488 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



kings, and the antrustions of the Merovingian rulers. These 

 armed followers displayed in little, the characters of a stand 

 ing army ; not simply as being permanently united, but also 

 as heing severally bound to their prince or lord by relations 

 of personal fealty, and as heing subject to internal govern 

 ment under a code of martial law, apart from the govern- 

 ment of the freemen ; as was especially shown in the large 

 assemblage of them, amounting to 6,000, which was formed 

 by Cnut. 



In this last case we see how small body-guards, growing as 

 the conquering chief or king draws to his standard adven 

 turers, fugitive criminals, men who nave fled from injustice, 

 &c., pass unobtrusively into troops of soldiers who fight for 

 pay. The employment of mercenaries goes back to the 

 earliest times being traceable in the records of the Egyptains 

 at all periods ; and it continues to re-appear under certain 

 conditions : a primary condition being that the ruler shall 

 have acquired a considerable revenue. Whether of home 

 origin or foreign origin, these large bodies of professional 

 soldiers can be maintained only by large pecuniary means ; 

 and, ordinarily, possession of these means goes along with 

 such power as enables the king to exact dues and fines. In 

 early stages the members of the fighting body, when sum 

 moned for service, have severally to provide themselves not 

 only with their appropriate arms, but also with the needful 

 supplies of all kinds : there being, while political organiza 

 tion is little developed, neither the resources nor the adminis 

 trative machinery required for another system. But the 

 economic resistance to militant action, which, as w r e have 

 seen, increases as agricultural life spreads, leading to occa 

 sional non-attendance, to confiscations, to heavy fines in 

 place of confiscations, then to fixed money-payments in place 

 of personal services, results in the growth of a revenue which 

 serves to pay professional soldiers in place of the vassals who 

 have compounded. And it then becomes possible, instead of 

 hiring many such substitutes for short times, to hire a smaller 



