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 INTRODUCTION TO SOCIOLOGY. XVII

PART III, GENERAL STRUCTURE OF SOCIETY

CHAPTER VII. THE SOCIAL FRONTIERS (CONTINUED)

SECTION VIII. THE DECLINE OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE AND THE FORMATION OF THE

FEUDAL REGIME

G. DE GREEF Rector of the Nouvelle Universite, Brussels, Belgium

The Middle Ages are completely incomprehensible if one does not connect them with the whole evolution of Roman civilization of which they form the continued development. If the Christi- anity of the Orient and the barbarians of the North succeeded in their slow conquest of the Roman world, it was because this world was profoundly prepared for it, and had even arrived at an analogous result without their intervention. One may say that for all the peoples that had been included within the Roman Empire, as well in Asia and Africa as in Europe, the rural estate was until the end of the fifteenth century the foundation of social life, of its political organization, and notably of the establishment of frontiers. Commerce and industry had declined; gold and silver were withdrawn from circulation in order to be turned toward the Orient ; all exchanges tended to be made in kind ; and even within the rural estates production was carried on with a view to direct consumption upon the estate ; even the public pre- stations were paid in kind : corvees, military service, etc. The great social inequalities arose from the soil; these inequalities, clad in military magnificence and invested with the authority of the courts of justice, formed the basis of the feudal system. This did not bind together the parts of one society alone, but of diverse collectivities; there was a hierarchy of states, just as there was a hierarchy within each of them. The feudal system at a certain period bound together the most diverse populations of several continents, although without their knowledge, into a really com-