See Larroque, as cited, ch. ii. The claim of Guizot (_Essais_, p. 167; _Civ. en Europe_, leç. 6) that the religious character of most of the formulas of enfranchisement proves them to have had a specially Christian motive, is pure fallacy. Before Christianity the process of manumission was a religious solemnity, being commonly carried out in the pagan temples (cp. A. Calderini, _La manomissione e la condizione dei liberti in Grecia_, 1908, p. 96 _sq._), and there were myriads of freedmen. It appears from Cicero (_Philipp._ viii, 11, cited by Wallon, _Hist. de l'esclavage dans l'antiquité_, ii, 419) that a well-behaved slave might expect his liberty in six years. Among the acts of Constantine to establish Christianity was the transference of this function of manumission from the pagan temples to the churches. Thus Christianity took over the process, like the idea of "natural equality" itself, from the pagans. And the principle goes farther. In Adam Smith's not altogether coherent discussion of the general question,[559] the unprofitableness of slave labour in comparison with free is urged, probably rightly, as counting for much more than the alleged bull of Alexander III (12th century); while the interest of the sovereign as against the noble is noted as a further factor. As regards the "love of domination" to which Smith attributes the slowness of slave-owners to see the inferiority of slave labour, it is to be remembered that the Roman slave-owner was fixed in his bias by the perpetual influx of captives and cheap slaves from the East; that this resource was lacking to the medieval Italians, who had to take the costly course of breeding most of their slaves; and that in such circumstances the concurrent pressure of all the other causes mentioned could very well suffice to make emancipation general. While the lowest stratum of the people was thus being raised, the state of war was for a time comparatively harmless by reason of the primitiveness of the fighting. The cities were all alike walled, and incapable of capture in the then state of military technique;[560] so they had periodical conflicts[561] which often came to nothing, and involved no heavy outlay; even the long struggle with Barbarossa was much less vitally costly to the cities than to Germany. Frederick's eight variously devastating campaigns, ending in frustration, were the beginning of the medieval demoralisation of Germany,[562] to which such a policy meant retrogression in industry and agriculture; while the Lombards, traders and cultivators first, and soldiers only secondarily, rapidly made good all their heavy losses.