"As a matter of fact, a minority can transform a people when it wishes to dominate it effectively, when it has only contempt for it, regarding it as fit only for exploitation; as was the case with the Normans in England, the Musulmans wherever they appeared, and even the Romans in the conquered provinces. But the Germans wishes neither to destroy nor to exploit the empire. Far from despising it, they admired it. They did not confront it with any superior moral strength. Their heroic period ended with their settlement."
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pp. 37-38
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Henri_Pirenne
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Henri Pirenne
Henri Pirenne (23 December 1862 – 24 October 1935) was a Belgian historian. A medievalist of Walloon descent, he wrote a multivolume history of Belgium in French and became a prominent public intellectual. Pirenne made a lasting contribution to the study of cities that was a controversial interpretation of the end of Roman civilization and the rebirth of medieval urban culture. He also became prominent in the nonviolent resistance to the Germans who occupied Belgium in World War I. Henri Pirenne
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