Note 117 — Chapter VIII · THE BEGINNINGS OF THE CAROLINGIAN DYNASTY OF FRANKISH KINGS

Einhard, the secretary of Charlemagne [see p. 108], in writing a biography of his master, described the condition of Merovingian kingship as follows: "All the resources and power of the kingdom had passed into the control of the prefects of the palace, who were called the 'mayors of the palace,' and who exercised the supreme authority. Nothing was left to the king. He had to content himself with his royal title, his flowing locks, and long beard. Seated in a chair of state, he was wont to display an appearance of power by receiving foreign ambassadors on their arrival, and, on their departure, giving them, as if on his own authority, those answers which he had been taught or commanded to give. Thus, except for his empty title, and an uncertain allowance for his sustenance, which the prefect of the palace used to furnish at his pleasure, there was nothing that the king could call his own, unless it were the income from a single farm, and that a very small one, where he made his home, and where such servants as were needful to wait on him constituted his scanty household. When he went anywhere he traveled in a wagon drawn by a yoke of oxen, with a rustic oxherd for charioteer. In this manner he proceeded to the palace, and to the public assemblies of the people held every year for the dispatch of the business of the kingdom, and he returned home again in the same sort of state. The administration of the kingdom, and every matter which had to be undertaken and carried through, both at home and abroad, was managed by the mayor of the palace."—Einhard, Vita Caroli Magni, Chap. 1.