periods.[1] The character of the monarchy was scarcely affected by the substitution of the house of Pippin of Heristal for the house of Clovis. The baleful custom of dividing the realm upon a monarch's death survived; but Fortune rendered it innocuous through one strong century, during which (719-814) the realm was free from internecine war, while the tossing streams of humanity were driven onward by three great successive rulers.
The Carolingian, like the Merovingian, realm included many different peoples who were destined never to become one nation; and the whole Carolingian system of government virtually had existed in the Merovingian period. Before, as well as after, the dynastic change, the government throughout the realm was administered by Counts. Likewise the famous missi dominici, or royal legates, are found in Merovingian times; but they were employed more effectively by Charles Martell, Pippin, and, finally, by Charlemagne, who enlarged their sphere of action. He elaborately defined their functions in a famous Capitulary of the year 802. It was set forth that the emperor had chosen these legates from among his best and greatest (ex optimatibus suis), and had authorized them to receive the new oaths of allegiance, and supervise the observance of the laws, the execution of justice, the maintenance of the military and fiscal rights of the emperor. They were given power to see that the permanent functionaries (the counts and their subordinates) duly administered the law as written or recognized. The missi had jurisdiction over ecclesiastical as well as lay officials; and many of them were entrusted with special powers and duties in the particular instance.
Thus Charlemagne developed the functions of these ancient officers. Likewise his Court and royal council, the
- ↑ A part of the serious historian's task is to get rid of "epochs" and "renaissances"—Carolingian, Twelfth Century, or Italian. For such there should be substituted a conception of historical continuity, with effect properly growing out of cause. Of course, one must have convenient terms, like "periods," etc., and they are legitimate; for the Carolingian period did differ in degree from the Merovingian, and the twelfth century from the eleventh. But it would be well to eliminate "renaissance." It seems to have been applied to the culture of the quattrocento, etc., in Italy sixty or seventy years ago (1845 is the earliest instance in Murray's Dictionary of this use of the word), and carries more false notions than can be contradicted in a summer's day.
