Gallo-Romans alike. He ruled the former by right of birth, in virtue of having sprung from the family to which this privilege appertained; he ruled the latter, not, as has sometimes been suggested, by a delegated authority conferred upon Clovis by the Emperor Anastasius, but by right of conquest. Before long, too, all distinction between Franks and Gallo-Romans disappeared, and the king ruled all his subjects by hereditary right. The power of the king was almost absolute. He caused the ancient customary law of the barbarian peoples to be formulated or revised, as in the case of the Salic law and the laws of the Ripuarians and the Alemans. He did not of course create law; the customs which regulate the relations of men existed prior to the law and it would be difficult to refuse to recognise them. But the king ordered these customs to be formulated, and gave them, when formulated, a new authority. Further, he amended these laws, abrogating provisions which were contrary to the spirit of Christianity or the advance of civilisation. Alongside of the laws peculiar to each of the races he made edicts applicable to all his subjects without exception. The capitularies begin long before the reign of Charles the Great; we have some which go back to the Merovingian period. The king who makes the law is also the supreme judge. He has his own court of justice, and all other courts derive their authority from him. He can even, in virtue of his absolute power, transgress the ordinary rules of justice and order persons who appear to him to be dangerous to be put to death without trial. Childebert II, for example, once invited one of his great men, named Magnovald, to his palace at Metz under the pretext of shewing him some animal hunted by a pack of hounds, and while he was standing at a window enjoying this spectacle the king had him struck down by one of his men with an axe. Anyone who committed a crime by order of the king was declared immune from penalty. The king made war and peace at will, levied taxes at his pleasure, appointed all functionaries, and confirmed the election of bishops. All the forces of the State were in his hands. All his orders — they were known as banni — must be obeyed; the violation of any of them was punished with the extremely heavy fine of 60 gold solidi. All persons belonging to the king's household were protected by a wergeld three times as great as ordinary persons of the same class.
Against a despotic use of this power neither the great men nor the people possessed any remedy save that of revolt; and such revolts are frequent in the Merovingian period. No small number of these kings perished by the assassin's knife. One day one of his subjects told king Guntram, "We know where the axe is which cut off the heads of thy brothers, and its edge is still keen; ere long it shall cleave thy skull." At Paris, on another occasion, Guntram assembled the people in a church and addressed them thus: "I adjure you, men and women here
