After the Carolingians: The Emergence of Local Rule

As royal power diminished, counts and other powerful men stopped looking to the king for new lands and offices; instead, they began to develop and exploit what they already had. Commanding allegiance from vassals, controlling the local peasantry, building castles to dominate the countryside, setting up markets, collecting revenues, and keeping the peace, they regarded themselves as independent regional rulers. In this way, a new warrior class of lords and vassals came to dominate post-Carolingian society.

There were, to be sure, variations on this theme. In northern and central Italy, where urban life had never lost its importance, elites ruled from the cities rather than from rural castles. Everywhere kings retained a certain amount of power; in some places, such as Germany and England, they were extremely effective. Central European monarchies formed under the influence of Germany.* Still, throughout this period, local allegiances—between lord and vassal, castellan and peasant, bishop and layman—mattered most to the societies of Europe.