But, as in the case of the Roman empire, the formation of regular manors was held back for a time in the early Germanic monarchies by the lingering influence of tribal organization. In the second period of mediaeval development in continental Europe, in the Carolingian epoch, the features of the estate as a political unit are more sharply marked. Notwithstanding the immense efforts of Charles Martel, Pippin and Charlemagne to strengthen the tottering edifice of the Frankish empire, public authority had to compromise with aristocratic forces in order to ensure regular government. As regards military organization this is expressed in the recognition of the power of senores, called upon to lead their vassals in the host; as regards jurisdiction, in the increase of the numbers of commended freemen who seek to interpose the powerful patronage of lay and secular magnates between them selves and the Crown. Great estates arose not only on the lands belonging to the king, but on that of churches and of lay poten tates, and the constitution of these estates reminds us forcibly of that of later feudal estates.
The struggle against Northmen, Magyars and Slays gave a crowning touch to the process of localization of political life and of the aristocratic constitution of society.
The seigneurie may be considered from three points of view— as a unit of administration, as an economic unit, and as a union of social classes.
(a) In principle the disruption of political life brought about by feudalism ought to have resulted in the complete administra tive independence of the manor. Cheque baron est souverain dans sa baronie is a proverb meant to express this radical view of manorial separatism. As a matter of fact this separatism was never completely realized, and even at the time of the gfeatest prevalence of feudalism the little sovereigns of France were com bined into a loose federation of independent fiefs. The institu tional expression of this aspect of feudalism in the life of the seigneurie was the jurisdiction combined with the latter. The principal origin of this jurisdiction was the dismemberment of royal justice, the acquisition by certain landowners of the right of holding royal pleas. The assumption of authority over public tribunals of any kind was naturally considered as equivalent to such a transmission of royal right. But other sources may be noticed also. It was assumed by French feudal law that in all cases when land was granted by a seigneur in subinfeudation the recipients would be bound to appear as members of a court of tenants for the settlement of conflicts in regard to land. A third source may be traced in the extension of the patrimonial justice of a person over his serfs and personal dependents to the classes of free and half-free population connected with the seigneurie in one way or another. There arose in consequence of these assumptions of jurisdiction a most bewildering confusion of tri bunals and judicial rights. A certain order was brought into this feudal chaos by the classification of judiciary functions according to the four categories of high, middle, low and tenurial justice. The scope of the first three subdivisions is sufficiently explained by their names; the fourth concerned cases arising from sub infeudation. As a rule the baron or seigneur sat in justice with
a court of assessors or peers, but the constitution of such courts varied a great deal.
(b) The economic fabric of the French seigneurie varied greatly, according to localities. In the north of France it was not unlike that of the English manor. The capital messuage, or castle, and the home-farm of the lord, were surrounded by dependent holdings, censives, paying rent, and villein tenements burdened with services. Between these tenancies there were various ties of neighbourhood and economic solidarity recalling the open-field cultivation in England and Germany. When the harvest way re moved from the open strips they returned to a state of undivided pasture in which the householders of the village exercised rights of common with their cattle. Wild pasture and woods were used more or less in the same fashion as in England (droit de pacage de vaine pdture). The inhabitants often formed courts and held meetings in order to settle the by-laws, and to adjudicate as to trespasses and encroachments (courts colongeres).
(c) The social relations between the manorial lord and his subjects are marked by various forms of the exploitation of the latter by the former. Apart from jurisdictional profits, rents and agricultural services, dues of all kinds are exacted from the rural population. Some of these dues have to be traced to servile origins, although they were evidently gradually extended to groups of people who were not descended from downright serfs but had lapsed into a state of considerable subjection. The main morte of rustic tenants meant that they had no goods of their own, but held movable property on sufferance without the right of passing it on to their successors, although after payment of a heavy fine, succession might be permitted. The formariage corresponded to the English merchetum, and was exacted from rustics on the marriage of their daughters; this payment was considered a badge of serfdom. Chevage (capitagium) might be exacted as a poll tax from all the unfree inhabitants of a seigneurie, or, more especially, from those who left it to look for sustenance abroad. The power of the lord as a landowner was more particularly expressed in his right of pre-emption (retrait seigneurial), and in taxes on alienation (lods et ventes). As a person wielding political authority, a kind of sovereignty, the lord enjoyed divers rights which are commonly attributed to the State—the right of coining money, of levying direct taxes and toll (tallagium, tolneta) and of instituting monopolies, such as the use of the lord's mill (moulin banal), or of his oven (four banal) or of his bull (taureau banal).
See Fustel de Coulanges, Histoire des institutions de la France 92), especially the volumes "L'Alleu et le domaine rural" and "L'Inva sion germanique ;" Beaudouin, "Les Grands domaines dans l'empire romain" (Nouvelle revue de droit francais et etranger, 1898) ; J. Flach, Les Origines de l'ancienne France, I., II., III. (1886) ; P. Viollet, His toire des institutions de la France, I., II. (189o, 1898) ; A. Luchaire, Manuel des institutions francaises (1892) ; G. Waitz, Deutsche Ver fassungsgeschichte, (1865-83) ; K. T. von Inama-Sternegg, Deutsche Wirtschaftsgeschichte, I., II. (1879-91) ; K. Deutsches Wirthschaftsleben, I.—IV. (1885) ; A. Meitzen, Ansiedelungen, Wanderungen and Agrarwesen der Volker Europas, I.—IV. (1895 seq.); W. Wittich, Die Grundherrschaft in Nordwestdeutschland (1896) ; G. F. von Maurer, Geschichte der Mark-, Dorf- and Hofverfassung in Deutschland; F. Seebohm, The English Village Community (1883) ; P. Vinogradoff, Historical Jurisprudence (2 vols., 192o, 1922). ). (.vo