In church music, the Emperor continued his father’s policy of encouraging the Roman use of singing the psalter, as opposed to the Gallic custom. Masters were brought from Rome for this purpose and schools established at St. Gall and at Metz. There is still in the first-named place a Gregorian antiphonary, brought at this time from Italy, for the purpose of giving musical instruction after the Roman method. IX ECONOMIC CONDITIONS Turning now to questions of economic development, one is impressed by the small part played by city life in the Empire, and by the industrial importance of the manor. The landed proprietor depended on his country seat for his support in the most real sense of the word. We find Einhard, while residing at the court at Aix, bidding his tenants send him flour, malt, wine, cheese, and other products, and he orders 360 bricks to be made in the country. Even the workmen, who are engaged in building work in the town, are to be sent from the “villa.” Small estates had completely disappeared and agricultural communities were the exception. The villas were often placed near together, a tendency which led to the multiplication of country churches, whose existence up to this time is only infrequently mentioned in legal documents. It was this evolution from a union of “villas,” or the country seats on great estates, which led to the creation of the villages. The growth of large estates may have been due to the impoverishment of the small landed proprietor, but other important factors in the change were the wide extent of frontier land and the growing importance of the monasteries. The monastic estates were of imposing size, as it was the custom for the small land owners to cede their property to the monastic communities, sometimes to escape taxation, but also from motives of ecclesiastical loyalty to those whom they looked up to as models of Christian virtue, and whose prayers they coveted as efficacious in healing all spiritual distress. The importance of these institutions is revealed in the figures given for St. Wandrile, which had on its rolls 1727 manses, inhabited by a population numbering 10,000 souls. Luxeuil had 15,000 manses, and Alcuin, the abbot of St. Martin at Tours, is reported to have had on his domain no less than 20,000 serfs. The celebrated Polypticon of Irminion, the abbot of St. Germain-des-Près, drawn up between 800 and 826, records the administration of one of these great monastic estates. The acreage belonging to the abbey was 26,613 hectares, and was spread over seven existing French departments. The parcels of ground numbered 1646; over 10,000 persons were employed, among them only eight freedmen, the rest being either serfs or “coloni.”