Th century England

Feudalism in 12th century England was among the better structured and established in Europe at the time. However, it could be structurally complex, which is illustrated by the example of the feudal barony of Stafford as described in a survey of knight's fees made in 1166 and recorded in The Black Book of the Exchequer. This was a roll of parchment, or several such, recording the quantity and tenant of each knight's fee held in capite. It was a record commissioned by the Treasury as the knight's fee was the primary basis for assessing certain types of taxation, for example feudal aid. Feudalism is the exchange of land for military service, thus everything was based on what was called the knight's fee, which was a fiefdom or estate of land. A feudal barony contained several knight's fees, for example the baron Robert of Stafford held a barony containing 60 knight's fees. Often lords were not so much lords presiding over great estates, but managers of a network of tenants and sub-leases. Stafford tenants were themselves lords of the manors they held from him, which is altogether different from their being barons. Henry d'Oilly, who held 3 fees from Robert of Stafford, also held, as atenant-in-chief, over 30 fees elsewhere that had been granted to him directly by the king. Thus while Henry was the vassal of his overlord Robert, Henry was himself a lord of his own manors held in capite and sub-enfeoffed many of his manors which he did not keep in demesne, that is to say under his own management using simple employees. It would also have been possible and not uncommon for a situation where Robert of Stafford was a vassal of Henry elsewhere, creating the condition of mutual lordship/vassalage between the two. These complex relationships invariably created loyalty problems through conflicts of interests. To resolve this the concept of a liege lord existed, which meant that the vassal was loyal to his liege lord above all others, except the king himself, no matter what. However, even this sometimes broke down when a vassal would pledge himself to more than one liege lord. From the perspective of the smallest land holder, multiple networks of tenancy were layered on the same small plot of land. A chronicle of the time says "different lordships lay on the land in different respects". Each tenant laid claim to a certain aspect of the service from the land.

Francia or Frankia, later also called the Frankish Empire (Latin: imperium Francorum), Frankish Kingdom (Latin: regnum Francorum, "Kingdom of the Franks"), Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century. Under the nearly continuous campaigns of Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, and Charlemagne—father, son, grandson—the greatest expansion of the Frankish empire was secured by the early 9th century. The tradition of dividing patrimonies among brothers meant that the Frankish realm was ruled, nominally, as one polity subdivided into several regna (kingdoms or subkingdoms). The geography and number of subkingdoms varied over time, but the particular term Francia came generally to refer to just one regnum, that of Austrasia, centred on the Rhine and Meuse rivers in northern Europe; even so, sometimes the term was used as well to encompass Neustria north of the Loire and west of the Seine. Eventually, the singular use of the name Francia shifted towards Paris, and settled on the region of the Seine basin surrounding Paris, which still today bears the name Île-de-France, and which region gave its name to the entire Kingdom of France.

Origins

The first recorded naming of Francia is in the Panegyrici Latini of the early third century. At the time it described the area north and east of the Rhine, roughly in the triangle between Utrecht, Bielefeld, and Bonn. It corresponded with the joint lands of Frankish tribes of the Sicambri, Salians, Bructeri, Ampsivarii,Chamavi and Chattuarii. Some of these peoples, such as the Sicambri and Salians, already had lands in the Roman Empire and delivered troops to Roman forces at the border. In 357 the Salian king entered the Roman Empire and made a permanent foothold there by a treaty granted by Julian the Apostate, who forced back the Chamavi to Hamaland. As Frankish territory expanded, the meaning of "Francia" expanded with it. Some of the Frankish kings, such as Bauto and Arbogastes, were committed to the cause of the Romans, but other Frankish rulers, such as Mallobaudes, were active on Roman soil for other reasons. After the fall of Arbogastes, his son Arigius succeeded in establishing a hereditary countship at Trier and after the fall of the usurper Constantine III some Franks supported the usurper Jovinus(411). Although Jovinus was dead by 413, the Romans could no longer manage the Franks within their borders. The Frankish king Theudemer was executed by the sword, but to no avail. Around 428 the Salian king Chlodio, whose kingdom included Toxandria and the civitatus Tungrorum (Tongeren), launched an attack on Roman territory and extended his realm as far as Camaracum (Cambrai) and the Somme. ThoughSidonius Apollinaris relates that Flavius Aëtius fought the Franks and temporarily drove them back (c. 431), this period marks the beginning of a situation that would endure for many centuries: the Germanic Franks ruled over an increasing number of Gallo-Roman subjects. The kingdom of Chlodio changed the borders and the meaning of the word "Francia" permanently. Francia was no longer barbaricum trans Rhenum (barbarians across the Rhine), but a landed political power on both sides of the river, deeply involved in Roman politics. Chlodio's family, the Merovingians, extended Francia even further south. Due to pressure from the Saxons, the northeastern borders of Francia were pressed southwest so that most of the original Frankish people came to live more southwesterly, roughly between the Somme and Münster.

Law

The different Frankish tribes, such as the Salii, Ripuarii, and Chamavi, had different legal traditions, which were only lately codified, largely under Charlemagne. The Leges Salica, Ribuaria, and Chamavorum were Carolingian creations, their basis in earlier Frankish reality being difficult for scholars to discern at the present distance. Under Charlemagne codifications were also made of the Saxon law and the Frisian law. It was also under Frankish hegemony that the other Germanic societies east of the Rhine began to codify their tribal law, in such compilations as the Lex Alamannorum and Lex Bajuvariorum for the Alemanni and Bavarii respectively. Throughout the Frankish kingdoms there continued to be Gallo-Romans subject to Roman law and clergy subject to canon law. After the Frankish conquest of Septimania and Catalonia, those regions which had formerly been under Gothic control continued to utilise the Visigothic law code. During the early period Frankish law was preserved by the rachimburgs, officials trained to remember it and pass it on. The Merovingians adopted the capitulary as a tool for the promulgation and preservation of royal ordinances. Its usage was to continue under the Carolingians and even the later Spoletan emperors Guy and Lambert under a programme of renovation regni Francorum ("renewal of the Frankish kingdom"). The last Merovingian capitulary was one of the most significant: the edict of Paris, issued by Chlothar II in 614 in the presence of his magnates, had been likened to a Frankish Magna Carta entrenching the rights of the nobility, but in actuality it sought to remove corruption from the judiciary and protect local and regional interests. Even after the last Merovingian capitulary, kings of the dynasty continued to independently exercise some legal powers. Childebert III even found cases against the powerful Arnulfings and became renowned among the people for his justness. But law in Francia was to experience a renaissance under the Carolingians. Among the legal reforms adopted by Charlemagne were the codifications of traditional law mentioned above. He also sought to place checks on the power of local and regional judiciaries by the method of appointing missi dominici in pairs to oversee specific regions for short periods of time. Usually missi were selected from outside their respective regions in order to prevent conflicts of interest. A capitulary of 802 gives insight into their duties. They were to execute justice, enforce respect for the royal rights, control the administration of the counts and dukes (then still royal appointees), receive the oath of allegiance, and supervise the clergy.

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