out of hand of a strong central government for his various territories, such as became possible in the Burgundian state of the fifteenth century and in the Austrian state which was modelled upon it. Henry was in the midst of a feudal society and had to make the best of it. He had to reckon with the particularistic traditions of his several dominions as well as with the feudal opposition to strong government, and western Europe was still a long way from the economic conditions which lie at the basis of modern bureaucracies.
When we speak of the Anglo-Norman or the Angevin empire, we must accordingly dismiss from our minds at the outset any notion of a government with a capital, a central treasury and judicature, and a common assembly. A fixed central treasury existed only in the most advanced of the individual states, and it was many years before the courts established themselves permanently at Westminster and Rouen. Government was still something personal, centring in the person of the sovereign, and the ministers of the state were still his household servants. The king had no fixed residence, and as he moved from place to place, his household and its officers moved with him. Indeed kings were just beginning to learn that it was safer to leave their treasure in some strong castle than to carry it about in their wanderings; it was not till 1194 that the capture of his baggage train by Richard the Lion-Hearted taught the French king Philip Augustus to leave his money and his
