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CHAP. XIV.: Of the Fiefs of Charles Martel. - Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Complete Works, vol. 2 The Spirit of Laws [1748]

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The Complete Works of M. de Montesquieu (London: T. Evans, 1777), 4 vols. Vol. 2.

Part of: Complete Works of Montesquieu, 4 vols.

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CHAP. XIV.

Of the Fiefs of Charles Martel.

I SHALL not pretend to determine whether Charles Martel, in giving the church-lands in fief, made a grant of them for life or in perpetuity. All I know is, that under Charlemaign , and Lotharius I. there were possessions of that kind which descended to the next heirs, and were divided amongst them.

I find moreover that one part of them was given as allodia, and the other as fiefs.

I took notice that the proprietors of the allodia were subject to the service all the same as the possessors of the fiefs. This, without doubt, was partly the reason that Charles Martel made grants of allodial lands, as well as of fiefs.

[]As appears by his capitulary, in the year 801. art. 17. in Baluzius, tom. 1. page 360.

[]See his constitution, inserted in the code of the Lombards, book 3. tit. 1. sect. 44.

[]See the above constitution, and the capitulary of Charles the Bald, in the year 846. chap. 20. in villa Sparnaco, Baluzius’s edition, tom. 2. page 31. and that of the year 853. chap. 3. and 5. in the synod of Soissons, Baluzius’s edition, tom. 2. page 54. and that of the year 854. apud Attiniacum, chap. 10. Baluzius’s edition, tom. 2. page 70. See also the first capitulary of Charlemaign, incerti anni, art. 49. and 56. Baluzius’s edition, tom. 1. page 519.