Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

462 16. state, lordship and community in the west
west was transformed by the appearance of increasingly rigid social
stratifications, themselves based firmly upon further transformations in
the rural economy.
(a) Freemen and nobles
Across the different successor states, a free class seems to have been characterized
by certain rights and obligations: a particular status defined by relatively
high wergild, attendance at public assemblies (for legal and other
matters), and a personal military obligation. 77 The relevant law codes
mention the franci of the Merovingian kingdoms or the arimanni of the
Lombard. Freemen are also prominent in the Visigothic codes, and, among
the Ostrogoths of Italy, Procopius distinguishes an obviously large class of
notables who should probably also be identified as freemen. 78 Weaponburials
in early Anglo-Saxon England probably also reflect not so much
fighters per se, as men claiming the same critical free status. 79 This legal categorization
was not just confined to immigrant warrior groups, but also
extended to resident Roman populations. The Pactus Legis Salicae, for
instance, assigns to different categories of Romans wergilds half the value of
the equivalent Frankish group. 80
Over time, this initially prominent class disappeared as a major political
force. It seems probable, indeed, that the decline of centralizing state structures
into largely autonomous lordships was accompanied by a breakdown
in the legal homogeneity of the free class. The unity of this group was originally
upheld by the state (or common public consent, in less sophisticated
contexts) for a number of purposes: most obviously defence but also, via
assemblies, political unanimity. It was a unity artificially imposed upon men
among whom there already existed significant differences in wealth. In
Roman society, for instance, inherited differentials of wealth and status had
by c. a.d. 400 separated out the landowning class, as we have seen, into a
number of layers: honorati, principales and ordinary curials. Hence Gregory
of Tours identifies many Roman families of sixth-century Gaul as ‘senatorial’,
even if the law codes do not assign senators a separate, higher wergild.
Archaeological investigations of Germanic societies of the Roman Iron
Age likewise suggest a picture of considerable and increasing social
stratification. This would be entirely in tune with the literary evidence from
the migration period. More and less powerful individuals clearly existed
among the sixth-century Franks, and something akin to a noble class can
be seen within Gothic society from the fourth century onwards. 81
77 The old view, based on rather partial readings of Tacitus, that the Germanic groups of the migration
period were composed almost entirely of such men has been superseded. A good historiographical
survey is Wickham (1992). 78 Heather (1996) App. 2. 79 Härke (1990) and (1992).
80 Compare on freemen, for instance, Lex Salica 41.1 and 5, with 41.8 and 9;cf.43.4 equating Romans
with freedmen and boys, or Decretio Childeberti 3.7.
81 Roman Iron Age: Hedeager (1987) and (1988). Franks: Irsigler (1979); Grahn-Hoek (1976).
Goths: Heather (1996) 57–8, 299ff.
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