The Census

Chapter 17: The Military Service of Freemen

TWO sorts of people were bound to military service:

1. The vassals

These were obliged because of their fiefs.

2. The freemen, whether Franks, Romans, or Gauls, who servedunder the count, and were commanded by him and his officers.

The name of freemen was given to those, who on the one hand had no benefices or fiefs, and on the other were not subject to the base services of villainage; the lands they possessed were what they called allodial estates.

The counts:

• assembled the freemen
• led them against the enemy
• had officers under them called vicars

All the freemen were divided into hundreds, which constituted a borough.

The counts had also officers under them, who were denominated centenarii.

These led the freemen of the borough, or their hundreds, to the field.

This division into hundreds is posterior to the establishment of the Franks in Gaul.

It was made by Clotharius and Childebert, with a view of obliging each district to answer for the robberies committed in their division;

This we find in the decrees of those princes. A regulation of this kind is to this very day observed in England.

As the counts led the freemen against the enemy, the feudal lords commanded also their vassals or rearvassals; and the bishops, abbots, or their=C2=A7 advocates likewise commanded theirs**.

The bishops were greatly embarrassed, and in consistent with themselves; they requested of Charlemaign not to oblige them any longer to a military service; and when he granted their request, theycomplained that he had deprived them of the public esteem: so that this prince was obliged to justify his Edition: current; Page: [389] intentions upon this head. Be that as it may, when they were exempted from marching against the enemy, I do not findthat their vassals were led by the counts; on the contrary, we see* that the kings or the bishops chose one of their feudatories to conduct them.

In a capitulary of Lewis the Debonnaire, this prince distinguishes three sorts of vassals, those belonging to the king, those tothe bishops, and those to the counts. The vassals of a feudal lord were not led against the enemy by the count, except some employment in the king’s houshold hindered the lord himself from commanding them.

But who is it that led the feudal lords into the field? No doubt the king himself, who was always at the head of his faithful vassals.

Hence we constantly find in the capitularies a distinction made between the kings vassals and those of the bishops. Such brave and magnanimous princes as our kings, did not take the field to put themselves at the head of an ecclesiastic militia; these were not the men they chose toconquer or to die with.

But these laws carried their vassals and rear-vassals with them.

This is proven by the capitulary where Charlemagne ordains that every freeman, who has 4 manors either in his own property, or as a benefice from somebody else, should march against the enemy or follow his lord.

Charlemagne means that the person who had a manor of his own should march under the count, and he who held a benefice of a lord, should set out along with him.

Yet the Abbe du Bos pretends, that when mention is made in the capitularies, of tenants who depended on a particular lord, no others are meant than bondmen; and he grounds his opinion on the law of the Visigoths, and the practice of that nation.

It is much better to rely on the capitularies themselves; that which I have just quoted, says expressly the contrary. The treaty between Charles the Bald and his brothers,takes notice also of freemen, who might chuse to follow either a lord or the king; and this regulation is conformable to a great many others.

Thus there were 3 sorts of military services:

1. Vassals under the kings vassals [warrior class]

These had no other vassals under them

2. Vassals under the bishops or of the other clergy, and their vassals [intellecual or priest class]

3. Vassals under the count who commanded the freemen [oligarch class]

Not but the vassals might be also subject to the count; as those who have a particular command are subordinate to him, who is invested with a more general authority.

We even find that the count and the kings commissaries might oblige them to pay the fine, when they had not fulfilled the engagements of their fief.

In like manner if the kings vassals committed any outrage, they were subject to the correction of the count, unless they chose rather to submit to that of the king.