gastald

It is certainly true that very many instances occur in which the duke and the gastald are alluded to, whether in laws or in contracts, in precisely the same terms and in positions which would seem to indicate an almost perfect equality of dignity.

William Klapp Williams - The Communes of Lombardy from the VI. to the X. Century: An Investigation of the Causes Which Led to the Development: Of Municipal Unity Among the Lombard Communes.

Such a connection, as may be inferred from what has just been said, while legally true, of course, of the whole civitas, had practically the effect of bringing the cities chiefly into relation with the rest of the Lombard constitution; and, consequently, some writers point to the office of gastald as the connecting link between municipal life and the new state life of the Teutonic system.

William Klapp Williams - The Communes of Lombardy from the VI. to the X. Century: An Investigation of the Causes Which Led to the Development: Of Municipal Unity Among the Lombard Communes.

This fact is even of greater importance in the case of the gastald than in that of the dux, because, on account of the elimination of the character of local ruler, which was indissolubly attached to the office of the latter, the gastald brought local affairs into direct relation with other parts of the social system of the kingdom, especially connecting them with the king or centre of the whole.

William Klapp Williams - The Communes of Lombardy from the VI. to the X. Century: An Investigation of the Causes Which Led to the Development: Of Municipal Unity Among the Lombard Communes.

In military affairs the command held by the gastald seems to have been lower than that of the dux, the leader of all the troops furnished by the civitas. A right of appeal to the dux existed for the exercitalis who was oppressed by the gastald, as shown by the twenty-fourth law of Rhotaris, which says: "Si Gastaldius exercitalem suum contra rationem molestaverit, Dux eum soletur."

William Klapp Williams - The Communes of Lombardy from the VI. to the X. Century: An Investigation of the Causes Which Led to the Development: Of Municipal Unity Among the Lombard Communes.

The important point which it is necessary to emphasize in this connection is the fact that the gastald held his tenure, not from the dux as his subordinate, but from the king in person, and for this reason can more fitly be compared with the later count than with the dux of the Lombards.

William Klapp Williams - The Communes of Lombardy from the VI. to the X. Century: An Investigation of the Causes Which Led to the Development: Of Municipal Unity Among the Lombard Communes.

In the gastald, on the other hand, we have an official of an entirely different type one not belonging to a powerful class of lords or leaders which traces its origin to the spontaneous choice of the people or army, but one who gets his appointment at the will and in the interests of the central government, and is commissioned to exercise certain functions of the administration as an assistant to, perhaps even as a check on, the power of the local head.

William Klapp Williams - The Communes of Lombardy from the VI. to the X. Century: An Investigation of the Causes Which Led to the Development: Of Municipal Unity Among the Lombard Communes.

This statement seems to me to be true except in so far as it makes the gastald the only connecting link.

William Klapp Williams - The Communes of Lombardy from the VI. to the X. Century: An Investigation of the Causes Which Led to the Development: Of Municipal Unity Among the Lombard Communes.

We have seen the dux lord as well as judge in his own jurisdiction, and standing as the successor of the military leader chosen by the people, instead of holding the position of king's servant; this place being more properly filled by the gastald, who cared for the fiscal interests of the central power, whose appointee he was.

William Klapp Williams - The Communes of Lombardy from the VI. to the X. Century: An Investigation of the Causes Which Led to the Development: Of Municipal Unity Among the Lombard Communes.

In the first of these we see that in the year 715, the king's majordomus Ambrosius interferes "in Curte a Domini Regis" at Siena, in opposition to the local bishop and gastald; and in the second we find the royal notary Gunthram forbidding a fresh examination of witnesses "in Curte Regia Senensis."

William Klapp Williams - The Communes of Lombardy from the VI. to the X. Century: An Investigation of the Causes Which Led to the Development: Of Municipal Unity Among the Lombard Communes.

The means employed we have seen to be the functions of the various officers of state: the dux, the count and the gastald, who connected the city with the state, and the scabinus and the bishop, who represented this connection to the consciousness of the people.

William Klapp Williams - The Communes of Lombardy from the VI. to the X. Century: An Investigation of the Causes Which Led to the Development: Of Municipal Unity Among the Lombard Communes.