r to be performed by the serfs was lessened. Without absolutely
abolishing the authority of local customs in matters of finance, or
penalties which had been illegally exacted, they were suspended by laws
decided at the _Champs de Mai_, by the Counts and by the _Leudes_, in
presence of the Emperor. Arbitrary taxes were abolished, as they were no
longer required. Food, and any articles of consumption, and military
munitions, were exempted from taxation; and the revenues derived from
tolls on road gates, on bridges, and on city gates, &c., were applied to
the purposes for which they were imposed, namely, to the repair of the
roads, the bridges, and the fortified enclosures. The _heriban_, a fine of
sixty sols--which in those days would amount to more than 6,000
francs--was imposed on any holder of a fief who refused military service,
and each noble was obliged to pay this for every one of his vassals who
was absent when summoned to the King's banner. These fines must have
produced considerable sums. A special law exempted ecclesiastics from
bearing arms, and Charlemagne decreed that their possessions should be
sacred and untouched, and everything was done to ensure the payment of the
indemnity--_dime_ and _none_--which was due to them.

[Illustration: Fig. 260.--Toll on Markets levied by a Cleric.--From one of
the Painted Windows of the Cathedral of Tournay (Fifteenth Century).]

Charlemagne also superintended the coining and circulation of money. He
directed that the silver sou should exactly contain the twenty-second part
by weight of the pound. He also directed that money should only be coined
in the Imperial palaces. He forbade the circulation of spurious coin; he
ordered base coiners to be severely punished, and imposed heavy fines upon
those who refused to accept the coin in legal circulation. The tithe due
to the Church (Fig. 260), which was imposed at the National Assembly in
779, and disbursed by the diocesan bishops, gave rise to many complaints
and much opposition. This tithe was in addition to that paid to the King,
which was of itself sufficiently heavy. The right of claiming the two
tithes, however, had a common origin, so that the sovereign defended his
own rights in protecting those of the Church. This is set forth in the
text of the _Capitulaires_, from the year 794 to 829. "What had originally
been only a voluntary and pious offering of a few of the faithful," says
the author of the "Histoire Financiere de