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It will be noticed that there was no trace of popular government in this Frankish administration. The king chose the count and the count the hundred-man. The king was not controlled or checked by any popular assembly of the nation, nor the count or hundred-man by any meeting of the people of his district. The king promulgated edicts and laws on his own responsibility, and similarly the count administered his countship without any thought of rendering account to any one save the king. Such assemblies as took place were summoned to hear the decisions of king or count, not to debate upon them, or recommend their modification. The ancient German freedom had disappeared, to give place to an autocracy as well defined as that of the vanished Roman empire.

Besides dukes and counts, the king kept other officials in the provinces. These were the domestici who were charged with the control of the royal domain-land throughout the kingdom. They were the king’s private bailiffs for his own possessions, acting much as the ‘Procurators of the Fiscus’ had once acted for the Roman emperors in the ancient provinces. There were other domestici in the palace, whose offices were also financial, and who must apparently have served as underlings to the high-treasurer.