In the Free States of the American Union, also, in the townships and villages, the significance of the country has reached its highest and noblest development. Here the free townships and villages are the fountains of healthy political life, and the genuine source of all civilizing agencies. Under the Merovingians and Carlovingians, the frequent wars and oppressions proved destructive not only to the natives but also to the conquerors themselves. The Franks and other German landholders, by their violent and disorderly mode of life, were soon impoverished and became the prey of powerful neighbors of their own kindred. The savage rigor of the law regulating composition for crimes quickly drained and utterly destroyed the patrimonies of the reckless soldiery, and thus rapidly increased the number of landless vagabonds, who were neither tenants nor serfs, but became chattels to men of their own race, once their companions and perhaps even their followers. At the end of the second Salic dynasty very few free laborers existed, and kidnapping, especially on the sea-coasts, became common. Charlemagne, as previously mentioned, tried to regulate and alleviate the condition of the bondmen and chattels. His capitularies forbade the selling of chattels beyond the kingdom; and whoever violated this law became a slave himself. Slaves were to be sold in the presence of the count or the bishop, or their lieutenants, or notables, but not surreptitiously, or from one person to another, without being controlled by the authorities; and heavy fines also followed all violations of this law. Notwithstanding all this, however, Norman and Saracen wars and invasions, together with Frankish taxations and exactions, kept the country in the same state of desolation as during the centuries of the agonizing empire. Scarcely any towns existed, and the few large cities were scattered at enormous distances one from the other. Fastnesses, castles, burghs and fortified monasteries dotted the land; even they, however, being separated from each other by great forests and marshes. The poor and oppressed serfs and chattels were hunted and kidnapped, and no place of refuge existed for them.