Impossibility Of Classification.
We see by this table, that, notwithstanding the common opinion to the contrary, the wehrgeld is by no means an exact and certain indication of social conditions. It is not determined uniformly according to the origin, the quality, the position of individuals. The circumstances of the murder, the official character of the criminal, the greater or less usefulness or commonness of the man slain, all these variable elements enter into the determination of the wehrgeld. The simple fact of the murder having been committed at the court of the duke, while the victim is going to or returning from the house of the count, triples the wehrgeld of every man, whether he be a slave or a freeman, a Barbarian or a Roman. The elements of the wehrgeld are very numerous; it varies according to places and times. The Roman, the tributary, the slave, according to circumstances, may be valued at a greater or a less sum than a barbarian free man. We see many general indications which serve to show that the Roman was commonly less esteemed than a barbarian, the tributary or the slave less than the free man. This is very easily accounted for, and might have been anticipated. But it is not on this account less difficult to draw from such facts a positive indication of the state of individuals,—a precise and complete classification of social conditions.
True Test Of Social Conditions.
There is no resource left but to renounce the idea of classifying social conditions, and of determining the condition of persons, according to any general principle, resting either on the nature of territorial properties, or in the legal appreciation of the value of different lives. We must simply inquire, by the aid of historical facts, who were the strong and powerful at the time; what common name was given to them; what share of influence and of liberty fell to the lot of those who were simply called free men. We shall thus arrive at clearer and more certain results. We shall often find that landed property is a great and principal source of strength, and that the wehrgeld is an indication of the amount of importance or of liberty possessed by individuals; but we shall not attribute to these two principles a general and decisive authority, and we shall not mutilate facts in order that they may harmonize with our hypotheses.
Lecture XVII.
Of the Leudes or Antrustions.
Men, faithful to the king and to the large proprietors.
Different means of acquiring and retaining them.
Obligations of the Leudes.
The Leudes are the origin of the nobility.
Bishops and heads of monasteries were reckoned among the leudes of the king.
Moral and material power of the bishops.
Efforts of the kings to possess themselves of the right of nominating bishops.
Free men.
Did they form a distinct and numerous class?
The arimanni, and rathimburgi.
Mistake of M. de Savigny.
Rapid and general extension of the feudal hierarchy.
The freedmen.
q Different modes of enfranchisement:
First, the denariales, enfranchised with respect to the king:
Second, the tabularii, enfranchised with respect to the church:
Third, the chartularii, enfranchised by a charter.
Different consequences resulting from these different modes of enfranchisement.
The Leudes Or Antrustions.
The first whom we meet with at this time occupying the highest place in the social scale are the Leudes, or Antrustions. Their name indicates their quality—trust expresses fidelity. They were men who had proved faithful, and they succeeded the associates of the German chiefs. After the conquest, each of the chiefs established himself, together with his own men, on a certain territory. The king had a larger and more considerable number of followers. Many remained with him. He had different means, which he very assiduously employed, of attaching to himself his Leudes, or of acquiring them.