The third-century ‘crisis’ (c. AD 250–70)

London’s port was abandoned in the mid-third century and its waterfront quays dismantled in changes that cast important new light on the problems of the third century. This chapter sets out the detail of the redundancy of London’s port and reviews arguments that might explain it. It does so by establishing a chronology that suggests that the port ceased to function effectively c. AD 255, and that the waterfront was crudely refashioned into a bank at some point in the 260s. This redundancy followed a rapid decline in the volume of goods being traded over longer-distances, and is argued to have been the consequence of a revised policy with regard to annona. The Thames may also have ceased to be tidal at this time, contributing to the redundancy of the port but not explaining the speed of its dereliction and destruction. Further light obtains from a study of the failure and abandonment of sites associated with Wealden iron production. An explanation is proposed: involving a loss of military manpower and naval capacity, possibly provoked by the epidemic of the 250s known as the plague of Cyprian and compounded by military failure and barbarian threat. Rome’s loss of control over its coastal waters and rising Frankish piracy at the time of the Gallic Empire might explain why ships ceased to dock at London’s quays, which were dismantled to defend the riverside.

Conscription and the Politics of Military Recruitment

There is more to conscription than the presence or absence of conscripts in a military force. A brief survey of the history of military recruitment suggests that economics, threat, and political heritage go a long way toward explaining why and how states recruit manpower and prepare that manpower for war. Understanding the sources and implications of different types of military recruitment, and how trends in military recruitment change over time, is essential for understanding conscription now and in the future. The French Revolution is often regarded as a turning point in conscription, with the famed levée en masse, which coincided with dramatic changes in warfare and how states mobilized their polities for war. Less well known is how rarely conscripts were actually used in the wars that followed the French Revolution. Rather than being a turning point in the history of military recruitment, the levée en masse was just another moment in the ebb and flow of how states recruit military manpower in response to economics, threat, and political heritage. A number of dimensions describe the extraordinary variety of compulsory recruitment systems. The two most important of these dimensions are whether conscription is institutionalized or opportunistic, and whether it is core or supplementary. The typology of compulsory recruitment systems that results describes a great deal of the varieties of conscription and, along with other dimensions, might give clues as to how states will recruit military manpower in the future.