the surrounding country in a continual state of disturbance. The only
men of any influence in the community we have seen to be the bishops,
who, while steadily gaining in rank and power, stood forth as
defenders of the people. During all this time, however, the new sap
brought by the northern conquerors has been slowly but steadily
entering into and forming the constitution of the people. The chaste
and uncorrupted Northmen have by means of legitimate intermarriage
with the best of the enervated inhabitants of the land, raised up an
almost new race, who combine in their nature the humanizing effects of
the old civilization with the love of independence and the temperate
virtues of the northern conquerors, a race willing to benefit by the
experience of the past, and resolved to carve out for itself a new and
independent future.



PART II.

ELEMENTARY SOURCES OF MUNICIPAL UNITY IN LOMBARD AND FRANKISH TIMES.


In the second part of this paper we have to consider a period of
development rather than one of transition, of growth rather than of
change. We have before us the task of tracing the advance from a
period of barbarism to one when the feudal system had obtained an
almost complete domination over the social system of Europe.
Considering the principles which lay at the base of the society of new
Europe, this system is a natural, indeed an unavoidable evolution from
the stage of barbarism and social disorganization. The confusion in
all social and economic relations consequent on the combination of the