This ruinous system of taxation, rendered still more insupportable by the exactions of the proconsuls, and the violence of their subordinates, went on increasing down to the time of the fall of the Roman Empire. The Middle Ages gave birth to a new order of things. The municipal administration, composed in great part of Gallo-Roman citizens, did not perceptibly deviate from the customs established for five centuries, but each invading nation by degrees introduced new habits and ideas into the countries they subdued. The Germans and Franks, having become masters of part of Gaul, established themselves on the lands which they had divided between them. The great domains, with their revenues which had belonged to the emperors, naturally became the property of the barbarian chiefs, and served to defray the expenses of their houses or their courts. These chiefs, at each general assembly of the _Leudes_, or great vassals, received presents of money, of arms, of horses, and of various objects of home or of foreign manufacture. For a long time these gifts were voluntary. The territorial fief, which was given to those soldlers who had deserved it by their military services, involved from the holders a personal service to the King. They had to attend him on his journeys, to follow him to war, and to defend him under all circumstances. The fief was entirely exempt from taxes. Many misdeeds--even robberies and other crimes, which were ordinarily punishable by death--were pardonable on payment of a proportionate fine, and oaths, in many cases, might be absolved in the same way. Thus a large revenue was received, which was generally divided equally between the State, the procurator fiscal, and the King.
[Illustration: Fig. 253.--The Extraction of Metals.--Fac-simile of a Woodcut in the "Cosmographie Universelle" of Munster, folio: Basle, 1552.]
War, which was almost constant in those turbulent times, furnished the barbarian kings with occasional resources, which were usually much more important than the ordinary supplies from taxation. The first chiefs of the Visigoths, the Ostrogoths, and the Franks, sought means of replenishing their treasuries by their victorious arms. Alaric, Totila, and Clovis thus amassed enormous wealth, without troubling themselves to place the government finances on a satisfactory basis. We see, however, a semblance of financial organization in the institutions of Alaric and his successors. Subsequently, the great Théodoric, who had studied the administrative theories of the Byzantine Court, exercised his genius in endeavouring to work out an accurate system of finance, which was adopted in Italy.