We have seen the _dux_ lord as well as
judge in his own jurisdiction, and standing as the successor of the
military leader chosen by the people, instead of holding the position
of king's servant; this place being more properly filled by the
gastald, who cared for the fiscal interests of the central power,
whose appointee he was. Such a form of government, it can be readily
seen, left no room for any strong development of the principle of
centralization, and no scope for the exercise of any decided power or
even of general supervision by the central authority. The heads of the
_civitates_ were the king's _judices_, it is true, and assembled to
assist him in judgments at his general _placita_ in the March of each
year; but they bear the character also of local lords of no mean
importance, and in some cases possessed of no inconsiderable amount of
power. Such a degree of individual influence--perhaps I should
exaggerate if I called it individual independence--was, however,
little suited to the idea of a universal centralized empire, which was
the forming principle of the government of Charlemagne. While
recognizing the necessity of retaining the fundamental institution of
a division of the state into _civitates_, and of governing it by means
of the heads of these divisions, he wished to eliminate from these
officers all the characteristics of local magnates, and to reduce them
to the more easily controlled position of servants, and dependents of
the king.
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