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The Merovings, then, were despotic rulers, little controlled by any constitutional checks, and only liable to be deposed by their subjects if their conduct became absolutely unbearable. Their worst danger was always from their ambitious relatives, not from their people.

The Frankish king was distinguished from his followers by the regal privilege of wearing long hair,—to shear a king’s head was the best token of deposing him,—by his royal diadem, and kingly spear. Occasionally he borrowed trappings from the Romans, as when, for example, Chlodovech was invested with the robes of Patrician after his Gothic War.^[17] But the national dress was generally adhered to.

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The government of the realm was managed by two groups of ministers—the royal household, or palatium, and the provincial governors. |The Royal Household.| The household followed the person of the king in all his movements. It was mainly composed of personal companions, bound by the oath of fidelity, the comites of earlier days, who had once formed the king’s war-band, but now constituted his ministers and officials. These personal adherents were called by the Franks antrustions. We have already seen that the Goths called the same class saiones, and the English gesiths.