The Agrarian Economy of Western Christendom.—The First Attempt at Colonization.—Agricultural Production and Repopulation from the Seventh to the Tenth Centuries.

The work of reconstruction was mainly concerned with the land, which had become almost the sole source of capital in a society in which natural economy prevailed. The whole cycle of production and consumption revolved round the land, which furnished the men of this age with almost all the elements of life. It was the land which provided the material for trade, which was then limited to what could take place between an infinite number of small isolated groups. Upon its development depended the economic progress and the social evolution, which were beginning to manifest themselves. Agricultural colonization was the great concern of those centuries which followed the invasions and settlement of the barbarians. Indeed, if economic events be given the place in history which is their due, it should rank as one of the capital facts in the history of the last four centuries of the Dark Ages, for it had decisive results upon the direction taken by medieval social evolution.