their ancient customs, together with the Frank additions. The general
statutes of Charlemagne were, of course, in vigor also; but that great
legislator knew too well the importance attached by all mankind to local
customs, to allow his imperial capitulara to interfere, unnecessarily,
with the Frisian laws.



VI.

Thus again the Netherlands, for the first time since the fall of Rome,
were united under one crown imperial. They had already been once united,
in their slavery to Rome. Eight centuries pass away, and they are again
united, in subjection to Charlemagne. Their union was but in forming a
single link in the chain of a new realm. The reign of Charlemagne had at
last accomplished the promise of the sorceress Velleda and other
soothsayers. A German race had re-established the empire of the world.
The Netherlands, like-the other provinces of the great monarch's
dominion, were governed by crown-appointed functionaries, military and
judicial. In the northeastern, or Frisian portion, however; the grants of
land were never in the form of revocable benefices or feuds. With this
important exception, the whole country shared the fate, and enjoyed the
general organization of the Empire.

But Charlemagne came an age too soon. The chaos which had brooded over
Europe since the dissolution of the Roman world, was still too absolute.
It was not to be fashioned into permanent forms, even by his bold and
constructive genius. A soil, exhausted by the long culture of Pagan
empires, was to lie fallow for a still longer period. The discordant
elements out of which the Emperor had compounded his realm, did not