Among the fiefs which were gradually annexed a distinction must be drawn between the great princes who were really national chiefs owing an external homage to the French crown, and the lesser counts whose dominions had been cut off from the original duchy of France. And a distinction must be again drawn between these last and the immediate tenants of the Crown within its own domains, vassals of the Duke as well as of the King. ♦The great vassals.♦ To the first class belong the Dukes and Counts of _Burgundy_, _Aquitaine_, _Toulouse_, and _Flanders_; to the second the Counts of _Anjou_, _Chartres_, and _Champagne_. ♦Special character of Normandy.♦ Historically, _Normandy_ belongs to the second class, as the original grant to Rolf was undoubtedly cut off from the French duchy. But the whole circumstances of the Norman duchy made it a truly national state, owing to the French crown the merest external homage. ♦Britanny.♦ _Britanny_, yet more distinct in every way, was held to owe its immediate homage to the Duke of the Normans. ♦The Twelve Peers.♦ The so-called Twelve Peers of France seem to have been devised by Philip Augustus out of the romances of Charlemagne; but the selection shows who were looked on as the greatest vassals of the crown in his day. The six lay peers were the Dukes of Burgundy, Normandy, and Aquitaine, the Counts of Flanders, Toulouse, and Champagne. ♦Champagne.♦ This last was the only one of the six who could not be looked upon as a national sovereign. His dominions were _French_ in a sense in which Normandy or Aquitaine could not be called French. ♦Different position of the Bishops in the Eastern and Western kingdom.♦ The six ecclesiastical peers offer a marked contrast to the ecclesiastical electors of the Empire. The German bishops became princes, holding directly of the Empire. But the bishops within the dominions of the great vassals of the French crown were the subjects of their immediate sovereigns. The Archbishop of Rouen or the Archbishop of Bourdeaux stood in no relation to the King of the French. The ecclesiastical peerage of France consisted only of certain bishops who were immediate vassals of the King in his character of King, among whom was only one prelate of the first rank, the Archbishop and Duke of _Rheims_. The others were the Bishops and Dukes of _Langres_ and _Laon_, and the Bishops and Counts of _Beauvais_, _Noyon_, and _Châlons_. As the bishops within the dominions of the great feudatories had no claim to rank as peers of the kingdom, neither had those prelates who were actually within the King’s immediate territory, vassals therefore of the Duke of the French as well as of the King. Thus the Bishop of _Paris_ and his metropolitan the Archbishop of _Sens_ had no place among the twelve peers. § 1. _Incorporation of the Vassal States._