Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

pattern of land ownership; status of peasants 345
apparent stability is striking testimony to the way that the barbarian
invasions, although bringing new political masters and a Germanic aristocracy
demanding a share of the land, by no means necessarily upset the
social apple-cart.
However, as so often, a word of caution is also needed. It is always possible
that the terminology of the formal documents that we rely on for evidence
was highly conservative, and that this gives an exaggerated
impression of lack of change. Even if there really was considerable stability
in the social structures of the late antique countryside, this fact should
certainly not lead us to embrace a view of rural life and rural dwellers in
our period as entirely conservative, passive and unchanging. As we shall see
in the next chapter, such a view will not fit the archaeological evidence that
we now have for the broad nature of the economy, including the rural
economy. Cultivators in the fifth and sixth century had to accommodate to
a rapidly changing economic world, which, indeed, they themselves were
often responsible for shaping.
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