Medieval Europe: A Short History by C.Warren Hollister (p. 20-21)
Germanic law, crude though it was, made one crucial contribution to Western thought: implicit in the Germanic system was the concept that law arose from the immemorial customs of the people rather than from the will of the rule. Since law transcended the royal authority, no king could be absolute. The rules of the Early Middle Ages often put the customs of their people into writing, but changed them only with great caution and in consultation with a council of nobles. The constitutional principle of government under the law did not emerge clearly for centuries to come, but when it did appear at last, in the High Middle Ages, it was rooted in the traditions of Europe’s Germanic past.
The centuries just preceding the invasions witnessed the development of relatively stable royal dynasties among many of the Germanic tribes. Perhaps an unusually gifted warrior with a particularly large comitatus might start such a dynasty, but before many generations had gone by the kings were claiming descent from some divine ancestor. When a king died, the assembly of the tribe chose as his successor the ablest member of his family. This might or might not be his eldest son, for the tribal assembly was given considerable latitude in its power to elect. The custom of election persisted in most Germanic kingdoms far into the Middle Ages. Its chief consequence during the fifth-century invasions was to insure that the barbarian tribes were normally led by clever, battle-worthy kings or chieftains at a time when the Western Empire was ruled by weaklings and nincompoops.
Nineteenth-century historians made much of the fact that certain Germanic institutions seemed to contain the seeds of constitutionalism and popular sovereignty. Democracy, so it was said, had its genesis in the forests of Germany. It should be obvious, however that the veneration of a customary "law of the folk" or the political prominence of a tribal assembly is not uniguely Germanic but is common to many primitive peoples. The significant fact is not that early Germanic kings were limited by customary law, but that the institution of limited monarchy endured and developed over the centuries of the Middle Ages.
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