ABSTRACT
THE flood of the migration of nations bore the South Slavs as far as the Balkan Peninsula. They were organized in tribes, brotherhoods, and households, and the direction of their affairs was democratic. Soon, however, they got at loggerheads with their neighbours and with the Byzantine Empire, which forced them to organize on a military basis. The spoils of war, plunder, and cattle-rearing were their chief sources of life. Out of these conditions developed a warrior caste, which, under the influence of Byzantine civilization, absorbed feudal notions, usurped the best arable land and the forests, and imposed feudal service upon the agricultural population. The latter defended itself from oppression and all the more appreciated the benefits of the fast-disappearing order of democratic-communist traditions.
