nd try to find a way to hold his empire together without fighting. Something that would work in peace as well as war. He had to kind of make things up as he went. ADMINISTRATION: He created new offices, adapted old ones, squashed duties together, whatever worked. He was trying to rule more territory than any Frankish king ever had and do it in new ways. Some people call what his predecessors had put together an empire, but even thats stretching it. They had no set of common laws, not currency, no bureaucracy, no tax system. Transportation was even more difficult now as the Roman roads fell into more and more disrepair. Regular communication was darn near impossible.Within the Frankish kingdom itself, he relied on his COUNTS from the French word for Companion. A count was appointed by him to rule a particular region in France called a COUNTY. These were areas where the king could pretty much rely on their loyalty. Above the counts were the provincial governors, who duty it became to govern the largest parts of the kingdom. The took the ancient Roman title of DUKE, from the Latin for leader. They were members of Charles immediate family, or darn close. Examples: Duke of Saxony, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Burgundy, etc. In newly-conquered territories, on the other hand, the rulers had to be a warrior whose principal duties were military. Such a territory was called a MARCH. He set up a March, for example, in northern Spain, although most of them were in the east. The German word for count is GRAF, so these lords were called MARGRAVES (Marquis in French). The system was not rigid or consistent. Not all counts reported to a duke, some regions were ruled directly by a duke, with no counts under him. Some were ruled by Charles directly and some were held by the Church. Jurisdictions overlappedIt was not efficient, but it survived and gave shape to the political geography of medieval Europe. When Charlemagne dies and the power of the Frankish ...
