the head of a large, personally devoted squad. He ruled the state as a personal economy, gave his close associates private property of lands that had previously been national, tribal property, arbitrarily disposed of state revenues that came to him in the form of taxes, fines and trade duties. Royal power relied on the support of the emerging class of large landowners. Since its inception, the state has defended in every possible way the interests of this class of feudal lords and, through its policy, contributed to the ruin and enslavement of free community members, the growth of large landed property, and organized new conquests.

AT central administration of the Frankish state only faint traces of the former primitive communal organization have survived in the form of annual military reviews - the "March fields". Since in the Merovingian period the bulk of the population of Frankish society were still free community members, of whom the general military militia also consisted, all adult free Franks converged on the "March fields". However, these meetings, in contrast to the public meetings of the period of military democracy, now had no serious political significance.

Forced to reckon with large landowners, the Frankish kings periodically convened meetings of the most prominent magnates, at which national issues were discussed. Traces of ancient primitive communal orders are more preserved in local administration of the Frankish state .

"Hundreds" of the divisions of the tribe among the ancient Franks after the conquest of Gaul turned into territorial administrative units . The management of the county - a larger territorial unit - was entirely in the hands of the royal official - the count, who was the chief judge in the county and levied a third of all court fines in favor of the king. In "hundreds" people's assemblies of all free people (mallus) gathered, performing mainly judicial functions and chaired by an elected person - "tungin". But even here there was a representative of the royal administration - a centurion ("centenary"), who controlled the activities of the assembly and collected a share of the fines in favor of the king. With the development of social differentiation c. among the Franks, the leading role in these meetings passes to more prosperous and influential persons - the “rachinburgs” (rachin-burgii), or “good people”.

Most preserved self-government in the Frankish village community , which elected its officials at village meetings, created a court for minor offenses and made sure that the customs of the brand were respected.

Economic development of the Frankish state in the 5th - 7th centuries.

The level of development of the economy among the Franks was significantly higher than ancient Germans described by Tacitus. In agriculture, which in the VI century. was main occupation of the Franks , apparently, the two-field system already dominated, the periodic redistribution of arable land, which hindered the development of more intensive forms of agriculture, ceased. In addition to grain crops - rye, wheat, oats, barley - legumes and flax were widely used among the Franks. Vegetable gardens, orchards, and vineyards began to be actively cultivated. A plow with an iron plowshare, which loosened the soil well, is becoming widespread.

AT agriculture francs various types of working cattle are used: bulls, mules, donkeys. Soil cultivation methods have improved. Two- or three-fold plowing, harrowing, weeding of crops, threshing with flails became common; water mills began to be used instead of manual ones.

Cattle breeding also developed significantly. The Franks were bred in a large number of cattle and small livestock - sheep, goats, as well as pigs and various types of poultry.

Among ordinary occupations of the Franks should be called hunting, fishing, beekeeping.

Progress in the economy of the Franks was the result not only internal development Frankish society, but also the result of borrowing by the Franks, and even earlier by the Visigoths and Burgundians in the south of Gaul, more advanced methods of conducting Agriculture they encountered in conquered Roman territory.

History of France:

Social and public development of the Frankish state in the V - VII centuries.

embryos social stratification among the conquering Franks manifest themselves in Salic Pravda in various categories of the free population. For simple free Franks, it is 200 solidi, for royal warriors (antrustions) or officials who were in the service of the king, it is 600. Apparently, the Frankish tribal nobility also joined the group of royal warriors and officials during the conquest. The life of the semi-free - Litas - was protected by a relatively low wergeld - 100 solidi.

The Franks also had slaves , completely unprotected by the wergeld: the killer only compensated for the damage caused to the master of the slave. The development of slavery among the Franks contributed to the conquest of Gaul and subsequent wars, which gave a plentiful influx of slaves. Subsequently, slavery also became a source of slavery, into which ruined free people fell, as well as a criminal who did not pay a court fine or wergeld: they turned into slaves of those who paid these contributions for them. However Frankish slave labor was not the basis of production, as in the Roman state. Slaves were used most often as household servants or artisans - blacksmiths, goldsmiths, sometimes as shepherds and grooms, but not as the main labor force in agriculture.

Although the "Salicheskaya Pravda" does not know any legal distinctions within ordinary free community members, in it and in other sources of the 6th century. there is evidence of the presence of property stratification in their environment. This is not only the above information about the stratification among relatives, but also indications of distribution of loans and debt obligations in Frankish society . Sources constantly mention, on the one hand, the rich and influential "best people" (meliores), on the other hand, the poor (minoflidi) and completely ruined vagabonds unable to pay fines.

The emergence of allod stimulated the growth of large landownership among the Franks . Even during the conquest, Clovis appropriated the lands of the former imperial fiscus. His successors gradually seized all the free, undivided lands among the communities, which at first were considered the property of the whole people. From this fund, the Frankish kings, who became large landowners, generously distributed land grants to the full, freely alienable (allodia) property of their entourage and the church. So, by the end of the VI century. a layer of large landowners is already emerging in Frankish society - future feudal lords. In their possessions, along with Frankish slaves, semi-free - litas - dependent people from among the Gallo-Roman population - freedmen by Roman law, slaves, Gallo-Romans who were obliged to bear duties ("Romans-tributaries"), possibly from among the former Romans, were also exploited. columns.

The growth of large landownership among the Franks especially intensified in connection with the development of the allod within the community. The concentration of land holdings is now taking place not only as a result of royal grants, but also by enriching one part of the community members at the expense of another. The process of ruin of a part of the free community members begins, the reason for which is the forced alienation of their hereditary allods. The growth of large landownership inevitably leads to the emergence of private power of large landowners, which, as an instrument of non-economic coercion, was characteristic of the emerging feudal system.

The oppression of large secular landowners, ecclesiastical institutions and royal officials, forced free people to give up personal independence and surrender under the "protection" (mundium) of secular and spiritual large landowners, who thus became their seigneurs (masters). The act of entering under personal protection was called "commendation". In practice, it was often accompanied by entry into land dependence, which for landless people often meant their gradual involvement in personal dependence. At the same time, the commendation strengthened the political influence of large landowners and contributed to the final disintegration of tribal unions and communal organization.

The process of feudalization took place not only among the Franks themselves , but even faster among the Gallo-Romans, who made up the majority of the population of the Frankish state. barbarian conquests destroyed the foundations of the slave system and partly undermined large land ownership, especially in southern Gaul, where the Burgundians and Visigoths made divisions of the land, capturing a significant part of it from the local population. However, they did not abolish private ownership of land. Everywhere among the Gallo-Roman population, not only small peasant land ownership was preserved, but even large-scale church and secular land ownership, based on the exploitation of slaves and people who were sitting on foreign land, close in position to the Roman columns.

"Salic Truth" divides the Gallo-Roman population into three categories : "royal companions", in which one can see a privileged group of Gallo-Romans, close to the king, apparently, large landowners; "possessors" - landowners of small estates and peasant types; taxable people (“tributaries”) who are obliged to bear duties. Apparently, these were people using foreign land on certain conditions.

The neighborhood of the Gallo-Romans, among whom private ownership of land had long existed, naturally accelerated the decomposition of communal relations and the feudalization of Frankish society . The position of the Gallo-Roman slaves and columns influenced the forms of dependence into which the impoverished Frankish community members were drawn. The influence of the decaying late antique relations in the process of feudalization was especially great in Southern Gaul, where the conquerors lived in close proximity to the Gallo-Romans in common villages. Here, earlier than in the north among the Germans, private ownership of land in its Roman form was established, the transition to the Marche community took place earlier, its decomposition and the growth of large landed property of the barbarian nobility proceeded faster. The object of exploitation of the German large landowners in the VI-VII centuries. there were not yet dependent peasants, but slaves, columns, freedmen who were planted on the land, the status of which was largely determined by Roman legal traditions. At the same time, the Frankish conquest of Southern Gaul contributed to the fragmentation of large domains and the barbarian and Gallo-Roman nobility and strengthened the layer of small peasant proprietors, mixed in their ethnic composition. In the process of synthesis of Gallo-Roman and Germanic relations, legal and ethnic differences between the conquerors and the local population in all areas of the kingdom were gradually erased. Under the sons of Clovis, the obligation to participate in the military militia applies to all the inhabitants of the kingdom, including the Gallo-Romans. On the other hand, the Frankish kings are trying to extend the land and poll taxes, preserved from the Roman Empire and at first levied only on the Gallo-Roman population, and on the conquering Germans.

In connection with this policy of the royal power in Gaul, uprisings broke out repeatedly. The largest of them took place in 579 in Limoges. The masses, outraged that King Chilperic had increased the land tax, seized and burned the tax rolls and wanted to kill the royal tax collector. Chilperic brutally dealt with the rebels and subjected the population of Limoges to even more severe taxation.

First in life Frankish society social differences are increasingly being put forward: there is an increasing convergence of the Gallo-Roman, Burgundian and Frankish landowning nobility, on the one hand, and German and Gallo-Roman small farmers of different legal status, on the other. start to take shape main classes of the future feudal society - feudal lords and dependent peasants. The Frankish kingdom of the Merovingian period from the end of the 6th - beginning of the 7th century. was already early feudal society , although the process of feudalization in it developed rather slowly. Until the end of the 7th c. the main stratum of this society remained free small landowners, in the north still united in free communes-marks.

The division of the Frankish state by the successors of Clovis (end of VI - VII centuries)

The growth of large landownership and the private power of large landowners already under the sons of Clovis led to a weakening of royal power. Having lost a significant part of their domain possessions and incomes as a result of generous land distributions, the Frankish kings turned out to be powerless in the fight against the separatist aspirations of large landowners. After the death of Clovis began fragmentation of the Frankish state .

From the end of the VI century. planned separation of three independent regions within the Frankish state : Neustria - Northwestern Gaul with a center in Paris; Austrasia - the northeastern part of the Frankish state, which included the original Frankish regions on both banks of the Rhine and the Meuse; Burgundy - the territory of the former kingdom of the Burgundians. At the end of the 7th century Aquitaine stood out in the southwest. These four regions differed from each other in the ethnic composition of the population and the characteristics of the social system, and the degree of feudalization.

In Neustria , which by the time of the Frankish conquest was strongly Romanized, the Gallo-Romans, who made up a significant part of the population even after the conquest, merged with the conquering Franks earlier than in other areas of the kingdom. Here, by the end of the 6th - beginning of the 7th century. large-scale ecclesiastical and secular landownership acquired great importance, and the process of the disappearance of the free peasantry proceeded rapidly.

austria , where the bulk of the population was made up of the Franks and other Germanic tribes subject to them, and the influence of the Gallo-Roman orders was weak, until the beginning of the 8th century. retained a more primitive system; here the Marka community decomposed more slowly, the allodist landowners continued to play an important role, being part of the Marka communities and forming the basis of the military militia. The emerging class of feudal lords was mainly represented by small and medium-sized feudal lords. Church landownership was less represented here than in Neustria.

AT Burgundy and Aquitaine , where the Gallo-Roman population was also mixed with the German (first with the Burgundians and Visigoths and then with the Franks), small free peasant and medium-sized landownership also remained for a long time. But at the same time, there were also large land holdings, especially church ones, and a free community already in the 6th century. disappeared almost everywhere.

These regions were weakly interconnected economically (at that time natural-economic relations dominated), which prevented their unification in one state. The kings from the house of the Merovingians, who led these areas after fragmentation of the Frankish state , fought among themselves for supremacy, which was complicated by continuous clashes between kings and large landowners within each of the regions.

History of France:

The unification of the Frankish state by mayordoms (end of the 7th century)

The last kings of the Merovingian dynasty lost all real power, retaining only the title. They were disparagingly called "lazy kings". In fact, power passed to the mayors (majordomus - senior in the court, manager of the royal household), who were in charge of tax collection and royal property, commanded the army. Having real power, the mayordoms disposed of the royal throne, erected and deposed kings. Being large landowners themselves, they relied on the local nobility. But in fragmented into appanages of the Frankish state there was no single major house. Each of the three regions was ruled by its own mayor, who had hereditary power.

At the end of the 7th century the actual power in all areas of the kingdom was in the hands of the mayors. Initially, these were officials who headed the royal palace administration (majordomus - the head of the house, the household manager of the court). Then the mayordoms turned into the largest landowners. All management of each of the named areas Frankish kingdom concentrated in their hands, and the mayor acted as the leader and military leader of the local landed aristocracy. The kings from the house of the Merovingians, who had lost all real power, were appointed and removed at the behest of the mayordoms.

After a long struggle among the Frankish nobility in 687, Pepin of Geristalsky became the major of Austrasia Majordom of the entire Frankish state . He succeeded because in Austrasia, where the process of feudalization was slower than in other parts of the kingdom, the mayordoms could rely on a fairly significant layer of small and medium feudal lords, as well as free allodists of the peasant type, interested in strengthening the central government to combat oppression. large landowners, to suppress the enslaved peasantry and to conquer new lands. With the support of these social strata, the mayordoms of Austrasia were able to unite again under their rule all Frankish state .

During the period of confusion and confusion of the 670s and 680s, attempts were made to reassert the supremacy of the Franks over the Frisians, but these attempts were unsuccessful. However, in 689, Pepin launched a campaign to conquer West Frisia (Frisia Citerior) and in a battle near the town of Dorestad, at that time an important trading post, defeated King Radbod of Frisia. As a result, the Frankish state included all the lands located between the Scheldt River and at that time the Vli estuary.

Then, around 690, Pepin attacked central Frisia and captured Utrecht. In 695, Pepin even contributed to the formation of the Archdiocese of Utrecht for the conversion of the Frisians to Christianity, which was headed by Bishop Willibrord. However, East Frisia (Frisia Ulterior) remained free from the protectorate of the Franks.

Having achieved tremendous success in conquering the Frisians, Pepin turned his attention to the Alemanni. In 709, he started a war against Villehari - Duke of Ortenau, presumably for the inheritance of the dukedom of the deceased Gottfried for his young sons. Various foreign interventions led to another war in 712, after which the Alemanni were returned for some time to the dominion of the Franks. However, the regions of southern Gaul, which was not under the influence of the Arnulfing family, began to move away from the royal court, which was facilitated in every possible way by their leaders - the warrior, and then Bishop Savarik of Auxerre, the aristocrat Antenor of Provence who did not recognize the Arnulfings and the Duke of Aquitaine Ed the Great.

The power, in fact, of the royal appointee acquired an independent character in relation to the royal one. The position of the mayor of the kingdom became hereditary, and this was not disputed by either the kings or the nobility. From the turn of the 7th - 8th centuries. the inheritance of individual managerial positions has become a state tradition in general.

By the beginning of the 8th century in the lands Frankish kingdom the process of formation of new social forces was clearly manifested. On the one hand, these are large landowners of Gallo-Roman origin and, to a lesser extent, Germanic (whose possessions were mostly formed by royal grants and protected by immunities). On the other hand, there is a large category of dependent peasants, freedmen who entered into bondage or under the patronage of large landowners and acquired a status similar to Roman columns.

The largest land holdings were concentrated in the Catholic Church, which began to play an almost state-political role in the kingdom. The objective task of the new states of the francs it was necessary to link the new social structure with political institutions - without such a connection, any statehood would not have gone beyond the royal palaces.

The years of the reign of Clovis IV, who died already at the age of 13, and his brother Childebert III - from 691 to 711 - were noted by all characteristic features the reign of the so-called lazy kings, although it is proved that Childebert made decisions that went against the interests of the alleged patron from the Arnulfing family.

Formation of the new Frankish state (VIII century)

After the death of Pepin in 714 The Frankish state plunged into civil war , and the dukes of the outlying regions became de facto independent. Pepin's appointed successor, Theodoald, acting under the auspices of Pepin's widow and his grandmother, Plektrude, at first resisted the attempts of the king, Dagobert III, to appoint Ragenfred as majordom in all three kingdoms, but soon a third candidate for majordom in Austrasia appeared in the person of Pepin's adult illegitimate son, Charles Martell. After the king (now Chilperic II) and Ragenfred defeated Plectrude and Theodoald, Charles was able for a short time to proclaim his own king, Chlothar IV, in contrast to Chilperic. Finally, at the Battle of Soissons in 718, Charles finally defeated his rivals and forced them to flee, subsequently agreeing to the return of the king, subject to receiving his father's posts (718). Since then, there have been no more active kings of the Merovingian dynasty and the Franks were ruled by Charles and his heirs the Carolingian dynasty .

After 718, Charles Martel entered into a series of wars, the purpose of which was to strengthen the supremacy of the Franks in Western Europe. In 718 he crushed the rebellious Saxons, in 719 he devastated West Frisia, in 723 he again crushed the Saxons, and in 724 he defeated Ragenfred and the rebel Neustrians, finally ending the period of civil wars in the era of his reign.

In 721, after the death of Chilperic II, he proclaimed Theodoric IV king, but he was a puppet of Charles. In 724, he defended his candidacy of Hugbert for the succession of the Bavarian duchy and in the Bavarian military campaigns (725 and 726) he was helped by the Alemanni, after which the laws there were proclaimed in the name of Theodoric. In 730, Alemannia was enslaved by force, and her duke Lantfried was killed. In 734, Charles fought against East Frisia and eventually took possession of these lands.

In the 730s, the Arabs who conquered Spain also subjugated Septimania and began their advance north into central Francia and the Loire Valley. It was at this time (around 736) that Maurontus, Duke of Provence, called upon the aid of the Arabs to counter the growing expansions of the Carolingians . However, Charles invaded the Rhone valley along with his brother Hildebrand I and the army of the Lombards and ravaged these lands. It was because of the alliance with the Lombards against the Arabs that Charles did not support Pope Gregory III against the Lombards. In 732 or 737 - modern scholars have not agreed on the exact date - Charles marched against the Arab army in the area between Poitiers and Tours and defeated them at the Battle of Poitiers, stopping the advance of the Arabs north of the Pyrenees and putting them to flight; while the real interests of Charles were to the northeast, namely the Saxons - from them he began to receive tribute, which they paid for centuries Merovingians .

Shortly before his death in October 741, Charles divided the state, as if he were king, between his two sons by his first wife, bypassing his youngest son Griffin, who received a very small share (it is not known for certain how much). Despite the fact that there had been no ruling king in the state since Theodoric's death in 737, Charles's sons, Pepin the Short and Carloman, still remained mayors. Carolingians adopted from Merovingian the status and ceremonial of kings, but not royal titles. After the division of the state, Austrasia, Alemannia and Thuringia went to Carloman, and Neustria, Provence and Burgundy to Pepin. The actual independence of the duchies of Aquitaine (under the rule of Gunald I) and Bavaria (under the rule of Odilon) is very indicative, since they were not even included in division of the Frankish state .

After Charles Martell was buried (in the Abbey of Saint-Denis next to Merovingian kings ) conflict immediately broke out between Pepin and Carloman on the one hand and their younger brother Griffin on the other. Despite the fact that Carloman captured and imprisoned the Griffin, there was probably hostility between the older brothers, as a result of which Pepin released the Griffin while Carloman made a pilgrimage to Rome. Apparently to lessen his brother's ambitions, Carloman proposed in 743 that Childeric III be summoned from the monastery and proclaimed king. According to some assumptions, the positions of the two brothers were rather weak, according to others, Carloman acted mainly in the interests of the legitimist and loyalist party in the kingdom.

In 743, Pepin launched a military campaign against the Bavarian Duke Odilon and forced him to recognize supremacy of the Franks . Carloman also launched a campaign against the Saxons and together they suppressed the Basque uprising led by Hunald and the Alemannic rebellion, apparently in which Lutfried of Alsace died, fighting either for or against the brothers. However, in 746 the Frankish army was stopped because Carloman decided to retire to the abbey monastery near Mount Soract. Pepin's position of power was strengthened and the way was opened for him to be proclaimed king in 751.

History of France:

----- THE FRANK STATE OF THE MEROVINGIANS (V - VII centuries) -----

Introduction.. 2

The emergence of the state among the Franks .. 2

Formation of a feudal society and the state of the Franks. four

State structure of the Franks. ten

Frankish Empire in the VIII-IX centuries. fourteen

Conclusion.. 16

Many barbarian tribes were scattered over the vast territory of the Roman Empire: Goths, Franks, Burgundians, Alamanni, Anglo-Saxons, etc.

The Romans increasingly used the Germans as mercenary soldiers and settled them on their frontiers. In the 5th century The highest ranks of the Roman magistrates began to be worn by the leaders of the barbarian tribes, who led the allied armies of Rome, which concluded an agreement on the transition under the rule of Rome.

The decline of imperial power, the ever-increasing unpopularity of Roman rule created favorable conditions for the allied kings of Rome to expand their powers, to satisfy their political claims. They often, with reference to the imperial order, appropriated full power, levied taxes from the local population, etc.

The Visigoths, for example, settled by Rome as their federates in 412 in Aquitaine (Southern France), subsequently expanded the territory of their kingdom of Toulouse through territorial conquests recognized in 475 by the Roman emperor. In 507, this kingdom was conquered by the Franks. In 476, power in the Western Roman Empire was seized by one of the barbarian commanders Odoacer. He was killed in 493 by Theodoric I, the founder of the Ostrogothic kingdom, who established his sole rule over all of Italy. This kingdom fell in 555. Other "tribal states" of the barbarians arose and were absorbed as a result of bloody wars, internecine strife.

But a special role in Western Europe was destined to be played by the Salic (coastal) Franks, who were part of the union of Germanic tribes that took shape in the 3rd century. on the northeastern border of Gaul, a province of the Roman Empire.

The Salic Franks, led by their leader Clovis (481-511), as a result of victorious wars in Gaul, sometimes in confrontation, sometimes in alliance with Rome, create a vast kingdom that stretched by 510 from the middle reaches of the Rhine to the Pyrenees. Clovis, having established himself as a representative of the Roman emperor, becomes the ruler of the lands, the ruler of a single, no longer tribal, but territorial kingdom. He acquires the right to dictate his own laws, collect taxes from the local population, etc.

Gaul, however, remained under the shadow of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) for a long time. Only in the 8th century the title of Roman emperor was given to the Frankish king Charlemagne. Thanks to the influence of Rome and the Roman Christian Church, Gaul, in spite of geographical fragmentation, maintained a kind of unity over the centuries, turning in the course of a long evolutionary process into that Franconia, which became the progenitor of the future France and Germany, as well as the territorial foundation of the development of Western Christian civilization.

For Gaul, the fifth century was a time of profound socio-economic transformation. In this richest province of Rome (the territory almost coinciding with present-day France), a deep crisis that engulfed the empire found its manifestation. The performances of slaves, columns, peasants, and the urban poor became more frequent. Rome could no longer protect the borders from invasions of foreign tribes and, above all, the Germans - the eastern neighbors of Gaul. As a result, most of the country was captured by the Visigoths, Burgundians, Franks (Salic and Ripuarian) and some other tribes. Of these Germanic tribes, in the final south, the Salic Franks turned out to be the most powerful (perhaps one of the rivers of present-day Holland was called from Sala in ancient times). It took them a little over 20 years to at the end of the 5th - beginning of the 6th century. take over most of the country.

The emergence of a class society among the Franks, which had been outlined for them even before moving to a new homeland, accelerated sharply in the process of conquering Gaul.

Each new campaign increased the wealth of the Frankish military-tribal nobility. When dividing the spoils of war, she got the best lands, a significant number of columns, cattle, etc. The nobility rose above the ordinary Franks, although the latter continued to remain personally free and did not even experience increased economic oppression at first. They settled in their new homeland in rural communities (marks). Mark was considered the owner of all the land of the community, which included forests, wastelands, meadows, arable land. The latter were divided into allotments, and rather quickly passed into the hereditary use of individual families.

The Gallo-Romans found themselves in the position of a dependent population, several times larger than the Franks. At the same time, the Gallo-Roman aristocracy partially retained their wealth. The unity of class interests marked the beginning of a gradual rapprochement between the Frankish and Gallo-Roman nobility, with the former becoming dominant. And this especially made itself felt during the formation of a new government, with the help of which it would be possible to keep the occupied country in their hands, to keep the colonies and slaves in obedience. The former tribal organization of the necessary forces and means for this could not provide. The institutions of the tribal system begin to give way to a new organization with a military leader - the king and a squad personally devoted to him at the head. The king and his entourage actually decide the most important questions of the life of the country, although popular assemblies and some other institutions of the former system of the Franks are still preserved. A new "public authority" is being formed, which no longer coincides directly with the population. It consists not only of armed people who do not depend on the rank and file of the free, but also of all kinds of compulsory institutions, which did not exist under the tribal system. The approval of the new public authority was associated with the introduction of the territorial division of the population. The lands inhabited by the Franks began to be divided into "pagi" (districts), which consisted of smaller units - "hundreds". The management of the population, which lived in pagas and hundreds, is handed over to special trustees of the king. In the southern regions of Gaul, where the former population repeatedly prevailed at first, the Roman administrative-territorial division is preserved. But even here the appointment of officials depends on the king.

The emergence of the state among the Franks is associated with the name of one of their military leaders - Clovis (486-511) from the Merovingian clan. Under his leadership, the main part of Gaul was conquered. The far-sighted political step of Clovis was the adoption by him and his squad of Christianity according to the Catholic model. By this he secured the support of the Gallo-Roman nobility and the dominant Gaul, catholic church.

The Frankish wars of conquest accelerated the process of creating the Frankish state. The deepest reasons for the formation of the Frankish statehood were rooted in the decomposition of the Frankish free community, in its class stratification, which began in the first centuries of the new era.

The state of the Franks in its form was early feudal monarchy. It arose in a transitional society from communal to feudal society, which in its development passed the stage of slavery. This society is characterized by a multistructural structure (a combination of slave-owning, tribal, communal, feudal relations), and the incompleteness of the process of creating the main classes of feudal society. Because of this, the early feudal state bears a significant imprint of the old communal organization, the institutions of tribal democracy.

The state of the Franks went through two main periods in its development (from the end of the 5th to the 7th century and from the 8th to the middle of the 9th century). The line separating these periods is characterized not only by the change of ruling dynasties (the Merovingians were replaced by the Carolingians). It marked the beginning of a new stage in the deep socio-economic and political restructuring of Frankish society, during which a feudal state proper was gradually taking shape in the form of a seigneurial monarchy.

In the second period, the creation of large feudal landed property, the two main classes of feudal society, is basically completed: the closed, hierarchically co-subordinate class of feudal lords bound by vassal ties, on the one hand, and the dependent peasantry exploited by it, on the other. The relative centralization of the early feudal state was replaced by feudal fragmentation.

In the V-VI centuries. the Franks still retained communal, tribal ties, relations of exploitation among the Franks themselves were not developed, and the Frankish service nobility, which formed into the ruling elite during the military campaigns of Clovis, was not numerous.

The social and class differences in the early class society of the Franks, as evidenced by the Salic truth, the legal monument of the Franks, dating back to the 5th century, manifested themselves most clearly in the position of slaves. Slave labor, however, was not widespread. A slave, in contrast to a free community-franc, was considered a thing. His theft was equivalent to the theft of an animal. The marriage of a slave to a free man entailed the loss of freedom by the latter.

Salic truth also points to the presence of other social groups among the Franks: serving nobility, free francs(community) and semi-free litas. The differences between them were not so much economic as socio-legal. They were mainly related to the origin and legal status of a person or the social group to which this person belonged. An important factor influencing the legal differences of the Franks was belonging to the royal service, the royal squad, to the emerging state apparatus. These differences were most clearly expressed in the system of monetary compensation, which served to protect the life, property and other rights of individuals.

The fall of the main stronghold of slavery - the Roman Empire - made it possible for many ethnic groups and peoples to enter the political arena of Western Europe. The slave system was replaced by the feudal system.

The system of feudal relations arose in various historical conditions. In some cases, it took shape in the depths of the slave-owning society itself during its decomposition, as, for example, in ancient Rome, in others, during the decomposition of the tribal system.

The formation of the Frankish state and its features

The first mention of the Franks in historical monuments appeared in the III century. Their ancestors were called differently: Hamavs, Sicambri, Batavs, etc. Already under Caesar, individual Germanic tribes sought to move to Gaul, a rich Roman province located in the center of Western Europe, according to Tacitus, “changing their swamps and forests for very fertile land” . The Germanic tribes in the works of Roman historians were called Franks. The name "Frank" (it is translated as "brave", "free") was collective for a whole group of Lower Rhine and Middle Rhine Germanic tribes. Later, the Franks were divided into two large branches - coastal (Salic) and coastal (Ripuan).

The Romans used the Germans as hired soldiers and settled them on their frontiers in order to guard the frontiers. Beginning in 276, the Franks came to Roman Gaul, first as prisoners, then as allies of the Romans. The Franks were at the stage of an early class society. The neighborhood brand community was the basis of their social life. Its stability rested on the right of collective land ownership and the equality of members of the brand - free peasant warriors. This factor played an important role in the superiority of the Franks over all other Germanic tribes.

After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th c. The Franks capture northeastern Gaul. It was a significant part of the territory of the Roman Empire. The conquered possessions fell under the rule of the former Frankish leaders. Among them, Merovei is known, from whose name the name of the Merovingian royal family came. Most famous representative of the Merovingian clan - King Clovis (481-511), who was the king of the Salic Franks. In 486, he captures the Soissons region (the last Roman possession in Gaul) with its center in Paris.

In 496, Clovis, together with three thousand warriors, accepts Christianity. This had very serious political consequences. The fact is that other Germanic tribes, who also tried to profit from the remnants of the Roman Empire, were Arians who denied the dogmas of the Roman Church. Now Clovis received the support of the church in the fight against them. By 510, Clovis created a vast kingdom from the middle reaches of the Rhine to the Pyrenees. Of interest is the fact that in the occupied territory Clovis proclaims himself the representative of the Roman emperor, for the nominal preservation of political ties with the empire was one of the ways to proclaim special rights, and becomes the ruler of a single, no longer tribal, but territorial kingdom.

On the conquered lands, the Franks settled mainly in whole communities, taking away empty lands, as well as plots of the former Roman treasury and the local population. However, in the main, the relationship of the Franks with the Gallo-Roman population was peaceful. This provided in further formation a completely new socio-ethnic community of the Celtic-Germanic synthesis.

The presentation of the material in this textbook is based on the second periodization.

At the first stage, as already noted, there was a process of land seizure and the formation of an early class Frankish state.

At the end of VI - beginning of VII century. four parts of the Frankish state took shape. In each of them, noble families stood out, possessing all the power - royal mayordoms. The power of the kings was in their hands. This period was called the "era of lazy kings."

The second stage in the history of the Frankish state is the rise, rise and fall of the Carolingian dynasty.

The heyday of the Carolingian dynasty falls on the reign of Charlemagne (son of Pepin the Short), who reigned from 768 to 814.

Litas belonged to the semi-free. Their legal position was very specific. They possessed land allotments, managed their own economy, took part in military campaigns, court meetings, could partially dispose of their property and conclude deals with other persons.

Their life was guarded by a wergeld, which was two times lower than the wergeld appointed for the life of a free community member.

Social differences were clearly manifested in the legal status of slaves. This was the most oppressed category of the population of the Frankish state. From the point of view of customary law, the slave was considered as a thing and was equated with an animal. Their labor was used as ancillary labor on the farms of the free Franks and the service nobility. However, unlike the slaves of Athens and Rome, the Frankish slaves had movable property, which is clear from their payment of fines of six solidi (the cost of two healthy cows). It also suggests that they had some legal capacity.

In the southern part of the Frankish state, the Gallo-Roman population lived: the Romans were royal companions, the Romans were farmers, the Romans paid taxes. Chapter 41 of the Salic Truth speaks of responsibility for the deprivation of life of these categories of the population.

State system of the Frankish state at the first stage (V-VII centuries)

The formation of the state system occurs through the degeneration of the organs of the tribal democracy of the Franks into the organs of state power. Huge conquered territories required a special organization of management and their protection. Clovis was the first Frankish king who established his position as sole ruler. From a simple warlord, he turned into a monarch, destroying all who stood in his way. An important moment in strengthening the positions of the Frankish state was the adoption of Christianity by Clovis. The process of folding the early feudal monarchy began. Head of State - king at this time, he became primarily a military leader, whose main concerns were the protection of public peace and the pacification of persons who were out of obedience. The state apparatus was still being created, there was no clear delimitation of the powers of royal officials. The administration of the state was concentrated in the hands of the royal servants and associates. The so-called palace-patrimonial system of government was born. Among the close associates of the king stood out: the palace count, who performed judicial functions; referendary - the keeper of the royal seal, who was in charge of the king's office work; camerarius - who monitored the receipts to the treasury and the safety of the property of the palace.

The formation of local authorities took place under the influence of late Roman orders. So, the entire territory of the state was divided into districts, which were headed by counts appointed by the king. They carried out police, military and judicial functions. The counties were divided into hundreds.

In the 8th century government became more difficult. In 800 the Frankish state was proclaimed an empire.

Royal power acquired a special character and its powers. The power and personality of the emperor received sacred recognition from the church. The title of emperor made the legislative and judicial rights of the king indisputable. However, as before, the state apparatus was concentrated at the court.

The local administration was organized as follows. The kingdom was divided into districts - pagi. Each of them was headed by a count, who was usually appointed by the king from among the large landowners. He exercised administrative, judicial, military and fiscal powers. Pagi, in turn, were divided into hundreds. At the head of each of them was a centurion, the representative of the count in the lower court. In some areas (usually border areas), the kings appointed dukes, whose powers extended over several counties (from 2 to 12). The duke exercised the powers of the count in those parts of the territory entrusted to him, where for some reason there was no count at that moment; its main tasks were to maintain peace in the country and organize defense.

Law of the Frankish State

The original text of this truth has not come down to us. The most ancient manuscripts date back to the time of Pepin the Short and Charlemagne (8th century). This original text was supplemented under the kings Childebert I and Chlothar I (VI century).

Salic truth was written in Latin and spread its effect mainly in the north of the country. In the south, the code of Allaric was in force, which Clovis ordered to apply in the affairs of the Gallo-Romans.

Civil law. During the reign of the Merovingian dynasty, the Franks still retained communal ownership of land. The title LIX of the Salic truth determined that the land (allod) belonged to the entire tribal community, in the joint use of which were forests, wastelands, pastures, swamps, roads, undivided meadows. The Franks disposed of these lands on equal terms. At the same time, the Salic truth indicates that the Franks used the field, garden or vegetable garden separately. They fenced off their land a hedge, the destruction of which entailed punishment according to Salic truth (title XXXIV).

Private ownership of land arose as a result of donations, purchases from the Romans, and the seizure of unoccupied land. Later, these lands were called allod. Along with them, there were lands transferred by the owners for use and possession for certain services and payment in kind, the so-called precarium. In troubled times, when the nobility waged wars for the possession of land, many owners of allods deliberately transferred it to powerful magnates under the condition of patronage, i.e. protection from attacks by other magnates.

After the reform of Charles Martel, a new type of land ownership appeared - benefices - conditional holding of land, associated with service and certain duties. In the future, this type of property becomes the main one.

Law of Obligations. With the exception of land, all other property could be the subject of sale, loan, exchange, donation. The transfer of ownership from one person to another was carried out by tradition, i.e. the informal transfer of things that followed the treaties. Acquisitive prescription was also recognized, among the Franks it was very short - one year.

Loan obligations were provided with special protection according to Salic Pravda, where in titles 50 and 52 the procedure for claiming a debt is carefully regulated.

inheritance law. Women initially could not inherit the land. They received this right only in the 7th century. There was no testamentary succession. However, the Franks practiced the so-called affatomy, which was a special way of transferring property after the death of the owner. Title 46 defined in some detail the procedure for such a transfer.

Family law . Salic truth does not indicate the order of marriage. However, the analysis of Art. 3 XXV chapter allows us to conclude that marriage without the consent of the parents was not concluded. Free marriages with slaves were not approved, otherwise they would lose their freedom. The family law of the Franks is characterized by the dominance of the husband over the wife, the father over the children. However, it should be noted that the power of their husband and father was not as unlimited as in Ancient Rome. His power over his sons ended when they reached the age of majority (12 years). With regard to his daughters, he retained his power until their marriage. Specific was the position of the wife, who was under the guardianship of her husband. Divorce for her was recognized as unacceptable. If the husband decided to divorce his wife, who was not caught in adultery, as well as in the commission of a crime, he had to leave all property to her and the children. At the conclusion of the marriage, the groom allocated certain property to the bride - in the amount of her dowry, usually it included movable property (cattle, weapons, money). Later, real estate was also transferred as a dowry. Therefore, in the event of the death of a husband, significant property sometimes turned out to be in the hands of widows. Therefore, it was established that a person who married a widow had to pay in advance the amount of three solidi and one denarius to the relatives of the first husband. This fee was paid to the closest relative of the first husband. If it did not turn out, she entered the royal treasury.

Criminal law. Most of the articles of the Salic Truth refer to criminal law, the norms of which are expressed in a casuistic form, i.e. there is a lack of generalizing and abstract concepts- “guilt”, “crime”, “intent”, “negligent”, etc. From the analysis of these articles, we can conclude that a crime under it is an action that causes physical, material or moral damage to a specific person. Because of this, the Salic truth pays more attention to two types of crimes: against a person and against property. The first of these includes all actions related to bodily harm, murder, insult, etc. To the second - all encroachments on property. The third type - against the order of control - is devoted to only a few articles.

Subject of the crime. From the text of the Salic truth it follows that all segments of the population were subjects of law. But this does not mean that they all bear the same responsibility. Punishments for a slave were determined to be more severe, such as the death penalty, which was not applied to free Franks.

Even when considering cases of theft, the subject's belonging to slaves or freemen was taken into account (title 40, § 1, 5). For a crime committed by a slave, the owner was responsible only if he refused to hand over the slave for torture. Moreover, the responsibility for the owner was established the same as if the crime had been committed by a free person (title 40, § 9).

In the Salic truth there are indications of the group subject as well. So, for example, in the title "About murder in a crowd" responsibility was established depending on the degree of activity of its participants. But at the same time, Salic truth still recognized in some cases equal responsibility for all those who committed a crime (title XIV, § 6). All of the above confirms the thesis that society has not yet formed its class structure.

objective side. Salic truth recognized only action as punishable; inaction was not punishable. The Franks already distinguished between such methods of theft of property as theft and robbery. Moreover, not only the amount of the stolen money was taken into account, but also in what way the crime was committed (breaking, key selection, etc.) - title XI, § 2, 5.

Subjective side. Salic truth provided for liability only for intentional crimes. She did not yet know other forms of guilt.

The object of the crime was, as a rule, only those social relations that regulated the protection of life, health and honor of a person, as well as his property. But there were separate articles that regulated certain aspects of social relations in the sphere of management order (title 51, § 2).

Consideration of the composition of the offense according to the Salic truth allows us to conclude that the law, like society and the state itself, was imperfect, having signs of both a tribal and state system.

Punishment. According to the Salic truth, its goals were: general and particular warning, retribution, but the main goal was compensation for damage. Salic truth, as already noted, provided for various punishments for free and slaves. So, if for free Franks the punishments were predominantly property, then for slaves, in addition to fines, corporal punishment and even the death penalty were applied (though only in exceptional cases for serious crimes) - title 40, § 5.

The fines for the Salic truth were very large. The smallest of them was equal to three solids, and this is the cost of a cow, "healthy, horned and sighted."

The penalty for murder was called "vira", "wergeld" (cost of life). It depended on the identity of the victim. If this is a bishop, then they paid 900 solidi, a count - 600, etc. Here, of interest is the fact that the murder of women was paid, as for the murder of a person who was in the royal service - 600 solidi. It is quite clear that such high fines were beyond the reach of ordinary francs. In this regard, title 58 "About a handful of earth" is of interest, which regulates the procedure for paying the wergeld by the killer's relatives.

Court and process. During the tribal system, judicial functions belonged to the assembly of the clan. In the era of Salic truth, the judicial body was the court of a hundred - a malus, which periodically met at certain times and consisted of seven elected rahinburgs that decided cases under the chairmanship of an elected tungin. Rakhinburgs were usually chosen by wealthy people, but hundreds of free residents were required to attend court meetings. The Rakhinburgs were obliged to judge according to the law, and the plaintiff had the right to remind them of this duty. If after that they refuse to consider the case, then they are sentenced to pay a fine of three solidus, and if they are not judged according to the law, they are awarded to pay 15 solidus (title 57, art. 1-2).

With the rise of the power of the king and his agents in the field, the judicial functions of hundreds began to be carried out by counts and dukes. The kings also began to consider court cases. During the era of "lazy kings", mayordoms gained the right to judge on behalf of the king, along with some officials of the court. Charlemagne undertook an important reform of the court: he abolished the obligation of free residents to appear at all court meetings and replaced the elected Rachinburgs with court members appointed by the king - scabins.

Scabins were appointed by the envoys of the king from among the local landowners. They were in the service of the king and judged under the chairmanship of the count. Under Charlemagne, ecclesiastical courts also appeared, as well as for laity with a mixed composition of judges in a certain category of cases.

The trial was of an accusatory and adversarial nature. Finding the stolen item, subpoenaing the defendant, witnesses was the responsibility of the victim himself. The Salic truth established severe liability for the failure to appear in court of the defendant (title 56), as well as witnesses whose testimony is necessary for the plaintiff (title 49). By the way, Salicheskaya Pravda provided for a fine of 15 solidi (title 43) for false testimony.

As for the search for a stolen item, it was regulated by title 37 and was called pursuit in the wake. During its implementation, one important circumstance was determined: during what time the stolen item was found. If before the expiration of three days, then the plaintiff, through third parties, had to prove that this thing was his. And if three days have passed after the theft, then the one from whom it was found must prove the conscientiousness of its acquisition. Title 47 "On the Search" determined the procedure for proving one's rights to disputed things. Here, of interest is the term for the appointment of a trial - 40 days for those who live on one side of the Loire River, and 80 days on the other side.

The court considered the case in the presence of witnesses, whose testimony was the main type of evidence and was given under oath. The number of witnesses according to the law could be different depending on the category of cases (from 3 to 12 people). When it was not possible to find out the truth with the help of witnesses, they resorted to ordeals, which were carried out by immersing the accused's hand in a pot of boiling water. The subject had to put his hand there and hold it until a certain sacramental formula was pronounced. The burnt hand was tied up and after some time was again examined in court. If the wound on the hand healed by that time, the subject was declared innocent, if not, he was punished. However, this procedure could be paid off, but only with the consent of the victim (title 53).

Thus, the Salic truth and in the process provided some advantages for the rich.

The verdicts of the local court were carried out by the counts and their assistants.