poisoned, it was said, by his Jewish doctor Zedekiah, he ended, miserably enough, his reign of thirty-seven years.
Historians have often pronounced adversely on the reign, influenced by chroniclers of Louis the German, who accuse his adversary of cowardice and incapacity. But it does not in fact appear that Charles was wanting either in courage or energy. All his contemporaries describe him as a learned man and a friend to letters. He has been reproached with not having succeeded in exacting obedience from his vassals, nor in organising resistance to the Northmen. But it would certainly have been a task beyond human strength to resist the process of evolution, at once economic and social, which gave birth to the feudal system and transformed into hereditary fiefs the benefices which had been granted for life or during pleasure by the early Carolingians. Where Charles the Great had had subjects and functionaries, Charles the Bald has already no more than vassals, and is forced to impoverish himself for their behoof by incessant grants of honours and benefices, lest he should be abandoned by nobles ever ready to transfer their oaths of fidelity to a rival sovereign. Even the bishops, who were usually loyal, had no scruples in taking Charles to task on various occasions, Hincmar being first to set the example. Besides this, the civil wars, whether between the kings or between turbulent counts, and the Northman invasions compelled the free men to gather in groups around magnates or proceres strong enough to protect them in time of need. Thus they commend themselves to these lords, and in their turn become vassals. This process was at first encouraged by the sovereign, as facilitating the assembling of the host when necessary, and this it is which explains the provisions in the capitulary of 847 ordering every free man to choose himself a lord, the latter being charged with the office of leading his men to war. But an important transformation had besides taken place in the host. The infantry, which in the eighth century had formed the chief strength of the Frankish armies, had given way to cavalry. By the end of the ninth century, the Carolingian armies are almost wholly composed of horse-soldiers. But the mounted warrior cannot be a mere free man, for in order to maintain his steed and his handful of followers he must hold some land or benefice from his lord. He has become the knight, the miles, the last rank in the feudal hierarchy. Counts and knights, however, when summoned by the king, shew no great eagerness to respond to the appeal. Constantly the attempts made by Charles to resist the Northmen are brought to nothing by the refusal of his vassals to follow him. Even when the Frankish force is under arms, it is only a sort of landwehr or militia, ill-adapted for fighting. The civilised Franks have lost the warlike qualities of their half-barbarous forefathers. It is not with such materials that a king or any other leader could expect to succeed against the bands of the Scandinavians who were trained to warfare and made it their habitual occupation.
