It must not be imagined that this was a Welsh or a Celtic peculiarity, for there was a time when the _Hird_, or Court, of the Frank kings was of a yet more primitive description, the attendants in the Hird being all on a servile footing, known as _Scalcs_, and chosen most probably from the subordinate race. The Household appears to have been under the superintendence of the _Sene-scalc_--perhaps the Senior Slave--the Stable under the _March-scalc_, officials who seem to be traceable amongst the Anglo-Saxons in the _Wealh-gerefa_ and the royal _Horswealh_, the latter raised by his office to the footing of a _Ceorl_.[337] Totally unconnected with the servile classes, and in the absence of the sovereign exercising royal authority over the whole kingdom, as well as over the Household, was the Deputy, the “Dux et Major Domus regni Francorum,” more familiarly known as the _Maire du Palais_, whose original Teutonic title was probably the _Stallr_. The office was originally elective, the Franks choosing the Deputy as well as the actual sovereign; and it must in some respects have resembled that of the Celtic _Tascio_. It latterly became hereditary, as is well known, in the family of Pepin and Charles Martel, who monopolized the office in Austrasia and Neustrasia, until they exchanged the title of Maire du Palais for that of king. No other great official besides the Stallr is traceable in the Norwegian Court, for which, at the opening of the eleventh century, Olive the Saint framed regulations, which must have been adopted for the usages of other Courts of the same period; though the use of the word _Hus-Carles_, both there and in England, may point to the gradual replacement of the _scalc_ by the freeman about the royal person. The progress of Roman innovation soon necessitated the presence of officials whom the simpler institutions of the north ignored; and to receive the offerings of the fiscal tenantry, made in lieu of the _feorm_, _veitzslo_ or actual support afforded to the sovereign and his retinue, a _Camera_, or treasure-chamber, was required; the leading _Camerarius_, or Chamberlain, the Lord High Treasurer of the age, becoming, as purse-bearer, a most important member of the Court. The charter next became a necessary document to attest the possession of proprietary right; and accordingly, in the early part of the ninth century, it was ordered in the Frank Capitularies, “that there should be chosen everywhere good and true Chancellors, to write public charters before the Comes, Scabini, and Vicarii.”[338] Much more, then, was it necessary that a similar official should be in attendance at the fountain-head of all chartered grants, and consequently the royal _Cancellarius_ became another most important attendant upon the royal person, the clerkly attributes required for the Chancellorship naturally placing it in the hands of the clergy. Most of these changes were probably introduced amongst