ORIGINS

»:THE ORIGINS OF FEUDALISM 7

agreement, he will have to pay [a fine of] x solidi to theother, but the agreement itself shall remain in force. Whence ithas seemed good to us that the two parties concerned should drawup and confirm two documents of the same tenor, and this theyhave done. (Qui se in alterius potestate commendat. Dominomagnifico illo ego enim ille. Dum et omnibus habetut petcogni-turn, qualiter ego minime habeo, unde me pascere vel vest iredebeam, ideo petii pietati vesirae, et mihi decrevit voluntas, ut mein vestrum mundoburdum tradere vel commendare deberem; quodita et feci; eo videlicet modo, ut me tam de victu quam et de vesti-mento, iuxia quod vobis servire et promereri potuero, adiuvare velconsolare debeas, et dum ego in capud advixero, ingenuili ordinetibi serviciuni vel obsequium inpendere debeam et de vestta potes-tate vel mundoburdo tempore vitae meae potestatem non habeamsubirahendi, nisi sub vestra pot estate vel defensione diebus vitaemeae debeam petmanete. Unde convenii ut, si unus ex nobis dehas convenntiis se emu tare voluerii, solidos tantos pari suo con-ponat, et ipsa conveneniia firma permaneat; unde convenit, utduas epistolas uno tenore conscriptas ex hoc inter se facere veladfirmare deberent; quod ita et fecerunt.)Before commenting on this document, it is important to ob-

serve that it is not a charter intended to serve as evidenceof the fact that one person has commended himself to another;still less is it a charter whose drafting, confirmation and handingover (traditio) form in themselves the act of commendation. Thedispositive clause (dispositio), the essential part of the act, that bywhich its author expresses his will and which is here introducedby the word unde, only creates an accessory obligation, i.e. a penalclause providing a sanction for the obligations inherent in the actof commendation itself. The latter is known to us only from theterms of the exposition (narratio), the narrative portion of the act,which is intended simply to explain and justify the dispositiveclause.The legal effects of the act of commendation, as they are de-

scribed in the narratio, are a series of obligations binding on bothparties. The person who commends himself assumes the obliga-tion of serving and respecting his superior, whom he calls hisdominus, his lord, but with the reservation that this service andrespect shall be limited to what is compatible with the mainte-

'II I It hrl I (. t ht' word carried with it an implication of superiorIIIIth11lity I~well as of protection. The legal act by which one freeIII III plte cd lumself in the patrocinium or the mundeburdis of an-11th I wus known as commendatio, commendation. The substan-tl C I" ·If is not used in any of our existing sources before the,llUlingian period, but the verb se commendare, in the sense ofpln -jug oneself under the authority of another, is frequently found.'111C phrase bore this meaning even in classical times,' and it ap-pears in Gaul in the fifth century in the laws of the Visigothicking Euric, and in the sixth century in the Historia Francorum ofGregory of Tours,"A Merovingian formula in a collection known from its place of

origin, Tours, as the Formulae Turonenses gives us some useful in-formation on the subject of commendation. The one which con-cerns us, no. 43 in the collection, dates from the second quarter ofthe eighth century, but both in form and content it looks back to anearlier epoch. It is so important that it is worth reproducing andtranslating in its entirety."'He who commends himself to the power of another man.To the magnificent Lord (A.), I (B.). Inasmuch as it is known

to all and sundry that I lack the wherewithal to feed and clothemyself, I have asked of your pity, and your goodwill has grantedto me, permission to deliver and commend myself into yourmundoburdus. This I have therefore done, in such fashion that,you have undertaken to aid and sustain me in food and clothing,while I have undertaken to serve you and deserve well of you sofar as lies in my power. And for as long as I shall live, I am boundto serve you and respect you as a free man ought, and during mylifetime r shall not have the right to withdraw myself from yourauthority and mundoburdus; I must on the contrarv be for theremainder of my days under your power and protection. And invirtue of this action, if one of us tries to alter the terms of the

1 E.g. Terence, Eunuchus, 1039; Caesar, De bello gal/ico, iv. 27, 7.2 Codex Eurici, cccx (p. 18); Gregory of Tours, Historia Francorum, iv.

46, vii. ao (ed. B. Krusch and W. Levison, in M.G.H., S.R.M., 1", p. 181,33~).

Formulae Merowingici et Karolini Aevi (ed. K. Zeumer in M.G.H.),p. 158. These 'formulae' are specimen charters from which the concreteele~ents-the names of the parties, indications of date and place, etc.-areomitted; they were collected into 'formularies' which were used to providemodels for all kinds of legal documents.