Since perhaps the beginning of civilisation powerful men with access to an abundance of resources have always formed gangs centred around controlling access to resources, territory and information.
In Europe, the formation of what we know as the retinue really took off by the time of post-Roman Britain. How did these retinues form, and for what purpose? How did they operate and exercise their influence over others, and how did they evolve into one of medieval Europe's most important feudal assets?
All will be answered and more as we delve into life during post-Roman Britain. We will examine the power structure and evolution of its fractured micropolities and the formation of England's early medieval feudal system, and its projected presence in the near future.
The Life of St Germanus by Constantius of Lyon, 480 AD immerses us in the world of post-Roman Britain, and tells us of an old Roman House that had since been abandoned:
"Its roof had fallen in, it was overgrown with bushes and brambles and among all the many rooms that it once contained there was scarcely one left fit to live in."
In the north of Britain, Hadrian's Wall was finally abandoned. The soldiers in its nearby forts left in a hurry. One Roman site, Vindolanda, was discovered by archaeologists and shown to have had cavalry swords dropped on the ground and simply left there upon the forts abandonment. After the Romans departed and the border collapsed, local people began to use Hadrian's Wall as a quarry. Its stone blocks were used to build new houses, churches and barns as well as other early medieval buildings. Long after the post-Roman period and well into the Middle Ages, Hadrian’s Wall was still used as a source of materials. Near Carlisle, the medieval priory of Lanacost for instance, was built using materials gathered from Hadrian's Wall.
Local chieftains and local warlords, some of whom had served as officers in the Roman armies, moved in to the abandoned forts along the wall and used them as private castles. In one fort known as Birdoswald, the descendants of the original garrison still lived there a century after the departure of Rome, passing down their uniforms, regimental insignia, and building timber constructions inside its crumbling ruin.
They likely received tribute in the form of supplies from the people in the area in exchange for protection, and possibly maintained a sense of Roman identity in order to increase their legitimacy. Ultimately, this illustrates the formation of the early retinue - with localised warlords exerting power from a base of operation, receiving supplies and payment in exchange for protection.
Reasons for Rome's collapse
Rome ultimately fell due to a rise in luxury resulting in individualism and decreased intelligence. As we know, Rome was mythologically established in 753 BC. By 509 BC we have the Roman Republic and by the third century BC Rome was standing up for itself against other civilisations in the Mediterranean. By the second century BC, Rome absorbed all of the countries around them and began evolving into an empire. By 49 BC, Rome was degenerating into war and chaos, thus, Julius Caesar takes over and the Roman Republic comes to an end. It is argued that Rome's golden age began when it became a dictatorship under Caesar. The Pax Romana lasted from 27 BC to 180 AD, allowing Rome to rise and conquer all around them.
Under Emperor Trajan in 117 AD, the Roman Empire stretched from as far north as Britain all the way down to Egypt. It is suggested that 60 million people lived in the Roman Empire at this time, which would have been a substantial amount of the world's population at that time. The city of Rome itself had a population of about a million people, that number not seen again in a city until 1810 London.
Rome had a fire brigade, a police force and plumbing, which again was not seen after its collapse until about the 1830s in England. Its roads were a system connecting the empire together which was again something not seen after its collapse until around the 18th century and the rise of the industrial revolution. Essentially, Rome reached the cusp of an industrial revolution and industrial society. With the collapse of Rome we were essentially pushed back by a thousand years into what's known as the "Dark Ages".
Why did Rome collapse?
In about 235 AD, Rome fell into chaos with emperors vying for power and colonies being abandoned, such as Britain. After the death of Constantine in the fourth century, "barbarians" were harrying the empire with invasions and eventually start taking the empire from the Romans as it falls and splits apart. By 476 AD, Rome ultimately released the Western half of the empire to the barbarians who they've drawn upon for cheap labour, and its civilisation moves to Byzantium. The traditional reasons for Rome's collapse often talks about inept leaders, infighting, mismanagement and other similar things. However, these reasons are really symptoms.
What actually happened?
The ultimate reason is the cyclical nature of an empire itself. Great civilisations tend to reflect very high levels of intelligence. If we look at our own history, we see that per capita innovation (which is a marker of intelligence) increased across time from the 11th century onwards. This increase was due to selection pressure for intelligence. Paralleling this, per capita major innovation increase, we note an increase in the size of the head which means that brains are getting bigger, on average. There's an increase in literacy, a decrease in interest rates, and various other markers.
Eventually, with the breakthrough of technological innovation, the harshness of environmental danger is reduced. Environmental harshness selects for intelligence, and data confirms this as we know that in 17th century England, the richer 50% of the population had double the completed fertility rate compared to the poorer 50% of the population. As we know, wealth is a correlate of about 0.4 of intelligence and that across generations it is about 0.7 heritable.
With the breakthrough of technology, environmental harshness is reduced via plumbing, better medicine, cheaper food and a reduction in disease. This therefore allows for a change in the nature of society. This, in effect, happened to Rome.
A paper by Jonathan Huberner tracks the level of per capita innovation in Rome, and finds that up until about 350 BC, intelligence was increasing and so too were the creation of new inventions. This suggests that Rome underwent selection pressure for intelligence. This essentially, as discussed, creates an easier society which reduces environmental harshness, creating luxury. In fact, Rome went through such a high period of luxury that they were able to redistribute excess grain, known as the grain-dole, to the poorest people of society who had no jobs whilst the hard work was left to slaves and outsiders.
Once a society reaches this state of high luxury it becomes increasingly individualistic. This results in a questioning of group-oriented values like ethnocentricism, religiosity and patriarchy. All things which were seen during the collapse of Rome, and subsequently now in our modern society. Patriarchy is a strong social factor in a society under harsh environmental pressure because it allows for the women of the society to be controlled and men have less of a fear of being cuckolded, and thus ultimately allowing for men to be internally cooperative and work together. In fact, Roman women were often veiled, and so too were women in Europe during the Middle Ages. By the time of Augustus, this system began to collapse as seen with the proto-feminist Hortensia who led a campaign in Rome to make women exempt from paying taxes, and Fulvia led an army and became involved in politics.
Moreover, the collapse of religiosity promoting group-oriented values was a symptom of the Roman Empire's collapse. When Rome was high in religiousness, early Christians were accused of being Atheists and were killed accordingly. It was considered terribly immoral that there were some people in Rome (ie. Christians) that were refusing to make sacrifice to the traditional Gods. Gradually, Christianity became accepted, tolerated, and eventually took over the empire.
Europe in the Middle Ages
Beyond the control of the crown, some counties in medieval England were lawless ganglands in which warring magnates battled for power. Many families were competing to exploit its wealth, control its land, and keep its lucrative public offices within their families, as they had been since the Norman Conquest.
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