t-folk; these were ineffective against
marauding barbarians, Vikings in their sharp-prowed ships, or the light
cavalry of Hungarian or Saracen. Moreover, the governmental system
organized by Charlemagne had fallen to pieces, and there was no central
power to order the movements of a large army. Luckily for the cause of
Christendom and western civilization such as it was, the subordinates of
Charles's successors hit upon the right tactics to employ against the
invaders. The nominal subordinates, Counts of the Marches, burgraves,
barons, took a very free hand in those days of decentralized authority
and bad lines of communication. Based on impregnable strongholds, they
met the swiftly moving hosts of marauders with equally mobile troops of
mailed horsemen, raised, trained and paid by themselves, and bound to
their feudal lords by the ties of discipline out of which grew the
tradition of military servitude. It was these feudal lords and their
mailed horsemen who saved Western Europe; they took their own reward out
of the lands they saved and out of the neighbours whom they insisted on
saving, till they eventually became an unmitigated nuisance from which
Bohemia suffered as much as any other country. But for the moment we are
concerned with the times of St. Wenceslaus and the first half of the
tenth century.

It is a pity that no one had thought of holding an International
Conference in the early days of the tenth century; there were a great
many things to discuss, and a Conference would have added to the gaiety
of nations. There was the question of those Northern Slavonic tribes who
had steadfastly refused the blessings of Christianity as purveyed by the
Teuton; of course, no one could foresee that the Western Church's
activities in those northern regions would eventually produce the modern
Prussian. Then the Conference would have to decide whether or no
Vikings, Hungarians and Saracens should be admitted to the comity of
nations, and if not, how to start doing business with those people all
the same. Then the place of the Conference would have to be decided;
there was quite a fair choice of suitable localities. Paris was becoming
popular, had already been discovered by people from over the seas--by
the Vikings, who, in quest of souvenirs, on one occasion sacked the
city, on another burnt it down. Aix-la-Chapelle had been popular for
some centuries before the Vikings discovered the attractions of Paris;
it had the waters