Besides, it was long before the roving
and predatory instinct of the barbarian was moderated; and his weaker
neighbor was the natural prey of the more powerful landholder, an
example not unfrequently set by the king himself. Now, if the weaker
party remained to brave the attack and was conquered, he was reduced
to a state of villeinage or of dependence more or less complete. If on
the other hand he wished to escape this change of condition, where was
he to find refuge? The only safe asylum in those days of rapine and
violence was that offered by the Church and its precincts. The church
of the greatest importance in the district, in this early age when no
walled monasteries existed, would without doubt be that situated
within the limits of the nearest town. To this haven then comes the
outcast, hastily collecting his family and all of his wealth of a
portable character; the country loses a small landed proprietor, but
the town gains a citizen, a freeman, a member of the upper class.
Of course many of the fugitives who sought asylum in the towns were as
low as the great numbers of the semi-servile population, but much that
was new and of a better character and intelligence, and even a large
amount of property, which later gave birth to commercial and other
interests, were introduced by members of the higher classes fleeing
from their more powerful neighbors.
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