The custom of numbering the population, such as was carried on in Rome through the censors, appears to have been observed under the Merovingian kings.  At the request of the Bishop of Poitiers, Childebert gave orders to amend the census taken under Sigebert, King of Austrasia.  It is a most curious document mentioned by Gregory of Tours.  “The ancient division,” he says, “had been one so unequal, owing to the subdivision of properties and other changes which time had made in the condition of the taxpayers, that the poor, the orphans, and the helpless classes generally alone bore the real burden of taxation.”  Florentius, comptroller of the King’s household, and Romulfus, count of the palace, remedied this abuse.  After a closer examination of the changes which had taken place, they relieved the taxpayers who were too heavily rated and placed the burden on those who could better afford it.

This direct taxation continued on this plan until the time of the kings of the second dynasty.  The Franks, who had not the privilege of exemption, paid a poll tax and a house tax; about a tenth was charged on the produce of highly cultivated lands, a little more on that of lands of an inferior description, and a certain measure, a cruche, of wine on the produce of every half acre of vineyard.  There were assessors and royal agents charged with levying such taxes and regulating the farming of them.  In spite of this precaution, however, an edict of Clovis II., in the year 615, censures the mode of imposing rates and taxes; it orders that they shall only be levied in the places where they have been authorised, and forbade their being used under any pretext whatever for any other object than that for which they were imposed.

[Illustration:  Fig. 255.—­Signature of St. Eloy (Eligius), Financier and Minister to Dagobert I.; from the Charter of Foundation of the Abbey of Solignac (Mabillon, “Da Re Diplomatica").]

Under the Merovingians specie was not in common use, although the precious metals were abundant among the Gauls, as their mines of gold and silver were not yet exhausted.  Money was rarely coined, except on great occasions, such as a coronation, the birth of an heir to the throne, the marriage of a prince, or the commemoration of a decisive victory.  It is even probable that each time that money was used in large sums the pound or the sou of gold was represented more by ingots of metal than by stamped coin.  The third of the sou of gold, which was coined on state occasions, seems to have been used only as a commemorative medal, to be distributed amongst the great officers of state, and this circumstance explains their extreme rarity.  The general character of the coinage, whether of gold, silver, or of the baser metals, of the Burgundian, Austrasian, and Frank kings, differs little from what it had been at the time of the last of the Roman emperors, though the Angel bearing the cross gradually replaced