This being so, Albertus Krantzius, lib.  Suet. 5. cap. 41. ventures to affirm, that this Constable was the same with what the Germans call Mareschal.  “They named (says he) a Governor, one of the best Soldiers, who might have the Power of Convocating the Assembly of the Kingdom, and of acting in all Matters like the Prince.  Our Countrymen call him a Mareschal, the French call him Constable, &c.”  This seems the more probable, because I do not remember any Mention to have been made in ancient Times, of a Mareschal in our Francogallia; so that ’tis very likely to have been an Institution of our latter Kings, accommodated to the Custom of the Germans.

That this Comitatus Stabulorum, a Constableship, had its Rise from the Institution of the Roman Emperors, I do not at all question; altho’ it grew by Degrees among us from slender Beginnings, to the Heighth of chief Governor of the Palace.  In former Times that Dignity was a Sort of Tribunatus Militaris.  Ammianus, lib. 26. has this Expression where he speaks of Valentinian the Emperor,—­“Having fixed his Stages, or Days Journeys, he at last entred into Nicomedia; and about the Kalends of March, appointed his Brother Valens to be Governor of his Stables, cum tribunatus dignitate, with tribunitial Dignity.”  What Kind of Dignity that was, we may find in the Code of Justinian, lib. 1.  Cod. de comitibus & tribunis Schol. Where ’tis reckoned as a great Honour for them to preside over the Emperor’s Banquets, when they might adore his Purple.  Also in lib. 3.  Cod.  Theodos. de annon. & tribut, perpensa, 29.  Cod.  Theod. de equorum Collatione & lib. 1.  Cod.  Theod. wherein we may find a Power allowed them, of exacting Contribution to a certain Value from the Provincials who were to furnish War-Horses for the Emperor’s Service.

It now remains that we discourse a little of those Magistrates, which were commonly called Peers of France; whereof we can find no Records or Monuments, tho’ our Endeavours have not been wanting.  For among so great a Number of Books, as are called Chronicles and Annals of Francogallia, not one affords us any probable Account of this Institution.  For what Gaguinus, and Paulus AEmilius (who was not so much an Historian of French Affairs, as of the Pope’s) and other common Writers do affirm, to wit, That those Magistrates were instituted by Pipin or Charlemagn, appears plainly to be absurd; because not one of all the German Historians, who wrote during the Reigns of those Kings, or for some Time after, makes the least Mention of those Magistrates. Aimoinus himself who wrote a History of the Military Atchievements and Institutions of the Franks, down to the Reign of Lewis the Pious, and the Appendix,