ese inland towns at the time of the invasion was,
as we have seen, weak in the extreme. The defenses, where they
existed, were of a character to afford little protection, and the bulk
of the inhabitants were so enervated from a life of poverty and
oppression that they were almost incapable of offering any resistance
in their own defense. They were reduced to such a condition as to be
only too grateful if their rough conquerors, after an easy victory,
disdainfully spared their lives, and left them to occupy their
dismantled dwellings.

This seems to have been the almost universal method of procedure. The
Lombards did not in any sense, at first, think of occupying the
conquered cities; for the reasons already given they despised, because
they could not yet comprehend, the life of the civilian. They
contented themselves with pulling down the walls, razing the
fortifications, and destroying every mark which would make of the city
anything but an aggregate of miserable dwellings. The inhabitants were
for the most part spared, and left to enjoy, if the term can be used
for such an existence, what the conquerors did not think worth the
having. These felt the fruits of their victory to lie in the rich
arable lands of the surrounding plains, and here they settled down,
each in his own holding, portioned out by lot to every soldier; the
town being considered but as a part of the _civitas_ or district, if I
may use the term, of the _dux_ or overlord, from whom the several
_milites_, or landholders of the surrounding territory, had their
tenure, and who himself held directly from the king.

It is the very insignificance of the municipal unit at this time that
makes it so difficult to determine anything accurate of its position.
It existed, but little more can be said of it; indeed, even this
statement might be questioned, if we make that term signify a
corporate existence, as will be seen further on when we come to
discuss the question of the unbroken corporate existence of the towns.
In a feudal age, or in an age of incipient feudalism, obligation,
either claimed from an inferior or yielded to a superior, is a good
index of rank and importance. Until we find the cities fulfilling
certain obligations required by a higher power, we can learn little to
tell of their condition or of their internal history. On the other
hand, when we find the time come for fulfilling certain obligations,
we can safely argue that the cities have acqui