20 ON THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS 



ence and ascendency which the latter naturally gained by the supe- 

 riority of wealth gradually led to their indirect control over the 

 former. Amidst these circumstances, royalty sunk into a mere 

 title, or at best maintained but a nominal authority. The rights of, 

 or the power of commanding, forced services, taxes, and villainage, 

 constituted the exclusive privilege of the owners of land. As re- 

 gards the kingf he certainly presided at the head of the freemen 

 (owners of landed property), and was looked up to as the supreme 

 head in all political and judicial affairs ; but he had not the slight- 

 est power over the persons of any class of the people, nor could he 

 enforce the simplest service of the humblest individual, unless that 

 individual belonged to the circle of his own landed property (that is, 

 if he possessed any), and merely in his simple capacity of a land- 

 holder or freeman. These two distinct lines of right and authority 

 ran parallel to each other for a long period ; and it thus happened 

 that the advocates of opposite opinions respecting the social forms 

 and principles of that early part of the middle ages — such as Dubos 

 and Baulainvilliers — support their respective opinions with equal 

 truth on facts apparently at variance with each other. The singu- 

 lar state of society at that early period, when extreme liberty on 

 the one hand, with its licentious train of arbitrary power, was so 

 strikingly contrasted by abject slavery, with its debasing concomi- 

 tants, on the other, has involved the history of those times in such 

 a depth of gloomy obscurity, as to baffle the industry of the most 

 erudite investigator, not only as respects that particular period of 

 time, but also as regards the real state of society in subsequent 

 ages. 



Such a state of things, bearing, as it were, a doubly opposite 

 character, was not calculated to be of very long duration. Political 

 freedom, which usually follows the standard of wealth, was at that 

 time closely allied to landed property, the only species of wealth of 

 importance ; and so extensive was the power which these territorial 

 possessions engendered for their owner, that it threatened to over- 

 whelm, in one vast domination to the wealthy lords, all those free- 

 men of minor allotments of land throughout the country. 



The vast consequence which was now attached to the persons and 

 the character of those extensive landholders, and the glitter and 

 show of their establishment, as well as the wide range of their 

 power, naturally generated a species of rivalry, which increased to 

 open contention and jealousy among the numerous hosts of menials 

 and dependents. These classes grew impatient with their condition, 

 and yearned for a share of that property which in itself brought to 

 its possessor so wide a range of power ; and, for the purpose of lift- 



