By the end of the tenth century feudalism had fairly established itself on the ruins of the empire. The new system brought in its train many evils and some social benefits, but whilst in process of development its immediate effect was to throw the whole governing power into the hands of a number of petty lords, who were responsible to no superior for their exercise of it. In spite, however, of the turbulence of the times, we shall find, on comparing them with the Merovingian period, that there was a decided advance in point of civilisation, which shows that the labours of Charlemagne and his bishops had not been entirely thrown away. The century which preceded the coronation of Hugh Capet, with all its intrigues and bloody contests, does not present us with a single political murder; whereas the Merovingian annals consist of little else than a catalogue of such crimes. Nay, after the great battle of Fontenay, fought in 841, in which it is said that a hundred thousand of the noblest warriors of France were slain, and which for ever established the preponderance in that country of the Romanesque over the Tudesque race and dialect,[124] the victorious combatants submitted to the severe penance imposed on them by the bishops of the realm; and the same singular spectacle was exhibited in 923, when, after the battle of Soissons, the bishops assembled in council imposed very severe penances on all concerned, thus protesting in the name of humanity and religion against these miserable civil broils.