It were easy to construct, for the empire of Charlemagne, a similar list of officers; there might be set down in it dukes, counts, vicars, centeniers, and sheriffs (seabini), and they might be distributed, in regular gradation, over the whole territory; but it would be one huge lie; for most frequently, in the majority of places, these magistracies were utterly powerless and themselves in complete disorder.

The efforts of Charlemagne, either to establish them on a firm footing or to make them act with regularity, were continual, but unavailing.

In spite of the fixity of his purpose and the energy of his action, the disorder around him was measureless and insurmountable.

He might check it for a moment at one point; but the evil existed wherever his terrible will did not reach, and wherever it did the evil broke out again so soon as it had been withdrawn.

How could it be otherwise?
Charlemagne had not to grapple with one single nation or with one single system of institutions; he had to deal with different nations, without cohesion, and foreign one to another.