was without efficacy, when opposed to the popular will. The gilden
stood their ground, and within a century after the death of
Charlemagne, all Flanders was covered with corporate towns.

This popular opposition took, however, another form in the northern
parts of the country, which still bore the common name of Friesland;
for there it was not merely local but national. The Frisons succeeded
in obtaining the sanction of the monarch to consecrate, as it
were, those rights which were established under the ancient forms
of government. The fact is undoubted; but the means which 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