Chapter 3;
Mediaeval Patterns of Life


   
   

Introduction



The above sketch of the longevity of antique landscapes and their
monuments must not mislead us into believing that the Fall of
the Empire occasioned no change: we must now take some account
of the material ways in which the mediaeval world differed from
that of Antiquity. Not only were many monuments demolished for
building material, but some patterns of settlement changed
as well. I attempt a summary of the state of knowledge on both
matters, although on neither do we possess a picture which is
full or even clear.
 

In all areas except northern and central Italy (on which cf.
Wickham 1981, 80ff.) there may well be no connection between the
original size of ancient towns early in the Empire, and the fate
which awaited them from the later third century (Hammond 1972,
303ff. for summary; 516ff. for commented bibliography; cf. ANRW
2.4, 126ff.). Ennen (1979, 29) points out that, in the Meuse
region, a shrinking population and the walling of civitates
tended to eliminate any distinction between what had once been
sizeable towns, and mere legionary castra. Mediaeval towns might
spring from either, particularly in view of the background of
new waves of inhabitants: `The very size of the ancient
civitas
might stand in the way of its survival into Frankish
times. Frankish warriors had no place for huge stone ruins. They
could neither restore them nor defend them. They were more
accustomed to maintaining and defending small, fortified
settlements or castles.' In some cases, indeed, the centres of
population are moved to other, nearby sites for no apparent
reason; and if, in England, `many Roman sites such as London,
Chester, Lincoln and York, continued to be inhabited, and
possibly their scanty populations preserved for a while some
Roman institutions or spirit' (Hammond 1974, 21), others did
not, such as Verulamium, which decamped to what is now St
Albans, just as Calleva Atrebatum moved nearly a mile to
Silchester (cf. Hammond 1972, 330ff. and 529ff. for European and
Eastern survey and bibliography).


Country life versus town life


 
Although we can be sure that such shrinkage of towns is due to a
smaller population, rather than to a wholesale move to the
countryside, other factors may also have influenced the
stagnation of urban life in Gaul and the North. Lombard-Jourdain
(1970) considers that the Roman monuments, and
many of the cities containing them, were neglected because they
were now an irrelevance in the life of the community (and cf.
Young 1975, 40). Ennen makes the same point with regard to the
Franks. Desbordes, writing about Picardy (1975b), not only
believes that the re-use of antiquities has political
connotations, and reflects a complete change in the notion of
what a city actually is, but sees political motives in the
abandonment of some antique buildings: all theatres and
amphitheatres in the region studied were abandoned, whereas
their restoration within smaller urban enceintes was surely
feasible. For the new age castra, however, urban basilicas and
fortified villas were apparently more suitable.
 

For Rivet also, writing about Britain, the neglect was a
conscious civic decision, apparently not occasioned by invasions
or uncertainty: religious and secular factors both played a
part, but `the most important one seems to have been that in
this late period the authorities decided they could do without
the huge monumental buildings - the templa and the fora - which
had been their pride in earlier days, and they were not
restored' (1966, 106-7). It is for this reason, he suggests,
that fragments of venerable monuments were built into the
footings of new town walls (as, for example, at Chester). It is
perhaps with such considerations in mind that Rahtz suggests
(1979) that those Romano-Celtic temples which do have some
architectural pretensions (in that they were built partly or
wholly of mortared stone) survived less well than their wooden
counterparts, which needed less maintenance. The argument is
temptingly supported by evidence of the shrine or temple at
Maiden Castle, which certainly survived into the Anglo-Saxon
period, and also that at Cannington, near Bridgwater, where the
large cemetery (an estimated 2000 to 5000 graves), and probably
the accompanying shrine, continued into the eighth century.
 

Given the decline of Roman civilisation, and with it some
decline in interest in its remains, we shall not expect the
Gallo-Roman wall-builders whose work is investigated below to
demonstrate any interest in the antiquities they re-used by
displaying them in positions of honour. Whether or not those
towns thus protected were indeed attacked by barbarians, most
historians tend to see the re-use of such large quantities of
material as a response to emergency rather than as any index of
lack of appreciation for earlier cultures. But for other
scholars, who take a nationalist if not strictly anti-Roman
stance, the very colonisation by Rome in the first and second
centuries was not accepted by the mass of the population. Thus
for Lombard-Jourdain (1970, 1140), the `cold indifference' of
the natives capped the destruction of the barbarians, `ruined
buildings were dismantled without any thought of rebuilding
them, and works of art heaped up to make foundations for the
enceintes of the late Empire'. From such a point of view, deep
forces militated against an imported, urban civilisation, and
therefore there was scant respect for its ornaments. Again, such
nationalism (cf. Foçillon's memorable - if equally
nationalistic - denunciation in L'Histoire de l'art
instrument de la propagande allemande
, Paris 1944) aims to
see not the invasions, but rather the Roman occupation itself,
as a break in Gallic continuity; the invasions of the fourth
century merely become the midwife which helps Gaul back into her
true traditions, when she `rediscovers, in the same places ...
the old ways of life, sometimes blocked but never lost' under
Roman rule (ibid., 1137). Such a theory, even if it can never be
proved, will be useful when we seek to explain the growth of
Christian buildings extra muros, supposedly taking over some of
the same locations used by pagan and pre-Roman cults. Again, for
such a theory, the town walls themselves become something of an
irrelevance, except for protection in times of war, because the
focus of much of the community life, both social and religious,
is outside them. One of its sources is Rostovtzeff's view of the
economic structure of Roman civilisation as based on a
productive countryside supporting an unproductive town.
Archaeological discoveries do not - and perhaps cannot -
contradict this view (Picard 1973). Nevertheless, some
continuity of urban life into the early Middle Ages, at both
civitas and castrum level, is a fact even in Gaul (Weidemann
n.d., 220ff.): civilisation, so to speak, survived.
 

For parts of Italy, however, as we shall see, town life
continued to hold attractions. The `barbarians' were fascinated
by ancient monuments and sought to re-use them - which may
ultimately explain why most `renascences' found their spiritual
home in Italy.


The shrinkage of towns



One factor which affected the survival of antiquities was the
shrinkage of population and therefore of the size of some towns
- although this was not always the case in Italy, where some
cisites expanded during the High Middle Ages (Schmiedt 1978,
61ff.). In prosperous areas such as Provence, towns did not
degrade, and Février (1964, 43-4) states that towns such as
Fréjus, Vence and Aix did not shrink dramatically or, indeed, at
all until well into the Middle Ages. One exception was Arles,
where the late Roman enceinte is marginally smaller than the
earlier one: it was arranged on its southern side to incorporate
what monuments it could, notably the theatre. This rampart was
excavated in 1902-12 at rue Vauban, and found to contain several
cippi and fragments of mausolea and, most conspicuously,
sculptured parts of some triumphal arch. This late Roman wall
was, in its turn, to be partly incorporated in the mediaeval
enceinte (Salviat 1976, 103). But then, Arles was perhaps
particularly rich in antiquities: Sidonius Apollinaris (in the
fifth century) says that the forum still retained its statues,
and that his friend Consentius had statues of the nine Muses in
but one room of his house (Carmen 23).
 

The matter of shrinkage is a difficult one, however, because
exact evidence of population densities at any time is absent
(Rome is an exception, because we have some figures for the
annona): guesses tend to be made from the size of the town, or
from the seating capacity of its theatre, but these are vitiated
by the knowledge that certain sections of some cities intra
muros (such as Fréjus, between the walls and the theatre:
Février 1964, 33-4) were never inhabited; at Fréjus, indeed,
some uninhabited sections actually contain tombs. That such
optimism on the part of builders and civic officials is
perennial is shown by several late mediaeval enceintes where the
projected population expansion never managed to fill them
totally (below, p. 00). The importance of such `unused' areas
for our investigation is that they add a cautionary note to any
assessment which claims that population expansion inevitably
means the building of new walls and the consequent disturbance
or destruction of antique remains. It is clear that sometimes
remains `protected' by overlarge enceintes lay dormant for
hundreds of years until the `slack' in population was repaired.