The Germans who came to enlist in the Roman army, attracted by the pay and the prospect of a career, gradually replaced the Illyrians as the predominant element in the Roman army. Under Roman drill and discipline they became excellent soldiers and rose rapidly to officer rank. Many of the soldiers who held the highest posts in the last part of the fourth century were of German origin. This is an exceedingly important point. There was in fact a process of Germanisation going on during that century, and it constituted a grave danger where as the Roman Emperors adopted too liberal a policy by allowing Germans (Franks) to occupy posts of supreme command. This liberality was due to the desirability of attracting the best men to a career in the imperial service; the Emperor Constantine always showed marked favour to Germans. German customs (e.g. of elevating an emperor on a shield) made way in the army. The general result was that from the end of the first quarter of the fourth century the German star was gradually rising.

The Trustis and the Royal Antrustion

Tacitus, in its description of the changing structure of Germany, shows us that the main characters of the tribes who inhabited it, were surrounded by “companions” (comites) who were an ornament for peace, and a bulwark in war. These men swore to defend their Chief, and while the Chief fought for the victorious, his companions fought for him: to come out alive from the melee where he had succumbed, was for them a cause of eternal reproach.

ANTRUSTIONS

The Frankish Kings of the Merovingian dynasty retained the Roman system of administration, and under them the word “comes” preserved its original meaning; the “comes” was a companion of the King, a royal servant of high rank.

The Merovingian Antustustionate was not just another organization; we locate its incontestable recorded alliance in the friendship (comitatus) of the German Lords, which was not enrolled only from the respectability, Tacitus’ announcements are particular on this point. The warriors, who, in the reign of Clovis and his replacements, came to swear the Trustis, were no more fundamentally aristocrats than the advisory groups of Tacitus’ time, the main condition which was required was to be Franc or Barbarian Salien.

The “Trustis”, warrior friendship and the “Leudes” (Antrustion), bodyguards of the Merovingian Kings of France, were in Gaul a central organization of the Frankish victors which related to one of the more fundamental organs of the old Germanic culture.

The Leudes “Antrustions”of the Franks of Clovis were a propagation of the military “comitatus” of the Franks progenitors, of the Germans of the first century of Christianity, with this distinction notwithstanding, that on a basic level, the individuals from past the Rhine stream all had “colleagues”, while we see just the King’s Trusts show up among the Salians, it is at that point when Clovis, the King of the government requested the drafting of the old traditions of his country and of the laws which were to administer the relations of the Franks with the indigenous populaces, that this King had vanquished a force which outperformed that of numerous Kings and of numerous clan

The number and devoutness of the Antrustions formed the principle glory of the King, this honored body, together with the Dukes, Counts and Prefects where the “Proceres” or nobility of the Kingdom.

The companionship of the Germanic tribes and the trustis of the reign of Clovis were one of these somewhat vague commitments, governed, among still barbarous peoples, by the primitive rules of common sense and good faith. Among the ancient Germans, the bond by which the warrior freely devoted himself to the leader was consecrated by an oath, the most inviolable in the eyes of these peoples: “Illum” defendere, killi … præcipuum sacramentum est “;” the man who had taken such an oath could obviously not extricate himself from it as he pleased; and the one of these warriors who would have abandoned his leader not only in the fight, but no doubt also on the verge of entering the campaign, would have been in the eyes of all an object of contempt. However, this engagement was subject to certain conditions, namely: that the chief would not remain idle; that he would give or leave to his faithful the booty, and especially the arms and the courier taken on the enemy conquered. If therefore the leader remained in a too prolonged rest and if in an encounter he had shown ineptitude and especially weakness; or if, after the victory, he had shown himself greedy and selfish to towards his companions, they considered themselves and were authorized, by the concepts which guided them, to consider themselves released from their obligations and able to go to offer their services to a more active, braver, more intelligent or more generous leader. And what they did with regard to a chief, they did even with regard to their own tribe.

We find a trace of these customs in Gaul, the day after the establishment of the Frankish Empire. The following fact, reported by Grégoire de Tours and reproduced by most historians, is a curious testimony to this. In 532, Clotaire and Childebert, sons of Clovis, having prepared an expedition into Burgundy, invited Thierri, their brother, to join them; on the latter’s refusal, the Frankish warriors, Thierri’s faithful, told him: “If you refuse to go to Burgundy with your brothers, we abandon you, and we much prefer to follow them.” But he, suspecting the faithfulness of the Arverns, answered them, Follow me, and I will bring you into a land where you will collect as much gold and silver as your cupidity may desire, and where you will take flocks, slaves and clothes in abundance: only do not follow my brothers. “

It is not without interest to mention here a law of the Visigoths, which authorizes the one who has recommended himself to a boss to choose another at his will, provided that he returns to the first all the presents he received from him.

We see by this that, to keep the Austrasians under his law, Thierri had no other resource than to promise them a military expedition and to make them hope for a rich booty.

It is true that most of the Franks of Thierri were certainly not Antrustions, that is to say, men bound to the Prince by a special oath, and that they could not in isolation have kept the threatening language that ‘they stood together’. Also, we must not induce the principle of absolute freedom, in Antrustions, to break the solemnly contracted commitment; it is more rational to confine oneself to thinking that this engagement was subject to certain conditions, and that, only, in the absence of a dominant power or of a neutral power which imposed its decision, the fulfillment or violation of these conditions was almost arbitrarily appreciated by the parties concerned.

Among the Franks everybody could at present have, and huge numbers of them had, military soldiers: however there was just one, whose presence was sanctified by the lawmaker and whose individuals were given pride and rights, especially, it was the Royal Antrustion.

Be that as it may, as Antrustions were involved at specific degrees at the social and political scale, most students of history consider Gallo Frank establishments who have dedicated themselves to this subject, just to be a generally irrelevant piece of their work in the administrative demonstrations and in different landmarks of these first honorable races.

In this respectable race, the Antrustions was not just an evaluation, the Antrustions was a sort of deep rooted nobility, totally different from the inherited predominance of France.

The Salic law which was drawn up around 484 and was reconsidered by the proclamation of Chilperic in 574, the last redaction of the law was proclaimed by Dagobert I in 630. The expression în “trusté dominica” is later supplanted by “in trusté regia”

The King alone could appoint Antrustions, any free man wanting to enter into the Antrustions, “which was considered a great honor”, needed to introduce himself armed at the Royal Palace and there, “if accepted by the King”, with his hands in those of the King, make a vow of Trustis and Fidelitas, the Oath of Fidelity regarding each matter at the King’s increase. This done, he was viewed as in truste dominica for life and bound to offer the types of assistance included. And in respect of these, the Antrustions delighted in specific favorable circumstances, and was qualified for imperial help and insurance.

The Antrustionate, being a man-to-man and purely personal engagement, ended with the life of the King to whom the Antrustion was bound.

“Duke Bodégisile having died, and his sons being old enough to succeed him, nothing was taken from them of what their father possessed. “Bodégisile was probably in the rank of Antrustions, and we must remember that his sons then swore trustis as their father had sworn”.

If the beneficiary lands (when the Antrustion had received it) remained in the hands of the new leude, it was often to be with the office occupied by the Antrustion, especially when this office did not correspond to the particular service of the King, but to a public service, to a political, military, administrative or judicial function, such as that of a Count of the Palace, Duke of Province, Count of City or March, etc. which required conditions of maturity, experience and ability, which might not be found amongst he heirs of the Antrustion.

After the first partition of the Kingdom it was ordained that: Every free man, after the death of the King, his lord, will have the ability to recommend oneself to whomever he wants, in these three Kingdoms. “This shows that there was a close relationship between the Kingdoms with much freedom of choice”.

The Antrustions had carefully characterized duties towards each other, one Antrustion was prohibited to endure observation or carry weapons against another Antrustion, on the off chance that he did, there was a punishment of 15 solidi of pay. It was however possible to take legal action against another Antrustion, but there were so many stipulations involved that it was practically impossible to enforce any legal action against an Antrustion.

The Antrustions had a significant impact in the time of King Clovis. They were liable for shaping the Kings armed forces that conquered the land, the Kings armed forces was made predominantly out of Franks, with a couple Gallo-Romans who had taken the side of Clovis. After the success of the greater part of what we currently know as France, the responsibility of the Antrustions in the military turned out to be less significant over the years. For every campaign, the King raised a multitude of residents in which the Gallo-Romans blended increasingly more with the Franks. There was still a small lasting collection of Antrustions which went about as the King’s own protector (trustis dominica). Some Antrustions individually were relegated with different undertakings, for example, the framing and association of battalions in border towns.

The King was always accompanied by his Antrustions, in his capital and in his domains and an Antrustion always preceded over the Royal Estates. The King adjusted to the Antrustion responsible for his domain, the power of administering justice to the tenants and occupiers of their domains.

Some of these units may have been quite large, and formed a cadre of royal officers and other servants. Throughout this period, the royal bodyguard, at the palace, were warriors, in addition to military training, were taught literacy and other governmental skills.

The Antrustion could be deprived of his title and his dignities, when he had failed in the most essential duties resulting from the nature of the engagement which he had made towards the King, or when, without prejudicing to no right or any direct interest of the Prince, he had made himself unworthy of this title.

The various circumstances in which forfeiture was incurred were as follows:

1. Treason against the King. – This crime, to which the particular character of the man who had committed it added so much gravity, necessarily entailed, in addition to the most severe afflictive penalties “, the loss of the Antrustionate; and this loss, the Antrustion was exposed to undergo, even though the sovereign consented to use leniency in relation to the application of other penalties. The betrayal of the Queen naturally had the same consequences. Grégoire de Tours reports that the Count Sunnégisile, and Gallomagnus, referendum at the Court de Childebert II, having been convicted of complicity in a plot against Queen Faileuba, wife of Childebert, and against Brunehaut, mother of the King, were sent into exile and stripped of the fiscal lands which had been granted to them. With all the more reason, were they stripped of their titles and personal dignity.

2. Commitment that an Antrustionate made with another Prince. One could not be the destruction of two Princes; one could not, either among the ancient Germans, devote oneself to two chiefs at the same time, and when, after having sworn the trustis to the King, one went to swear it to another neighboring sovereign, who was often his rival and even his enemy, there was a breach of a commitment made, a violation of the faith promised.

The treaty of Andelot, passed between the Kings Gontran and Childebert II, in 587, provides for the offense in these terms: “It is agreed that none of us will attract the leudes of the other and will not receive those who that if by chance a leude had mistakenly believed that he could go to the other party, he will be excused according to the degree of guilt. This last provision proves that, if the motive of excuse does not exist or is not admitted, the leude is gravely guilty and seen as a traitor, who was punished by death or by exile. and by confiscation of his property. In any case, he obviously incurred the forfeiture of his dignity in the eyes of the Prince.

3. Military desertion. – The military service, due by every free man, was even more rigorously obligatory for the Antrustion. Title V of the second chapter of 812 pronounced, as we have already seen, the forfeiture of honor (office or dignity), as well as the revocation of the benefit, against one who had abandoned one of his comrades in arms, a of his peers (parem suum), going to the army to fight the enemy. The legislator, in Title IV of the same Chapter and in Title II of the Chapter of 8o 1, additional to the law of the Lombards, considers anyone who has left the army without the Prince’s permission, as guilty of lèse-majesté , and pronounces capital punishment and the confiscation of property against the deserter; and it is said that this crime, called by the Franks “herifliz”, was also punished by death under the old legislation (antiqua constitutio). Tacitus relates that among the Germans, deserters and cowards suffered an infamous death. Now, this penalty was, with a fortiori, applicable to one who, after having sworn military assistance to the King, abandoned his post before the enemy; and when the King did not condemn the deserter Antrustion to the last punishment, there is no doubt that this culprit would at least have incurred the forfeiture of his dignity and of the prerogatives attached to it. 1 °

4. Insufficient defense of the person of the King; act of weakness before the enemy. – Tacitus attests that it was shameful for the Prince’s companions not to equal his worth, and that to come out alive from the battle in which he had perished, was, for all life, a cause of opprobrium and infamy. “We read in Grégoire de Tours that a character named Godin, who had passed from King Sigebert’s party to that of Chilpéric and had been enriched by the latter’s gifts, was charged (around 576) with the direction of military operations: vanquished, he was the first to escape by flight. The King immediately took from him the tax villas he had granted him in The Soissonnais, and donated them to the Basilica of Saint-Médard in Soissons. It is quite obvious that this character ceased to be among the leudes or faithful of Chilperic.

5. Refusal of assistance to the Prince in his private quarrels, in his faidae. The Antrustion or faithful of the Kings, homines of vassals, were to follow their lords, and they had, in addition to there general obligation, appear armed in the army when necessary. Also, when the King invoked the help of one of those who had promised him personal devotion, and the latter refused it, or even, when, without appeal from the King, the Antrution, knowing the Prince’s need for his assistance, did not bring it to him, he violated the sworn faith, he failed in his most sacred duty: “Principem defendere,” killi præcipuum sacramentum est.

He therefore incurred the loss of his dignity.

Was it the same when an Antrustion refrained from assisting one of his colleagues in such an event? According to Title XX of the 2nd Chapter of 813, the faithful of the King, holder of benefited lands, was punished, in the case envisaged, only for the withdrawal of these lands; but, when he was not benefited, how was the abandonment of his colleague punished? The loss of the triple wergild and of the rank which the Antrustion occupied at the King’s Court. Also, although the assistance owed by the Antrustion to his colleague was not, to the same degree, as assistance to the King was the essence of his engagement.

Indignity at the rate of a crime or a dishonorable act committed by the atrustion. – The Antrustion convicted of crime or dishonorable action was subject to forfeiture on account of unworthiness.

The edict of Childebert, of 595, excludes from the Kings Palace the leude who has contracted an incestuous union and refuses to make amends. ”According to a capitular of 779 and a capitular of 801, the count who, out of hatred or malice, and not to do justice, has imposed a penalty, loses his office (honorem suum perdat), without prejudice to the composition he owes to the one who has been unjustly punished. even if the count who concealed a criminal from a neighboring county, and refuses to hand him over for justice, and of the one who received a reward or presents for an innocent. If the count was an Antrustion, it seems at least very probable that he lost this dignity, at the same time as his office and his title of count; for it is difficult to admit that the King would kept in his entourage a number of men forming the elite of the Frankish nation, the same one he had just removed from his functions as a prevaricator or simoniac.

When the Antrustion, assigned in the second instance by one of his colleagues to the palace plea, stubbornly refused to appear there, he was, under the terms of the additional title Antrustione, put by the King out of his safeguard (extra sermonem suum).

We observed, above, that this was not a forfeiture of the Antrustionate, since the same provision existed, in the primitive Salic law, for all free men of Frankish race, without distinction, and consequently for those of ordinary condition as for those of the trustis. But it should be added here that the Antrustion was outlawed; goods were confiscated, and it was forbidden for all, even his wife, to give him asylum and food. This obviously implies that, throughout the duration of the outlawing, the leude was deprived of the exercise of all his rights of citizenship and a fortiori, his privileges as an Antrustion; but this was probably a suspension and not an extinction of rights, and this is why, as soon as he had served his absence, the leude had to recover ipso facto the prerogatives of the Antrustionate, at the same time as the rights of any free man of Frankish origin.

By whom and how was the forfeiture pronounced?

We have no special documents which would allow us to answer precisely on these two points. We believe we can only say that, according to the laws and the spirit of the institutions of the Gallo Franc Empire, the King appears to have been a judge of the questions to which his relations with his own Antrustions gave rise, and particularly of the offenses of which they could be guilty: he exercised there a kind of patrimonial justice, for which he was undoubtedly assisted by the great officers and the leudes present at the palace.

Marculfe’s collection contains the preamble to a judgment rendered by the King in an important case: “Prologus de regis judicio, cum de magna re duo causantur” simul; And although it relates to a dispute between two parties, it gives us an approximate idea of what the composition of the royal tribunal should have been. “He to whom the Lord has entrusted the care of governing, must examine with great care the interests of all, in order to render, after having heard the proposals or answers, and the words of each party, a just sentence once, like us, in the name of God, being here in our palace to finish the causes of all by a just judgment, we sat with the lords and fathers our bishops, and with our many optimates such and such, the fathers ( abbots), referendaries, servants, seneschals, camériers, and such, count of the palace, and others of our faithful in great number, etc. It seems that the composition of this tribunal, where all the men present at the court served as assessors, could not be absolutely suitable for a cause where forfeiture, that is to say the degradation of an Antrustion, was going to be debated. A character of this quality should not be subjected to the judgment of people of inferior status to his own; the debate took place, according to all probabilities, before a body of assessors who were all of an equal rank to that of the Antrustion, its pares or compares, according to the expressions used in the capitulars.

In short, a tribunal or court of peers, should be called upon to rule on the accusation on which depended the loss or the preservation of the dignity of the Antrustion and of the prerogatives attached to it. The Chapter of Quierzy, deliberated in 856 by the royal faithful of all orders and all conditions (of omni ordine et statu), contains the following provisions: “If, among us, a man, whatever his rank, violates the provisions of this pact, and that it be such that the King can have it amended, that he does so; if, on the contrary, the cause is such that he should not bring him to resipiscence by admonition, in this case, that the King sends him before his peers (ante sus pares), so that he gives reason for his acts , and that whoever will neither fulfill the obligations of the pact, nor observe the respect and render the services legally due to his lord, be condemned according to a just judgment. And if he refuses to comply with the sentence, if he is absent and rebellious and cannot be brought back to obedience, let him be excluded from the ranks of the leudes, and be expelled by all from the Kingdom of the Franks “ (a nostra omnium societate and regno ab omnibus expellature”.

According to these provisions (enacted moreover at a time when the Antrustionate, already abandoned in fact, was going to disappear even from official language), the King then had, in reality, only a right of admonition, and the leude was finally judged only by his peers, for breach of his duties towards his lord; now, the lord of the leude of the first order, of that which was in the trustis, it was the King, and in this case, the forfeiture of the title and the exclusion from the corps of Antrustions were pronounced by the tribunal of peers.

Later there was a sort of nobility shaped by the Antrustions. We could in all likelihood be talking about Antrustions and consider them an honorability of the sword. Be that as it may, not all the components of nobility were there. There was no doubt of heredity, and therefore the entirety of the fundamental states of the presence of such a class. It happened more than once that the child had the option to succeed his dad; yet this didn’t lay on any rights and didn’t build up any respectability.

The Kings Leudes “Antrustions” were framed from the start as a particular class, contributed with broad lawful benefits, their points of interest were the odds of fortune and influence, to turn out to be consistently expanding pre-prominence and a pre-distinction having a tendency to get innate. It is in this manner, that the class of Antrustions, without considering the starting point or any lawful condition, brought forth present day honorability.

As the King was acquainted with the customs of the Romans, from the Antrustions there were formed many offices. The highest rank was the Major Domus who was next to the King and appointed by the King, but in 641 the nobles had acquired the right to appoint him, “which led to the rise of Charles Martel and the Carolingians”.

The Antrustions were held in the highest esteem and constituted the privy council, or general advisors to the King. Advocates were appointed from the ranks of the Antrustions by the King to represent those people who were unable to represent themselves.

The Prefects, Dukes and Counts were appointed from the Antrustions ranks and all other offices of trust related to the King and the government of the Kingdom were filled by Antrustions. In the Kingdom there were other Noble Orders, but none were held in such high esteem as the Antrustions.

At the end of the sixth century, this situation changed significantly. To the barbarian royalty, still very similar to the principatus of the ancient tribes from beyond the Rhine, succeeds, under the influence of Roman customs and laws, in a word, from the environment where the successors of Clovis live, an already Romanized royalty, which associates with the Germanic principle of voluntary and changing companionship, the imperial idea of an absolute domination, independent of the consent of the subject.

This idea emerges in the treaty of Andelot, of 587: we see there that the leudes frequently passed from the party of a sovereign to that of another prince, provoked by these changes by solicitations and advantageous offers; but we also see there the two kings Gontran and Childebert reciprocally stipulating the removal (remove cantur) of the infidels, and obliging themselves not only to no longer encourage desertions, but also to no longer receive deserters in their respective states (nec venientes excipiat) “.

Alongside the punishment of unfaithful leudes, we find the reparation stipulated for the benefit of those who have remained in duty: “Et quod exinde fidelibus personis ablatum est,” de præsenti recipiat.”

The edict of Clotaire ll, of 615, also contains a similar article in favor of the leudes who, by keeping their faith in the legitimate sovereign (suam fidem servando domino legitimo), have lost all or part of their property”.

These are the first preventive and repressive measures which the Frankish Kings adopted to restrain the restless and changing spirit of their leudes. The capricious grouping of warriors around leaders of their choice, the extreme mobility in the importance of their entourage, could suit the social condition of the German tribes and their life of adventures and expeditions, but they did not reconcile with a relatively much more stable state, where a single chief, the King, commanded many populations, of different races and customs, fixed on an extended territory. The free faculty to pass alternately from the trustis of a Prince to that of a neighboring and sometimes enemy Prince was not only an attack on the dignity of the sovereign, it was the threat from within.

And not nomadic and wandering, as has often been said. The warriors, and especially the young men of the tribes, had a passion for combat and adventurous expeditions.

The idea of the tribes remained in their place. Without this, Tacitus would not have been able to determine, as he did, their geographical location: hardly could he have said their names. Borders were only to move frequently and remain indecisive. Caesar even says that it was a great honor for the Germanic nations to make the desert very far around their territory, by devastating neighboring countries: “Circum se vas” tatis finibus solitudines habere. »(De bello Gallico, VI, xvin.)
health of a displacement of political forces and, therefore, of authority, in a situation analogous to that of a military commander in a conquered country. Also, the provisions of the Treaty of Andelot and of the subsequent edicts concerning the leudes defectors were inspired by a very just feeling of the necessities of the government of the Franks in Gaul. In the seventh century, as we advance towards the end of the first race and approach the reign of Charlemagne, the Frankish institutions lose their primitive character, by combining with the traditions, the laws and the ceremonia of Imperial Rome. The personal and voluntary bond of the antrustion towards the Prince is transformed into a permanent obligation of the vassal towards a suzerain. This is why the provisions on the duties of antrustion, so rare in the old Salic law and in the edicts of the first dynasty, are multiplied, with regard to the vassal, in the capitularies of Charlemagne and his successors.

The Charta divisionis imperii, of 837, states that “every free man will have, after the death of the king, his present lord (domini su

FRANKISH SOCIETY

Among the Franks, there were three classes:

1° trusting;

2° the man brought into the world liberated from free guardians, proprietor and warrior, possessing the full right of city;

3° the man brought into the world free, yet not proprietor, living on the ground of a man more remarkable and luckier than him, denied of a piece of the city rights, and particularly of political rights.

These classes, both among the Franks and among the Gallo-Romans, are determined by accidental circumstances, of uncertainties and variable duration. Thus, the tributary Roman can become owner and rise to the rank of Romanus possessor. This, by mismanagement or by excess of taxes, can descend to the rank of tributary. The distinction between Romans and Franks in society became less obvious especially at the highest levels of society.

Among the Franks, the free man of the first rank, having lost his property, could also lose part of his rights in the opposite direction, the free man of the second rank, non-owner, could rise from his misery and take his place among the men in possession of all the rights of the city. Free man could be admitted to the Antrustions but he lost this dignity in several circumstances, notably by the death of the King, who had received his oath, or by the forfeiture incurred following breach of the duties which his oath created.

The original quality was immutable. The sovereign himself was powerless to concede to a Roman of the quality of a Franc. This original inferiority of Romain followed him even in the highest situations, since having reached the position of “Trusting” he received only half of the composition of the Frank Antrustion. That could well explain a famous passage from the Life of Louis the Pious, where Thégan, addressing Ebbon, son of a slave, freed and raised by the Emperor to the dignity of the Archbishop of Reims, reproaches him for his ingratitude towards its benefactor: I made you free, but not noble, which is impossible after liberation, The distinction of races therefore constituted, strictly speaking, the fundamental division of Merovingian Society, and the various conditions that we come to list answered only to ranks, established among the free men of each of them. This is why, at this time in our European history, the existence of a kind of nobility, it is not in a title like that of Antrustions, concessionable and of precarious duration that it should be seen, but rather in an immutable, non-concessional quality, transmissible by birth, that men of Frankish race or Salian barbarians, forming a higher caste, in law and in fact, other parts of the population. In this caste, the Antrustions occupied a dominant position with regard to their fellows there position was different from that given by birth, and which must therefore be designated by a word, other than that of nobility. It was, in the race of nobility, a sort of life aristocracy which formed its head.

The Marculf form (Formula Marculfi) is a Merovingian collection of legal acts composed between the second half of the 7th century and the beginning of the 8th century by a monk named Marcellin, or in this context Marculf. This document is considered to be “the most important form of the Merovingian era and the most interesting from a diplomatic point of view”

A “form” was at that time a compilation of examples of codified acts, which served in particular as a manual for the drafters of charters, diplomas or other administrative acts (the first known forms, dating from the Roman Empire, are still used in the early Middle Ages). It is assumed that they were also used for dictamen or ars dictaminis, that is to say, the teaching of law associated with that of composition, style, epistolary rhetoric which seems to have taken a great place as from the 11th century.

Marculf dedicated the work to Landry de Paris (bishop of Paris in the years 650 to 656).

This form is divided into two books:

The first book contains models of documents for the use of the royal chancellery (57 royal diploma forms);
The second book is a collection of models of private acts (carta pagenses) (52 formulas).

This form contains in particular the model act of appointment of Counts, which constitutes proof that part of the King’s functions were assumed locally by a Count.

This form was used at the Chancellery of the Merovingian King’s, and later most probably by that of the Mayors of the Palace.

According to the marculfian formula the future Antrustion who came to the Palace with his arms to swear assistance and loyalty to the King was above all a military companion whose role and situation were quite clearly defined.

The Mayor of the Palace (Major Domus) the Chief of the household of the King, later became the commander of the Antrustions and his influence grew significantly. Later the institution of the Antrustions was abolished by the Mayor of the Palace.

At the end of the ninth century, the institute of Antrustions was replaced by vassalage, which, after having had a personal character, became hereditary, chaining, by the mere fact of birth, the son of the vassal to the descendant of the suzerain. Did the King, for his part, have the power to separate himself from the Antrustion, except in cases of forfeiture and against the will of the latter? Among the ancient Germans, each princeps gathered around him the number of companions he deemed necessary for more or less imminent undertakings, sometimes to support or increase his influence or his prestige during periods of peace “, and maintenance which he believed himself in a position to provide. It was therefore for him to assess to what figure he should increase or reduce the quantity. The chief did not contract, moreover, of commitment towards the companion, like the latter with regard to the chief, and, consequently, he could give leave to one or more of the men of his warlike retinue, and even dismiss it entirely.