Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

236 8. administration and politics in the cities
were the army, and they were called up by the city. Under the empire, peasants
might be individually conscripted into the imperial army, and in the late
empire landowners provided recruits as a tax, while themselves remaining
civilians. That landowners should join the army at the head of their own
armed tenantry is a fundamental departure both from the principle of the
city state and from the practice of the empire. But that was the way of the
future. 227 Even the clergy became militarized. 228 The gradual militarization
of the landed aristocracy, together with the equally gradual breakdown of
the Roman city-organized system of taxation, did much to end the integration
of urban centre and territory which had been a principal characteristic
of the ancient city.
So power moved to the countryside. In the sixth century, bishop
Nicetius of Trier had a castle on the Moselle in addition to his residence
near the cathedral. 229 Not much later, the Frankish comites civitatis and their
families seem normally to have lived outside the fortifications of their
city. 230 Meanwhile, city centres emptied of inhabitants, and clusters of settlements
grew up around churches and monasteries on the periphery.
Timber or wattle and clay replaced stone as building material for houses,
even in north Italian cities. 231 The Carolingians abandoned the Roman
system of taxation, and ceased to use city organization as a basis of their
administrative system. Kings and nobles founded monasteries deep in the
countryside which became centres of agriculture, craftsmanship and
trade. 232 The degree of physical and indeed demographic continuity
between ancient and medieval cities of the former western Roman empire
varies greatly from area to area. 233 It was strongest around the
Mediterranean coast, and above all in Andalusia under the Arabs, 234 and in
northern Italy, 235 and weak to the point of insignificance in Britain and
along the Danube.
iv. conclusion
The development of the late Roman city in east and west is a story of
infinite variety. Nevertheless, we are dealing with a single cultural institution
liable to the same vicissitudes. Even if these did not affect cities
everywhere at the same time, the unity was manifest to the end. The
eastern urban revival of the late fifth and early sixth century, of which
there is evidence in the form of striking buildings at, say, Gerasa or
Apamea, and of a rich munificent city-based upper class at Aphrodisias
227 Leges Visigothorum ix.2.8–9; cf. Thompson (1969) 262–6. 228 Prinz (1971).
229 Venantius Fortunatus 3.12. 230 Claude (1964). 231 Bavand (1989).
232 Prinz (1965) 121ff., 152ff.; Wood, Merovingian Kingdoms 183–94.
233 Ennen (1975) 27–45;Wolff (1991). 234 Ennen (1975) 70–1.
235 Eck and Galsterer (1991); Picard (1988).
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