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2 - The Western European kingdoms, 600–1000

from Part I - Foundations, c.600–1000 ce

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 September 2020

David A. Graff
Affiliation:
Kansas State University
Anne Curry
Affiliation:
University of Southampton
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Summary

Before c.600, Western European military forces were recognisably descended from the last western Roman armies, as can quickly be demonstrated. Late Roman troops had sometimes been paid via the delegation of fiscal revenues and, as earlier, received allotments of land on retirement.1 Their hereditary service,2 furthermore, exempted them from certain taxes. In the fourth and fifth centuries a series of military identities evolved, based around oppositions to traditional civic Roman ideals. These turned on ideas of barbarism, enhanced by possibly increased recruitment beyond the frontiers and greater opportunities for non-Roman soldiers to rise to higher command.3 As the territory effectively governed from Ravenna, the imperial capital, shrank during the fifth century, and with it the available taxation and recruiting bases, the enlistment, and political pre-eminence, of warriors from outside the empire grew further.4

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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