happen to me as formerly happened, they say, to Charles Martel. I love Saint Benedict; I address my petition to the pious Father of the Monks, and desire that I may be buried in his church at Fleury on the banks of the Loire. He is merciful and kind, he receives sinners who amend, and, faithfully observing his rule, seek to gain the heart of God." He died a few days later at Melun on 29 or 30 July 1108.
It is surprising, on a general view of the Capetian monarchy down to Philip I, that it successfully maintained itself and only encountered trifling opposition easily overcome. Its weakness, indeed, is extreme; it is with difficulty that it proves itself a match for the petty barons within its domain. At the opening of the year 1080 Hugh, lord of Le Puiset, rebelled; and to resist him the king collected a whole army counting within its ranks the Duke of Burgundy, the Count of Nevers, and the Bishop of Auxerre. Shut up in his castle, Hugh defied all assaults. One fine day he made a sortie, whereupon the royal army, stupefied by his audacity, took to its heels; the Count of Nevers, the Bishop of Auxerre and nearly one hundred knights fell into Hugh's hands, while Philip and his followers fled wildly as far as Orleans, without the least attempt to defend themselves.
The resources which the monarchy has at its disposal are even more restricted than of old; the king has to be content with the produce of his farms, with a few tolls and fines, the dues paid by the peasants, and the yield of his woods and fields, but as the greater part of the royal domain is granted in fiefs, the total of all these resources is extremely meagre. They could fortunately be augmented by the revenues of vacant bishoprics to which the king had the nomination, for from the death of one occupant until the investiture of another the king levied the whole revenue and disposed of it at his pleasure. There are also the illicit gains arising from the traffic in ecclesiastical offices, and these are not the least. Yet all these together amount to very little, and the king is reduced either to live in a pitiful fashion, or to go round pleading his "right to bed and purveyance (procuration)" to claim food and shelter from the abbeys on his domain.
Surrounded by a little group of knights, and followed by clerks and scribes, the king roved about, carrying with him his treasure and his attendants. This staff, as a whole, had changed but slightly since Carolingian times; there are the same great officers, the Seneschal, the Chamberlain, the Butler, the Constable, the Chancellor, who directed at once the administration of the palace and of the kingdom. But the administration of the kingdom was henceforward hardly more than that of the royal domain. Local administration is now purely domanial, undertaken by the directors of land improvement, the mayors or villici, vicarii and prevôts (praepositi) whose duty there, as on all feudal domains, was to administer justice to the peasants and to collect the dues.
