f local lords of no mean
importance, and in some cases possessed of no inconsiderable amount of
power. Such a degree of individual influence--perhaps I should
exaggerate if I called it individual independence--was, however,
little suited to the idea of a universal centralized empire, which was
the forming principle of the government of Charlemagne. While
recognizing the necessity of retaining the fundamental institution of
a division of the state into _civitates_, and of governing it by means
of the heads of these divisions, he wished to eliminate from these
officers all the characteristics of local magnates, and to reduce them
to the more easily controlled position of servants, and dependents of
the king. This object he accomplished most satisfactorily by changing
the dukes or local lords into counts or king's men, by appointing a
Count of the Palace for Italy, and by extending to that kingdom the
perfectly organized system of central control by means of the _Missi
Dominici_, with the workings of which in the other parts of his great
empire the student of history is too well acquainted to need any
description here.

The immediate changes in the life of the people consequent on the
introduction of this system were not considerable, if we except a
great improvement in public order and a marked advance in the
equitable administration of justice; but it needs no great foresight
to see that the ultimate effects on the position held by the municipal
units in the community could not fail to be important and
far-reaching. The new officer, the count, stripped of all the
importance that his predecessor, the duke, had enjoyed as lord of the
country over which he ruled, was placed in each city to govern, in the
king's name, it and its _territorium_. As long as the empire of
Charlemagne retained its integrity, and as long as the reins of
central government were held by a strong hand and the control it
exercised was felt to be positive and real, the change in the
character of the local governor was of little moment; but as soon as
the power of the central government weakened--during the inglorious
reigns of the immediate successors of the great emperor--its hold on
the administration of the local units slackened immediately; and in
proportion as the vitality of the new central control diminishes, we
see appearing the effects which must always result when the strong
hand of an active central power is removed from a system of
admini