ich they
employed are uncertain. It appears most probable that this great
privilege was the price of their military services; for they held
a high place in the victorious armies of Charlemagne; and Turpin,
the old French romancer, alluding to the popular traditions of
his time, represents the warriors of Friesland as endowed with
the most heroic valor.

These rights, which the Frisons secured, according to their own
statements, from Charlemagne, but most undoubtedly from some
one or other of the earliest emperors, consisted, first, in the
freedom of every order of citizens; secondly, in the right of
property--a right which admitted no authority of the sovereign
to violate by confiscation, except in cases of downright treason;
thirdly, in the privilege of trial by none but native judges, and
according to their national usages; fourthly, in a very narrow
limitation of the military services which they owed to the king;
fifthly, in the hereditary title to feudal property, in direct
line, on payment of certain dues or rents. These five principal
articles sufficed to render Friesland, in its political aspect,
totally different from the other portions of the monarchy. Their
privileges secured, their property inviolable, their duties limited,
the Frisons were altogether free from the servitude which weighed
down France. It will soon be seen that these special advantages
produced a government nearly analogous to that which Magna Charta
was the means of founding at a later period in England.

The successors of Charlemagne chiefly signalized their authority
by lavishing donations of all kinds on the church. By such means
the ecclesiastical power became greater and greater, and, in those
countries under the sway of France, was quite as arbitrary and
enormous as that of the nobility. The bishops of Utrecht, Liege,
and Tournay, became, in the course of time, the chief personages
on that line of the frontier. They had the great advantage over
the counts, of not being subjected to capricious or tyrannical
removals. They therefore, even in civil affairs, played a more
considerable part than the latter; and began to render themselves
more and more independent in their episcopal cities, which were
soon to become so many principalities. The counts, on their parts,
used their best exertions to wear out, if they had not the strength
to break, the chains which bound them to the footstool of the
monarch. They were not all now dependent on