At home he was
a powerful lord, and though he, of course, owed fealty and service to
the king, he was by no means a king's servant, like his successor the
Carlovingian count. The gastald, on the other hand, was eminently a
servant of the central power; and whether or not he was engaged
exclusively in looking after the fiscal interests of the masters who
employed him, he had no power and no influence except such as he
derived from the source of his authority. He was a king's minister and
nothing more, and we can easily appreciate that the amount of power he
was enabled to exercise could never exceed the amount of influence in
local affairs possessed at any particular time by the central
government, whose representative he was.
But the very nature of the source from which the power of his office
is derived is what connects it vitally with the subject of our
enquiry. We have seen the _dux_ as head--in the earliest times almost
independent head--of the whole _civitas_, including rural and city
jurisdiction. We have seen him as an official, depending from the
king, it is true, and holding the king's _placita_ and executing the
law, but also holding _placita_ of his own; appearing as a powerful
local lord, and exercising almost arbitrary power in the regulation
and the distribution of the public property of the commonwealth over
which he ruled; in fact, a descendant of the old _duces_ of the
Lombard barbarian host, who, perhaps, even antedating the royal
office, held their power and their position as princes and chosen
leaders of the people, rather than as appointees or dependents of any
higher authority.
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