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.

In each of these divisions the effective ruler was the Mayor of the
Palace, a viceroy who kept his sovereign in perpetual tutelage. The
later Merovingians were feeble puppets, produced before their subjects
on occasions of state, but at other times relegated to honourable
seclusion on one of their estates. The history of the Franks from 638 to
719 is that of conflicts between the great families of Neustria and
Austrasia for the position of sole Mayor. At length unity was restored
by the triumph of the Austrasian Charles Martel. His father had gained