The foregoing discussion of public order in the cities and provinces of the Roman Empire suggests that in general governmental intervention was limited. Protection of property and personal security were the responsibility of citizens themselves and involved reliance on the help of kin and neighbours, access to patrons and/or command over social inferiors. Enforcement of general rules of law and order was the business of local authorities, and, dependent as they were on the support of the community, they tended to act in accordance with its expressed or supposed wishes unless the higher authorities were alerted. This meant selectivity of law enforcement, on the one hand, and self-help which under certain circumstances might extend to lynchings and pogroms, on the other. The maintenance of public order concentrated on basic rules. There was apparently (even under Christian emperors) no comprehensive policy for disciplining the lower orders of society.

Uncertainty with respect to a number of questions remains because of the inevitable limitations of our sources. My general approach here has been to avoid assuming modern standards of policing; some comparative considerations may lend support. It is of course extremely hazardous to generalize about the societies of medieval and early modern Western Europe, but it does seem reasonable to argue that state intervention concentrated on cases which were considered a direct threat to the political and social order.