In the feudal age practically every landlord exercised over his lands and tenants rights and authority which are now regarded as sovereign rights belonging to the state. This was due in the main to the practice of the Merovingian and Carolingian kings of granting immunity to the churches and the great landlords, a practice which naturally grew with the increasing weakness of the monarchy and the growth of the power of the nobles. A grant of immunity operated to exclude the public officials from lands, which were then in theory under the immediate control of the king. In the late Merovingian period the weakness of the kings and the disorganization of the public administration left the control of immunity domains really in the hands of the landlords. The holder of land covered by a grant of immunity thus came to represent the state to the people on his lands. He established courts for the trial of cases arising among his tenants or represented them before the public courts; he was also frequently given the right to collect the taxes, revenues, tolls, etc., from the lands of people, which would otherwise go to the royal treasury. Most of the grants of immunity which have come down to us are in favor of church lands, but they were also granted to secular lords. The churches preserved their documents better than secular persons did.
190. Precept of Chlothar II, 584–628.
M. G. LL. 4to, II, 1, no. 8.
Notice the references to immunity, to grants of land to "churches and powerful persons" (lords and officials), and the implied right of such landlords to appoint judges for trial of cases among their tenants (private jurisdiction).
11. We grant to the churches the taxes from the fields and pastures and the tithes of swine, so that no collector or titheman shall enter the lands of a church to gather such dues for the royal treasury. Public officials shall not demand any services from the churches of clergymen who have acquired immunity from our father or grandfather.
12. Whatever has been given to churches or to clergymen or to any person through the munificence of our aforesaid predecessors of blessed memory is to belong to them in all security.
14. The property of churches, priests, and of the poor who cannot protect themselves, shall be under the protection of public officials until their cases can be brought to the king and justice be done; only in so far, however, as it shall not infringe on the rights of immunity which have been granted by former kings to any church or powerful person or to anyone else, for the keeping of peace and the preservation of discipline.
19. Bishops and powerful persons who have possessions in various regions shall not appoint travelling judges or any judges except such as belong to the county in which they serve.
191. Grant of Immunity to a Monastery, 673.
M. G. DD. folio, I, pp. 30 f; Altmann und Bernheim, no. 112.