The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century | Page 3

the story of the fall
of the Roman Empire. The municipal system, which from the names
and duties of its officers would seem to represent a surprising amount
of local independence in matters of administration, even a collection of
small almost free republics, had lost all its strength and all its vital
power by the grinding exactions of a centralized despotism, which was
compelled to support its declining power by strengthening the very
forces which were working its destruction, at the expense of destroying
those from which it should have gained its strength. The stability of
every state rests ultimately on the wealth and character of its citizens,
and any government which exhausts the one and degrades the other in
an effort to maintain its own unlimited power has its days numbered.
Under the despotic rule of the later emperors the municipalities had lost
all their power, though in theory their rights were unassailed. The curia
could elect its magistrates as of old, and these magistrates could
legislate for the _municipium_, but by a single word the imperial
delegate could annul the choice of the one and the acts of the other.
The economic condition of the people amounted to little short of
bankruptcy; the possession of wealth, in landed property especially,
having become but a burden to be avoided, and a source of exaction
rather than of satisfaction to the owner. The inequalities of burdens and
of rank were great. The citizens were divided into three classes: (1) the
privileged classes, (2) the Curials, (3) the common people. The first,
freely speaking, were those who had in a manner succeeded in
detaching themselves from the interests of the municipium to which
they belonged; such were the members of the Senate, including all with
the indefinite title of _clarissimi_, the soldiers, the clergy, the public
magistrates as distinguished from the municipal officers. The second
consisted of all citizens of a town, whether natives--_municipes_--or
settlers--_incolae_--who possessed landed property of more than
twenty-five _jugera_, and did not belong to any privileged class: both
these classes were hereditary. The third, of all free citizens whose
poverty debarred them from belonging to either of the preceding
divisions. On the second of these classes, the Curials, fell all the

grinding burdens of the state, the executing of municipal duties, and the
exactions of the central government.
It is not necessary for me to trace here the development of that financial
policy which resulted in the ruin, I may say the annihilation of this
order. Suffice it to say that it formed the capital fund of the government
which exhausted it, and when the source of supply was destroyed,
production ceased, and with it, of course, all means of governmental
support. Where the extinction of this "middle class" touches the point
of our inquiry is in affording an explanation of a circumstance in the
history of the Lombard subjugation of the Italian towns, which without
consideration of this fact would appear almost incomprehensible. I
refer to the utter passivity of the inhabitants, not only in the matter of
resistance to attack, which the greater strength and courage of the
invaders perhaps rendered useless, but in what is more surprising, the
fact that after the easy conquest was completed, we hear nothing of the
manner in which the people adapted themselves to the totally new
condition of life and of government to which they were subjected. Even
if we can understand hearing nothing of what the people did, at least we
should expect to hear what was done with it, what it became. The story
of its resistance might be short and soon forgotten, but the story of its
sufferings, of its complaints, of struggle against the entire change in the
order and character of its life, should be a long one.
But of this no record, hardly mention even appears. When the central
government falls and the last of its legions are destroyed or have
departed, there seems to be no thought of any other element in society.
If the evidence of the law codes did not tell us that a Roman population
existed, history would record little to indicate its presence. Not only is
even the slightest trace of nationality effaced, but the merging of the
old conditions of life into the new seems of too little consequence to
merit even an allusion. This state of affairs, as said above, is caused by
the annihilation, by the despotic power of the central government, of
that middle class which in times of prosperity formed the sinews of the
state. Of the other classes, the privileged class, with the exception of
the clergy, fell of course with the government which supported it, and
the common people possessed no individuality, no power, and hardly

any rights. Such, then, was the