But the Franks, more faithfully than any of
their rivals, held to the barbarian usage of dividing a kingdom, in the manner
of a family estate, equally between the sons of a dead sovereign. Logically
pursued this custom of inheritance would have led to utter disintegration, such
as Germany exhibited in the fourteenth century. Among the Franks a partition
was followed, as a matter of course, by fratricidal conflicts and consequent
reunion of the kingdom in the hands of the ultimate survivor; but even so the
energies of the nation were squandered upon civil wars. The descendants of
Clovis did little to augment the realm that he bequeathed to them; this little
was done in the fifty years following his death.
The Burgundians, Bavarians and
Thuringians were subdued; Provence was bought from the Ostrogoths at the price
of armed support against Justinian; the Saxons were compelled to promise
tribute. From 561 to 688 the power and the morale of the Franks steadily declined.
Dagobert I (628-638), the most renowned of the Merovingians after Clovis, could
only chastise rebels and strengthen the defences of the eastern frontier. He
released the Saxons from tribute; he was unable to prevent an adventurer of his
own race, the merchant Samo, from organising the Slavs of Bohemia and the
neighbouring lands in a powerful and aggressive federation. Already in his time
the East Franks (Austrasians) refused to be governed from Neustria, and
insisted that the son of Dagobert should be their king. After Dagobert the
three kingdoms of Neustria, Austrasia and Burgundy asserted their right to separate
administrations, even when subject to one king.
