But the civil power of the Church grew apace. In the early sixth century one-third of the land of France was held and administered by the monasteries. The abbots of St. Germain des Prés held possession of nearly 90,000 acres of land, mostly arable, in various provinces of France. Their annual revenue amounted to about £24,000 of our money: they ruled over more than 10,000 serfs. From a list of the lands held in the ninth century by the abbey of St. Pierre des Fossés,[30] founded by Clovis II. about eight miles from Paris, and published in the _Trésor des pièces rares ou inédites_, we are able to form some idea of the vast extent of monastic possessions in the city. The names of the various properties whose boundaries touch those of the abbey lands are given. Private owners are mentioned only four times, whereas to ecclesiastical and monastic domains there are no less than ninety references. These monastic settlements were veritable garden cities, where most of our modern fruits, flowers and vegetables were cultivated; where flocks and herds were bred and all kinds of poultry, including pheasants and peacocks, reared. Guilds of craftsmen worked and flourished; markets were held generally on saints' days, and pilgrimages were fostered. Charlemagne was an honest coiner and a protector of foreign traders; he was tolerant of the Jews, the only capitalists of the time, and under him Paris became the "market of the peoples," and Venetian and Syrian merchants sought her shores. In Gallo-Roman days few were the churches outside the cities, but in the great emperor's time every villa[31] is said to have had its chapel or oratory served by a priest. Charlemagne was a zealous patron of such learning as the epoch afforded, and sought out scholars in every land. English, Irish, Scotch, Italian, Goth and Bavarian--all were welcomed. The English scholar Alcuin, master of the Cloister School at York, became his chief adviser and tutor. He would have every child in his empire to know at least his paternoster. Every abbot on election was required to endow the monastery with some books. The choice of authors was not a wide one: the Old and New Testaments; the writings of the Fathers, especially St. Augustine, the emperor's favourite author; Josephus; the works of Bede; some Latin authors, chiefly Virgil; some scraps of Plato translated into Latin--a somewhat exiguous and austere library, but one which reared a noble and valiant line of scholars and statesmen to rule the minds and bridle the savage lusts of the coming generations of men. Under Irish and Anglo-Saxon influences the cramped, minute script of the Merovingian scribes grew in beauty and lucidity: gold and silver and colour illuminated the pages of their books. The golden age of the Roman peace seemed dawning again in a new _Imperium Christianorum_.