by Ross Laidlaw
412 ‘From it developed European medieval civilization’. The building-blocks of medieval Christendom were already in process of formation by the time of the late empire. Feudalism: protection in return for service – was concomitant with a breakdown of security, with powerful landlords recruiting bands of armed retainers, or bucellarii, and peasant labour from coloni fleeing barbarians or rapacious Roman tax officials. The Germans’ sense of honour, love of fighting, and respect for women, provided the germ from which the medieval Code of Chivalry would one day develop. And the Church Militant, with its doctrine of the Two Swords, was beginning to flex its muscles under Theodosius the Great – himself forced to kneel in supplication before Ambrose, and do penance for his sins. Shades of England’s Henry II after Becket’s murder.
1 The Balkans had already been virtually lost to the Avars, a warrior people from the Steppes.
