Many men of learning-Mabillon, Bignon, Sirmond, and Lindenbrog—have recovered others of them from old manuscripts. A large number of these formulæ reproduced, in the same terms, the ancient forms of Roman law concerning the enfranchisement of slaves, bequests, testaments, prescriptions, &c., and thus prove that it was still of habitual application.

3rd. All the monuments of this epoch, in the countries occupied by the Franks, are full of the names of the Roman municipal system-duumvirs, advocates, curia, and curial, and present these institutions as always in vigour.

4th. Many civil acts, in fact, exist, testaments, bequests, sales, &c., which passed according to the Roman law in the curia, and were so inscribed upon the registers.

5th. Lastly, the chroniclers of the time often speak of men versed in the knowledge of the Roman law, and who make an attentive study of it. In the sixth century, the Auvergnat Andarchius " was very learned in the works of Virgil, the books of the Theodosian law, and in the art of calculation."1 At the end of the seventh century, Saint Bonet, bishop of Clermont, "was imbued with the principles of the grammarians, and learned in the decrees of Theodosius."2 Saint Didier, bishop of Cahors, from 629 to 654, "applied himself," says his life in manuscript, "to the study of the Roman laws.”

Of a surety there were then no erudits; there was then no Académie des Inscriptions, and people did not study the Roman law for mere curiosity. There can, then, be no reason for doubting that among the Franks, as well as among the Burgundians and Visigoths, it continued in vigour, particularly in the civil legislation and in the municipal system. Those among you who would seek the proofs in detail, the original texts upon which the results which I have just stated are founded, will find a large number of them in the work of M. de Savigny, (vol. i. p. 267-273; vol. ii., p. 100-118,) and still more in the Histoire du Régime Municipal de France, published by M. Raynouard-a work replete with curious researches, researches so complete upon certain questions that, in truth, one might almost tax them with superfluity.

You see the fact which I proposed to bring forward is indubitable. Monuments of all kinds show it, doubtless in

1 Greg. of Tours, 1. 4 c. 47.

Acta sanc Juana, c. 1, No 3

unequal degrees among different nations, but everywhere real and permanent. Its importance is great, because it proclaimed to Gaul a social state entirely different from that in which it had hitherto lived. It was hardly more than five centuries since it had fallen beneath the power of the Romans, and already scarcely a trace of the ancient Gaulish society remained. Roman civilization had the terrible power of extirpating the national laws, manners, language, and religion-of fully assimilating its conquests to itself. All absolute expressions are exaggerated; still, in considering things in general at the sixth century, we may say, everything in Gaul was Roman. The contrary fact accompanies barbaric conquest: the Germans leave to the conquered population their laws, local institutions, language, and religion. An invincible unity followed in the steps of the Romans: here, on the contrary, diversity was established by the consent and aid of the conquerors. We have seen that the empire of personality and individual independence, the characteristic of modern civilization, was of German origin; we here find its influence; the idea of personality presided in laws as in actions; the individuality of peoples, while subject to the same political domination, was proclaimed like that of man. Centuries must pass before the notion of territory can overcome that of race, before personal legislaLion can become real, and before a new national unity can result from the slow and laborious fusion of the various elements.

This granted, and the perpetuity of Roman legislation being established, still do not let this word deceive you: there is in it a great deal that is illusory; because it has been seen that the Roman law continued, because the same names and forms have been met with, it has been concluded that the principles, that the spirit of the laws had also remained the same: the Roman law of the tenth century has been spoken of as that of the Empire. This is erroneous language; when Alaric and Sigismond ordered a new collection of the Roman laws for the use of their Roman subjects, they did exactly what had elsewhere been done by Theodoric and Dagobert, in causing the barbaric laws to be digested for their Frank subjects. As the Salic and Ripuarian laws set forth ancient customs, already ill suited to the new state of the German people, so the Breviarium of Alaric, and the Pu

piani Responsum collected laws already old, and partly inapplicable. By the fall of the Empire and by the invasion, the whole social order was entirely changed; the relations between men were different, and another system of property commenced; the Roman political institutions could not subsist; facts of all sorts were renewed over the whole face of the land. And what laws were given to this rising society, so disordered and yet so fertile? Two ancient laws: the ancient barbarous customs and the ancient Roman legislation. It is evident that neither could be suitable; both must be modified, must be profoundly metamorphosed, in order to be adapted to the new facts.

When, therefore, we say that at the sixth century the Roman law still lasted, and that the barbarous laws were written; when we find in posterior centuries always the same words, Roman law, and barbaric laws, it must not be supposed that the same laws are spoken of. In perpetuating itself, the Roman law altered; after having been written, the barbaric laws were perverted. Both are among the number of the essential elements of modern society; but as elements entering into a new combination, which will arise after a long fermentation, and in the breast of which they will only appear transformed.

It is this successive transformation that I shall attempt to present to you; historians do not speak of it; unvarying phrases hide it; it is an internal work, a profoundly secret spectacle; and at which one can only arrive by piercing many inclosures and guarding against the illusion caused by the similitude of forms and names.

We now find ourselves at the end of our researches concerning the state of civil society in Gaul from the sixth to the middle of the eighth century. In our next lecture, we shall study the changes which happened in the religious society at the same epoch, that is to say, the state and constitution of the church.

17

TWELFTH LECTURE.

Object of the lecture-State of the church in Gaul, from the sixth to the middle of the eighth century-Analogy between the primitive state of the religious society and the civil society-The unity of the church or the spiritual society-Two elements or conditions of spiritual society; 1st. Unity of truth, that is to say, of absolute reason; 2nd. Liberty of minds, or individual reason-State of these two ideas in the Christian church from the sixth to the eighth century-She adopts one and rejects the other-Unity of the church in legislation-General councils-Difference between the eastern and the western church as regards the persecution of heretics-Relations of the church with the state, from the sixth to the eighth century: 1st, in the eastern empire; 2nd, in the west, especially in Frankish Gaul-Interference of the temporal power in the affairs of the church-Of the spiritual power in the affairs of the stateRecapitulation.

WE re-enter a route over which we have already gone; we again take up a thread which we have once held: we have to occupy ourselves with the history of the Christian church in Gaul, from the completion of the invasion to the fall of the Merovingian kings, that is to say, from the sixth to the middle of the eighth century.

The determination of this epoch is not arbitrary; the accession of the Carlovingian kings marked a crisis in religious society as well as in civil society. It is a date which constitutes an era, and at which it is advisable to pause.

Recal the picture which I have traced of the state of the religious society in Gaul, before the decisive fall of the Roman empire, that is to say, at the end of the fourth and the beginning of the fifth century. We have considered the church under two points of view: 1st, in her external situation, in

VOL. II.

her relations with the state; 2nd, in her internal constitution, in her social and political organization. Around these two fundamental problems we have seen that all the particular questions, all the facts collect.

This two-fold examination has enabled us to see, in the first five centuries of the church, the germ of all the solutions of the two problems, some example of all the forms, and trials of all the combinations. There is no system, whether in regard to the external relations of the church, or her internal organization, which may not be traced to this epoch, and there find some authority. Independence, obedience, sovereignty, the compromises of the church with the state, presbyterianism or episcopacy, the complete absence of the clergy, or its almost exclusive domination, we have found all these.

We have just examined the state of civil society after the invasion, in the sixth and seventh centuries, and we have arrived at the same result. There, likewise, we have found the germ, the example of all the systems of social organization, and of government: monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy; the assemblies of free men; the patronage of the chief of the land towards his warriors, of the great proprietor towards the inferior proprietor, royalty, absolute and impotent, elective and hereditary, barbarous, imperial, and religious: all the principles, in a word, which have been developed in the life of modern Europe, at that time simultaneously appeared

to us.

There is a remarkable similarity in the origin and primitive state of the two societies: wealth and confusion are alike in them; all things are there; none in its place and propertion; order will come with development; in being developed, the various elements will be disengaged and distinguished; each will display its pretensions and its own powers, first in order to combat, and afterwards to become reconciled. Such will be the progressive work of ages and of man.

It is at this work that we have hereafter to be present; we have seen in the cradle of the two societies all the material elements, and all the rational principles of modern civilization; we are about to follow them in their struggles, negotiations, amalgamations, and in all the vicissitudes both of their special and their common destiny. This, properly speaking, is the