Publisher's Synopsis
From the INTRODUCTION.
"M. Thierry remarks very truly that every people has two histories - the one interior, national and domestic, the other exterior. The former he goes on to describe as the history of its laws and institutions, and its political changes - in one word, of its action upon itself; the latter he refers to the action of the people upon others, and the part it may claim in influencing the common destinies of the world. Of these two histories the first cannot, of course, be fully written till the people has reached the term of its political individuality, neither can the second be written till the farthest effect of its influence can be traced and estimated."
These words are profound political philosophy. The first category eminently characterizes the history of mediaeval France, at least until the reign of Philip Augustus, when France was nearing the term of her political individuality and was beginning to appear upon the wide arena of European politics. In order properly to understand the growth of a state we must consider it in its origin and termination. Between these limits all is formative, institutional. The Middle Ages were essentially an institutional period, when forms and customs were in the making. They were the gigantic crucible into which all the greatness and grandeur of the ancient civilized world was plunged; they were the crucible out of which the states and nations and institutions of modern Europe emerged. Among these institutions there was one which was all-prevalent: feudalism, in ever-varying form, was the institution of the Middle Ages.
Feudalism is the accompaniment of a declining civilization. When a great state is passing into decadence, class interests usurp the higher, public interests and authority. The Frank monarchy was organized under feudal forms because the political features of Teutonic life had become more or less assimilated with those of the decaying Roman "imperium." When the Romano-Frank monarchy also declined, the feudal regime was intensified in degree. And yet, during the entire tenth century, when its power was least, the Carlovingian dynasty struggled to maintain the traditional character of the monarchy, and was, as a consequence, in antagonism with the excessive feudal tendency. More than this - all the kings of this century, whether they appertained to the Carlovingian house or to the family of Robert the Strong, sought with varying energy and unequal success to maintain the prerogatives of monarchial authority against the encroachments of feudalism. This was a steadfast purpose in the mind of the representatives of the rival houses, as well those who were kings as those who sought to be kings. The difference lay in this: the Carlovingian monarchy reposed on past traditions, past persons, past powers. The glamour of the great days of the great Charles tinged it with an alienated majesty and made it seem, to the infatuated minds of Louis IV. and Lothar, what it was not. This accounts for Louis' rash attempt to conquer Normandy, and Lothar's equally rash effort to recover Lotharingia. The age was not as great as their ideas. On the other hand, the house of Robert was self-reliant. It had no force not of itself on which to rely; it had no taint of outworn sovereignty. Moreover, the personal force of Robert and Odo and the two Hughs was superior to the personal force of their royal rivals, although that was not as despicable as is customarily believed.
