aries
burned or destroyed? Why was classic literature utterly neglected? Why
did no great scholars arise, even in the Church? The new races looked in
vain for benefactors. Even the souvenirs of the old Empire were lost.
Nearly all the records of ancient greatness perished. The old cities
were levelled to the ground. Nothing was built but monasteries, and
these were as gloomy as feudal castles at a later date. The churches
were heavy and mournful. Good men hid themselves, trying to escape from
the miserable world, and sang monotonous chants of death and the grave.
Agriculture was at the lowest state, and hunting, piracy, and robbery
were resorted to as a means of precarious existence. There was no
commerce. The roads were invested with vagabonds and robbers. It was the
era of universal pillage and destruction. Nothing was sacred. Universal
desolation filled the souls of men with despair. What state of society
could be worse than that of England under the early Saxon kings? There
were no dominant races and no central power. The countries of Europe
relapsed into a sullen barbarism. I see no bright spot anywhere, not
even in Italy, which was at this time the most overrun and the most
mercilessly plundered of all the provinces of the fallen Empire. The old
capital of the world was nearly depopulated. Nothing was spared of
ancient art on which the barbarians could lay their hands, and nothing
was valued.

This was the period of what writers call _allodial_ tenure, in
distinction from feudal. The allodialist owned indeed his lands, but
they were subject to incessant depredations from wandering tribes of
barbarians and from robbers. There was no encouragement to till the
soil. There was no incentive to industry of any kind. During a reign of
universal lawlessness, what man would work except for a scanty and
precarious support? His cattle might be driven away, his crops seized,
his house plundered. It is hard to realize that our remote ancestors
were mere barbarians, who by the force of numbers overran the world.
They seem to have had but one class of virtues,---contempt of death, and
the willing sacrifice of their lives in battle. The allodialist,
however, was not a barbaric warrior or chieftain, but the despoiled
owner of lands that his ancestors had once cultivated in peace and
prosperity. He was the degenerate descendant of Celtic and Roman
citizens, the victim of barbaric spoliations. His lands may have passed
into the han