“After the decease of Protadius in the eleventh year of Theodoric, Claudius is appointed to the office of major domus. He was a Roman by descent, a prudent man, a pleasant story-teller, energetic in all things, given to patience, abounding in counsel, learned in letters, full of faith, desiring friendship with all men. Taking warning by the example of those who had gone before him, he bore himself gently and patiently in his high office, but this only hindrance had he, that he was burdened with too great fatness of body.
“In the twelfth year of Theodoric, at the instigation of Brunechildis, Uncilenus, who had by his treacherous words brought about the death of Protadius, had one of his feet cut off, was despoiled of his possessions and reduced to poverty. At the instigation of the same queen Vulfos, the patrician who had been consenting to the death of Protadius was killed at the villa of Fauriniacum by order of Theodoric, and Ricomeris, a man of Roman descent succeeded him in the patriciate.”
These events may be taken as a sample of the working of the institution of the major domus in Neustria and Burgundy for the greater part of a century. We see a king becoming more and more helpless in the presence of the nobles and clergy whom he and his predecessors have enriched. Theodoric II. is not personally a fainéant king, but he cannot prevent murder being committed in his name. We see a major domus intent on refilling the royal treasury, and probably not scrupulous as to the means which he employs for that purpose, nor afraid of enriching himself at the same time as his master. We see a grasping and turbulent aristocracy, made up of courtiers and ecclesiastics, who are determined to keep what they have got from the crown, and to whom both the lawful and the lawless acts of the prime minister on behalf of his impoverished master render that minister equally odious. The aristocracy bide their time. When the army is assembled in the field they appeal to the old Teutonic spirit of almost democratic independence, and slay their enemy in defiance of the king’s authority. A sleek and supple Gallo-Roman takes the place of the murdered mayor, and in his placid corpulence gives up the struggle, letting things drift as they will. But the vengeance of the palace slumbers not, and in time the aristocratic murderers of the prime minister are themselves cut off by hands as lawless as their own. Such is Merovingian France in the seventh century after Christ.
I have tried to indicate the general character of the major-domat in the two western kingdoms of Gaul. In Austrasia, though probably the chief functions of the office are the same, its holder seems to look in a different direction, and certainly arrives at a different end. The Neustrian and Burgundian mayors of the palace are generally striving for the rights of the crown against the aristocracy. In Austrasia they are more often found at the head of the aristocracy and opposed to the crown. In the western kingdoms we see indications that the major domus was often a man of humble origin, and that this was part of the grievance of the aristocracy against him. In Austrasia he is generally a man who, by his birth and possessions, takes a foremost place in the realm independently of his official rank. Hence, and, from the fact that the office was held in Austrasia by a long succession of able men in the same family, arises the distinction already alluded to, that in Austrasia the major-domat becomes hereditary, and that it never acquired that character in Neustria.
Lastly—and this difference is perhaps related to most of the others which I have named, as cause is related to effect—the western kingdoms seem at this time to have been always looked on as containing the heart and centre of the Frankish dominion. Thus when a Frankish king had been ruling in Austrasia with Metz for his capital, if by the death of a father or brother he succeeded to the throne of Neustria, he generally migrated westwards to Paris or Soissons, sometimes sending a son or a younger brother to rule in Austrasia, sometimes seeking to rule it from Paris. Now it is clear that there was a strong and growing feeling in Austrasia (which was already beginning to be stirred by some of the same sentiments as the Germany of to-day) that it would not be ruled from Neustria (the ancestress of France). A Merovingian king, the descendant of the Salian Clovis, it would endure, but he must rule, not through Neustrian but through Austrasian instruments. This feeling of national German independence was represented and championed by the mayors of the palace of the line of Arnulf and Pippin, and to their history we now turn.
The ancestors of Charlemagne first emerge into the light of history at the time of the downfall of Queen Brunechildis. No student of Frankish history can ever forget the tragic figure of that queen or her life-long duel with her ignoble and treacherous sister-in-law Fredegundis. While Brunechildis was still in early womanhood (576) came reverses, the murder of her husband, imprisonment, a second marriage, separation from the young husband whom she had so strangely chosen, followed by his death at the bidding of Fredegundis. Meanwhile she returned to Austrasia and ruled there for a time, first in the name of a son, then of a grandson. Driven from thence (600) by the turbulent aristocracy whose power she had striven to quell, she escaped to Burgundy, and governed it for thirteen years in the name of her grandson Theodoric. We have just seen her “instigating” the appointment of Protadius as mayor of the palace and the punishment of his murderers. All through these later years of her life the once fascinating and beautiful woman seems like a lioness at bay. If Mary, Queen of Scots, had escaped from Fotheringay, even so could we imagine her, grown gray and hard and cruel, confronting John Knox and the Scottish lords. Her grandsons perished early. Theodoric renewed the war with Theudebert, defeated and slew him, but died himself at the Austrasian capital in the year 613. And now were left of the race of Clovis only the four infant sons of Theodoric II. and their distant relation, Chlothair of Neustria, son of the hated Fredegundis. War was inevitable. Which would prevail, the old lioness fighting for her cubs or the whelp of Neustria? At this crisis the adhesion of two Austrasian nobles to the party of Chlothair decided the day in his favor. These two Austrasian nobles were Pippin “of Landen” and Arnulf, afterwards Bishop of Metz.
Pippin of Landen (so called)[16] had large possessions in the country between the Meuse and the Moselle, stretching in an easterly direction toward the Rhine, including the forest of the Ardennes, and apparently including also the city of Aquisgranum, which was one day to be the home of Charlemagne. Pippin was born about 585, and was therefore somewhere about thirty years of age when war broke out between Brunechildis and Chlothair. His friend and contemporary, Arnulf, born of a noble and wealthy Frankish family, had received a better education, apparently, than fell to the lot of most of his class, and, on the recommendation of the “sub-king” Gundulf (possibly mayor of the palace), had been taken into the service of Theudebert, who had assigned to him the government of six provinces. He had married a girl of noble family, by whom he had two sons, Chlodulf and Ansigisel. The latter was the ancestor of Charlemagne.
It was, as we are told, by the secret advice of these two men and other nobles of Austrasia that Chlothair invaded the kingdom. However strong might be their disinclination to the rule of a Neustrian King, their determination not to submit again to “the hateful regimen of a woman,” and that woman their old foe Brunechildis, was even stronger. The folly of the old queen, who was at the same time secretly plotting against the life of her Burgundian mayor of the palace, Warnachar, aided their designs. When it came to the decision of battle, the soldiers who should have defended the cause of the young king and his great-grandmother turned their backs without striking a blow. Chlothair had only to pursue and to capture the little princes and their ancestress. One of the princes escaped, and was never heard of more; another was spared as being the godson of Chlothair; two were put to death. The aged Brunechildis was, we are told, tortured for three days by the son of her old rival Fredegundis, led through the camp seated on a camel, then tied by her hair, by one foot and one arm, to a most vicious horse, and dashed to pieces by his furious career. Such were the tender mercies of a Merovingian king.
This first appearance of Pippin and Arnulf on the stage of history is not a noble one, yet of actual disloyalty or ingratitude they were probably not guilty, since to Theudebert, the victim of the resentment of Brunechildis, rather than to the family of Theodoric, his vanquisher and murderer, they owed allegiance and gratitude. The subsequent career of the two nobles, however, is more to their credit. In the year after the overthrow of Brunechildis, the see of Metz having fallen vacant, there was a general outcry among the people that none was so fitted to fill it as Arnulf, the domesticus and consiliarius of the king. There was on his part the usual tearful protestation of unfitness and unwillingness, but the curtain fell on his acceptance of the episcopal dignity. His biographer tells the story of his three-days’ fastings, his hair shirt, his boundless hospitality to poor vagrants, to monks, and to other travellers. We perceive, however, that he had not wholly lost his interest in state affairs, for in the year 624 he, with his friend Pippin, the major domus, procured the disgrace of a certain nobleman named Chrodoald, who was charged with having abused the king’s favor to his own enrichment and the spoliation of the estates of other Austrasians. In the next year, too, when Dagobert I., son of Chlothair, who had been sent to rule over a shorn and diminished Austrasia, met his father near Paris, and had a sharp contention with him over the narrow limits of his kingdom, it was Bishop Arnulf who, at the head of the other bishops and nobles, succeeded in reconciling father and son.
It seems that Arnulf had for years cherished a desire to withdraw from the world, but when he mentioned this project to Dagobert, the young king, who greatly valued his counsels, was so incensed that he swore that he would cut off the heads of his two sons if he dared to leave the court. “My sons’ lives,” said the intrepid prelate, “are in the hands of God. Your own life will not last long if you slay the innocent.” On this the passionate young Merovingian drew his sword, and was about to attack Arnulf, who, not heeding the wrath of the king, said, “What are you doing, most miserable of men? Would you repay evil for good? Here am I ready for death in obedience to His commands who gave me life, and who died for me.” The nobles besought the king not to give the bishop the crown of martyrdom. The queen appeared upon the scene, and in a few moments she and Dagobert were grovelling at Arnulf’s feet, beseeching forgiveness for the king’s offence, and declaring that he should go when and whither he would.