CONSULTATIVE BODIES. 349 



few whicli is due to their leaderships as warriors, to their clan-head- 

 ships, or to their supposed supernatural descent, yet the superior few, 

 conscious that they are no match for the inferior many in a physical 

 contest, will be obliged to treat their opinions with some deference 

 will not be able completely to monopolize power. But as fast as there 

 progresses that class-differentiation before described, and as fast as 

 the superior few acquire better weapons than the inferior many, or, as 

 among various ancient peoples, have war-chariots, or, as in mediaeval 

 Europe, wear coats of mail or plate-armor and are mounted on horses, 

 they, feeling their advantage, will pay less respect to the opinions of 

 the many. And the habit of ignoring their opinions will be followed 

 by the habit of regarding any expression of their opinions as an imper- 

 tinence. 



This gradual usurpation will be furthered by the growth of those 

 bodies of armed dependents with which the superior few surround 

 themselves mercenaries and others, who, while unconnected with the 

 common freemen, are bound by fealty to their employers. These, 

 too, with better weapons and defensive appliances than the mass, will 

 be led to regard them with contempt, and to aid in subordinating 

 them. 



Not only on the occasions of general assemblies, but from day to 

 day in their respective localities, the increasing power of the chiefs 

 thus caused will tend to reduce the freemen more and more to the 

 rank of dependents, and especially so where the military service of 

 such nobles to their king is dispensed with or allowed to lapse, as hap- 

 pened in Denmark about the thirteenth century : 



The free peasantry, who were originally independent proprietors of tLe 

 soil, and had an equal suffrage with the highest nobles in the land, were thus 

 compelled to seek the protection of these powerful lords, and to come under 

 vassalage to some neighboring Herremand or bishop or convent. The provin- 

 cial diets, or Lands-Ting, were gradually superseded by the general national 

 Parliament of the Dannehof, Adel-Ting, or Herredag ; the latter being exclu- 

 sively composed of the princes, prelates, and other great men of the kingdom. 

 ... As the influence of the peasantry had declined, while the iburghers did not 

 yet enjoy any share of political power, the constitution, although disjointed and 

 fluctuating, was rapidly approaching the form it ultimately assumed that of a 

 feudal and sacerdotal oligarchy. 



A further influence conducing to loss of power by the armed free- 

 men and gain of power by the armed chiefs, who form the consultative 

 body, follows that widening of the occupied area which goes along 

 with the compounding and recompounding of societies. As Richter 

 remarks of the Merovingian period : " Under Chlodovech and his im- 

 mediate successors, the people assembled in arms had a real participa- 

 tion in the resolutions of the king. But, with the increasing size of 

 the kingdom, the meeting of the entire people became imj^ossible." 

 Only those who lived near the appointed places could attend. Two 



