r the
Alemanni, who had wrested from the Romans all the dominions on the
northern side of the Alps; and the defeat of both Romans and Goths in
Italy, in the year 549, by the treacherous arms of Theodebert king of
Austrasia, whose dominions soon after devolved to the crown of France,
necessarily gave the aspiring Merovingian race a great ascendency over
all the countries surrounding the Grisons; and accordingly we find, that
this district also was soon after, without any military effort,
considered as part of the dominions of the reviving western empire. But
it does not appear that those monarchs ever made any other use of their
supremacy in these parts than, agreeably to the feudal system which they
introduced, to constitute dukes, earls, presidents, and bailiffs, over
Rhaetia; to grant out tenures upon the usual feudal terms; and
consequently to levy forces in most of their military expeditions.

It must, however, be observed, that these feudal substitutes were
seldom, if ever, strangers: those who are upon record to the latter end
of the eighth century, having all been chosen from among the nobility of
the country.[Z] And that no foreign garrisons were ever maintained for
any continuance of time in these parts, appears from a circumstance
related by their annalists;[AA] who say, that an inroad of the Huns in
670, when external forces would probably have been very acceptable to
the natives, was repulsed merely by a concourse of the inhabitants.

History continues to furnish us with proofs of the little connexion this
people had with other nations in their domestic affairs, notwithstanding
their dependance upon a foreign power. In the year 780, the Bishop of
Coire, who by the constitution of that see can only be a native,[AB]
obtained from Charlemain, besides many considerable honours and
privileges in the empire, a grant of the supreme authority in this
country, by the investiture of the office of hereditary president or
bailiff over all Rhaetia. His successors not only enjoyed this
prerogative to the extinction of the Carlovingian race of emperors in
911; but received accumulated favours from other succeeding monarchs, as
the bigoted devotion of those times or motives of interest prompted
them. And so far did their munificence gradually extend, that the sole
property of one of the three leagues[AC] was at one time vested in the
hands of the bishop.

This prelate and the nobles, the greatest part of whom became his