Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

CHAPTER 16
STATE, LORDSHIP AND COMMUNITY IN THE
WEST (c. A.D. 400–600)
peter heather
This chapter will examine some of the overlapping groups – communities
– in which individuals acted for different purposes, and the transformation
of these communities, in the period c. 400–600. It is focused on the west,
because it was here that the greatest changes in our period took place, and
where there was least continuity through imperial institutions such as the
army and administration. The chapter draws on, and is intended to reflect,
recent work on the social history of the early medieval period, and examines
both horizontal ties, bonds between relatively equal peer groups, and
vertical ties, such as those of patronage and support between lord and follower.
1 It is divided into two parts. The first section focuses on the different
sense of community operating at the level of the political centre: the
Roman empire as a whole and the kingdoms which succeeded it. The spotlight
is then transferred to more local communities. The two types of community
are, of course, closely linked. An overall theme of the whole essay,
indeed, is that socio-political transformations at the centre had profound
effects upon the construction of local community, and vice versa.
i. the community of the realm
In c. 400, western Europe was dominated by the Roman empire. Britain
south of Hadrian’s Wall, France, the Iberian peninsula, the Benelux countries,
Italy and much of Germany and Austria were under its direct rule.
Roman power also loomed over the empire’s neighbours. By c. 600, this
European superstate had given way to a series of far from stable successor
states: kingdoms built around Franks and Burgundians in France and
Benelux, Visigoths and Sueves south of the Pyrenees, Ostrogoths and
Lombards in Italy, Anglo-Saxons in southern and eastern Britain. The first
half of this essay is concerned with the transformations in political
economy which accompanied this fundamental revolution in European
history. How did these new kingdoms compare, as states, to their Roman
1 It is also by way of an essay: a first attempt at descriptive analysis rather than an authoritative treatment,
which makes no claim to comprehensive knowledge of the relevant literature.
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