And the condition of Gaul under the Franks began to be a condition of general disturbance after the death of the great King Clovis. He died in 511 and he left his kingdom divided between his four sons. The youngest of these sons, by name Clotaire, lived longer than any of his brothers, but on his death, in 561, he in turn left four sons, and again there was division of the kingdom, claims were made by one and were resisted by another. There was continual civil war. Yet again, a few years later, there were new divisions amongst the children of one or other of these, and so it went until the kingdom was once more united, after 613, by the death or defeat of his rivals, under Clotaire II. Clotaire was nominally sovereign, yet still there were the subordinate kingdoms, each claiming some independence. But during this century, when the Frankish conquerors were fighting with each other, the general condition of society had been altered. We have seen how the large landowners began drawing to themselves a body of vassals, and how they gradually became more independent of the king's authority. We have to notice at the same time that the power of the Church, in the hands of its bishops, was continually growing greater. The Church was constantly being enriched by donations of land given it by pious persons who deemed that they might find salvation by these gifts; and what made the Church the more powerful was the above-mentioned custom of granting "immunities." The "immunities" were granted by the Crown, in {86} return for some service done, or by way of payment of a debt, or as an act of mere friendliness; and the meaning of the "immunity" was that the land in respect of which it was granted was "immune" from the king's tax collectors or law officers. The Crown officials could not enter on it. The taxes were collected and the law administered by persons acting for the landowner. You see how this again would work towards making the great landowners independent of the Crown. And these "immunities" were largely given to the bishops in respect of the Church lands. The bishops thus grew to great independence and power, and they worked continually to have their own people, the subordinate clergy, subject to their own laws, the laws of the Church, and not to the laws of the Crown. Now at the court of the Merovingian kings and also of the lesser kings, the chief officer and chief executor of the king's will was an official called "the Mayor of the Palace." He was everywhere a man of great influence and of high family. He acted not so much like an English Prime Minister as like the vizier, the chief officer, of an Oriental king. As time passed, in the constant distractions of the kingdom and the weakening power of the central authority, the power of these high officials grew continually.