edifices erected were small and impoverished, to judge from the fifty-seven churches recorded in Lucca before 900.

Roman patterns of life were steadily eroded in a number of spheres. Among the clergy and the majority Roman population, Roman law persisted, but mainly at the simplest level of notaries transcribing routine formulae to record transactions. Municipal autonomy, already on the wane in the Late Roman period finally disappeared as military aristocrats assumed power in both the Lombard and Byzantine areas of Italy. In Rome the greatest 'town council', the Senate, which had been allotted an important administrative role under the Ostrogoths, found its membership sapped by a drift to the east and its powers taken over by the papal and military authorities. Various activities at the heart of Roman civic life, such as horse-racing, circus games, and public bathing, disappeared in a hostile climate of ecclesiastical disapproval and economic dislocation.

While Roman institutions petered out or were taken over by the Church, a number of Roman traditions remained alive. Cities remained the focus of politics and administration and aristocrats, whether Byzantine, Lombard, or Frankish, maintained the custom of urban living, in sharp contrast with England or most of Gaul. Cities in Italy also retained a sense of identity with their Roman past. This was strongest in the cities which had remained under Roman political control, such as Rome, Ravenna, and Naples, where ecclesiastical writers extolled the past glories and Roman titles such as consul and tribune remained in use. More surprising is the strength of such feelings in Lombard areas: city descriptions survive from eighth-century Milan and Verona which proudly list the walls, temples, forum, and amphitheatres of their cities as well as their churches and relics, and which display a civic consciousness partly founded on Roman legacies.

Particularly significant for the future was the dynamism which Italian cities showed in new spheres. Whereas Roman towns had primarily been residential and administrative centres with little involvement in trade, a number of early medieval towns built their fortunes on commercial activity. Towns had

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