y of its adoption.
Universally, upon the cessation of barbarism, the feudal forms
were adopted. At the first moment of barbarian conquest, men saw
only the triumph of chaos. All unity, all general civilization
disappeared, on all sides was seen society falling into
dissolution; and, in its stead, arising a multitude of little,
obscure, isolated communities. This appeared to all the
contemporaries nothing short of universal anarchy. The poets, the
chroniclers of the time, viewed it as the approach of the end of
the world. It was, in truth, the end of the ancient world; but
the commencement of a new one, placed on a broad basis, and with
large means of social improvement and individual happiness.

"Then it was that the feudal system became necessary, inevitable.
It was the only possible means of emerging from the general
chaos. The whole of Europe, accordingly, at the same time adopted
it. Even those portions of society which were most strangers,
apparently, to that system, entered warmly into its spirit, and
were fain to share in its protection. The crown, the church, the
communities, were constrained to accommodate themselves to it.
The churches became suzerain or vassal; the burghs had their
lords and their feuars; the monasteries and abbeys had their
feudal retainers, as well as the temporal barons. Royalty itself
was disguised under the name of a feudal superior. Every thing
was given in fief; not only lands, but certain rights flowing
from them, as that of cutting wood, fisheries, or the like. The
church made subinfeudations of their casual revenues, as the dues
on marriages, funerals, and baptisms."

The establishment of the feudal system thus universally in Europe,
produced one effect, the importance of which can hardly be
exaggerated. Hitherto the mass of mankind had been collected under the
municipal institutions which had been universal in antiquity, in
cities, or wandered in vagabond hordes through the country. Under the
feudal system these men lived isolated, each in his own habitation, at
a great distance from each other. A glance will show that this single
circumstance must have exercised on the character of society, and the
course of civilization, the social preponderance; the government of
society passed at once from the towns to the country--private took the
lead of public