The military system of the Danes in their own country, and of their Scandinavian brethren, may be gathered from what we have told of the changes wrought in England by King Canute. By the laws of Gula, said to have been originally established by King Hacon the Good, in 940, whoever possessed the sum of six marks, besides his clothes, was required to furnish himself with a red shield of two boards in thickness (_tuibyrding_), a spear, an axe or a sword. He who was worth twelve marks was ordered to procure in addition a steel cap (_stál-hufu_); whilst he who was worth eighteen marks was obliged to have a double red shield, a helmet, a coat-of-fence or gambeson (_bryniu_ or _panzar_), and all usual weapons (_folkvopn_). Italy, always the theatre of the most sanguinary wars, torn and wasted by the troops of pope and of emperor, and of its own citizens contending against each other; invaded and overrun by barbarian neighbours,--by the Hungarians on the north, and by the Saracens on the south,--presented a _mélange_ of warlike usages and warlike equipment in which the East and the West, the North and the South became intermingled in such a manner as to give to the whole country the appearance of a vast military masquerade; an _imbroglio_ which, in our time, it would be a useless attempt to resolve into its original elements. In the eleventh century, the consuls of the cities, succeeding to the functions which had been enjoyed by the dukes and counts, commanded the troops of their respective districts, and marched at their head, whether the expedition was undertaken under the banner of the emperor, or the result of a private dissension between two rival cities. The forces employed in these services differed in nothing from those of the west of Europe; the strength of the host consisted of the heavy-armed knights with lance and target, while the communal levy fought with such weapons as they could best wield or most easily obtain. The Hungarians, who overran the country as far as the Tiber on the north, and the Saracens, who harried the land to the south of that river, acted in small bodies of light cavalry, compensating by the rapidity of their movements for the inferior solidity of their armament. Before the expeditions of these marauders, the Italian cities had been open; but their depredations at length (that is, about the close of the ninth century,) caused the citizens to construct walls, to organize a communal militia for the defence of their homes, and to place officers selected from their own body at the head of their little armies.