They were strong and comparatively free from the vices of Rome; they had a rude sense of justice.

But that very sense and instinct for that one essential of ordered life drove the individual to take the execution of the law and of justice into his own hands and to claim his rights at the point of the sword.

The result can be easily imagined.

The sword was never for a long time thrust back into the scabbard.

Incessant wars, not at the bidding of the ruler, nor sanctioned by the voice of public authority or for the public welfare, but for private ends, for revenge, for greed and booty, were waged throughout the length and breadth of Europe.
The civil government, or the empty simulacrum that went under the name, seemed powerless, for the simple reason that the strong arm of either a Charlemagne or a Charles Martel too seldom appeared to check the culprits, or because the civil government itself only added fuel to the flame, by the encouragement it gave to license and violence by its own evil example.
But society had to protect itself.