It is all very well to speak of relative anarchy before and after Charlemagne, but what was anarchy like and how were human relations governed? Did everyone just slaughter everyone else indiscriminately? What were the rules that enabled life to go on, however harshly?
In fact, of course, there were mutual arrangements that allowed people to work and fight, to survive if they could, to seek out some way of assuring at least temporary security. In these arrangements we find elements surviving from Roman times, innovations introduced by the barbarians, and changes linked with conversion to Christianity.
The settled inhabitants of western Europe and the invaders underwent a long, slow, mutual adjustment, as new and old ways of regulating human affairs competed and often combined with each other.
