When the Lombards of the conquest, in their hatred of everything which savored of the old Roman civilization, overthrew all the established offices of city government to replace them with others of barbarian name and origin, or to leave them unfilled altogether, among the time-honored officers of the Roman rule was one whose powers were everywhere recognized, even if at present it is a little difficult to define with precision his duties. I refer to the _defensor urbis_. This office came into prominence when Roman despotism found that it was overreaching itself by grinding down the defenseless _curiae_ below the margin of productiveness. The duties of the _defensor_ were, as his name implies, to protect the powerless inhabitants of the cities against the exactions of the imperial ministers. He enjoyed many important privileges of jurisdiction, and these were materially increased by the legislation of Justinian; and soon the _defensor_ became an important officer of the municipality.[8] What particularly concerns us is that he was the only municipal officer who was elected not by the votes of the _curia_ alone, but by those of the whole people forming the _municipium_, including the bishop and his clergy. Now in the period just preceding the invasion of the barbarians, the clergy alone possessed any energy and influence; so into their hands fell the control of this new institution, and consequently all that remained of life in the municipal system. As in city matters these conditions remained unaltered after the coming of the Lombards, what was more natural than that the bishops should retain their moral position of defenders of the people, even if we admit that the form of the office fell with the old administration? To these considerations we may add two important facts: that the office of bishop was for a long time the only one in the election to which the people--and by this term I mean the people as a whole, not the _populus_ of the old laws and charters--had any voice whatever; and that the bishop, from his spiritual position as pastor of the flock, and from his civil position as having great legal influence in the town and being probably the only man of superior intellect interested in the internal affairs of the community, was the proper and most effectual mediator between the people and their temporal rulers. Hence arose that important influence of the bishops which was to have so perceptible an effect on the subsequent development of the principles of liberty in the communes.