Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

456 16. state, lordship and community in the west
beyond. Nor were these towns merely collections of buildings; they operated
as real centres of community, serving a variety of legal, economic,
political and cultural functions for the surrounding countryside. The
Lombards settled their sub-groups within city units, and hence themselves
subsequently became city-based. Thus, in eighth-century Lucca, over half
the twenty or so largish landowners of the territory seem to have lived
within the city itself. In most of sixth-century Gaul, likewise, curias continued
to exist, municipal archives charted patterns of local landholding, and,
on the basis of this information, taxes continued to be raised. Sixth-century
Merovingian saints’ lives also identify their heroes by civitas of origin. 61
As we have seen, civitas contingents, comprising levies of landowners
and their dependants, became central to the military capability of the new
kingdoms. The leading men of each city territory were thus given a whole
new series of reasons and occasions to work together to their common
interest. Indeed, city contingents sometimes operated on their own
account. Gregory’s Histories, for instance, record an attack by the men of
Orleans, allied with those of Blois, on Châteaudun and Chartres (Hist.
vii.2). It seems likely that the military organization of other successor
states, particularly Visigothic Spain, also encompassed such contingents.
Here, at least, the enforcement of recruiting laws was the task of city
authorities, and, as we have seen, Mérida and Seville were able to field their
own independent military forces. 62
The city likewise remained a centre of local legal community. Alongside
the defensor civitatis, the remit of episcopal courts, in secular as well as religious
matters, had been recognized and progressively defined from the time
of Constantine, the bishop being expected to reconcile rather than assign
penalties when settling disputes. 63 Both civil and religious courts continued
to operate in the civitates of the post-Roman west. Most successor states
appointed officers to individual cities: comites civitatis (counts of the city) in
Merovingian Gaul, Gothic Spain and Italy, and duces among the
Lombards. 64 Responsible for financial and military affairs, the count also
presided over a court of first resort. At the same time, bishops’ courts continued
to function, and even became more prominent, as bishops themselves
gradually acquired powers (see pp. 457,9 below). The city remained,
therefore, a centre of local legal community.
Ideally, one would like to cite detailed case histories at this point. Most
accounts of legal practice in the early Middle Ages are provided by charters,
however, and little such material is available for the immediate post-
Roman period. The legal role of bishops is well documented, however, in
sixth-century Merovingian Gaul, and formulae provide some material for
61 See generally ch. 8 (Liebeschuetz), pp. 229,36 above, with refs. 62 As above, n. 60.
63 Jones, LRE ch. 14.
64 Comites civitatis: Barnwell (1992) 35–6, 80–1, 88, 108–11, 151–2. Duces: Wickham (1981) 80ff.
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