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- Title
Frankish military duty and the fate of Roman taxation.
- Authors
Goffart, Walter
- Abstract
Frankish kings exacted unpaid military service from their subjects in both Merovingian and Carolingian times. The basis for this right has long been uncertain. A study of the term ‘manse’ as a Carolingian measure of assets brings to light the ostensibly hidden property on whose basis Franks went to war. This military duty reached back to the origins of the Frankish kingdom, when a large share of Roman taxes was awarded in individual allotments to soldiers obligated to serve, otherwise unpaid, when summoned, and heavily fined if they did not. Both demesne and tributary manses – contributory units – were the main part of state resources applied to military costs. They cannot be simply envisaged as components of an agricultural scheme ( ). A tax-like military obligation was one among several institutions actively surviving from the fifth century to the ninth, and it suggests that Frankish government was more law-based and administrative than is often allowed.
- Subjects
ROME; TAXATION (Roman law); ANCIENT history; TAXATION; FRANKISH law
- Publication
Early Medieval Europe, 2008, Vol 16, Issue 2, p166
- ISSN
0963-9462
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/j.1468-0254.2008.00226.x