By the year 570, all the races outside of Germany, except the Saxons and Angles in Britain, had accepted Christianity. Within Germany, although the Christian missionaries were at work among the Alemanni, the Bavarians, and along the Rhine, the great body of the people still held to their old pagan worship. The influence of the true faith was no doubt weakened by the bitter enmity which still existed between the Athanasian and Arian sects, although the latter ceased to be powerful after the downfall of the Ostrogoths. But the Christianity which prevailed among the Franks, Burgundians and Longobards was not pure or intelligent enough to save them from the vices which the Roman Empire left behind it. Many of their kings and nobles were polygamists, and the early history of their dynasties is a chronicle of falsehood, cruelty and murder. [Sidenote: 570.] In each of the races, the primitive habit of electing chiefs by the people had long since given way to an hereditary monarchy, but in other respects their political organization remained much the same. The Franks introduced into Gaul the old German division of the land into provinces, hundreds and communities, but the king now claimed the right of appointing a Count for the first, a _Centenarius_, or centurion, for the second, and an elder, or head-man, for the third. The people still held their public assemblies, and settled their local matters; they were all equal before the law, and the free men paid no taxes. The right of declaring war, making peace, and other questions of national importance, were decided by a general assembly of the people, at which the king presided. The political system was therefore more republican than monarchical, but it gradually lost the former character as the power of the kings increased. The nobles had no fixed place and no special rights during the migrations of the tribes. Among the Franks they were partly formed out of the civil officers, and soon included both Romans and Gauls among their number. In Germany their hereditary succession was already secured, and they maintained their ascendancy over the common people by keeping pace with the knowledge and the arts of those times, while the latter remained, for the most part, in a state of ignorance. The cities, inhabited by Romans and Romanized Gauls, retained their old system of government, but paid a tax or tribute. Those portions of the other Germanic races which had become subject to the Franks were also allowed to keep their own peculiar laws and forms of local government, which were now, for the first time, recorded in the Latin language. They were obliged to furnish a certain number of men capable of bearing arms, but it does not appear that they paid any tribute to the Franks.