2d.  The beneficiaries or vassals of the Emperor, who held of him, sometimes as hereditaments, more often for life, and more often still without fixed rule or stipulation, lands; domains, throughout the extent of which they exercised, a little bit in their own name and a little bit in the name of the Emperor, a certain jurisdiction and nearly all the rights of sovereignty.  There was nothing very fixed or clear in the position of the beneficiaries and in the nature of their power; they were at one and the same time delegates and independent owners and enjoyers of usufruct, and the former or the latter character prevailed among them according to circumstances.  But, altogether, they were closely bound to Charlemagne, who, in a great number of cases, charged them with the execution of his orders in the lands they occupied.

Above these agents, local and resident, magistrates or beneficiaries, were the missi dominici, temporary commissioners, charged to inspect, in the Emperor’s name, the condition of the provinces; authorized to penetrate into the interior of the free lands as well as of the domains granted with the title of benefices; having the right to reform certain abuses, and bound to render an account of all to their master.  The missi dominici were the principal instruments Charlemagne had, throughout the vast territory of his empire, of order and administration.

As to the central government, setting aside for a moment the personal action of Charlemagne and of his counsellors, the general assemblies, to judge by appearances and to believe nearly all the modern historians, occupied a prominent place in it.  They were, in fact, during his reign, numerous and active; from the year 770 to the year 813 we may count thirty-five of these national assemblies, March-parades and May-parades, held at Worms, Valenciennes, Geneva, Paderborn, Aix-la-Chapelle, Thionville, and several other towns, the majority situated round about the two banks of the Rhine.  The number and periodical nature of these great political reunions are undoubtedly a noticeable fact.  What, then, went on in their midst?  What character and weight must be attached to their intervention in the government of the State?  It is important to sift this matter thoroughly.

There is extant, touching this subject, a very curious document.  A contemporary and counsellor of Charlemagne, his cousin-german Adalbert, abbot of Corbie, had written a treatise entitled “Of the Ordering of the Palace” (de Ordine Palatii), and designed to give an insight into the government of Charlemagne, with especial reference to the national assemblies.  This treatise was lost; but toward the close of the ninth century Hincmar, the celebrated archbishop of Rheims, reproduced it almost in its entirety, in the form of a letter of instructions, written at the request of certain grandees of the kingdom who had asked counsel of him with respect to the government of Carloman, one of the sons of Charles the Stutterer.  We read therein: