It was impossible in the four or five centuries after the fall of Rome to carry on agriculture or other industries with any degree of success. The bare necessities were the sole aim of a great majority of the people. Internal trade was hardly more successful than agriculture, and for the same reason. For several centuries there is no trace of any important manufactures except of course those domestic arts of weaving and spinning, which are absolutely necessary for providing clothes, and which can be practiced by separate individuals in every village or household. Rich men, indeed, used to keep artisans in their households as servants; but this only shows that there were no recognized seats of manufacture from which they could easily procure what they wanted. Even kings in the ninth century had their clothes made by the women upon their farms. No doubt the villages had their smiths and weavers, but these occupations belonged to a few isolated individuals, and had not yet developed to any considerable branch of industry. Trade between various localities was very limited, for the general insecurity of the times made mercantile traffic highly dangerous. The want of means of communication and transportation prevented men from easily moving about to supply one another's wants, and at the same time made it difficult for them to ascertain what others' wants were. Robbery and violence were frequent, and robbery by extortionate tolls still more so. The ordinary knight of those times was nothing more nor less than a bandit, perhaps not always as openly criminal as a highwayman, but very often employing the same methods. Since but few could read or write, the gates to the temple of knowledge were shut to the great body of the people, and they did not even surmise that they had any right to explore its treasures. Few books were written, and there are few inventions, useful or ornamental to society, of which this long period of nearly five centuries can boast.

About the year 800, Karl the Great, otherwise known in history as Charlemagne, was made king of the Franks, and under his wise and vigorous rule learning, industry and commerce revived; towns and cities sprang up and manufactures increased, thus laying the foundation for the revival of internal and foreign commerce which was destined to set in about two centuries later. Charlemagne gave every freeman a share in the making of the laws, and improved the administration of justice. He fostered education by establishing schools and having the works of the ancient Roman writers transcribed. Unfortunately his successors were weak and inefficient, and his death was followed by a period of great confusion, during which Europe was severely harassed on the south by the Arabs, on the east by the Slavs and on the north by the Normans.