octurnal dances, public orgies, formerly permitted at
feasts, were forbidden as being profane. In the time of Clotaire, the
prelates sat as members of the supreme council, which was strictly
speaking the highest court of the land, having the power of reversing the
decisions of the judges of the lower courts. It pronounced sentence in
conjunction with the King, and from these decisions there was no appeal.
The nation had no longer a voice in the election of the magistrates, for
the assemblies of _Malberg_ did not meet except on extraordinary
occasions, and all government and judicial business was removed to the
supreme and often capricious arbitration of the King and his council.

As long as the mayors of the palace of Austrasia, and of that of Burgundy,
were only temporarily appointed, royal authority never wavered, and the
sovereign remained supreme judge over his subjects. Suddenly, however,
after the execution of Brunehaut, who was sacrificed to the hatred of the
feudal lords, the mayoralty of the palace became a life appointment, and,
in consequence, the person holding the office became possessed almost of
supreme power, and the rightful sovereigns from that time practically
became subject to the authority of the future usurpers of the crown. The
edict of 615, to which the ecclesiastical and State nobility were parties,
was in its laws and customs completely at variance with former edicts. In
resuming their places in the French constitution, the Merovingian kings,
who had been deprived both of influence and authority, were compelled by
the Germanic institutions to return to the passive position which their
predecessors had held in the forests of Germany, but they no longer had,
like the latter, the prestige of military authority to enable them to keep
the position of judges or arbitrators. The canons of the Council of Paris,
which were confirmed by an edict of the King bearing date the 15th of the
calends of November, 615, upset the political and legal system so firmly
established in Europe since the fifth century. The royal power was shorn
of some of its most valuable prerogatives, one of which was that of
selecting the bishops; lay judges were forbidden to bring an ecclesiastic
before the tribunals; and the treasury was prohibited from seizing
intestate estates, with a view to increasing the rates and taxes; and it
was decreed that Jews should not be employed in collecting the public
taxes. By these canons the judge