Founding of the Frankish state. Chapter IX. The emergence and development of feudal relations in Frankish society (VI-IX centuries). Enslavement of the Frankish peasantry

At the end of the 7th century the actual power in all areas of the kingdom was in the hands of the mayors. Initially, these were officials who headed the royal palace administration (majordomus - the head of the house, the household manager of the court). Then the mayordoms turned into the largest landowners. All management of each of the named areas Frankish kingdom concentrated in their hands, and the mayor acted as the leader and military leader of the local landed aristocracy. The kings from the house of the Merovingians, who had lost all real power, were appointed and removed at the behest of the mayordoms.

After a long struggle among the Frankish nobility in 687, Pepin of Geristalsky became the major of Austrasia Majordom of the entire Frankish state . He succeeded because in Austrasia, where the process of feudalization was slower than in other parts of the kingdom, the mayordoms could rely on a fairly significant layer of small and medium feudal lords, as well as free allodists of the peasant type, interested in strengthening the central government to combat oppression. large landowners, to suppress the enslaved peasantry and to conquer new lands. With the support of these social strata, the mayordoms of Austrasia were able to unite again under their rule all Frankish state .

During the period of confusion and confusion of the 670s and 680s, attempts were made to reassert the supremacy of the Franks over the Frisians, but these attempts were unsuccessful. However, in 689, Pepin launched a campaign to conquer West Frisia (Frisia Citerior) and in a battle near the town of Dorestad, at that time an important trading post, defeated King Radbod of Frisia. As a result, the Frankish state included all the lands located between the Scheldt River and at that time the Vli estuary.

Then, around 690, Pepin attacked central Frisia and captured Utrecht. In 695, Pepin even contributed to the formation of the Archdiocese of Utrecht for the conversion of the Frisians to Christianity, which was headed by Bishop Willibrord. However, East Frisia (Frisia Ulterior) remained free from the protectorate of the Franks.

Having achieved tremendous success in conquering the Frisians, Pepin turned his attention to the Alemanni. In 709, he started a war against Villehari - Duke of Ortenau, presumably for the inheritance of the dukedom of the deceased Gottfried for his young sons. Various foreign interventions led to another war in 712, after which the Alemanni were returned for some time to the dominion of the Franks. However, the regions of southern Gaul, which was not under the influence of the Arnulfing family, began to move away from the royal court, which was facilitated in every possible way by their leaders - the warrior, and then Bishop Savarik of Auxerre, the aristocrat Antenor of Provence who did not recognize the Arnulfings and the Duke of Aquitaine Ed the Great.

The power, in fact, of the royal appointee acquired an independent character in relation to the royal one. The position of the mayor of the kingdom became hereditary, and this was not disputed by either the kings or the nobility. From the turn of the 7th - 8th centuries. the inheritance of individual managerial positions has become a state tradition in general.

By the beginning of the 8th century in the lands Frankish kingdom the process of formation of new social forces. On the one hand, these are large landowners of Gallo-Roman origin and, to a lesser extent, Germanic (whose possessions were mostly formed by royal grants and protected by immunities). On the other hand, there is a large category of dependent peasants, freedmen who entered into bondage or under the patronage of large landowners and acquired a status similar to Roman columns.

The largest land holdings were concentrated in the Catholic Church, which began to play an almost state-political role in the kingdom. The objective task of the new states of the francs it was necessary to link the new social structure with political institutions - without such a connection, any statehood would not have gone beyond the royal palaces.

The years of the reign of Clovis IV, who died already at the age of 13, and his brother Childebert III - from 691 to 711 - were noted by all characteristic features the reign of the so-called lazy kings, although it is proved that Childebert made decisions that went against the interests of the alleged patron from the Arnulfing family.

Formation of the new Frankish state (VIII century)

early medieval state, which arose at the end of the 5th century. on part of the territory of the former Western Roman Empire during the conquest of Gaul by the Franks, led by Clovis. As a result of the conquests of Charlemagne, it included almost the entire Western and part Central Europe. The Frankish state was ruled by kings from the Merovingian and (since 751) Carolingian dynasties (from 800 - emperors). According to the Treaty of Verdun in 843, the territory of the Frankish state was divided between the grandchildren of Charlemagne.

Great Definition

Incomplete definition ↓

FRENCH STATE

lat. Regnum Francorum) - political. formation of the era of the genesis of feudalism in the West. Europe; existed in con. 5 - ser. 9th century During the period of greatest expansion, it covered almost the entire Zap. Europe and part of Central; named after the Franks who formed its original core. In the history of F. g. distinguish: the stage of folding early feuds. relations - con. 5 - beg. 8th century ("Merovingian period"); stage of formation of mature feudalism - 8 - ser. 9th century ("Carolingian period"). F. g. arose after the fall of the West.-Rome. empire, as a result of the conquest in 486 by the Salic Franks in Ch. with Clovis I (481-511) from the Merovingian clan of the possessions of Rome. Viceroy of Syagrius in Gaul. Under Clovis, F. was expanded due to the subjugation of the Alemanni, who lived along the middle and upper Rhine (496), and the conquest of the Visigothic possessions in Aquitaine (507) and east. Franks in the lower reaches of the Rhine. Under the sons of Clovis, the kingdom of the Burgundians (534), Provence (536), the Alpine possessions of the Alemanni, the lands of the Thuringians between the Weser and the Elbe (30s of the 6th century) and the Bavarians on the Danube (50s of the 6th century) were subordinated. ; the power of the Franks was recognized to a certain extent by the Saxons. Franks, along with all other Germans. tribes were approx. estimated no more than 10-15% of the total population of Gaul. However, the socio-political circumstances favored the military. successes of the Salic Franks: relatively weak (compared to the Burgundians and Visigoths) development social contradictions allowed the Frankish kings to undertake conquests, relying not only on their combatants, but also on a wide popular militia; the adoption of Christianity by Clovis in the Catholic. form and the establishment of an alliance with the Catholic. the episcopate provided a benevolent attitude towards the Franks of the Catholic. Gallo-Roman population. Political and ethnic. the disunity of the peoples conquered by the Franks also facilitated their victories. Societies. development of different regions. F. g. went in the 6th-7th centuries. not exactly the same. In the regions beyond the Rhine, where Frankish domination was expressed only in the collection of tribute from the population and the deployment of rare Frankish garrisons, in the 6th-7th centuries. communal relations continued to predominate, their decomposition was very slow here. In the extreme north of Gaul (northern Austrasia), where the Franks were most numerous, a large number of new purely Frankish settlements arose. Settling, as a rule, at a distance from the surviving Gallo-Roman estates, the Franks for a long time retained the originality of their social structure here. The interaction of Frankish communal and Gallo-Roman late antique relations developed in the 6th-7th centuries. slowly, leading to the maturation of only individual proto-feudal elements. On the contrary, in the interfluve of the Somme and the Seine (N. Neustria), where the Frankish villages were located among the numerically predominant Gallo-Roman. population, the synthesis of Frankish communal institutions with late antique ones was especially active. Already to the horse. 6th c. the Franks had a complete allod here; in the 7th century feud began to take shape. way of life, which was expressed at the beginning of the formation of large private seigneurial land ownership and feuds. classes. South of the Seine and especially south of the Loire, there were only isolated Frankish settlements, in most places preserved by the Late Roman. estates where the exploitation of slaves and columns continued; to a greater extent than in S. Gaul, the settlements of the mountains have also been preserved. type, craft and trade; germ. the population consisted of arr. from the Burgundians and Visigoths, who quickly assimilated into the Gallo-Roman environment; the predominant type of social relations in the 5th-7th centuries. remained late antique. Features of socio-economic. the development of different parts of the FG was reflected in the originality of their political. org-tion. In the south of F., in the structure of the state. institutions especially noticeably affected Rome. influence. Main adm.-territorial unit remained mountains. county (civitas); the late Roman municipal curia survived for a long time, as well as Rome. tax, customs and monetary systems. North of the Loire Rome. the system of local government was maintained (up to the 6th century) mainly in the cities; in other places adm. the device developed under the noticeable influence of the Frankish military institutions. democracy. Ch. terr. the unit here was the district (pagus), which included several. hundreds; in districts and hundreds, meetings of free people continued to operate, deciding certain courts, and sometimes adm. questions. However, already in the 6th c. and especially in the 7th c. the rights of the counts appointed by the kings began to expand (to whom judicial proceedings, fiscal functions, command of the local militia were transferred), and the prerogatives of the district and hundreds of assemblies were reduced; began to disappear politically. the role of the annual all-Frankish military. reviews ("March fields"). Higher legislature, military. and perform. power in F. g. was gradually concentrated in the hands of inheritances. kings who ruled with queens. courtyard (palatium). After the death of Clovis in Austrasia, Neustria, Burgundy, different branches of the Merovingian dynasty established themselves. The king of each of these regions had his own court and squad, and queens were periodically convened. council, which included the ministerial nobility and bishops. Socio-economic. and socio-political. the peculiarities of individual parts of the F. g. left their mark on their ethnic. and cult. development. In Aquitaine and Burgundy in the 6th-7th centuries. Latin prevailed, elements of secular education were preserved. In Austrasia, as well as in the regions east of the Rhine, the Germans dominated. languages. In Neustria, there was an intensive fusion of Frankish and Gallo-Roman. population; on the basis of Latin, Romance dialects were formed here. Christianity was most widely spread in the south, and in the north only in the cities. The peasantry of the The regions of F. g. were Christianized in the 7th-8th centuries, and the eastern ones - in the 8th-9th centuries. The Frankish kings retained the privileges of the Catholics. churches, which she used from late Rome. time (tax exemption, recognition of church jurisdiction over clerics, etc.), and provided new ones. Thanks queens. according to the awards, the church grew rapidly. land ownership. In the process of expansion of the F. g., the Frankish nobility noticeably increased, and the Gallo-Romans passed into the hands of the swarm. estates, together with the slaves and columns serving them, as well as the judicial adm. rights over the free population. Extensive lands. ownership and socio-political. privileges provided the nobility of the economy. and political independence from queens. authorities and created the basis for civil strife. The struggle in F. g. was especially aggravated from the end. 6th century, when the grandsons of Clovis, kings Sigebert and Chilperic and their wives Brunhilda and Fredegonda, were at the head of the warring factions. Under the great-grandson of Clovis Chlothar II (613-629), the nobility achieved the legitimization of a number of its privileges and, in particular, control over local government. After the death of Chlothar II's son Dagobert (629-639), who briefly stopped the strengthening of the nobility, she managed to put all the activities of the kings under her control thanks to the right to influence the appointment of majordoms, in the hands of which all state power was concentrated by this time. power. The separatism of the nobility led to the fact that Austrasia, Neustria, Burgundy and Aquitaine became more and more isolated from each other. Ruled in them in the 7th century. so-called. "lazy kings" had neither authority nor material resources. In the 1st floor. 8th c. political the power of F. g. was restored. During the civil strife, 7 - early 8th century the dominant position in F. g. was achieved by the Austrasian nobility in Ch. with Pepin Geristalsky, who forced him to recognize himself as a mayor not only in Austrasia, but also in Neustria and Burgundy. The son of Pepin of Geristal, Karl Martell (715-741), retained the rights of the mayor in 3 main. parts of F. g. and, in addition, again subjugated Thuringia, Alemannia and Bavaria (which were freed in the 40s of the 7th century from Frankish dependence), restored the power of the Franks over Aquitaine and Provence. His victory over the Arabs at the Battle of Poitiers in 732 stopped the Arabs. offensive in the West. Europe. The general recognition of the power of Charles Martel allowed him to rule in Fg in 737-741, without even formally elevating them to queens. throne of the Merovingian heirs. The reasons for the rise of the mayordoms of Austrasia: their support by the newly formed in Austrasia (during the social stratification of free allodists) a layer of service people interested in expanding their privileges; the weakening of the rivals of Austrasia - Neustria, Burgundy and Aquitaine, in which the more rapid development of social differentiation led to a particular increase in the separatism of the nobility; use by Karl Martell to reward his approximate lands. a fund secularized from the church, and a system of conditional lifetime awards (see Beneficiary). Factors that ensured elevation to the 1st floor. 8th c. Austrasian majordoms, largely explain the successes of their closest successors - the first representatives of the Carolingian dynasty (Pipinids) - Pepin the Short (king 751-768) and Charlemagne (768-814). Their close alliance with the papacy also contributed to their strengthening. The son of Charles Martell, Pepin the Short, with the support of the pope, proclaimed himself king of Fg (751). Having invaded Italy, he defeated the Lombards (754 and 756), after which he transferred the cities of the Exarchate of Ravenna and the Roman region to the power of the popes (see Papal States). Under Pepin, uprisings in Alemannia and Bavaria were suppressed, Septimania was conquered from the Arabs (759) and Aquitania was again subordinated, the nobility attempted to secede (760-768). supreme power F. g. reached under Charlemagne, when Lombard Italy (773-774), Saxony (772-804) and the territory were conquered. south of the Pyrenees (late 8th - early 9th centuries). Political hegemony of F. g. in the West. Europe was reflected in the coronation in 800 Charlemagne imp. (which represented an attempt to revive the Western Roman Empire). During the almost continuous wars, to-rye led F. g. in 8 - early. 9th century, there were profound changes in its societies. order. In the regions between the Rhine and the Loire, a "revolution in agrarian relations" took place (see F. Engels, in the book: Marx K. and Engels F., Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 19, p. 495): the majority of free Allodists and their lands came under the power of the nobility, which accelerated the folding of the feuds. land property; a large fiefdom with a dominal x-vom, based preim. on the use of corvée labor of dependent peasant holders - colones, litas, serfs; in the dominance. class arose a system of vassalage; feud. style became the leader. In areas south of the Loire, feud. way of life in the 9th century. has not yet won, although it has significantly increased: repeated campaigns to restore the power of the Franks largely destroyed the former system of land tenure, which has been preserved since late Rome. times, and undermined the position of the old South Gallic aristocracy, whose place began to be occupied by the Frankish nobility; intensified attraction to the feud. dependence of the peasantry (both German and Gallo-Roman). In the Zarein regions, F. in 8 - early. 9th century the genesis of feudalism also accelerated, although it did not go beyond the formation of early feuds. relations that coexisted with the communal way of life. In the course of feudalization, the remnants of military institutions disappeared. democracy in politics. the structure of the fief city. The king was recognized as the supreme authority, turning into the spokesman for the interests of the feud. know. Common Frankish military. fees were finally replaced by annual reviews of the cavalry, in Krom means. part were vassals of the secular and church. magnates ("May Fields"). Conferring only with their courtiers, the kings issued capitularies that determined the basis of legal relations for all segments of the population. Ch. the role in local government was played by counts and margraves, who were state. officials and possessing the entirety of the court., adm. and military authorities in their counties (in Gaul alone there were about 300 of them). From the subordination of the counts were withdrawn, however (to one degree or another), the territories, the lords of which enjoyed immunity. General Court. assemblies in districts and hundreds were replaced by the court. collegiums of juries (scabins, sheffens), appointed by decree of the queens. officials. As a result b. part of the peasants was deprived of the opportunity to influence the legal proceedings. At the same time, their participation in the army was limited, since from the time of Charlemagne to the direct bearing of the military. services were involved, in addition to beneficiaries, only those who had at least 3-4 land. allotments (mansi). At the turn of the 8th-9th centuries. the economic and cultural development of the FG has noticeably revived. The plowing of new lands resumed; handicrafts were growing. production; along with the reconquest of the Mediterranean coast, foreign trade expanded. Renewed contacts with the cultural centers of the Mediterranean, as well as Ireland. The need for competent administrators and clergy led to the re-establishment of schools in the FG both in the south and in the north. Along with the revival of literacy, interest in literature, the secular sciences, and depictions was awakened again. art (see "Carolingian Renaissance"). Frankish colonization of Aquitaine and Burgundy in the 8th-9th centuries. contributed to the formation in the south of the future southern French (Provencal) nationality and the corresponding dialects. A noticeable increase in ethnic population consolidation also took place between the Rhine and the Loire, where Romanesque dialects also prevailed, differing, however, from Provencal ones. Germ. languages ​​were preserved only in the lower reaches of the Rhine and on its right bank. As the feud deepened. relations and economic and political strengthening of the feud. nobility in the 9th century actual is set. land inheritance. awards and positions. The authority and power of queens. the authorities are weakening, the internecine struggle is again aggravated. The son of Charlemagne, Louis the Pious, unsuccessfully tried to preserve the integrity of the empire. Already under the grandsons of Charlemagne Lothair, Charles the Bald and Louis the German, his state was divided according to the Verdun Treaty of 843 into three parts, anticipating France, Germany and Italy with their borders (the latter was first connected with the lands along the Rhone and the Rhine, the northern part of which later spun off as Lorraine). The history of F. g., which turned out to be the cradle of a number of leading state-in modern. Europe, was the basis for the development of many fundamental issues of development Zap. Europe in the early Middle Ages. Thanks to relatively numerous sources, researchers are intensively studying the laws of the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages, the social nature of barbarian societies, using FG materials. main variants of interaction between Roman Late Antique and Germanic. communal relations, constituting signs of feud. socio-economic formations, etc. In discussions on these issues in app. -European medieval studies developed historiographic. directions of Germanists and novelists. as well as supporters of the patrimonial theory and community theory, scientific. the schools of A. Pirenne, A. Dopsh, M. Blok, T. Mayer, and others; by many problems of the history of financial g. discussions among the modern. Western European medievalists continue (see Barg MB, "Problems of social history in the coverage of modern Western medieval studies", Moscow, 1973). The history of F. g. as a classic. formation option and initial stage feudal development. relations attracted special the attention of the founders of Marxism (especially F. Engels), having served concrete historical. basis for their research on materialistic. basis pl. fundamental social and political problems. development of the early Middle Ages. Socio-economic. the history of F. g. is widely covered in the works of owls. medievalists N. P. Gratsiansky, A. I. Neusykhin and their students. For kings and emperors of F. g., see Art. Merovingians, Carolingians. Source: Salicheskaya Pravda, trans. N. P. Gratsiansky, ed. V. F. Semenova. Moscow, 1950. MGH, Legum sectio 5. Formulae Merovingici et Karolini aevi, Hannoverae, 1886; Diplomata Karolinorum, t. 1-8, Toulouse - P., 1936-46; MGH, Legum sectio 2. Capitularia regum francorum, t. 1-2, ed. A. Boretius et V. Krause, Hannoverae, 1881-97; MGH, Scriptores rerum merovingicarum, t. 1-7, Hannoverae, 1885-1920; Polyptyque de l'Abbaye de Saint-Germain des Pr?s, publ. par A. Longnon, t. 1-2, P., 1886-95. The most important narrative sources - op. Gregory of Tours, Pseudo-Fredegar and his successors (see Art. Fredegar), Eingard, Nythard, Royal Annals, Annals of Fulda, Annals of St. Bertin, etc. Lit .: Engels F., Frankish period, in the book: Marx K. and F. Engels, Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 19; his, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, ibid., vol. 21 (esp., pp. 25-85, 130-78); Petrushevsky D. M., Essays on the history of medieval society and the state, 5th ed., M., 1922; Neusykhin A.I., The emergence of a dependent peasantry as a class of early feudal society in Zap. Europe VI - VIII centuries., M., 1956; Danilov A. I., Problems of agrarian history of the early Middle Ages in German historiography of the late XIX - early XX centuries, M., 1958; Gratsiansky N. P., From the social economic history Western European Middle Ages. Sat. Art., M., 1960; Korsunsky A.R., The formation of the early feudal state in Zap. Europe, M., 1963; Levandovsky A.P., To the question. on the emergence and disintegration of the Middle Ages. nationalities (Frankish nationality), "VI", 1968, No 11; History of France, vol. 1, M., 1972, p. 32-68; (For a more complete list of works by Soviet historians before 1966, see the book: O. L. Vainshtein, History of Soviet Medieval Studies, 1917-1966, M., 1968, pp. 111-13, 252-53); Salin E., La civilization m?rovingienne..., t. 1-4, P., 1950-59; Bosl K., Franken um 800. Strukturanalyse einer fr?nkischen K?nigsprovinz, M?nch., 1959; Müller-Mertens E., Karl der Grosse, Ludwig der Fromme und die Freien, B., 1963; Tessier G., La baptéme de Clovis, P., 1964; Karl der Grosses. Lebenswerk und Nachleben, hrsg. von W. Brauntels, Bd 1-4, Dösseldorf, 1965-67; Geschichte der Franken bis zur Mitte des sechsten Jahrhunderts. Auf der Grundlage des Werkes von L. Schmidt unter Mitwirkung von J. Werner neu bearb. von E. Zellner, Mönch., 1970; Epperlein S., Herrschaft und Volk im karolingischen Imperium, V., 1969; Doehaerd R., Le Haut Moyen?ge occidental..., P., 1971; Duby G., Guerriers et paysans, VII-XII-e si?cle..., P., 1973. Yu. L. Bessmertny. Moscow. -***-***-***- Frankish state

A classic example of an early feudal society in the territory of the Western Roman Empire conquered by the Germanic tribes was the society of the Franks, in which the decomposition of the primitive communal system was accelerated as a result of the influence of the Roman order.

1. Frankish state under the Merovingians

Origin of the Franks. Formation of the Frankish kingdom

In historical monuments, the name of the Franks appeared starting from the 3rd century, and Roman writers called many Germanic tribes Franks, which bore various names. Apparently, the Franks represented a new, very extensive tribal association, which included in its composition a number of Germanic tribes that merged or mixed during the migrations. The Franks broke up into two large branches - the seaside, or salic, Franks (from Latin word"salum", which means sea), who lived at the mouth of the Rhine, and coastal, or Ripuarian, Franks (from the Latin word "ripa", which means coast), who lived south along the banks of the Rhine and Meuse. The Franks repeatedly crossed the Rhine, raiding Roman possessions in Gaul or settling there in the position of allies of Rome.

In the 5th century the Franks captured a significant part of the territory of the Roman Empire, namely North-Eastern Gaul. At the head of the Frankish possessions were the leaders of the former tribes. Of the leaders of the Franks, Merovei is known, under which the Franks fought against Attila in the Catalaunian fields (451) and on whose behalf the name of the Merovingian royal family came. The son and successor of Merovei was the leader Childeric, whose grave was found near Tournai. The son and heir of Childeric was the most prominent representative of the Merovingian family - King Clovis (481-511).

Having become the king of the Salic Franks, Clovis, together with other leaders who acted like him, in the interests of the Frankish nobility, undertook the conquest of vast areas of Gaul. In 486, the Franks captured the Soissons region (the last Roman possession in Gaul), and later the territory between the Seine and the Loire. At the end of the 5th century the Franks inflicted a severe defeat on the Germanic tribe of the Alemanni (Alamans) and partially forced them out of Gaul back across the Rhine.

In 496, Clovis was baptized, having accepted Christianity along with 3 thousand of his warriors. Baptism was a clever political move on the part of Clovis. He was baptized according to the rite adopted by the Western (Roman) Church. The Germanic tribes moving from the Black Sea region - the Ostrogoths and Visigoths, as well as the Vandals and Burgundians - were, from the point of view of the Roman Church, heretics, since they were Arians who denied some of its dogmas.

At the beginning of the VI century. Frankish squads opposed the Visigoths, who owned all of southern Gaul. At the same time, the great benefits that flowed from the baptism of Clovis affected. All the clergy of the Western Christian Church, who lived beyond the Loire, took his side, and many cities and fortified points that served as the seat of this clergy immediately opened the gates to the Franks. In the decisive battle of Poitiers (507), the Franks won a complete victory over the Visigoths, whose dominance from then on was limited only to the borders of Spain.

Thus, as a result of the conquests, a large Frankish state was created, which covered almost all of the former Roman Gaul. Under the sons of Clovis, Burgundy was annexed to the Frankish kingdom.

The reasons for such rapid successes of the Franks, who still had very strong community ties, was that they settled in North-Eastern Gaul in compact masses, without dissolving among the local population (like the Visigoths, for example). Moving deep into Gaul, the Franks did not break ties with their former homeland and all the time drew new forces for conquest there. At the same time, the kings and the Frankish nobility were often content with the vast lands of the former imperial fiscus, without entering into conflicts with the local Gallo-Roman population. Finally, the clergy provided Clovis with constant support during the conquests.

"Salic truth" and its meaning

The most important information about the social system of the Franks is reported by the so-called "Salic Truth" - a record of the ancient judicial customs of the Franks, which is believed to have been made under Clovis. This law book examines in detail various cases from the life of the Franks and lists fines for a wide variety of crimes, ranging from the theft of a chicken to a ransom for killing a person. Therefore, according to the "Salic Truth" it is possible to restore the true picture of the life of the Salic Franks. The Ripuarian Franks, the Burgundians, the Anglo-Saxons, and other Germanic tribes also had such judicial codes - Pravda.

The time for recording and editing this ordinary (from the word custom) folk law is the 6th-9th centuries, that is, the time when the tribal system of the Germanic tribes had already completely decomposed, private ownership of land appeared and classes and the state arose. To protect private property, it was necessary to firmly fix those judicial penalties that were to be applied to persons who violated the right to this property. Firm fixation also required such new social relations that arose from tribal relations, such as territorial, or neighboring, communal peasant ties, the ability for a person to renounce kinship, the subordination of free Franks to the king and his officials, etc.

The Salic Truth was divided into titles (chapters), and each title, in turn, into paragraphs. A large number of titles were devoted to determining the fines that had to be paid for all sorts of thefts. But the “Salic Truth” took into account the most diverse aspects of the life of the Franks, so there were also such titles in it: “On murders or if someone steals someone else’s wife”, “On if someone grabs a free woman by the hand, by the brush or by the finger”, “About quadrupeds, if they kill a man”, “About a servant in witchcraft”, etc.

In the title "On Insult with Words" punishments for insult were determined. The title "On Mutilation" stated: "If someone plucks out another's eye, he is awarded 62 1/2 solidi"; “If he tears off his nose, he is awarded for payment ... 45 solidi”; “If the ear is torn off, 15 solidi are awarded,” etc. (The solidus was a Roman monetary unit. According to the 6th century, it was believed that 3 solidi was equal to the cost of a “healthy, sighted and horned” cow.)

Of particular interest in Salic Pravda are, of course, titles, on the basis of which one can judge the economic system of the Franks and the social and political relations that existed among them.

The economy of the Franks according to the "Salic truth"

According to the Salic Pravda, the economy of the Franks was at a much higher level than the economy of the Germans, described by Tacitus. The productive forces of society by this time had significantly developed and grown. Animal husbandry undoubtedly played an important role in it. The Salic Pravda established in unusual detail what fine should be paid for the theft of a pig, for a one-year-old piglet, for a pig stolen together with a piglet, for a suckling pig separately, for a pig stolen from a locked barn, etc. truth” considered all cases of theft of large horned animals, theft of sheep, theft of goats, cases of horse theft.

Fines were set for stolen poultry (hens, roosters, geese), which indicated the development of poultry farming. There were titles that spoke about the theft of bees and hives from the apiary, about damage and theft of fruit trees from the garden ( The Franks already knew how to graft fruit trees by cuttings.), about stealing grapes from a vineyard. Penalties were determined for the theft of a wide variety of fishing tackle, boats, hunting dogs, birds and animals tamed for hunting, etc. This means that the Frank economy had a wide variety of industries - animal husbandry, beekeeping, gardening, and viticulture. At the same time, such branches of economic life as hunting and fishing have not lost their significance. Livestock, poultry, bees, garden trees, vineyards, as well as boats, fishing boats, etc., were already the private property of the Franks.

Agriculture played the main role in the economy of the Franks, according to Salic Pravda. In addition to grain crops, the Franks sowed flax and planted vegetable gardens, planting beans, peas, lentils and turnips.

Plowing at that time was carried out on bulls, the Franks were well acquainted with both the plow and the harrow. Damage to the harvest and damage to the plowed field were punishable by fines. The resulting harvest from the fields was taken away by the Franks on carts to which horses were harnessed. The harvests of grain were quite plentiful, for the grain was already stacked in barns or rigs, and there were outbuildings at the house of every free Frankish peasant. The Franks made extensive use of watermills.

The Mark community of the Franks

"Salic Truth" also provides an answer to the most important question for determining the social system of the Franks, who owned the land - the main means of production in that era. The manor land, according to the Salic Pravda, was already in the individual ownership of each franc. This is indicated by high fines paid by all persons who in one way or another spoiled and destroyed fences or penetrated with the aim of stealing into other people's yards. On the contrary, the meadows and forests continued to be collectively owned and used by the entire peasant community. The herds that belonged to the peasants of neighboring villages were still grazing in common meadows, and every peasant could take any tree from the forest, including a felled one, if it had a mark that it had been cut down more than a year ago.

As for arable land, it was not yet private property, since the entire peasant community as a whole retained the supreme rights to this land. But arable land was no longer redistributed and was in the hereditary use of each individual peasant. The supreme rights of the community to arable land were expressed in the fact that none of the members of the community had the right to sell their land, and if a peasant died without leaving behind his sons (who inherited the plot of land that he cultivated during his lifetime), this land was returned to the community and fell into the hands of "neighbors", i.e., all its members. But each communal peasant had his own plot of land for the time of plowing, sowing and ripening of grain, he fenced it and passed it on to his sons by inheritance. Land could not be inherited by a woman.

The community that existed at that time was no longer the tribal community that Caesar and Tacitus once described. New productive forces demanded new production relations. The tribal community was replaced by the neighboring community, which, using the ancient Germanic name, Engels called the brand. A village that owned certain lands no longer consisted of relatives. A significant part of the inhabitants of this village still continued to remain connected with tribal relations, but at the same time, strangers already lived in the village, immigrants from other places, people who settled in this village either by agreement with other community members, or in accordance with the royal charter.

In the title "On Settlers", "Salicheskaya Pravda" established that any person could settle in a foreign village if none of its inhabitants protested against it. But if there was at least one person who opposed this, the settler could not settle in such a village. Further, the procedure for eviction and punishment (in the form of a fine) of such a migrant, whom the community did not want to accept as its members, “neighbors”, and who moved into the village without permission, was considered. At the same time, the “Salicheskaya Pravda” stated that “if no protest is presented to the resettled person within 12 months, he must remain inviolable, like other neighbors.”

The settler remained inviolable even if he had a corresponding letter from the king. On the contrary, anyone who dared to protest against such a charter had to pay a huge fine of 200 solidi. On the one hand, this indicated the gradual transformation of the community from a tribal to a neighboring, or territorial, community. On the other hand, this testified to the strengthening of royal power and the allocation of a special layer that towered over ordinary, free community members and enjoyed certain privileges.

Disintegration of tribal relations. The emergence of property and social inequality in Frankish society

Of course, this does not mean that tribal relations no longer played any role in the society of the Franks. Family ties, family remnants were still very strong, but they were more and more replaced by new ones. public relations. The Franks still continued to have such customs as paying money for the murder of a person to his relatives, inheriting property (except land) on the maternal side, paying part of the ransom (wergeld) for the murder for his insolvent relative, etc.

At the same time, "Salicheskaya Pravda" recorded both the possibility of transferring property to a non-relative, and the possibility of voluntary withdrawal from the tribal union, the so-called "renunciation of kinship." Title 60 discussed in detail the procedure associated with this, which, apparently, had already become common in Frankish society. That person who wished to renounce kinship had to appear at a meeting of judges elected by the people, break three branches over his head there, measuring a cubit, scatter them in four directions and say that he renounces the inheritance and from all accounts with his relatives. And if later one of his relatives was killed or died, the person who renounced kinship should not have participated either in the inheritance or in receiving the wergeld, and the inheritance of this person himself went to the treasury.

Who benefited from leaving the clan? Of course, the richest and most powerful people who were under the direct patronage of the king, who did not want to help their less wealthy relatives and were not interested in receiving their small inheritance. There were already such people in Frankish society.

The property inequality among the members of the community is described in one of the most important titles for the characterization of the social system of the Franks, the title of "Salic Truth", entitled "About a handful of land." If someone takes the life of a person, this title says, and, having given all the property, you will not be able to pay what is due according to the law, he must present 12 relatives who will swear that neither on earth nor under the earth he has more than that that they have already been given. Then he must enter his house, pick up a handful of earth from its four corners, stand on the threshold, facing inside the house, and throw this earth with his left hand over his shoulder at his father and brothers.

If the father and brothers have already paid, then he should throw the same land on his three closest relatives by mother and father. “Then, in [one] shirt, without a belt, without shoes, with a stake in his hand, he must jump over the wattle fence, and these three [maternal relatives] must pay half of what is not enough to pay the vira followed by law. The same should be done by the other three, who are relatives on the father's side. If one of them is too poor to pay the share falling on him, he must, in turn, throw a handful of land on one of the more prosperous, so that he pays everything according to the law. The stratification of free francs into poor and rich is also indicated by titles about debt and methods of its repayment, about loans and their recovery from the debtor, etc.

There is no doubt that Frankish society at the beginning of the VI century. already disintegrated into several distinct layers. The bulk of Frankish society at that time consisted of free Frankish peasants who lived in neighboring communities and among whom numerous remnants of the tribal system were still preserved. The independent and full position of the free Frankish peasant is indicated by the high wergeld, which was paid for him in the event of his murder. This wergeld, according to the Salic Pravda, was equal to 200 solidi and was in the nature of a ransom, and not a punishment, since it was also paid in case of an accidental murder, and if a person died from a blow or bite of any domestic animal (in the latter case, iergeld, as usually paid by the owner of the animal in half the amount). So, the direct producers of material goods, i.e., free Frankish peasants, at the beginning of the 6th century. still enjoyed more rights.

At the same time, a layer of new service nobility formed in Frankish society, whose special privileged position was emphasized by a much larger wergeld than that paid for a simple free franc. “Salicheskaya Pravda” does not say a word about the former tribal nobility, which also indicates the already completed disintegration of tribal relations. Part of this tribal nobility died out, part was destroyed by the risen kings, who were afraid of rivals, and part joined the ranks of the service nobility that surrounded the kings.

For a representative of the nobility who was in the service of the king, a triple wergeld was paid, that is, 600 solidi. Thus, the life of a count - a royal official or the life of a royal warrior was already much more expensive than the life of a simple Frankish peasant, which testified to the deep social stratification of Frankish society. Wergeld, paid for the murder of a representative of the service nobility, was tripled a second time (that is, it reached 1,800 solidi) if the murder was committed at a time when the murdered was in the royal service (during a campaign, etc.).

The third layer in the society of the Franks was made up of semi-free, the so-called litas, as well as freedmen, that is, former slaves set free. For semi-freemen and freedmen, only half the wergeld of a simple free franc, that is, 100 solidi, was paid, which emphasized their inferior position in Frank society. As for the slave, it was no longer the wergeld that was paid for his murder, but simply a fine.

So, tribal ties in Frankish society disappeared, giving way to new social relations, the relations of the emerging feudal society. The beginning process of the feudalization of Frankish society was most clearly reflected in the opposition of the free Frankish peasantry to the service and military nobility. This nobility gradually turned into a class of large landowners - feudal lords, for it was the Frankish nobility, who was in the service of the king, who, when seizing Roman territory, received large land holdings already on the rights of private property. The existence in Frankish society (along with the free peasant community) of large estates that were in the hands of the Frankish and surviving Gallo-Roman nobility is evidenced by the chronicles (chronicles) of that time, as well as all those titles of the Salic Truth, which speak of the master's servants or yard servants - slaves (vine growers, blacksmiths, carpenters, grooms, swineherds and even goldsmiths), who served the vast master's economy.

The political structure of Frankish society. Rise of royalty

Profound changes in the field of socio-economic relations of Frankish society led to changes in its political system. On the example of Clovis, one can easily trace how the former power of the military leader of the tribe turned already at the end of the 5th century. into hereditary royalty. A wonderful story has been preserved by one chronicler (chronicler), Gregory of Tours (6th century), which characterized this transformation in a visual form.

Once, says Gregory of Tours, even during the struggle for the city of Soissons, the Franks captured rich booty in one of the Christian churches. Among the captured booty there was also a valuable bowl of amazing size and beauty. The bishop of the Reims church asked Clovis to return this cup, which was considered sacred, to the church. Clovis, who wished to live in peace with the Christian Church, agreed, but added that in Soissons there should still be a division of the booty between them by his soldiers, and that if he received a cup during the division of the booty, he would give it to the bishop.

Then the chronicler tells that in response to the request of the king addressed to them to give him a bowl to transfer to her church, the warriors answered: “Do whatever you please, for no one can oppose your power.” The story of the chronicler thus testifies to the greatly increased authority of royal power. But among the warriors, memories of the times when the king stood only a little higher than his warriors were still alive, he was obliged to share the booty with them by lot, and at the end of the campaign he often turned from a military leader into an ordinary representative of the tribal nobility. That is why one of the warriors, as it is said later in the chronicle, did not agree with the rest of the warriors, raised the ax and cut the cup, saying: “You will not get anything from this, except what is due to you by lot.”

The king was silent this time, took the spoiled cup and handed it over to the messenger of the bishop. However, as follows from the story of Gregory of Tours, Clovis' "meekness and patience" were feigned. After a year, he ordered his entire army to assemble and inspected the weapons. Approaching during the inspection to the recalcitrant warrior, Clovis declared that the weapon of this warrior was kept in disarray by him, and, having pulled out the ax from the warrior, threw it on the ground, and then chopped off his head. “So,” he said, “you did with the cup in Soissons,” and when he died, he ordered the rest to go home, “inspiring great fear in himself.” So, in a clash with a warrior who was trying to defend the previous order of dividing the spoils between the members of the squad and its leader, Clovis emerged victorious, affirming the principle of the king's exclusive position in relation to the members of the squad that served him.

By the end of his reign, Clovis, a cunning, cruel and treacherous man, no longer had rivals in the face of other representatives of the nobility. He sought sole power by any means. Having conquered Gaul and received huge land wealth in his hands, Clovis destroyed the other leaders of the tribe who stood in his way.

Destroying the leaders, as well as many of his noble relatives for fear that they would not take away his royal power, Clovis extended it to all of Gaul. And then, having gathered his close associates, he said to them: "Woe to me, for I have remained as a wanderer among strangers and have no relatives who could give me help if a misfortune happened." “But he said this,” the chronicler wrote, “not because he grieved for their death, but out of cunning, hoping that he could not accidentally find one more of his relatives in order to take his life.” In this way, Clovis became the sole king of the Franks.

The Salic Truth testifies to the increased importance of royal power. According to the data available in it, the royal court was the highest authority. In the regions, the king ruled through his officials - counts and their assistants. The tribal people's assembly no longer existed. It was replaced by military reviews, convened and conducted by the king. These are the so-called "March fields". True, in the villages and hundreds (unification of several villages) the people's court (mallus) was still preserved, but gradually this court began to be headed by the count. All "objects that belonged to the king", according to "Salicheskaya Pravda", were protected by a triple fine. Representatives of the church were also in a privileged position. The life of a priest was guarded by a triple wergeld (600 solidi), and if someone took the life of a bishop, he had to pay an even larger wergeld - 900 solidi. Robbery and burning of churches and chapels were punished with high fines. The growth of state power required its consecration with the help of the church, so the Frankish kings multiplied and protected church privileges.

So, the political system of the Franks was characterized by the growth and strengthening of royal power. This was facilitated by the king's warriors, his officials, his entourage and representatives of the church, that is, the emerging layer of large landowners-feudal lords, who needed royal power to protect their newly emerged possessions and to expand them. The growth of royal power was also facilitated by those prosperous and wealthy peasants who separated from the free community members, from whom a layer of small and medium feudal lords subsequently grew.

Frankish society in the VI-VII centuries.

An analysis of the Salic Pravda shows that both Roman and Frankish social order played an important role in the development of Frankish society after the conquest of the territory of Gaul by the Franks. On the one hand, the Franks ensured the more rapid destruction of slaveholding remnants. “Ancient slavery has disappeared, ruined, impoverished free people have disappeared,” wrote Engels, “those who despised labor as a slave occupation. Between the Roman column and the new serf stood a free Frankish peasant" ( F. Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, pp. 160-161.). On the other hand, not only the final dissolution of tribal relations among the Franks, but also the rapid disappearance of their communal ownership of arable land must be largely attributed to the influence of the Roman social order. By the end of the VI century. it has already turned from a hereditary possession into a complete, freely alienable landed property (allod) of the Frankish peasant.

The very resettlement of the Franks on Roman territory tore and could not but break alliances based on consanguinity. Constant movements mixed tribes and clans among themselves, unions of small rural communities arose, which still continued to own land in common. However, this communal, collective ownership of arable land, forests and meadows was not the only form of ownership among the Franks. Along with it, in the community itself, there was an individual property of the Franks that arose long before the resettlement for a personal plot of land, livestock, weapons, a house and household utensils.

On the territory conquered by the Franks, the private landed property of the Gallo-Romans, preserved from antiquity, continued to exist. In the process of conquering Roman territory, large-scale private ownership of the land of the Frankish king, his warriors, servants and associates arose and established itself. The coexistence of different types of property did not last long, and the communal form of ownership of arable land, which corresponded to a lower level of productive forces, gave way to allod.

The edict of King Chilperic (second half of the 6th century), which established, in a change to the Salic Truth, the inheritance of land not only by the sons, but also by the daughters of the deceased, and in no case by his neighbors, shows that this process took place very quickly.

The appearance of a land allod among the Frankish peasant was of the utmost importance. The transformation of communal ownership of arable land into private ownership, i.e., the transformation of this land into a commodity, meant that the emergence and development of large-scale landownership, associated not only with the conquest of new territories and the seizure of free land, but also with the loss by the peasant of the right of ownership to cultivated land, it became a matter of time.

Thus, as a result of the interaction of socio-economic processes that took place in ancient German society and in the late Roman Empire, Frankish society entered the period of early feudalism.

Immediately after the death of Clovis, the early feudal Frankish state was fragmented into the inheritances of his four sons, then united for a short time and then again fragmented into parts. Only the great-grandson of Clovis Chlothar II and the great-great-grandson Dagobert I managed to achieve a longer unification of the territory of the state in one hand at the beginning of the 7th century. But the power of the Merovingian royal family in Frankish society was based on the fact that they had a large land fund created as a result of the conquests of Clovis and his successors, and this land fund during the 6th and especially the 7th centuries. melted continuously. The Merovingians with a generous hand handed out awards to their warriors, and to their service people, and to the church. As a result of the continuous land grants of the Merovingians, the real basis of their power was greatly reduced. Representatives of other, larger and richer landowning families gained strength in society.

In this regard, the kings from the Merovingian clan were pushed into the background and received the nickname "lazy", and the actual power in the kingdom was in the hands of individual people from the landowning nobility, the so-called major-houses (major-houses were originally called the senior rulers of the royal court, who were in charge of the palace housekeeping and palace servants).

Over time, the mayordoms concentrated in their hands all the military and administrative power in the kingdom and became its de facto rulers. “The king,” the chronicler wrote, “had to be content with just one title and, sitting on the throne with long hair and a loose beard, was only one semblance of a sovereign, listened to the ambassadors who came from everywhere and gave them parting, as if on his own behalf, answers , memorized in advance and dictated to him ... The management of the state and everything that needed to be done or arranged in internal or external affairs, all this lay in the care of the mayor's house. At the end of the 7th and at the beginning of the 8th century. especially strengthened the mayordoms, who came out of the rich noble family of the Carolingians, who laid the foundation for a new dynasty on the throne of the Frankish kings - the Carolingian dynasty (VIII-X centuries).

2. Empire of Charlemagne

Formation of the Carolingian Empire.

In 715. Charles Martell, who ruled until 741, became the mayor of the Frankish state. Charles Martell made a series of campaigns across the Rhine to Thuringia and Alemannia, which became independent again under the “lazy” kings of the Merovingians, and subjugated both areas to his power. He again annexed Frisia, or Friesland (the country of the Frisian tribe) to the Frankish state, and forced the Saxons and Bavarians to pay tribute to him again.

At the beginning of the 8th century the Franks had to face the Arabs, who penetrated from the Iberian Peninsula into Southern Gaul in order to tear it away from the Frankish state. Charles Martell hastily gathered military detachments to repulse the Arabs, as the Arab light cavalry moved forward very quickly (along the old Roman road, which led from the south to Poitiers, Tours, Orleans and Paris). The Franks met the Arabs at Poitiers (732) and won a decisive victory, forcing them to turn back.

After the death of Charles Martell, his son Pepin the Short, so named for his small stature, became the mayor. Under Pepin, the Arabs were finally expelled from Gaul. In the regions beyond the Rhine, Pepin intensively carried out the Christianization of the Germanic tribes, seeking to reinforce the power of arms with church sermons. In 751, Pepin the Short imprisoned the last Merovingian in a monastery and became king of the Franks. Before that, Pepin sent an embassy to the Pope with the question, is it good that the Frankish state is ruled by kings who do not have real royal power? To which the pope replied: "It is better to call the king of the one who has power, rather than the one who lives without having royal power." After that, the pope crowned Pepin the Short. For this service, Pepin helped the pope fight the state of the Lombards and, having conquered the Ravenna region that they had previously captured in Italy, handed it over to the pope. The transfer of the Ravenna region was the beginning secular power papacy.

In 768 Pepin the Short died. Power passed to his son, Charlemagne (768 - 814), who, as a result of a number of wars, managed to create a very large empire. These wars were waged by Charles). The Great, like his predecessors, in the interests of large landowners-feudal lords, one of the brightest representatives of which he himself was, and were due to the desire of large Frankish landowners to seize new lands and to forcibly enslave the peasants who still retained their freedom .

In total, under Charles, more than 50 military campaigns were made, half of them he led himself. Charles was very active in his military and administrative enterprises, skillful in the field of diplomacy and extremely cruel in relation to the Frankish masses and to the population of the lands he conquered.

The first war launched by Charlemagne was the war with the German tribe of the Saxons (772), which occupied the entire territory of Lower Germany (from the Rhine to the Elbe). The Saxons and this time were still at the last stage of the primitive communal system. In a long and stubborn struggle with the Frankish feudal lords, who seized their lands and brought them enslavement, the Saxons put up staunch resistance and showed great courage. For 33 years, Charlemagne fought for the subjugation of the free Saxon peasants. With fire and sword, he planted Christianity among the Saxons, believing that the conquest should be consolidated by the Christianization of the Saxons, who adhered to pre-Christian cults. The subjugation of the Saxons was completed only in 804, when the nobility of the Saxons took the side of the Frankish feudal lords in the struggle against their own people.

Simultaneously with the Saxon wars, Charles, at the request of the pope, and also in his own interests, since he feared the strengthening of the Lombards, undertook two campaigns against them. Having defeated the Lombards who lived in northern Italy in the Po Valley, Charlemagne put on himself the iron crown of the Lombard kings and began to be called the king of the Franks and Lombards (774). However, Charles did not give the captured Lombard regions to the Pope.

Karl undertook a campaign against the German tribe of the Bavarians, depriving them of their independence. Military campaigns under Charlemagne were also directed against the nomadic tribe of Avars, who lived at that time in Pannonia. Having destroyed their main fortress (791), Karl seized huge booty in the palace of the Avar kagan (khan). Having defeated the Avars, Karl created a special border region - the Pannonskuvd brand.

Border clashes under Charlemagne also occurred with the tribes of the Western Slavs, whose settlements were located on the eastern borders of his empire. But the resistance of the Slavic tribes did not allow Charlemagne to include their territories in the empire. He was even forced to enter into alliances with the Slavic nobility against common enemies (for example, with encouragement against the Saxons or with the Slovenes from Horutania against the nomads of the Avars) and limited himself to building fortresses on the Slavic border and collecting tribute from the Slavic population living near it.

Charlemagne made a number of military campaigns beyond the Pyrenees (778-812). On the territory conquered beyond the Pyrenees, a border region was created - the Spanish brand.

So, as a result of long aggressive wars waged by the mayors and kings from the Carolingian family, a vast state was created, in size only slightly inferior to the former Western Roman Empire.

And then Charles decided to declare himself emperor. In 800, Pope Leo III, interested in spreading the influence of the Roman Church in all the lands conquered by the Franks, and therefore in direct alliance with Charlemagne, crowned him with the imperial crown.

The emerging empire enjoyed great influence in the international affairs of its time. The kings of Galicia and Asturias recognized the supreme power of the emperor. On friendly terms with him were the kings of Scotland and the leaders of the Irish tribes. Even the distant Caliph of Baghdad, Harun-ar-Rashid, who sought to rely on an alliance with the empire of Charlemagne in the fight against Byzantium and the Caliphate of Cordoba in Spain, sent rich gifts to Charles.

At the beginning of the ninth century The empire of Charlemagne had to face for the first time a serious danger in the face of the Norman pirates. The Normans, as the Scandinavian tribes that inhabited Scandinavia and Jutland were called at that time, included in their composition the ancestors of modern Norwegians, Swedes and Danes. In connection with what happened in the VIII and IX centuries. among the Scandinavian tribes, by the process of the decomposition of tribal relations, the sharp separation of the nobility and the strengthening of the role of military leaders and their squads, these leaders began to undertake distant sea voyages for the purpose of trade and robbery. Later, these pirate campaigns became a real disaster for the population of Western Europe.

Approval of feudal ownership of land in Frankish society in the VIII-IX centuries.

The basis of changes in the social system of the Franks in the VIII and IX centuries. there was a complete revolution in the relations of land ownership: the ruin of the mass of the free Frankish peasantry and the simultaneous growth of the property of large landowners due to the absorption of small peasant property. Feudal land ownership originated and began to develop among the Franks as early as the 6th century. However, under the Merovingians, it did not play a leading role in the social system. The main cell of the Frankish society in this period was a free peasant community - the brand.

Of course, the development of private ownership of land in those days inevitably led to the growth of large-scale landownership, but at first this process proceeded relatively slowly. Feudal ownership of land became dominant only as a result of the agrarian revolution in the 8th and 9th centuries. On this occasion, Engels wrote: "... before the free Franks could become someone else's settlers, they had to somehow lose the allod they received during the occupation of the land, their own class of landless free Franks had to form" ( F. Engels, The Frankish period, K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. XVI, part I, p. 397.).

Due to low level development of productive forces, the small peasant often found himself unable to retain the allotment he had just received as his property. The small peasant's inability to expand his farm, the extremely imperfect agricultural technique, and therefore the extreme helplessness of the direct producer in the face of all sorts of natural disasters steadily drew him to ruin. At the same time, the unceasing process of internal decomposition of the community itself also led to the separation of wealthy peasants from among the free community members, who gradually took over the lands of their impoverished neighbors and turned into small and medium feudal owners.

So as a result economic changes the free Frankish peasant lost his landed property and fell into complete economic dependence both on large landowners (combatants, king's officials, church dignitaries, etc.) and on smaller feudal lords. This process of loss of their land by the peasants was accelerated by a number of reasons; internecine wars of the Frankish nobility and long military service, for a long time tearing the peasants away from their economy, often into the hottest hole; burdensome taxes, which fell heavily on the peasants as state power increased, and unbearable fines for various kinds of misconduct; forced contributions to the church and direct violence from large landowners.

The difficult situation of the Frankish peasants led to the fact that in the VIII and IX centuries. the practice of so-called precariae has become widespread. The precarium, already known to Roman law, acquired its name from the Latin word “preces”, which means “request”, and even under the Merovingians meant the transfer by a large landowner of a piece of land to a landless peasant for use or possession. For the received land, the peasant was obliged to bear a number of duties in favor of its owner. This was the first, most early form medieval precarium.

Another form, most common in the 8th and 9th centuries, was the following: a peasant, seeing that he was unable to keep his land for himself, “gave” it to a powerful neighbor, and especially often to the church, since the danger of losing land most often consisted for him it is precisely in the presence of such a powerful neighbor. Then the peasant received this land back, but not as his own property, but as a lifetime, sometimes hereditary holding, and again carried certain duties in favor of the landowner. For this, the latter guarded his household.

There were collections of so-called formulas (i.e., samples of legal acts) that formalized such transfers of land. Here is one of the answers of the abbess of the women's monastery to a request for land in the precarium. “To the sweetest woman such and such I am, abbess such and such. Since it is known that you own your property in such and such a district, recently behind the monastery of St. Maria approved and for this she asked us and the named monastery to give [you] a precarium, then with this letter they approved you so that while you are alive, you would own and keep this land in use, but would not have the right to any there was no way to alienate it, and if she decided to do this, she would immediately lose the land ... "

Sometimes the precarist received, in addition to his former land given to him as a precaria, an additional piece of land. This was the third form of precaria, serving mainly the church to attract small proprietors, turn them into precarists and use them work force on uncultivated lands. It is quite clear that both the second and third forms of precaria contributed to the growth of large landownership.

Thus, the precarium was a form of land relations which, in cases where it linked representatives of two antagonistic classes, led simultaneously to the loss by the free Frankish peasant of his land ownership and to the growth of feudal land ownership.

Within the ruling class of landowners at that time, special land relations also developed in connection with the spread of the so-called beneficiaries introduced under Charles Martell after the battle with the Arabs at Poitiers (the Latin word “beneficiura” literally meant “good deed”). The essence of the beneficiation was as follows: land ownership was transferred to one or another person not in full ownership, as was the case under the Merovingians. The person who received the benefices had to carry out military service in favor of the one who gave him this land. In this way, a layer of service people was formed, who were obliged to carry out military service for the land they received. If the beneficiary refused to perform military service, he also lost the beneficiaries. If the beneficiary or the grantor of the beneficiary died, the latter returned to his owner or his heirs. Thus, a beneficiary could not be inherited by the person who received it, and was only a lifelong and conditional land ownership.

Karl Martel received the land he needed for the distribution of beneficiaries by confiscating part of the church property in his favor (this was the so-called secularization, or the transfer of church land into the hands of secular power). Of course, the church was very unhappy with this, despite the fact that it is in all the conquered areas. received new lands and new privileges. Therefore, the successor of Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, although he did not return the selected lands to the church, nevertheless obliged the beneficiaries to pay certain contributions in its favor.

The introduction of beneficiaries, which were distributed along with the peasants who sat on the granted land, led to a further increase in the dependence of the peasants on the landowner and to an increase in their exploitation.

In addition, military power was gradually concentrated in the hands of the ruling class. From now on, large landowners could use the weapons they had in their hands not only against external enemies, but also against their own peasants, forcing them to bear all sorts of duties for the benefit of the landowners.

Enslavement of the Frankish peasantry

The growth of large-scale landownership at the expense of free peasants, who lost the right to own land, was accompanied by their enslavement. The ruined small owner was often compelled not only to hand over his land to the big landowner, but also to become personally dependent on him, that is, to lose his freedom.

“To my lord brother such and such,” it was written in bondage letters on behalf of the peasant. - Everyone knows that extreme poverty and heavy worries have befallen me and I have absolutely nothing to live and dress with. Therefore, at my request, in my greatest need, you did not refuse to give me from your money so much solidus; and I have nothing to pay these solids. Therefore, I asked you to make and approve the enslavement of my free personality so that from now on you will have complete freedom to do with me everything that you are authorized to do with your natural slaves, namely, to sell, barter, punish.

Free peasants could become dependent on a large feudal lord on more favorable terms, without losing their personal freedom at first and becoming, as it were, under the patronage of a large landowner (the so-called commendation, from the Latin word "commendatio" - "I entrust myself"). But it is quite clear that the commandment of a peasant, as well as his transformation into a precarist of some large landowner, led to the same consequences, i.e., to the transformation of this free peasant, as well as his offspring, into serfs.

The state played an active role in this process. This is evidenced by a number of decrees of Charlemagne and his immediate successors. In his decrees (capitulary, from the Latin word “caput” - “head” or “head”, since each decree was divided into chapters), Charles ordered the managers to monitor free peasants living on royal estates, to collect fines from the peasants in favor of the royal court and judge them. In 818-820. decrees were issued attaching all taxpayers to the land, that is, depriving them of the right to freely move from one plot to another. The Carolingians ordered the peasants to sue large landowners and submit to their authority. Finally, in the capitulary of 847 it was directly prescribed that everyone else free man, i.e., first of all, a peasant, found himself a seigneur (master). So the state actively contributed to the establishment of feudal relations in Frankish society.

The feudal estate and its economic life

The result of the revolution in land relations that took place in the 8th and 9th centuries was the final assertion of the landed property of the ruling class. The place of the former free peasant community-mark was taken by a feudal estate with special economic orders inherent in it. What these orders were can be seen from the so-called “Capitulare de villis”, compiled around 800 on the orders of Charlemagne and was an instruction to the administrators of the royal estates. From this capitulary, as well as from other sources of the 9th century, in particular from the so-called “Polyptics of the Abbot Irminon” (i.e., the scribe book of the monastery of Saint-Germain, located in the suburbs of Paris), it is clear that the feudal estate was divided into two parts : a manor estate with a manor's land and a village with allotments of dependent peasants.

The lordly part, or master's land, was called a domain (from the Latin word "dominus" - master's). The domain consisted of a manor's estate with a house and outbuildings, and from a manor's arable land. The mill and the church also depended on the owner of the estate. Domain (master's) arable land was scattered among the peasant plots, that is, there was a so-called striped land, which was necessarily accompanied by a forced crop rotation associated with the practice of open fields after harvest. Everyone had to sow the same thing in a given field and harvest the field at the same time as their neighbors, otherwise the cattle released into the field could destroy the crops not harvested by their owner. The lordly land was cultivated by the hands of peasants who were obliged to work on corvee with their equipment. In addition to arable land, the domain also included forests, meadows and wastelands.

Peasant land, or land of "holding", since the peasants were not its owners, but, as it were, "held" it from the owner of the land - the owner of this estate, was divided into allotments (mansi). Each manse included a peasant yard with a house and outbuildings, a vegetable garden and arable land, scattered in strips with other peasant and landowner lands. In addition, the peasant had the right to use communal pastures and forests.

Thus, unlike a slave who had neither a house, nor a farm, nor property, nor a family, a peasant who worked on the land of a feudal lord had his own house, family, and household. The existence, along with feudal property, of the peasant's property for farming and agricultural implements created a certain interest in the producers of material goods, feudal society, in their work and was a direct stimulus for the development of productive forces in the epoch of feudalism.

The productive forces of society in the VIII and IX centuries. extremely slowly, but growing all the time. There was an improvement in farming techniques, more efficient methods of tillage were used, forests were cleared for arable land, and virgin lands were raised. Relog and two-field gradually gave way to three-field.

Lower-quality types of cereals (oats, barley, rye) were sown mainly in the economically backward parts of the empire (east of the Rhine), while in its central and western regions, qualitatively higher types (wheat, etc.) were increasingly used. From garden crops, legumes, radishes and turnips were bred. From fruit trees - apple, pear and plum. Medicinal herbs and hops needed in the manufacture of beer were planted in the gardens. Viticulture developed in the southern parts of the empire. From industrial crops, flax was sown, which was used to make clothes and linseed oil.

As for agricultural tools, it should be noted that at the end of the 9th century. plows became widespread: a small light plow for working stony or root soils, which only cut the earth into long furrows, and a heavy wheeled plow with an iron share, which, when plowing, not only cut, but also turned the earth over. The harrow, which at that time was a triangular wooden frame with iron teeth, was used mainly in the cultivation of vegetable gardens. The harrowing of the fields was carried out with the help of a heavy wooden log, which was dragged along the plowed field, breaking up the clods of earth. The farm used scythes, sickles, two-pronged pitchforks and rakes.

The grain was cleaned of straw, winnowed with a shovel in the wind, sifted through sieves woven from flexible rods, and finally threshed with simple sticks or wooden flails. The soiling of the fields, as a rule, was carried out irregularly. It is clear that with such a low agricultural technique, the yields were usually extremely low (1 1/2 itself or 2 itself). The peasant economy was dominated by small livestock (sheep, pigs and goats). There were few horses and cows.

The entire economy of a large estate was natural in nature, i.e. the main task of every estate was to satisfy its own needs, and not to produce for sale on the market. The peasants who worked on the estates were obliged to supply the master's court (royal, count, monastery, etc.) with food and provide the owner of the estate, his family and numerous retinue with everything necessary. The craft at that time was not yet separated from agriculture, and the peasants were engaged in it along with arable farming. Only surplus products were sold.

Here is what was said about such a household in the “Capitulary on Estates” (chapter 62): “Let our managers annually, by the Nativity of the Lord, separately, clearly and in order notify us of all our income, so that we can know what and how much we have under separate articles. , exactly ... how much hay, how much firewood and torches, how much tesu ... how many vegetables, how much millet and millet, how much wool, flax and hemp, how many fruits from trees, how many nuts and nuts ... how much from gardens, how much from turnip ridges, how many from fishponds, how many skins, how many furs and horns, how much honey and wax, how much tallow, fats and soap, how much berry wine, boiled wine, honey - drinks and vinegar, how much beer, grape wine, new grain and old, how many chickens, eggs and geese, how many from fishermen, blacksmiths, gunsmiths and shoemakers ... how many from turners and saddlers, how many from locksmiths, from iron and lead mines, how many from heavy people, how many foals and fillies.

Such an estate was the main unit of Frankish society under the Carolingians, which means that in the empire of Charlemagne a large number of economically closed little worlds were created that were not economically connected with each other and independently satisfied their needs with products produced within this economy.

The plight of the peasants and their struggle with the feudal lords

The feudally dependent peasants were subjected to cruel exploitation by the feudal lords. The forms of peasant dependence in the era of feudalism were extremely diverse. It was, as Marx points out, "... unfreedom, which can be mitigated from serfdom with corvée labor to a simple quitrent obligation" ( K. Marx, Capital, vol. III, Gospolitizdat, 1955, p. 803.). Along with the surviving remnants of the free peasantry (especially in the eastern and northern regions of the empire), in the Frankish state of the VIII-IX centuries. there were peasants who depended on the feudal lord only in a judicial respect. However, there were very few such peasants.

The bulk of the feudally dependent peasantry were serfs, over whose person the feudal lords had the right of ownership, albeit an incomplete one (that is, they did not have the right to kill them). The serfs depended on the feudal lord both personally, and in terms of land, and judicially, and paid him heavy feudal rent. It was expressed in the form of various duties - labour-service (corvée), grocery (natural dues) and monetary (monetary dues). The dominant form of rent under the Carolingians, apparently, was labor rent. But at the same time there was rent in kind and partly in cash.

As a personally dependent person, the serf was obliged to give to the feudal lord when he inherited his land allotment, the best head of cattle; was obliged to pay for the right to marry a woman who did not belong to his master, and to make additional payments imposed on him by the feudal lord at will.

As a land-dependent serf, he was obliged to pay dues and work on corvee. This is how the duties of serfs were portrayed in the ninth century. in "The Politics of the Abbot Irminon". From only one peasant allotment (and there were several thousand such allotments in the monastery economy), the monastery of Saint-Germain received annually: half a bull or 4 rams “for military affairs”; 4 denarii ( Denarius = approximately 1/10 g of gold.) total taxation; 5 mods ( Modium = about 250 liters.) grains for horse feed; 100 clefts and 100 fringes not from the master's forest; 6 hens with eggs and after 2 years for the third - a one-year-old sheep. The holders of this allotment were also obliged to plow the monastery field for winter and spring crops three days a week and to perform various manual works for the monastery.

For the resolution of all disputes, the peasant was obliged to apply to the local court, headed by the feudal lord himself or his clerk. It is clear that in all cases the feudal lord resolved disputes in his favor.

In addition, the landowner usually still had the right to collect all sorts of duties - road, ferry, bridge, etc. The position of the working masses became even more difficult as a result of natural disasters, which they then did not know how to deal with, as well as endless feudal strife that ruined the peasant economy.

The cruel feudal exploitation caused a sharp class struggle between the peasants and the feudal lords. The fact that this struggle was widespread is also evidenced by the royal capitularies, who ordered severe punishment of the rebels, and the reports of medieval chroniclers. From these capitularies and chronicles we learn that at the end of the 8th century. in the village of Selt, which belonged to the Bishop of Reims, an uprising of dependent peasants took place. In 821, a "conspiracy" of serfs arose in Flanders. In 841-842. there was a so-called "Stelling" uprising (which means literally "Children of the ancient law") in the region of the Saxons, when free Saxon peasants entered into a struggle both with their own and with the Frankish nobility, who brought them enslavement. In 848, free peasants came out, fighting against enslavement in the Mainz bishopric. A second uprising broke out in the same place in 866. Other movements directed against feudal oppression and exploitation are also known. All these uprisings took place mainly in the ninth century, when a revolution in agrarian relations was completed and the process of enslaving the peasants assumed the widest dimensions.

These uprisings against the ruling class could not win in that historical situation, when the established feudal mode of production had all the conditions for its further development. However, the importance of the early anti-feudal movements of the peasants was very great. These movements were of a progressive character, for their result was a certain limitation of the cruel exploitation of the working people and the creation of more tolerable conditions for their existence. Thus, these movements contributed to the more rapid development of the productive forces of feudal society. The more time the peasant devoted to his own economy, the more he became interested in improving agricultural technology and in raising the productivity of his labor, the faster did feudal society as a whole develop.

Internal organization of the ruling class of feudal lords

Land relations that existed within the class of feudal lords underlay its military-political organization. Beneficiary, as a rule, was connected with relations of vassalage, when a free person who received beneficiaries from a large landowner was called his vassal (from the Latin word "vassus" - servant) and was obliged to serve military service for him. Entry into vassal relations was secured by a certain ceremony. Upon receiving a benefice, a free person announced that he was becoming a vassal of one or another master (seigneur), and the seigneur took an oath of allegiance from him. This ceremony was later called homage (from the Latin word "homo" - a person, since the oath of allegiance contained the words: "I become your person").

In contrast to the relations established between the peasant and the feudal lord, vassal relations did not go beyond the limits of the same ruling class. Vassality consolidated the feudal hierarchy, i.e., the subordination of smaller landowners to larger ones, and larger ones to the largest ones, while the personal dependence of the peasant on the feudal lord led to the enslavement of the peasants.

The administrative structure of the empire

The years of the reign of the first Carolingians include a temporary strengthening of the central state power, the main and determining reason for which, of course, cannot be seen in the "outstanding abilities" of the Carolingians and, in particular, in the "state talent" of Charlemagne. In fact, some strengthening of the central state apparatus under the Carolingians was caused by the most profound changes in the field of social relations.

The class of landowners-feudal lords in this period needed such a central authority that would ensure to it the fastest subjugation of the class of peasants who fought against enslavement, and at the same time would pursue a broad policy of conquest, bringing new lands and new serfs to the big landowners. Thus, changes in the forms of the feudal state were due to fundamental changes in the position of the peasantry and its struggle against the ruling class. The center of administration of the Carolingian Empire became for a time the imperial court with its officials - the chancellor, archcapellan and count palatine. The chancellor acted as secretary to the emperor and custodian state seal. The archchaplain controlled the Frankish clergy, and the count palatine was like the former mayor, in charge of the palace economy and administration.

With the help of the royal capitularies, Charlemagne sought to resolve various issues of governing a vast state. Capitularies were issued by Charlemagne on the advice of large landowners, who twice a year gathered for this purpose in the royal palace.

The empire was divided into regions. The border regions were called marks. The marks were well fortified and served both for defense and as springboards for further captures. At the head of each region were counts, and at the head of the marks - margraves. To control the activities of the counts, Charles sent special sovereign envoys to the region.

Strengthening the state apparatus of the empire, which was especially necessary for the ruling class in the era of fundamental social changes that took place in Frankish society, and aimed at oppressing and enslaving the masses, Charlemagne carried out a judicial reform, abolishing the previously existing obligation of the population to attend district court sessions. Elected positions of judges from among the people were abolished. The judges became state officials, who received a salary and judged under the chairmanship of the count. Military reform was also carried out. Charlemagne stopped demanding military service from the peasants (by this time, for the most part, they had already gone bankrupt and were completely dependent on the feudal lords). Basic military force became royal beneficiaries.

Strengthening the political power of the feudal lords

The assertion of feudal ownership of land led to the strengthening of the political power of the landowners over the working population who sat on their lands. The Merovingians also contributed to the expansion of the private power of large landowners, providing them with so-called immunity rights.

Under the Carolingians, immunity was further developed. The name immunity comes from the Latin word "immunitas", which in translation into Russian means "immunity" of a person, his liberation from something.

The essence of immunity was that the territory of the landowner of the immunist (i.e., the person who received the immunity letter) was exempted by the king from visiting royal officials to perform judicial, administrative, police, fiscal or any other duties. The duty to perform these functions was transferred to the immunist himself, whose private power thus grew greatly. Sometimes the king transferred to the benefit of the immunist all the proceeds that until that time had gone to the benefit of the royal treasury (taxes, court fines, etc.). A large landowner turned out to be a kind of sovereign in relation to the population living on his lands.

The royal power in this way, as it were, itself contributed to the transformation of large landowners into people independent of the king. But this was, of course, only because of her weakness. Immunity, as the sum of the political rights of the feudal lord in relation to the economically dependent peasant, grew and developed independently of the will of kings and emperors. The large landowners, who had received full economic power over the peasant population of their estates, sought to make this population also politically dependent. They arbitrarily carried out court and reprisals on their estates, created their own armed detachments and did not allow royal officials to enter their domains. The central government turned out to be powerless in the fight against such tendencies of large landowners and was forced to formalize the already established relations with the help of immunity letters.

Under the Carolingians, immunity became a ubiquitous phenomenon and turned into one of the powerful means of enslaving the peasantry. Immunity rights extended to wider territories, and the immunists themselves gained even more power. The Immunist now convened court meetings, held trials, searched for criminals, collected fines and duties in his favor, etc.

“At the request of the bishop of such and such,” the kings wrote in their letters, “... we granted him this boon, which consists in the fact that within the estates of the church of this bishop ... not a single sovereign official shall enter to hear judicial cases or the recovery of any judicial fines, but the bishop himself and his successor, in the name of God, by virtue of complete immunity, let them have all the aforementioned rights ... And everything that the treasury could receive there from free or not free and other people, living on the lands ... of the church, let them forever enter the lamps of the aforementioned church.

Finally, in order to ensure the recruitment of free settlers on the lands of large landowners for military service, the Carolingians transferred to these landowners administrative rights over all free settlers on their estates, that is, as if they appointed seigneurs for these previously free people in the legal sense. Thus, significant changes took place in the political position of the people who settled on the lands of a large landowner, that is, peasants and other free people. Previously, these persons were legally equal with the owner of the estate, although they were economically dependent on him. Now they have become people subordinate to the landowner and legally.

The expansion and strengthening of immunity, which in the hands of the ruling class was an instrument of non-economic coercion of the masses of the exploited peasantry, contributed to the process of its further enslavement and intensification of feudal exploitation. "Economic subjugation received political sanction" ( F. Engels, The Frankish period, K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. XVI, part D, pp. 403 .. .). The peasant, who had previously lost the right to own his ancestral land, now lost his personal freedom as well. The private power of the immunist acquired a kind of state character, and the estate of the immunist turned into, as it were, a small state.

The internal weakness of the Carolingian empire and its rapid collapse

Empire of Charlemagne that arose as a result wars of conquest, like other similar empires of ancient and medieval eras, did not have its own economic base and represented a temporary and unstable military-administrative association. It was extremely diverse both from the point of view of the ethnic (tribal) composition of the Carolingian Empire, and from the point of view of its socio-economic development. In a number of areas, tribal features have long been erased. The Germanic tribes that conquered these areas acquired not only provincial dialects Latin, but also the social orders characteristic of the late Roman Empire. The embryos of feudal relations that arose in it (large landownership combined with small farming, subsistence farming, colonies and patrocinium) contributed to the more rapid development of feudalism in such areas of the Carolingian state as Aquitaine, Septimania and Provence. Significantly more backward in terms of the level of development of feudal relations were the regions east of the Rhine. Such areas were Bavaria, Saxony, Alemannia, Thuringia and Frisia, where the development of feudalism was slow and where a large number of tribal remnants were preserved.

Finally, there were areas in the Carolingian Empire in which Romanesque and Germanic elements proved to be ethnically mixed. The interaction of the socio-economic orders that existed among the indigenous Romano-Gallic population with the socio-economic orders that existed among the newcomer Germanic tribes (Franks and Burgundians) led to the development of feudalism in its most classical forms. These areas were those parts of the empire that were, as it were, at the junction between the Romanesque and Germanic worlds, that is, North-Eastern and Central Gaul, as well as Burgundy.

There were no economic ties between the tribes and nationalities united in the empire of Charlemagne by purely violent means. That is why historical development went on not within the boundaries of the empire as a whole, but within the boundaries of individual nationalities and tribes, or their more or less related compounds. The natural tendency of tribes and nationalities, subjugated by force of arms, to liberation from the rule of the conquerors, the undivided dominance of natural economy in feudal estates, the disintegration of Frankish society into a number of economically closed worlds, the continuous growth of the power of large landowners in the localities and the impotence of the central government - all this did inevitable political collapse of the empire.

And indeed, after the death of Charlemagne (814), the empire was first divided among his heirs, and then finally broke up into three parts. This disintegration was formalized by the Treaty of Verdun, concluded between the grandchildren of Charlemagne in 843. One of these grandsons, Charles the Bald, received under the Treaty of Verdun possessions to the west of the Rhine - the West Frankish state (that is, the future France). Another grandson, Louis the German, received possessions east of the Rhine - the East Frankish state (that is, the future Germany). And the eldest grandson - Lothar received a strip of land along the left bank of the Rhine (future Lorraine) and Northern Italy.

Feudal-church culture

In the feudal society that replaced the slave-owning society, a new, feudal culture arose. The bearer of feudal culture in the early Middle Ages was the church.

Religion in feudal society was one of the powerful means of establishing and maintaining the class rule of the exploiters. Promising heavenly bliss as a reward for earthly suffering, the Church by all means distracted the masses from the struggle against the feudal lords, justified feudal exploitation and persistently tried to educate the working people in the spirit of complete obedience to their masters. The influence of the church affected with all its force the spiritual culture of medieval society. “... the feudal organization of the church,” wrote Engels, “consecrated the secular feudal state system with religion. The clergy were also the only educated class. From this it followed by itself that church dogma was the starting point and the basis of all thinking. Jurisprudence, natural science, philosophy - all the content of these sciences was brought into line with the teachings of the church "( F. Engels, Legal socialism, K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. XVI, part I, p. 295.).

The disintegration of feudal society into a number of economically and politically closed little worlds and the widespread rupture of trade, political and cultural ties that existed in the slave-owning society led to the absence of any broad education in the 6th-10th centuries. All the schools that existed at that time (episcopal and monastic) were in the hands of the clergy. The Church determined their program and selected the composition of their students. The main task of the church at the same time was to educate church ministers who were able to influence the masses of the people with their preaching and protect the existing order intact.

From its ministers, the church demanded, in fact, very little - knowledge of prayers, the ability to read the Gospel in Latin, even if not understanding everything that was read, and familiarity with the order of church services. Persons whose knowledge went beyond the limits of such a program appeared in Western European society in the 6th-10th centuries. the rarest exceptions.

In creating schools, the church could not do without some of the elements of secular education that feudal society inherited from the ancient world. By adapting these elements of secular education to its own needs, the church became their unwitting "custodian". The ancient disciplines taught in church schools were called the "seven liberal arts", which meant: grammar, rhetoric and dialectics (the so-called trivium - "three paths of knowledge", or the first stage of learning), and arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music ( the so-called quadrivium - "four paths of knowledge", or the second stage of learning). An attempt to bring together the elements of education inherited from antiquity dates back to the 5th century. and was undertaken by Marcianus Capella. The division of the "liberal arts" into trivium and quadrivium was carried out already in the 6th century. Boethius and Cassiodorus - the last representatives of ancient education.

But the "free arts" of the Middle Ages were a very distant resemblance to what was taught in ancient schools, for representatives of church education claimed that any knowledge is useful only if it helps to better assimilate church teachings. Rhetoric at that time was considered as a subject that helped to competently draw up documents necessary for the church and state. Dialectic (as formal logic was then called) was wholly subordinate to theology and served the representatives of the Church only to fight heretics in disputes. Music was needed during worship, astronomy was used to determine the timing of the onset of various church holidays and for all kinds of predictions.

The astronomical and geographical representations of that time testify to the extreme ignorance of the clergy. The students of church schools were taught that in the extreme east there is paradise, that the earth is like a wheel, that the ocean flows around it on all sides, and that Jerusalem is in its center. The doctrine of the sphericity of the earth was categorically rejected, because the representatives of the church argued that it was impossible to imagine that people on the opposite side of the earth would move upside down.

All information preserved from antiquity that could prompt students to strive for knowledge based on experience was carefully hushed up. Ancient authors deliberately distorted. The monks often destroyed the unique texts on the ancient manuscripts that were in the monastic libraries, and then used the parchment “purified” in this way and expensive to record the monastic chronicles. Genuine knowledge about nature was replaced by superstitious nonsense.

Education, monopolized by the Western Christian Church, was of a very primitive nature. The Church was not, and could not be, interested in preserving all the ancient heritage inherited by the Middle Ages and, forced to turn to the latter, tried to use it only for its own purposes.

"Carolingian Revival"

The so-called "Carolingian revival" further strengthened the position of the church in the field of spiritual culture and education. Some revival of the activities of the clergy and representatives of the imperial authorities in the organization of church schools in the second half of the VIII and at the beginning of the IX century. was associated with the most profound socio-economic changes in the life of society, that is, with a complete revolution in land ownership relations, which led to the strengthening of secular and spiritual feudal lords and to the enslavement of the peasants.

The role of the church in these conditions became more and more important. That is why, while strengthening church authority by creating a layer of literate clerics, the Carolingians left the entire monopoly on education in the hands of the church and in no way changed the orders that existed before. The literate people they needed to work in the state apparatus, the Carolingians drew from church schools.

The tasks facing these schools were clearly and briefly defined by the most prominent figure in the "Carolingian Renaissance" - Alcuin (about 735-804), a pupil of the York school. In one of his letters to Charlemagne, Alcuin wrote: "I work hard on many things in order to educate many for the benefit of God's holy church and to adorn your imperial power." In his capitularies, Charlemagne demanded from the monks the obligatory organization of monastic schools for teaching clerics - reading, counting, writing and singing, since shepherds who are obliged to instruct the people must be able to read and understand "holy scripture". Charlemagne attracted a number of persons capable of heading church schools from Italy, where the clergy had more high level education. So, Charlemagne brought out Peter of Lebanon, Paul the Deacon, Leidard and Theodulf.

Paying great attention to church schools, Charlemagne believed that the laity should be taught only the "truths" of religion and the "creed". For those who refused to study the "creed", Charlemagne prescribed a number of church punishments (fasting, etc.). Royal envoys and earls were obliged to supervise the implementation of these orders.

Thus, both in the capitularies of Charlemagne and in the resolutions of the church councils that met during his reign, it was not a question of raising the general educational level and the rise of culture in all strata of feudal society, but only about the education of a certain circle of people who are able to influence the masses with their preaching. Theology was still considered the "crown of education". Indeed, "... our glorious, taught wisdom of the Lord surpasses all the wisdom of academic science," Alcuin wrote, referring to Plato's Academy. It is clear that with such a formulation of the question, there could not have been any real revival of the "free arts" of antiquity.

Textbooks, compiled in the form of dialogues between a teacher and a student, testify to the extremely low level of education at that time. An example of such a manual is a dialogue written by Alcuin for the son of Charlemagne - Pepin:

“P and n and n. What is a letter? - A l to at and n. Guardian of History. P and p and n. What is a word? - A l to at and n. Traitor of the soul ... P and p and n. Who does the person look like? - A l to at and n. To the ball. - P and p and n. How is the person placed? - A l to at and n. Like a lamp in the wind ... P and p and n. What is a head? - A l to at and n. The top of the body.- P and p and n. What is a body? - A l to at and n. The dwelling of the soul ... P and p and n. What is winter? - A l to at and n. Summer exile. P and p and n. What is spring? - A l to at and n. Painter of the earth, etc.

All the literature of the Carolingian period was purely imitative, mainly Christian literature of the first centuries of our era. This can be seen from the works of Alcuin himself, and from the works of his student - the biographer of Charlemagne - Eingard. However, the manuscripts improved significantly during this time. A writing reform was carried out, as a result of which a clear letter (Carolingian minuscule) was established everywhere, which served as the basis for the modern outline of Latin letters. The scribes decorated the manuscripts with miniatures (small pictures) on biblical themes.

Along with church works, Carolingian scribes also copied books of ancient authors (poets, philosophers, lawyers and politicians), which contributed to the preservation of these manuscripts.

It is necessary to mention the construction that took place under Charlemagne. In an effort to increase the importance of imperial power and the church, he ordered the construction of palaces and cathedrals in Aachen and other points of his state. In their architecture, the buildings resembled the style of Byzantine buildings in Ravenna.

Construction equipment in the West at that time was extremely imperfect. By order of Charlemagne, marble columns were often used in the construction of buildings, which were taken out of Italy as a whole. At the same time, ancient monuments of art were barbarously destroyed. However, most of the buildings erected under Charles were wooden and therefore died very quickly.

The "Carolingian Renaissance" was very short-lived. The rapid collapse of the empire could not but affect the field of culture. Modern chroniclers, recording the pitiful state of education in the period following the collapse of the empire, noted that the kingdom of the Franks had become an arena of unrest and war, that internecine strife was seething everywhere, and that the study of "how scripture and the liberal arts" is completely neglected.

Thus, the actual picture of church activity in the field of spiritual culture in the early Middle Ages indicates that the monopoly on education, seized by the church at the earliest stage of development of feudal society, led to very deplorable results. “From antiquity to the inheritance,” wrote Engels, “were Euclid and solar system Ptolemy, from the Arabs - the decimal number system, the beginnings of algebra, the modern inscription of numbers and alchemy - the Christian Middle Ages left nothing "( F. Engels, Dialectics of Nature, Gospolitizdat, 1955, p. 5.).

The church saw one of its main tasks in keeping the masses in a state of extreme ignorance and thereby contributing to their more complete enslavement.

The then dominant feudal-church culture had a pronounced class character.

Folk art in the early Middle Ages

“The thoughts of the ruling class,” Marx and Engels pointed out, “are the dominant thoughts in every epoch. This means that the class which represents the dominant material force of society is at the same time its dominant spiritual force. K. Marx and F. Engels, German Ideology, Soch., vol. 3, ed. 2, p. 45.). But this does not mean that, being the dominant one, this culture is the only one.

Just as the teachings of the church, which justified and defended feudal exploitation, were opposed by heretical anti-feudal teachings of the people, so the spiritual culture of the ruling class was opposed by the spiritual creativity of the masses: fairy-tale epic epics, songs, music, dances and dramatic action.

The richness of folk art is primarily evidenced by the fact that the original basis of the largest epic works of the Western European Middle Ages were folk tales. These folk tales were preserved with the greatest completeness in the northern and northwestern regions of Europe, where the development of feudal relations took place relatively slowly and where a significant stratum of the free peasantry existed for a long time.

The epic works of the Burgundian and Frankish society - the Nibelungenlied and the "heroic poems", in particular the Song of Roland, survived only in the form of later works, in which the original folk tales underwent an appropriate processing in the interests of the ruling class. However, formed on the basis of a folk epic that poeticized the struggle of Charlemagne with the Arabs, the “Song of Roland” bears the features of a powerful popular influence. It is expressed in those parts of this poem that speak of love for "sweet France", of hatred for enemies who encroach on her freedom, and where all feudal lords who betray the interests of the motherland for the sake of personal interests are condemned.

a huge role in the national creativity V-X centuries, music and poetry undoubtedly played. The most widespread in Frankish society were folk songs and epics, all kinds of comic and satirical songs.

The masses of the people for a very long time adhered to pre-Christian customs, made sacrifices to the former deities, combined pre-Christian religious rites with Christian ones, and “defiled” Christian churches with folk songs and dances. In the VI century. in the south of Gaul, there were cases when the people, interrupting the church service, proclaimed: “Saint Martial, pray for us, and we will dance for you!” After which a round dance was arranged in the church and folk dances began.

The Catholic Church treated the musical and poetic creativity of the people sharply negatively. Seeing in such creativity a manifestation of “pagan”, “sinful”, “not corresponding to the Christian spirit” folk activity, the church persistently sought its prohibition and severely persecuted the direct spokesmen and bearers of the musical culture of the people - folk singers and dancers (mimes and histrions).

Numerous church decrees directed against folk singers and actors have been preserved. Folk art, which these singers and actors represented, had a pronounced anti-feudal character and was dangerous to the ruling class. Therefore, the church tirelessly pursued him. That is why Alcuin declared that "a man who lets histrions, mimes and dancers into his house does not know what a large crowd of unclean spirits follows them." Charlemagne, in turn, persecuted these persons, referring them to the number of "dishonored", and categorically forbade the representatives of the clergy to keep "falcons, hawks, packs of dogs and buffoons" with them. The same spirit was imbued with numerous resolutions of church councils. However, the vitality of folk song and folk dramatic art proved irresistible.

Folk art also existed in the field of fine and applied arts, despite the fact that the latter were completely subordinated to the interests of the church and the talent of folk craftsmen was placed at the service of the ruling class of feudal lords. Various artistically made objects have been preserved that served to decorate church buildings or were used during church services (richly ornamented bells; shrines that served to store relics, decorated with carved items made of wood or bone; various church utensils - bowls, crosses and candlesticks made of precious metals; cast bronze church gates, etc.).

Unknown, but skillful craftsmen who created these objects, undoubtedly, strived for the fullest possible satisfaction of church tastes and did not go beyond the limits of biblical traditions in their work. However, the images themselves in a number of cases bore traces of folk influence, which was expressed in a realistic interpretation of human figures, in the use of folk ornaments and in the image of various really existing or fabulous animals.

The influence of folk art also affected the execution of miniatures, all kinds of headpieces and capital letters that adorned church manuscripts. Miniatures were usually in color, as were capital letters, which were often depicted either in the form of fish or animals, then in the form of all kinds of birds (storks with a snake in their beak, peacocks, roosters, ducks), then in the form of special combinations of leaves, rosettes, etc. “Animal ornamentation” has been preserved in folk art since the distant prehistoric past. The folk ornament in the form of ribbon braid was also widely used in monastic manuscripts. Patterned fabrics (carpets, church bedspreads) in the same way testified that the influence of folk art did not remain without a trace for this branch of applied art.

In 395, the Roman Empire, by her will, last emperor Theodosius was divided between his sons into two parts. This is how the Western Roman Empire with its capital in Rome and the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) with its capital in Constantinople were formed.

The Western Roman Empire fell under the blows of the barbarian tribes in the 5th century. Has begun new period in history, known as the "Middle Ages".

Barbarians in the Western Roman Empire

The Romans, following the Greeks, called "barbarians" all peoples living outside their state and speaking a language incomprehensible to them. They gave them the collective name "Germans".

Initially, the Germans moved from the Rhine to the Danube in search of food, shelter and wealth, leaving behind disasters and the destruction of houses, bridges and roads. Not all Germanic tribes were wild barbarians; some of them switched to a settled way of life and tried to live in a civilized way. The leader of the German tribe Odoacer, who deposed the last emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustulus, managed to establish diplomatic relations with the Byzantine Empire. In the future, the barbarians created kingdom-states, some of which lasted several centuries.

Formation of barbarian kingdoms

Having settled in the territory of the former Roman Empire, the barbarian tribes created their own kingdoms. By the end of the 5th century, several barbarian states were known, among which were the Visigothic (formed by the Western Goths), the Ostrogothic (created by the Eastern Goths), the Vandal (the state of the Vandal tribe), the Burgundian (the state of the Burgundians) and the Frankish state created by the Franks. The rest of the Germanic tribes did not have their own statehood.

Large associations of Germanic tribes settled in the territories that now belong to western Germany and western France. In the conquered areas, the Germans were a minority of the population, but they held power thanks to their militancy and well-organized leadership.

The formation of barbarian states changed the life of the Germanic tribes. The differences between the conquerors and the conquered peoples gradually smoothed out, business and family ties began to be established between them. The Germans began to adopt the way of life, traditions, methods of leadership and legislation of the conquered peoples; experienced Roman nobility was involved in government. Taxes had to be paid not only by the Romans, but also by the Germans. But the inequality between the Germans and the Romans persisted: the Romans were not allowed to join the army - only the Germans could serve the king.

In economic terms, the conquerors used the advanced Roman methods of farming. Internal trade was restored, which was widely developed in the Roman Empire; increased trade in handicraft goods between states.

The rise of the Frankish state

In 486, as a result of the unification of the Germanic tribes that had advanced from Northern Europe(from the territory of modern Belgium) the state of the Franks was formed in Gaul. In ancient times, Gaul was a province of the Roman Empire, conquered by Julius Caesar.

Over the centuries, the Gauls adopted a lot from the culture and lifestyle of the Romans. From the name of the Frankish tribes who came to the territory of Gaul, there was the name of the country that later formed here - France.

The main dynasties that ruled the Franks for a long time were the Merovingian and Carolingian dynasties. The history of the Frankish kingdom begins with the Merovingian dynasty. ()

State of the Franks under Clovis

Reign of King Clovis

The leader of the Salian Frankish tribe, Clovis, from the Merovei clan, was the founder of the Merovingian royal dynasty (V-VII centuries).

Clovis (486-511) managed to unite all the Franks into a single state that lasted 200 years. His reign marked a turning point in European history for several reasons:

1. - Clovis created the first strong state of the Franks, located north of the Alps;
2. - He became the first military leader of the Franks, who received the title of king;
3. - Clovis was the first of the kings of the barbarian states to accept Christianity.
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Borders of the state of the Franks in the VI century

The territory of the new state during the reign of Clovis expanded significantly and became about three times larger than the territory of Gaul, which the Franks came to in the 5th century. Borders have shifted in all directions; especially a lot of land was conquered in the west and southwest. By 507, the entire territory on which the modern France, was under the rule of Clovis. The capital of the state was the city of Paris.

The expansion of the borders led to the acquisition of the wealth of the conquered peoples, who were forced to pay tribute to the Franks.

Administration in the Kingdom of the Franks

To create a powerful kingdom, Clovis used a single power, a single law and a single religion. All power was concentrated in the hands of the king: he was the supreme owner of all lands; all taxes went to the royal treasury and the king was the commander-in-chief of the army (team). In case of military necessity, a militia was assembled, which also entered the service of the king.

To strengthen the state, Clovis ordered to collect all the norms and rules existing among the Franks into a single legislation, called the Salic Truth (LexSalica). By using established laws, obligatory for all inhabitants of the country, managed to keep the Franks in obedience and maintain order in the state. Salic truth is important source to study the legislation, management system, economy and customs of the Franks.

When governing the state, Clovis relied on a single religion - Christianity, to which he himself converted and forced his subjects to convert. His role in converting the Franks to Christianity was so great that the Pope officially recognized Clovis as the first king of the Franks.

Changes in the life of the Franks in the VI-VII centuries

Since the 6th century, the Franks began to stratify society: wealthy and poor residents appeared. The peasant community, which previously supported its members, helping them in case of need, lost its significance - there was a withdrawal of peasants from the community in order to create their own farms. Former community members who lost their property left the settlement and became vagrants.

Inequality was reflected in the legislation: the law determined in different ways the measure of responsibility of the rich and the poor for the same crime or violation of the law. For the poor, the fine was several times higher than the fine for wealthy citizens. Judicial punishment for the poor was more severe.

In Frankish society, there were slaves who appeared as a result of conquests. But slave labor was not widely used and gradually disappeared.

Reasons for the strength of the Frankish state

Internal and foreign policy Clovis ensured the strength of the Frankish state. Causes sustainable development countries were the following features state structure francs:

Royal power was concentrated in the center, at the court of the king, and on the outskirts of the country, the envoys of the king, the counts, followed the observance of royal decrees and the collection of taxes in favor of the king;

The dependence of the Frankish nobility on the king was ensured by the fact that the aristocracy - counts and dukes - received land from the king, subject to military service;

The army (team) was in full submission to Clovis.

The centralization of power and reliance on close associates allowed Clovis to create a strong state.

The weakening of the state of the Franks under the successors of Clovis. Battle of Poitiers

Weakening of the state of the Franks

After the death of Clovis, at his will in 511, the state of the Franks was divided into four parts, transferred under the control of the sons of Clovis.

Initially, the expansion of the state, begun by Clovis, continued under his sons: Burgundy was annexed to the Frankish state. But over time, the divided state lost its power, the power of the kings became more and more weak, and the rulers (mayordomes or majordomes) who were at the royal court, who knew the secrets of government well, concentrated considerable power in their hands. They managed to turn into large landowners and become military leaders in their areas.

In the 7th-8th centuries, the power of the mayordoms became so strong that they could appoint and dismiss kings, who received the name "lazy" because of their weakness. The Merovingian dynasty was losing power. Mayor Charles Martell at the beginning of the 8th century managed to defeat rivals striving for complete power and lay the foundations of a new dynasty - the Carolingians (from the Latin spelling of the name Charles - Carolus). The Carolingians ruled the Frankish state from the end of the 7th century, first as majordoms, and from 751 as kings.
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Wars of the founder of the Carolingian dynasty

The founder of the Carolingian dynasty, Charles Martell (715-741), set as his goal the strengthening of the central government. To do this, he had to pacify the recalcitrant Germans. Having defeated the Saxons, Frisians, Bavarians, the Dukes of Aquitaine and the rulers of Provence, Charles Martel forced them to pay tribute to him.

Martell had to fight a new external threat - the Arab conquerors. The Arabs, moving from the Arabian Peninsula, had as their goal the creation of a huge Islamic state - the Caliphate. They managed to conquer a significant part of European countries, including Spain; their next target was the state of Charles Martel.

In 732, a well-trained Arab army invaded the territory of the Frankish kingdom, but was rebuffed. The decisive battle of the Franks with the Arab army took place at Poitiers. In the battle, Karl Martell used new units - the Frankish cavalry. The Franks inflicted a crushing defeat on the Arabs, the leader of the Arabs died in battle. The significance of the Frankish victory was great: by defeating the Arab offensive, they protected the rest of Europe from foreign conquest and prevented the conversion of the Christian population to the Islamic religion.

The main features of feudal relations in the state of the Franks

After the victory over the rebellious feudal lords and Arabs, the state of the Franks continued to strengthen. New relations were formed, which were called feudal (from the word "feud"). A feud is a piece of land received from a ruler on condition that he performs military service. The feud could be inherited if the sons of the deceased owner continued to serve in the military. The property included a land plot along with settlements located on it, fields, meadows, forests, rivers and roads.

With the strengthening of the feudal system, the peasants increasingly became dependent on the feudal lords, as they had to bear certain duties (for example, work on the land of the owner for a certain number of days) and pay taxes. Due to lack of funds, the peasants fell into debt dependence on the feudal lords. Many of the workers went bankrupt and left the village in search of a better life.

To create a land fund, Charles Martell confiscated the lands of recalcitrant feudal lords, partially took away church and monastic lands, which caused dissatisfaction with part of the feudal lords and the Catholic Church. This problem had to be solved by the next rulers of the Carolingian dynasty.

Rule of the Carolingian dynasty in the 8th century. Education of the Papal States

Beginning of the Carolingian dynasty

The first Carolingians were mayordoms; Pepin the Short, son of Charles Martel, became the first king of the Carolingian dynasty. The new dynasty ruled the state of the Franks from 751 to 843 and was glorified not only by Pepin the Short, but also by his son, named Charlemagne.

Pepin the Short managed to enlist the support of the feudal lords and the church - the church lands selected under Charles Martell were recognized as church property and returned to the church. The Catholic Church became a loyal ally of the Carolingian kings.

In 751 Pepin the Short was crowned king by the pope. For the subjects of the kingdom, this meant that Pepin received support from God himself. The last Merovingian king was sent to a monastery. In exchange for the favor of the pope, Pepin promised support for the Catholic Church, whose possessions were attacked by the Germanic tribe of the Lombards. The skillful policy of Pepin the Short made it possible to strengthen the Frankish state.

Carolingians and the Papal States

In the history of the Catholic Church, the formation of the papal region was of great importance. The territories of the city of Rome and the lands adjacent to it until the middle of the VIII century were part of Byzantine Empire, then were conquered by the Lombards. Events forced the Pope to seek protection from the Franks. Pepin the Short made two campaigns against the Lombards, in 754 expelled the Lombards from Rome and handed over Rome and Ravennupapa. Thus was formed the Papal States, where the Pope ruled undividedly.

The borders of the Papal States separated northern Italy from southern Italy and stretched from the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Adriatic coast. The granting of land to the Pope strengthened the alliance between the Catholic Church and the Frankish state.

The reign of the Merovingians and the first Carolingians laid the foundation for the creation of large and strong European states

The state of the Franks is an early feudal monarchy. It arose in a transitional society from a communal to a feudal society, which passed the stage of slavery. Formation during the life of one generation. Features: multiformity (combination of slave-owning tribal, communal, feudal relations), incompleteness of the process of creating the main classes.

Formation of a feud. Rel-tion is not the same: the Franks (north) entered into feudalism in the process of decomposition of primitive communities. building, the Gallo-Romans (south) - during the collapse of the slave-owning community. 2 periods in development:

1) the end of the 5th-7th centuries. - Merovingians; preservation of community ties, not developed relations of exploitation, few know.

There were: slaves (like things; marriage with a slave led to the loss of freedom), serving the nobility, free community Franks, semi-free litas (for life - 100 solidi; a community resident in personal and mater. dependence on the holy master). An important factor of legal distinction is royal service. After the death of Clovis, strife, then calm. The kings, in order to attract the nobility, generously endowed it with land on property rights (allods), the church was enriched.

From the 7th c. - private property is approved in the brand (community); the number of landless peasants is growing; they are enslaved by the precaria (transfer to the peasant of a plot of land by a feudal lord on certain conditions: corvée, part of the harvest, etc.); patronage arises (peasants resorted to the protection of strong persons - they were given under protection (commandation)

Transfer of land on the right of ownership with its subsequent return in the form of holding, establishing personal dependence of the weak on the patron, performing duties in favor of the patron);

The Merovingians, having distributed the lands, retired; period of "lazy kings"; state power in the hands of the nobility (the post of mayor - at first he managed the king's palace, then he himself became one).

• 2) 8th century - 843 - the creation of a large feud is completed. land property, 2 bases. feudal classes. about-va; the reform of Charles Martel (he transferred the confiscated lands for life holding - the beneficiary - for military service) spurred the growth of feudal landownership and the enslavement of peasants, gave impetus to the formation of relations of suzerainty-vassalage; the immunity rights of seniors are increased;
• 751 - Pepin - king; under his son Charlemagne, major campaigns of conquest, his proclamation as emperor, congresses of the nobility (Great Field).

Features of state bodies. controls:

• 1) position persons at the same time carried out both households and adm.-court. power;
• 2) remuneration for service - land grants and the right to keep for themselves part of the dues from the population;
• 3) lack of distinction between the spheres of state. management.

Central governing bodies: ministerials - senior officials (majordom; palatine count - supervision of royal servants and the palace court;

thesaurary - treasurer; referendary - manager of the office; marshal - head of the royal army;

archchaplain - confessor of the king).

Local authorities: the territory consisted of districts (pags), ruled by counts, districts were divided into hundreds (headed by centenaries in the North and vicars in the South), hundreds - into communities (retained self-government), on the borders - duchies.

Supreme Court. power - the monarch (together with representatives of the nobility) - the most dangerous offenses. The main ones are hundreds of courts chaired by elected Tungins. Judges (rachinburgs) were chosen at malbergs - meetings of hundreds of free people.

Later, instead of the Tungins, the people of the king; envoys (missions) appointed skabins instead of rachinburgs. The immunist seigneurs expanded their rights in the field of judging the peasants in their domains. The church could judge.

The social system of the Franks is the Merovingian dynasty (end of the 5th - 7th centuries) - an early feudal monarchy; the Carolingian dynasty (VIII - mid-IX centuries) - a senior monarchy, a period of feudal fragmentation.

The state of the Franks passed the stage of slavery.

The Frankish wars of conquest accelerated the process of creating the Frankish state. The deepest reasons for the formation of the Frankish statehood were rooted in the decomposition of the Frankish free community, in its class stratification, which began in the first centuries of the new era.

The state of the Franks in its form was early feudal monarchy. This society is characterized by a multiform structure (a combination of slave-owning, tribal, communal, feudal relations), and the incompleteness of the process of creating the main classes of feudal society.

In the second period, the creation of large-scale feudal land ownership, the two main classes of feudal society, is basically completed: the closed, hierarchically co-subordinate class of feudal lords, bound by vassal ties, on the one hand, and the dependent peasantry exploited by it, on the other. The relative centralization of the early feudal state was replaced by feudal fragmentation.

In the V-VI centuries. the Franks still retained communal, tribal ties, relations of exploitation among the Franks themselves were not developed, and the Frankish service nobility, which formed into the ruling elite during the military campaigns of Clovis, was not numerous.

Salic truth also indicates that the Franks had the following social groups:

serving to know;

free francs (communities);

semi-free litas;

Position slaves. Slave labor, however, was not widespread. A slave, in contrast to a free community-franc, was considered a thing. His theft was equivalent to the theft of an animal. The marriage of a slave to a free man entailed the loss of freedom by the latter.

An important factor influencing the legal differences of the Franks was belonging to the royal service, the royal squad, to the emerging state apparatus.

Along with slaves, there was a special category of persons - semi-free do you. Lit was an inferior resident of the Frankish community, who was personally and materially dependent on his master. Litas could enter into contractual relations, defend their interests in court, participate in military campaigns together with their master. Lit, like a slave, could be freed by his master, who, however, had his property. For a crime, the litu was supposed, as a rule, the same punishment as a slave, for example, the death penalty for kidnapping a free person.

The right of the Franks reflects the beginning of the property stratification of the Frankish society. The Salic Truth speaks of the master's servants or yard servants-slaves (vine growers, grooms, swineherds and even goldsmiths) serving the master's economy.

At the same time, the Salic truth testifies to the sufficient strength of the communal order, to communal ownership of fields, meadows, forests, wastelands, to the equal rights of communal peasants to communal land allotment. The very concept of private ownership of land in the Salic truth is absent. It only captures the birth allod, providing for the right to transfer allotment by inheritance through the male line. Allodium- the alienable, inheritable land tenure of the free Franks - developed in the process of decomposition of communal ownership of land.

It underlay the emergence, on the one hand, of the patrimonial land tenure of feudal lords, and on the other hand, the land holding of peasants dependent on them. The further deepening of social class differences among the Franks was directly related to the transformation of the allod into the original form of private feudal land ownership.

The processes of feudalization among the Franks receive a powerful impetus during the wars of conquest of the 6th-7th centuries, when a significant part of the Gallo-Roman estates in Northern Gaul passes into the hands of the Frankish kings, the serving aristocracy, and royal warriors.

Serving nobility, bound to some extent by vassal dependence on the king, who seized the right to dispose of the conquered land, becomes a major owner of land, livestock, slaves, colonies. It is replenished with a part of the Gallo-Roman aristocracy, which goes into the service of the Frankish kings.

Already in the middle of the 7th century. in Northern Gaul, a feudal patrimony begins to take shape with its characteristic division of land into master (domain) and peasant (hold). The stratification of the "ordinary free" during the conquest of Gaul also occurred due to the transformation of the communal elite into small estates due to the appropriation of communal land. V-VI centuries. in Western Europe, the beginning of a powerful ideological offensive christian church.

The growing ideological and economic role of the church could not fail to manifest itself sooner or later in its power claims. However, the church at that time was not yet a political entity, did not have a single organization, representing a kind of spiritual community of people led by bishops, of which, according to tradition, the bishop of Rome was considered the most important, who later received the title of pope.

The activities of the church as "Christ's governors" on earth were increasingly intruded on by kings, who, in order to strengthen their extremely unstable power, appointed bishops from their close associates, convened church councils, and presided over them.

It was a time of ever closer intertwining of secular and religious authorities, when bishops and other religious figures sat in government bodies, and local civil administration was carried out by diocesan administrations. The rapid growth of feudal relations is characterized by the VII-IX centuries. At this time, an agrarian revolution took place in Frankish society, which led to the widespread establishment of large-scale feudal land ownership, to the loss of land and freedom by the community, and to the growth of the private power of feudal magnates.

To weaken the power of the Frankish kings led primarily to the depletion of their land resources. Only on the basis of new grants, the granting of new rights to landowners, the establishment of new lordship-vassal ties, could the strengthening of royal power and the restoration of the unity of the Frankish state take place at this time. Such a policy was pursued by the Carolingians, who actually ruled the country even before the transfer of the royal crown to them in 751.