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CHAPTER XV
.
NORTHERN TOWNS AND THEIR COMMERCE.
The Roman Empire, as a whole, had, in all
respects, constituted a Mediterranean unity. Even from the confines of the most
distant provinces there gravitated towards this central sea not only
civilisation, but also political and economic activity. All commerce was
attracted thereto. Hence all the cities were more or less
affected by the Mediterranean, according to the share they took in
general commerce. The Germanic invasion in the fifth century did not, as is
generally supposed, put an abrupt end to this traditional position. Only
England—or to use the Roman term, Britain—after her occupation by the
Anglo-Saxons, ceased to form part of this great union of the ancient world
whereto she had been affiliated by the conquest of Caesar. As to Gaul, neither
the establishment of the Visigoths and the Burgundians, nor that of the Franks
and the Alemanni, brought about a similar result. The situation remained
unchanged when Clovis and his successors united the whole of Gaul under one
ruler. Throughout the Merovingian period, her civilisation remained much more
Roman than is usually admitted. The disturbance and desolation from which she
suffered at the hands of the barbarians did not succeed in erasing the principal characteristics of the state of affairs introduced by
the Empire. It was not only the Catholic organisation which survived the
invasions; a similar position may be found in many branches of the civil
administration. Here it will be enough to note that the financial system and
the monetary system of the Merovingians were evidently mere survivals of Rome.
And it is even more striking to observe that all the existing commerce was
carried on through the Mediterranean ports. Until the middle of the eighth
century, Marseilles continued to maintain active maritime relations with Syria,
Egypt, and Constantinople. The goods landed on her quays were exported even to
the extreme north of Gaul. In many cities oriental merchants were to be found
side by side with native traders. Urban life still continued active. It may be said without exaggeration that there still existed not only a
municipal organisation but a municipal population.
This survival of Roman and
Mediterranean civilisation, which, in Merovingian Gaul, had not been
interrupted by the Germans, was destroyed by Islam.
From the day when the irresistible expansion of the Muslims subjugated all the
regions bordering on the Mediterranean basin from Lebanon to the Pyrenees, from
the day when they established themselves in the Balearic Islands, Malta, and
Sicily, Western Europe was cut off from Eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean
no longer remained a great commercial artery but became a barrier; while the links which still bound
Gaul to the unity of culture and the
economic unity of the Roman world were severed. This great event reached its
full development in the middle of the eighth century, i.e. at the time when by the usurpation of Pepin the Short (751) the Merovingian
dynasty was replaced by that of the Carolingians. And it is obvious that what
then occurred was not merely a political revolution, or rather, that the
political revolution was accompanied by a profound social and economic change.
When, by the Muslim invasion, the
Frankish kingdom found itself debarred from access to that Mediterranean Sea by
which it had hither to communicated with the outer world, it was faced by
entirely new conditions of life. It henceforth ceased to gravitate towards the
South. During the Merovingian period, the wealthiest and busiest districts were
to be found south of the Loire, and particularly round Marseilles. These now
found themselves becoming depopulated and impoverished. When maritime trade
disappeared, all the activity which it had entailed vanished likewise. The
class of professional merchants which it had supported ceased to exist. Under
the Carolingians, there began a historical period during which, in marked
contrast to the previous period, society was based essentially on rural
economy. The most characteristic feature of this economy is the self-supporting
estate, the products of which, instead of being intended for the markets, were
used only for the consumption of the owner and the men living on his land. An
estate of this kind formed a little closed world, which required no outlets.
The population nourished therein was attached to the soil: serfdom became a
normal condition; personal
liberty was only retained when it was to the advantage of the great landowners. As a general rule, the population consisted only of
peasants, and these peasants were so essentially a class of serfs that the word
used to describe their profession (rusticus) became synonymous with the word which described their legal status (servus).
Amidst a civilisation such as this, it
is idle to seek any vestiges of urban life. The “cities” of Merovingian Gaul
were still more or less trading resorts, and it is only necessary to read
Gregory of Tours to realise that trade contributed largely to the support of
the municipal population. There was nothing of this left in the Carolingian
period. In documents we still find the words civitas, urbs, municipium,
oppidum, but the localities to which they are applied were no longer
anything like a city. They were mere fortified enclosures, protecting either
the cathedral church of a diocese, or a monastery. Moreover, in most cases,
these enclosures were only old Roman walls constructed in the third century to
afford the population some protection against barbaric invasions. Wherever in
the Merovingian period a city had existed, there was still one to be found in
the Carolingian period, and at first sight it seems as though nothing had
changed. But appearances are deceptive. That which had formerly been the
distinctive mark of the “city” had disappeared. Merchants were no longer to be
found there, and the city was no longer the trading resort and economic centre
of the surrounding country. Its inhabitants did not present any municipal
character. They consisted of priests, clerics, and monks attached to the
service of the churches or abbeys round which were grouped the most
indispensable servants and artisans. A small market was held once a week to
which the peasants of the surrounding districts came to sell small quantities
of the common articles of consumption, and where occasionally a wandering
pedlar appeared. Commerce and industry played no part therein and did not
contribute to the livelihood of any one as a regular profession. The
Carolingian cities therefore appear to the historian as the
headquarters of ecclesiastical circumscriptions in a purely rural country. The
bishop or abbot therein established maintained the clergy and the servants
surrounding him on the produce of the estates which he possessed elsewhere,
which produce was brought to the city at fixed periods by his serfs. Instead of
being a centre of municipal life, it was therefore really
only the centre of a large estate, or, if it included several churches,
the centre of several great estates. The population living within the shelter
of its walls differed neither in its manner of life nor in its social and legal
conditions from those living in the country. A town of the Carolingian period
was thus merely a concourse of people collected within walls. It is not
surprising that in current language it became increasingly common to describe such
towns by words which meant fortress—whether of Latin derivation such as castrum and castellum, or of German origin such
as burgus.
There was an extraordinary increase in
the number of these castles and bourgs during the period
of political disintegration and foreign invasion which began at the middle of
the ninth century. In order to repel the invasions of
the Normans in the west, those of the Saracens in the south, and those of the
Slavs in the east, it was necessary everywhere to build strongholds, whither
the peasants could betake themselves in case of alarm. The feudal princes, who
seized the opportunity offered by the increasing weakness of the royal power to
usurp sovereign rights in their domains, and on whom devolved henceforward the
protection of the population, were particularly active in founding these walled
enclosures. After the Danish invasions in England, the Anglo-Saxon kings did
the same. All Western Europe became covered with a mushroom growth of bourgs suitable for military purposes. In each of these was established a
permanent garrison of knights, and
the surrounding population was obliged to work at the construction and
maintenance of ramparts behind which they took refuge in times of peril.
Similar precautions were naturally taken in the old cities. During the period
of insecurity and anarchy which overwhelmed Europe from about 850 until 1000 it
was an urgent necessity that men should be able to count on a place of refuge
in case of need. The social utility of the bourgs is clearly seen in all
the history of the period. The part they played may be compared to that played
by the forts and blockhouses built by the white population of America in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries along the Indian frontiers. The security they
afforded naturally caused them to become not merely defensive centres for the
surrounding country, but also centres of government. The rulers took up their
residence there, and transported thither the storehouses and barns wherein was
accumulated the produce of their estates; they built churches there and
assembled there the courts of justice of their territories; they appointed
officials to whom were entrusted the command of the local garrison, the
presidency of the law-courts, the execution of sentences, and the levying of
the various fines and taxes which pertained to the local ruler. In short, it
may be said that in all parts the function of the bourgs was, like strong
armour, to protect against attacks from without the essential organs not only of the religious but also of the economic and administrative life of the period.
Like the “cities’’, they display no
traces of urban characteristics. Their population of knights, clergy, officials
of the demesne, legal functionaries, and serfs attached to their service, lived
on the produce of the soil, or on contributions levied from the external
population; they produced nothing themselves, and, from an economic point of
view, must be regarded merely as consumers. Moreover they possessed nothing which could be regarded as autonomy or self-government.
The bourg which contained them was not the object of their activities;
it did not exist for itself, but for the surrounding district. It constituted
a kind of centre for the local population, who came to it, but who did not live
therein. The peasants who brought thither the harvest of their lords, the scabini who came there to try cases, did not reside
within its walls. They came from the surrounding country and they returned thither after they had fulfilled their mission, so much so
that the bourg appears to us only a place of transit, provided with a
certain number of warders stationed therein.
Nevertheless, though the cities and bourgs of the ninth and tenth centuries cannot be regarded as centres of urban life,
they possessed an essential importance in the history of the towns. It was
these, in fact, which established the sites of the towns of later days; which
thus fixed the localities for the commercial and industrial groups which were
the ancestors of the bourgeoisies; and to these spots they almost always gave
the names which they still bear.
We said above that Carolingian society
was essentially based on rural economy. Land formed the only recognised source
of wealth, agriculture the only permanent and general form of work. We must
not, however, deny that they had some form of trade. The organisation of the
estate or domain, so characteristic of this period, inevitably involved a
certain amount of commercial activity. For the large domains were nearly always
composed of estates, some of which were a considerable distance away from the
principal centre, and it was therefore necessary that their harvests should be transported
thither, sometimes from afar. Moreover, certain churches were so overwhelmed
with gifts by the piety of kings or nobles that their income by far exceeded
their needs, and they were consequently obliged to dispose of the surplus.
Finally, the small markets of the cities or bourgs gave rise to business
transactions which, although doubtless of little importance, were regular.
There was therefore some trade. What was lacking, and what had disappeared, was
the class of merchants by profession, i.e. men
whose occupation was to buy and sell. The mercatores, or negociatores, referred to in
contemporary texts were not strictly speaking merchants, but only occasional
buyers and sellers. The term was applied to servants employed by the abbeys to
dispose externally of the excess of their produce; to the adventurers who
followed the armies, or who carried on a dubious traffic in arms and slaves on
the Slav frontier. In the ninth century the only individuals exhibiting the
distinctive features of merchants were the Jews and the Italians who seem at
that time to have devoted themselves, under conditions about which little is
known, to the hawking of spices and oriental textiles which they transported,
no doubt with much difficulty, from Venice across the Alpine passes. All this
maintained a certain amount of commercial activity, especially by boats on the
navigable rivers during the summer. And even this transport by boat does not
seem to have been at all vigorously carried on except in Northern Gaul. We
first hear of the Frisians (in whose country were linked together the courses
of the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt) as really
enterprising boatmen in the reigns of Charlemagne and his immediate
successors. It was because the cloth woven in Flanders was transported by them
that in contemporary documents it is referred to as pallia fresonica. And it may be presumed with much probability
that, during the reigns of Charlemagne and Louis the Pious, the Frisian boatmen
had established busy settlements at Mayence, Maestricht,
and Valenciennes. They probably also frequented the ports of Dorestad (on the lower Rhine) and Quentovic (near Etaples), by which the northern part of the
Carolingian Empire kept up some intercourse with England and the Scandinavian
regions.
Towards the middle of the ninth
century the Norman invasions interrupted the growth of this commercial
movement. The rivers on which this trade had been plied were now for about
fifty years used by the invaders as routes along which to penetrate the
interior and to remove their booty. When tranquillity was restored, there had
been such great changes in Western society that it was impossible for trade to
resume its former conditions. Monarchical power, which had been established on
too slight foundations, had crumbled. Under cover of the general anarchy, the
more powerful officials of the Crown had succeeded in usurping sovereign rights
in their territories. The old administrative counties had everywhere been
superseded by principalities which were independent of their suzerain except
for the simplest bonds of feudal vassalship. These
nobles had led the resistance against the Northmen
with great energy, and the services
they had thus rendered to the population had still further increased the
authority they had usurped.
In all parts they had constructed new
strongholds , alike to
repel the invaders and to afford a refuge to the people on their lands. They
had made these strongholds the economic centres of their domains,
and had placed therein garrisons of knights and stewards, to whom were entrusted both the defence of
the fortress and the business of administering the government and justice of
the surrounding district. The different forms assumed by this organisation in different
countries cannot conceal the fact that everywhere they possessed the same
essential characteristics. This similarity is obvious not only in Continental
Europe but also in England. The boroughs (burhs) of the Anglo-Saxon
Kingdoms undoubtedly appertain to the same type as the bourgs of the
territorial principalities which had arisen from the dismemberment of the
Carolingian Empire.
The Northmen’s invasions had not
resulted merely in the accumulation of ruins. The Vikings were pirates whose
chief aim was to enrich themselves. Their booty enabled them to carry on a
kind of barbaric trade on all the coasts of the North Sea and the Baltic. After
the close of the ninth century, the settlements established by the Swedes in
Russia along the Dvina and Dnieper reaped extraordinary profits from this
trade. By this means they actually came into contact with the Byzantine and Muslim lands in the basin of the Black Sea. Henceforward the
Scandinavians abandoned the career of pillage bv which they had at first terrorised the whole of Europe during the ninth and
part of the tenth century; they now appeared specially addicted to maritime and
commercial life. It was owing to them that, by way of Russia, Northern Europe
regained contact with the much more highly developed civilisation of the
Byzantine Empire and the Caliphate of Baghdad.
Almost at the same time it was
restored by another route. In spite of the Muslim invasion, Venice, at the head
of the Adriatic, had never ceased to maintain an increasingly active trade with
the sea-boards of the Greek Empire and with
Constantinople. Her enterprising genius had not even hesitated to open early
relations with the Muslim ports on the Mediterranean, with results profitable
enough to stifle religious scruples. In the tenth century Venice was already a
great port whose activities became extended to its Italian hinterland, soon
arousing there a new economic life. At the beginning of the eleventh century,
Genoa and Pisa began to shew signs of their future greatness and, after bitter
struggles with the Saracenic fleets, succeeded in reopening for themselves that
sea which had been closed by the great Muslim invasion of the eighth century.
Thus on the one side by the action of the Scandinavians, on the other by
that of the Venetians, two trading centres revived at the two ends of Europe.
It would be too far removed from our subject to shew the wide extent of both
influences on the interior of the Continent. We must be content to state as a
self-evident fact, although details are too often lacking, that, under this
influence, economic life quickly revived in all parts of the coast and thence
spread increasingly towards the interior by means of river-valleys, the natural
routes which the conformation of the land imposed, until the day when, about
the beginning of the twelfth century, the Northern traffic and that of the
South brought about mutually a real economic revival which gradually affected
all Western Europe.
We must here only consider one of
these centres of economic renaissance, that of the North. The earliest
symptoms of the influence it exercised became apparent in the
course of the tenth century. At this time there appeared significant
manifestations of commercial activity along the same rivers which had been
navigated by Frisian boatmen in the time of Charlemagne. Navigation revived on.
the Rhine, Meuse, and Scheldt. On the coast Bruges, which at that time
communicated with the open, sea by the gulf of Zwin,
soon surpassed in activity Quentovic and Dorestad, which had until then been pre-eminent. It became
a centre of attraction for Flanders and Northern France, as farther west Rouen
was to the basin of the Seine, or eastward Cologne to that of the Rhine.
Moreover, about the year 1000, many other places sprang up elsewhere as more or
less important centres of transit. We may mention Paris, Verdun, Huy, Liege, Ghent, St Omer, Cambrai, Valenciennes, and this
catalogue is significant, for it is noteworthy that it includes only places
connected by natural channels with the sea.
The essential feature of trade at this
period is its wandering character. The merchants devoted to it were travelling
merchants, collecting in parties and travelling either
by boat or by road to transport wheat, wine, wool, or cloth to distant places.
The spectacle they presented was, mutatis mutandis, very similar to that
offered by caravans in Asia at the present day. Everything suggests this
comparison: the length and danger of the journeys, the discipline and mutual
help required from every member of the party, the community necessitated in
buying and selling, the combination of all participants enabling them, in spite of the small amount of individual capital, to carry
out wholesale transactions. This combination, indispensable to travelling
commerce, is referred to in contemporary texts by names whose variety is of
little importance: gild, hanse, carité, or confrérie.
In the tenth and eleventh centuries
these merchants appear to us as undoubtedly forming a class of professional
merchants. To them trade was not an adventitious and occasional occupation, but
a habitual, regular, and normal one. With them, that class of individual whose
livelihood came, not from the possession or cultivation of land, but from
barter and sale, the class which had disappeared
since the close of the Merovingian period, now resumed its place in modern
society.
Whence came these merchants? In the absence of any definite evidence, we are obliged to resort to hypothesis
in answering this question. Probably
we must assume that the
first were bold and intelligent adventurers, sprung from that unhappy class of
society which, having no land, was compelled to live from hand to mouth by
bodily labour, hiring themselves out at harvest-time or engaging as mercenary
soldiers. In other words, it seems highly probable that the mercatores of the earlier Middle
Ages were at first drawn from floating elements of agricultural life which the
texts call pauperes. The recrudescence of commercial activity afforded to many of them an
opportunity of employment and of amassing a fortune. Then their example
attracted a large number of young men. The increase in
population attested in the tenth century must also have tended to swell their
numbers by diverting thereto the unemployed surplus of the rural population.
This point of view necessarily implies
that the merchant class in the Middle Ages started without capital. And there
is no objection to this. Credit undoubtedly played a great part in the
beginning of commerce. Many merchants certainly transported goods which did not
belong to them. The proceeds of the sale were divided between them and the
owner. And there is no doubt that profits were often considerable. The scarcity
of goods kept prices at a high level. The chief cause of commercial profits was
above all the frequency of famines, and we know that contemporary merchants
were skilful in taking advantage of these. An easy way to fortune was found by
transporting a few sacks of corn to those districts threatened by famine.
Every kind of trade necessarily
implies the existence of certain points of concentration, which are determined
by the configuration or contours of the land, inasmuch as they correspond to the necessities of the social organisation and the
development of means of communication. The ends of gulfs, the mouths of rivers,
the confluence between two rivers, the spot at which a stream ceases to be
navigable, are places designed by nature for halting-places in transit. But in
the society of the early Middle Ages, it was moreover necessary that the
merchants should find at these places at least a minimum of settlement and a
minimum of security. Therefore we can easily imagine
that they must at once have been attracted by the cities and bourgs whose geographical positions were particularly favourable to the exercise of
their profession. They betook themselves to the old Roman cities, or to the
fortresses of later date which were situated on the natural commercial lines of
communication. Those which were too far off, even if like Therouanne they were the seat of a bishop, or like Stavelot and Cluny that of celebrated
monasteries, did not exercise on them the slightest attraction. They only
repaired to those places where they found alike convenience of transit, the
social protection of established authority, and the material protection of
solid walls. These localities were not very numerous and the list was soon exhausted. It is certainly a mistake to believe that the
early centres of municipal life were widely spread throughout Western Europe.
During the tenth and eleventh centuries it is clearly obvious that they were
all included in the region between the Rhine and the Seine. Even within this
region, there were none to be found beyond the point where the rivers cease to
be navigable. There were none on the Meuse above Verdun, on the Scheldt beyond
Cambrai. The centre and east of France, as also the shores of the Atlantic
Ocean, did not include any. It was especially in Flanders and the hinterland of
its rivers that they abounded, and this fact is enough to prove the intimate
relation which existed between the recrudescence of commercial life and the
origin of towns.
The establishment of merchants in
cities and bourgs came to pass under conditions whose details are
unknown to us. It may be assumed that at first they
settled within the walls. But almost always the small extent of the enclosure
did not leave enough room at their disposal and they
were obliged to settle outside the walls. There sprang up consequently outside
the bourg an exterior bourg, i.e. a faubourg. From
documents of the tenth century, we learn of the existence of faubourgs of this kind at many places, Verdun, Dinant, Huy, Liege,
Bruges, Laon, St Omer, etc.
In the Netherlands, and especially in
Flanders, we find a particularly characteristic expression to describe
them—that of portus, borrowed from Low
Latin, where it was applied to a warehouse or wharf, and it retained that
meaning during the Merovingian and Carolingian periods. Its application to
the faubourgs of the eleventh century therefore definitely proves the
character of the latter. It shews with perfect clearness that they were
permanent commercial centres and it would be enough to
refute the opinion which attaches the origin of towns to fairs and markets.
Markets and fairs in reality only occurred on certain
days in certain places. They were the periodical meeting-places of merchants. Moreover we findmarkets and even
fairs in places which never became towns. This was the case for instance in
Flanders, where Thourout and Messines were the homes
of very ancient and very important fairs, but nevertheless they remained mere
villages throughout the Middle Ages. The portus, on the other hand, was a business centre, established as a place of residence,
a permanent collection of merchants and merchandise. In every place where it is
found it implies the existence of a population living by the exercise of
commerce, i.e. a population which already
presented the essential features of an urban population. And this is so true
that, in Anglo-Saxon England, the word portus frequently appears in the glosses of the tenth century as a synonym for civitas.
It follows from what has been said
that the origin of medieval towns can be attributed to a combination of two
elements differing in their age and in their nature. The first and older was
the bourg (borough), consisting of a fortified enclosure dating either
from the Roman or from the feudal period, and inhabited by a population of
clergy, knights, and serfs, living on the produce
of the land. The second and more recent was the faubourg or port,
arising from the cohesion of a population of individuals devoted to trade.
Between these two elements there were many contrasts, which must be recognised
if we wish to understand how the former became subordinated to the latter.
We must at once observe that the bourg did not develop. In reality the necessities which it served remained stationary:
there was no need to increase the garrison of knights, nor the number of clergy serving its church. Established for the defensive and
administrative needs of a purely agricultural population, to the bourg naturally was communicated the same stationary character.
The faubourg, on the other
hand, was constantly growing. As commercial activity increased in intensity,
so newcomers were attracted to the settlement in ever-increasing numbers. We
are thus concerned with a colony in course of continual development. And the
more the importance of the settlement became evident, the greater became its
attraction to the surrounding districts. There are many indications to prove
that the suburban population was much larger in the eleventh century than it
had been in the tenth, and it continued to increase until towards the end of
the thirteenth. During the twelfth in many localities it had already surrounded the bourg to such an extent that the latter
had, so to speak, shrunk into merely a central quarter.
The contrast between the bourg and faubourg is not less striking if we consider the legal condition of
their inhabitants. In the bourg only the clergy and the knights were
free; the servants round them were in the position of serfs. On the other hand,
the merchant and other immigrants to the faubourg alike participated in
freedom. No doubt their freedom was not original, for all, or almost all, of
them were undoubtedly descended from peasant serfs. But who knew the secret of
their birth? They were strangers from afar; no one knew their origin, and as
medieval law did not presume servitude, they were perforce treated as freemen,
since it was impossible to prove them otherwise. They had thus been practically enfranchised by the kind of life they led. Even if they had not been born
free, they had deserted their native soil, uprooted themselves, and broken all
links with the land and with the lord to whom they belonged. They were
therefore subject neither to the personal duties nor to the private
jurisdiction which resulted from the property of men in men. They had no need
to demand freedom, nor to fight for it. They enjoyed it naturally as a consequence of their position as foreigners.
But the liberty accorded to them only
affected their persons. It did not involve any right to self-government, nor
the enjoyment of any peculiar jurisdiction nor special law. And this inevitably
led to a series
of conflicts.
For the organisation of the bourgs was evidently ill-adapted to the needs of the merchants. It only met the
requirements of a rural and feudal society, whose administrative and military
centres they were. The law exercised therein had been formulated for an
agricultural population subject to a seignorial government of a patriarchal and
authoritative character. Liberty of land-tenure was as restricted as personal
liberty. All kinds of charges weighed as heavily on the land as they did on the
individual. Marriage, inheritance, and the transmission of land-tenures were
subject to hereditary taxes and levies either in money or in kind. The
political administration likewise bore the character of direct exploitation of
man. Taxation properly so-called was unknown. It operated only in the form of levies,
or “exactions,” on the various manifestations of the primitive economy of the
locality. We need only recall the feudal dues on bakehouses, breweries, and
mills, the tithes and “champarts” on the harvests,
and especially the tonlieu (teloneum), which confiscated for the use of the lord
or territorial ruler part of all merchandise transported by land or water.
Finally, it must be added that legal procedure remained faithful to a strict
formalism, and that oaths, ordeals, and duels were still regarded as the only
means of trial.
It can easily be understood how such a
state of things must even from the beginning have irritated the merchants who
came to settle in its midst. The greater the difference between the life they
led and that hitherto in use, the more they suffered. There was the greatest
possible contrast between them and the society in which they had to find a
place. The latter was based entirely on the ownership and possession of land, and had no regard for personal property which they
represented. It was adapted to a sedentary population, and they were mobile, to
a servile population and they were free. Numerous difficulties arose owing to
this opposition between past and present. The merchants could not tolerate the
brutal methods whereby the tonlieu was levied,
nor the delays and uncertainties of legal procedure, nor the countless
obstacles which old customs offered to all the manifestations of their
activities. They demanded, not as a natural right but as a primary need of
their profession, the suppression of all the burdens which had hitherto weighed
unnoticed on an economic life much simpler than their own. They claimed the
enfranchisement of the land on which they had come to dwell, and on which they
had built houses, thus investing it with a value hitherto unknown. Being mostly
unmarried and obliged to marry girls belonging to serf families, they required
for their wives and children the freedom which they themselves enjoyed. In
short, it was evident that, to enable them to exist and develop, the legal
condition of society must be altered to suit the economic conditions requisite
for them. And it was impossible to arrive at this transformation unless by
granting to those who desired it that autonomy by which alone they could attain their aims.
Moreover, this autonomy was at once
attained by the merchant population of the faubourgs to a certain
extent. The social authorities in fact allowed them to supply their most
essential necessities. It does not seem that they took any steps to regulate
their settlements. It was impossible for them to do so as they were devoid of
any means or competence for this object. The merchant settlements of the tenth
and eleventh centuries were therefore regulated by the initiative of the immigrants.
As no one troubled to help them they provided for themselves, and gradually
created by spontaneous efforts the buildings, resources, and institutions which
they found indispensable.
The rapid growth of the commercial faubourgs involved the provision of certain public works. It soon became necessary to
build one or more churches, construct bridges, lay out wharves, and, most
important of all, erect a palisade or wall for protection against pillagers. At first it seems that these works were
undertaken by private enterprise, which is a very interesting fact. Rich
merchants generously expended their wealth in the interests of their
fellow-citizens. Such was probably a certain Lambert who built a parish church
at St Omer in 1043; such was certainly Werimbald, who,
a little later, redeemed the toll on one of the gates at Cambrai and provided
for the maintenance of a bridge. But public benefactors could naturally only
act in restricted and exceptional circumstances. The real driving-force was,
as it has always been in all ages with social settlements in course of
formation, the force of combination.
We have already stated that the
merchants on their journeys combined in corporations called gilds, hanses, or confraternities. These corporations were not
dissolved on their return. They constituted permanent bodies binding their
“brothers” one to the other. In each locality these bodies, which included the
leading merchants, very soon appear to have undertaken to supply the needs of
the settlements. Without either official, title or mandate, the members of each
local gild improvised for themselves, so to speak, a public authority. Their
interests were at one with the interests of their fellow-citizens, and they
were given a free hand. In the eleventh century we find the gild of St Omer
financing the erection of a gild'halle and
devoting part of their income to the construction of defensive works round the
town. In many other localities similar instances must have occurred, and the
corporation of merchants seems to have acted as a semi-official municipal
administration. The title comtes de la hanse, which the treasurers of the city of Lille
retained throughout the Middle Ages, is enough to prove, in the absence of old
documents, that there also the leaders of the voluntary association of
merchants used the funds of their confraternity for the benefit of their
fellow-citizens.
In any case it must be assumed that
the rudiments of a financial organisation were elaborated as necessity arose
in the ports and faubourgs. The construction of a wall round the
settlement involved too heavy an expenditure not to have entailed taxing every one for whose advantage it was undertaken. The first
tax, properly so-called, must have been for the erection of the firmitas. It is characteristic to find that
at Liege up to the close of the Ancien Regime the
communal tax was always called the fermeté.
Thus, it may be affirmed that in the
localities most in favour with merchant immigrants, the earliest features of a
municipal organisation appeared at the middle of the eleventh century. The new
term of bourgeois dates from this very period. We find the earliest
mention of it at St Omer in 1048, then a little later at Huy in 1066 (burgenses). The ancestors of these
bourgeois were undoubtedly merchants such as we have hitherto been discussing.
But henceforth it was no longer by their profession but by their residence that
they are described. The new population, like the old one, had become fortified.
The new bourg became amalgamated with the old one, and already at this
date it was considered much more important than its ancestor, because the name
of burgenses was reserved for its
inhabitants. These burghers of the middle of the eleventh century were still
very far from possessing a real municipal organisation. Much progress had still
to be made before they could obtain complete realisation of their programme,
and before the town was endowed with all essential attributes, and before the
medieval burghers succeeded in establishing themselves as a privileged legal
class.
When we consider the attitude of the
rulers towards the infant bourgeoisies we find a phenomenon which, at first
sight, is rather surprising. As a general, rule, lay princes were inclined to
regard them with favour, while they almost invariably encountered open
hostility from ecclesiastical superiors. This difference of attitude can,
however, easily be explained. The lay rulers had nothing to fear from the bourgeoisie.
On the contrary it was to their advantage to favour and protect them. It was
obvious that the more prosperous the bourgeoisie, the greater the advantage to
the ruler. The development of trade by enriching the town must inevitably end
in also enriching the ruler, as it afforded him the opportunity of levying
substantial taxes. Moreover, the lay rulers had no fixed residence. They moved
constantly from one place to another in their territory. Consequently they were not in permanent contact with the burghers and causes of offence were
reduced to a minimum.
But it was otherwise with the bishops,
who perforce remained stationary in the cities in which, ever since the Roman
period, the sees had been established, and who wished
to preserve their authority intact. The interests of the Church, as well as
their personal interest, made them regard the bourgeois claims with suspicion.
It seemed to them with reason that urban autonomy must diminish their position
and might at the same time imperil the rights and revenues of the clergy. They
were all the more suspicious because this autonomy was
demanded by merchants. For the Church had an invincible objection to trade. It
considered that trade endangered the salvation of souls, it accounted desire
for gain as avarice, and in most commercial transactions it detected various
forms of usury. The open hostility, which ever since the Carolingian period it
had increasingly shewn to the practice of money-lending,
was also extended
to trading. In fact, the bishops had a
social scheme and theory which necessarily made them defend the traditional
order of things against the reformers who attacked it.
It is therefore not surprising to find
that, during the latter half of the eleventh century, there were insurrectional
movements in episcopal cities, and that they were so numerous as to prove that
they arose not from local causes but from some common factor. The earliest
mentioned occurred at Cologne in 1074; two years later in 1076 one broke out
at Cambrai. Then about 1080 there followed a revolt at St Quentin, one at
Beauvais in 1099, one at Noyon in 1108-1109, one at Amiens in 1113, one at Laon
in 1115. There is no doubt that this tendency to revolt was fomented by the
merchants. The important part, they played is definitely
proved at Cambrai and Cologne; at Beauvais the insurrection movement was
led by the cloth-merchants. The subsequent insurrections at Noyon and Laon
present a slightly different character. Here it seems that we are concerned
with an agitation less obviously provoked by the merchant class. Serfs and even
priests were involved in this rebellion. And there is nothing surprising in
this. At every time of social unrest irritation is contagious. The initiative
taken by the most active and most directly interested class soon becomes
communicated to all malcontents who, had they not been roused, would probably
not have acted. It therefore remains true to say that the primary and deeper
reason for the early municipal insurrections must be sought in the need for reforms
which, as we have seen above, were inevitably demanded by the merchant class.
These insurrections were not mere
riots roused by sudden passion and giving way to brutal excesses. On the
contrary it is obvious that they aimed at a definite object and had been long
prepared. The merchants who fomented them wished to use them for the
realisation of their desires. They were determined to shake off the old laws
and monetary exactions, the weight of which became more onerous in proportion
as they themselves increased in numbers and in wealth, and they aimed at
seizing the government and substituting their influence for that of the bishop.
They collected round them all those who groaned under the system to which they
objected themselves, and they bound themselves by mutual sworn agreements, and,
with this support at the decisive moment, they proclaimed the commune in a
revolutionary manner. In fact, in all the above mentioned towns, the
triumphant burghers established or attempted to establish communes.
What is the meaning of this celebrated
word? The commune was, strictly speaking, the association of burghers,
constituted by oath, who seized the municipal power and undertook to defend
both corporate and individual liberty against all attacks. It was the result of
a conjuration and it sometimes even bore the name of Conjuration. Its members
were conjurors (coniurati), and the same name iuratus or juré was adopted by the magistrates appointed at their head. It was thus essentially
revolutionary, and it never appeared except in towns where self-government was
gained as the result of a keen struggle. For this reason it is characteristic of episcopal cities, and especially of episcopal cities
in Northern France.
Its aim was to replace seignorial law
and jurisdiction by a law and jurisdiction which it
would exercise itself. It not only made innovations, but it also unified. As
soon as its success was achieved, all the inhabitants of the city not only had
a similar personal status, but were subject to the
same courts and were governed by the same council, all recruited from among its
members. Thereby the city became a distinct judicial territory, alike as
regarded private and public law. It thus formed what has often been called a
“collective seignory,” but it differed greatly from the feudal seignories in
being a community with exceptional rights, in fact, a privileged territory.
The revolutionary origin of the
communes did not prevent them from attaining a legal existence. Although
several were very soon crushed, many succeeded in obtaining from their overlord
or from the king a charter guaranteeing the organisation they had set up for
themselves. During the course of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries this organisation became general. As the economic
conditions of Europe changed under the influence of the renaissance of trade,
an ever-increasing number of localities were moved to join in the new life, and
commercial centres became multiplied. The older ones communicated their
activity to their neighbours; and the bourgeoisies, which had at first
collected in certain places particularly favoured by their position, soon
spread in all directions. It became not only impossible but dangerous to oppose
so general a movement. The opposition originally offered to it had no longer
either any reason or any chance of success. It was better to accept the
inevitable and to recognise a state of affairs which
seemed quite natural in the society now in course of evolution. Princes and
overlords now lightly conceded what had at first been wrung from them. Charters
of communes, based on those which had been conceded after the insurrection in
the eleventh century, were freely granted to many towns during the following
century.
Besides the towns which established
sworn communes, there were very many others which did not resort to this
insurrectionary proceeding. As we have said, the lay rulers had not the same
reasons as the ecclesiastical for resisting the attempts of the early burghers
to attain autonomy. They were usually much more conciliatory in their methods.
The county of Flanders, which was particularly remarkable for the number and
activity of its towns, offered a characteristic example in this matter. From
the beginning of the twelfth century, we find the count granting privileges as
regards justice and finance at the request of the burghers. It seems that, even
before the troubles which broke out in this county in 1127 after the murder of
Charles the Good, most of the cities were already in possession of their own
jurisdiction and administration. The part they took in the struggle between the
rival claimants, William of Normandy and Thierry of
Alsace, inevitably increased and definitely established their autonomy. The
oldest charter of a Flemish city extant, that of St Omer, dates from that very
period—1127.
The sworn or insurrectional commune
was therefore not absolutely indispensable for
securing urban autonomy. It was only one means of establishing it. There
existed no essential difference between the towns which had recourse to it and
those which did not. In fact, both these constitute communes in the legal sense
of the word, i.e. they were collective persons
recognised by public authority. Every medieval town thus formed a commune
despite the difference which may have existed between the origin of one or the
other. Only those inhabitants shared in urban rights and obligations who had
taken the communal oath before the municipal magistrate.
Nevertheless urban law was not merely personal. It did not affect only the members
of the commune. As it was recognised by the public power it also acquired a
territorial character. All those dwelling within its enclosure, infra murum villae, were subject to it, whether they had taken the
communal oath or not. Therefore the city formed a
legal state, a real immunity in the midst of the country surrounding it. As
soon as its gates were passed, one found oneself in quite a different legal
sphere, just as today on crossing the frontier of another state. Or rather, it
was a transition from the domain of common law to that of privileged law.
In order to appreciate the position of the medieval burgher, it must be realised
that he belonged to a privileged class just as much as the cleric or the noble.
Just as the privileges of the Churchman were derived from his sacerdotal functions,
and those of the noble from his military duties, so the burgher enjoyed his on
account of his special economic importance, i.e. because he belonged to a class devoted to commerce and industry. It was this
condition which constituted the bourgeoisie a special order, the Tiers liltat: it was this which raised the burgher, like the
cleric and the noble, above the mass of the common people.
With the establishment of the
bourgeoisie, medieval society finally assumed the characteristic appearance
which it henceforth retained, and which in many countries persisted until the
end of the Ancien Regime. Like the two older orders,
the bourgeoisie consisted of a minority of privileged individuals, and it was
because of this that, in all European countries, it shared in the political
constitution of the State from the day when the rulers were obliged to concede
to it a place in their councils or in their parliaments.
The origin of the towns and of the
bourgeoisie can everywhere in Western Europe be attributed to the same general
causes; on closer examination, however, it is obvious that there were profound
differences between various towns. As we have already said, municipal
institutions did not originally (i.e. in the
eleventh and early twelfth centuries) develop except in a comparatively small
number of localities. These localities were those in which the action of
economic causes considered above was particularly effective. Without exception
the expansion of municipal law followed exactly the expansion of commerce and
industry. Just as in the Mediterranean basin Lombardy was alike the most
ancient centre of merchant activity and municipal activity, similarly near the
North Sea the Flemish region presented the twofold character of enjoying an
older and more fully developed economic life and of possessing a larger number
of more highly developed towns than any other region. It is obvious that
different local conditions must have determined the form of the institutions
which sprang up in the early centres of municipal organisation. They developed
in various manners according to whether they had to struggle with their ruler
or not, whether they were more particularly devoted to this or to that trade,
and whether the territorial institutions in the midst of which they had developed were at all compatible or not with their needs. In
certain cases the town obtained complete autonomy, in
others—and this was much more usual—autonomy was not attained, while elsewhere
again the burghers did not even attempt to deprive the ruler or the lord of the
rights which he exercised therein. Generally we find
that the state of affairs was that of a compromise between the rights of the
ruler and the autonomy of the urban commune. The latter usually shared in the
domain of real communal administration and jurisdiction, while the higher
courts continued to be controlled by the officers of the public power. In
certain towns special magistrates exercised joint authority, some representing
communal interests, others princely authority. This was for instance the case
in many towns in France, the Netherlands, and Germany, where a council of sworn
men with communal authority existed
contemporaneously with a council of echevins (scabini, sehepenen, schoeffen, etc.) with public powers. But it also
happened that the rights of the commune and of the prince were exercised
together by the same magistrature.
In Flanders, for instance, the echevins were echevins both of the town and of
the count. The greater or lesser degree of autonomy attained by a town
consequently depended on varying causes and was affected by the political
circumstances in which it had arisen; it did not necessarily reflect her wealth
or power. The Flemish towns, which were distinguished by the rapidity and
exuberance of their development, were satisfied with a municipal independence
less complete than many much smaller places in France and Germany. And this
doubtless arose from their very power. The counts did not wish to provoke a
dangerous conflict with them. They were content to share an authority which
they were prudent enough not to render onerous. But it is obvious on the other
hand that wherever the overlord felt strong enough to prevent the towns from
shaking off his authority, he did not fail to restrict their autonomy to limits
compatible with his power. We find this to be the case in France in the towns
within the royal domain, especially in Paris, and it is equally obvious in
England, where no town ever escaped, or sought to escape, from monarchical
supremacy.
Between the urban constitutions of one region we generally find an apparent kinship which
enables them to be grouped together. In the Netherlands we easily distinguish a
Flemish type, a Brabançon type, a Liegcois type, and a Hollander type. It often happened that towns not very close to each
other received or adopted the charter of an older town. Thus, for instance, the
institutions of Rouen were copied by many localities in Poitou, Orleanais, and
Gascony.
During the course
of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries urban institutions
became extended to a large number of villages or bourgs of rural
character. In order to attract men to their lands, the
kings, princes, or local seigneurs promised to extend
to immigrants who contemplated settling there the advantages of autonomy and
municipal liberties. We are here referring to the miles neuves. This name was applied to villages possessing a charter of franchise liberating
their inhabitants from the former rigid domanial law, and granting them a communal organisation to a greater or lesser degree. Several of
these charters enjoyed a wide diffusion. That of Lorris (1155) was for instance extended throughout the royal domain in France, that of
Beaumont (1182) throughout Champagne, Lorraine, and Luxembourg, that of Prisches throughout Hainault. We know too that the charter
of the Norman bourg of Breteuil was adopted by many cities in England,
Wales, and even Ireland.
It must not, however, be supposed that
the miles neuves, or bourgs enfranchised
by charters, can be absolutely classed with towns properly so called. It is
obviously very hard to explain the difference, and in certain cases almost
impossible. But it is certain that between a city like Bruges or Ghent, and a
village like Prisches or Beaumont, or even a bourg like Breteuil, or between London and Rhuddlan, the
contrast is too great to allow complete assimilation. The ville neuve and enfranchised bourg had actually received only a minimum of such urban institutions
as were applicable to rural populations. Almost always, the essential part of
the franchise granted to them was restricted to fixing conditions affecting
persons and tenures. The latter were often governed by the system of bourgage, which was liberty when compared with
the old tenures of seignorial law, and which was obviously copied from urban
tenures. But this would not justify us in regarding the burghers of the villes neuves as equal to the burghers of towns. To prove this we need only recall the fact that at least in Normandy
we find mention of rural bourgeois given with
their land. Elsewhere we find that the inhabitants of villes neuves were still subject to forced labour in aid
of their lord, and even to certain dues of servile origin. Moreover the degree of communal government and liberty which they exercised never
reached a high level. All that can be said is that they were quasi-bourgeois just as the ville neuve or
enfranchised bourg was a quasi-town, if we may coin the word, very
different from a town with full rights.
In reality the medieval town in the true sense of the word only existed in places
where urban law, i.e. a law established for a
population essentially devoted to commerce and industry, became developed to a
point when the town became a clearly defined legal person. A definition, summarising
the essential characteristics which it presented and which have been
considered in the preceding pages, is not easy to formulate. Perhaps it would
be possible to risk the following definition: a medieval town was a community
under the aegis of a fortified enclosure, living by the exercise of commerce
and industry, and enjoying exceptional judicial and administrative rights which
constituted it a privileged body.
It now remains to describe shortly the
municipal government, such as it developed in its essential features from the
time when towns were formed. This subject is of great interest. For it may be
said that this government demonstrates the first attempt made since the days of
antiquity to organise public affairs, to establish a commonwealth. And
it must be added that in the Middle Ages, when the Church and the State
constantly blended, it was moreover the earliest example of a purely lay organisation.
Its essential object was the common
weal of the bourgeoisie, or the municipal respublica. Now as the bourgeoisie was a new class in medieval society, a
number of new problems arose, which demanded fresh solutions. The
gravest of these problems were of the economic and financial order. For the
bourgeoisie which lived on commerce and industry depended on external sources
for the food necessary for their existence. It was therefore essential for
their maintenance and development that they should first of all attend to commissariat. But it was just as important to
organise defences against attacks to which their defenceless wealth was
exposed; and the first necessity was to protect themselves by a solid system of
moats or walls. This twofold necessity entailed considerable expenditure. It
was therefore essential to establish a financial system capable of meeting the
heavy expenses, without which the very existence of the bourgeoisie would
become impossible.
We are unfortunately ill-informed as
to the initial measures taken by the urban magistrates to meet the inevitable
calls upon their resources. It is only from the thirteenth century onwards that
we possess sufficiently abundant or precise documents concerning municipal
administration to enable us to describe it in detail. But there is no doubt
that what is then apparent had been preparing during the
course of the previous century. Influenced by experience, impelled by
practical necessity, and supported by civic sentiment, they arrived pretty quickly at an organisation perfectly adapted to meet the problems confronting it, and which in its
chief features was common to all the towns.
In fact in
all of them there soon (twelfth century) appeared a municipal tax, differing
greatly from the dues, the taxes, or tallages hitherto levied by kings or nobles. This tax, the object of which was
exclusively to meet public expenses, was either a direct tax affecting the
property of the burghers, or an indirect tax (assise) levied on the
foodstuffs or merchandise entering the town and on the sales in the market. If
it was insufficient, they resorted to a loan, either an internal loan, floated
within the town itself, or an external loan, contracted in the neighbouring
towns. Already, by the close of the twelfth century, we find the first traces
of a communal counting-house and financial audit, although the earliest
accounts we possess only date from a century later.
The greater part of the town’s
financial resources was devoted to what may be termed the budget of its
defence. Until the close of the Middle Ages, the construction and maintenance
of the surrounding walls and moats, and the purchase of engines of war and arms
for the burghers, never failed to reach a figure amounting to eight-tenths of
the communal receipts. The growth of the urban population depended on the
security offered by its ramparts, but although this growth increased the
receipts of the town it also increased expenditure. The space within the walls
soon became inadequate and new quarters had to be built, and consequently, at great expense, new walls had to be erected and new
moats constructed round them. For instance, by 1169 Ghent had enclosed within
her walls much surrounding land, and in 1213 a fresh addition was undertaken,
soon followed by a series of other increases, the last of which was in 1299.
Other public works were necessitated
by commercial needs. In the eleventh century, we find the cities building
markets, planning wharves for their merchandise, and paving streets and market-places.
The provision of food for the
bourgeoisie was undoubtedly the most urgent problem which the municipal
organisation had to solve. There is no doubt that even in the eleventh century
the population of the commercial centres was already too large to be fed on
local produce. The foodstuffs required for their consumption were derived
partly from wholesale trade, partly from the surrounding country. But it was
indispensable to regulate the arrival of these foodstuffs and to prevent
arbitrary increase in their cost. Measures were taken at an early date to
prevent traders from combining to the detriment of the consumers, and to
suppress middlemen between buyers and sellers. The general principle of urban
economy was to bring the importer of foodstuffs into touch with the buyer, so as to ensure cheapness of living. This was attained by a
minute regulation of commerce and of markets. The theory of the iustum pretium which was formulated by the great schoolmen of the thirteenth century
undoubtedly corresponded with the practice soon developed in the towns.
Industry, in its turn, demanded the
intervention of municipal power. It was not only necessary to supply raw
materials, but also to ensure their fair division among the artisans, and
finally to supervise the quality of the goods produced so that they should be
satisfactory. The first signs of the establishment of craft-gilds (metiers,
mysteries) appeared at the end of the eleventh century, in the most highly
developed urban centres. We find artisans of the same craft combining
together to buy raw materials and combat foreign competition. Municipal
authority rendered obligatory these associations, formerly voluntary,
appointing their leaders and regulating their proceedings. The craft-gild, as
established in the course of the twelfth century, is
undoubtedly the most interesting and most original creation of bourgeois
civilisation in the Middle Ages. It provided a solution of the labour-problem
admirably adapted to the conditions of a period in which currency and
capitalism were still in their infancy. Its great merit was that it ensured
alike the economic independence of the producer and the interests of the
consumer. It only produced its full effect, however, in its application to the
local markets, i.e, as far as it was
applicable to the industries working for the urban population. The exporting
industries, such as, for instance, the weaving industry in the large towns of
Belgium and Northern France, were not so successful in adapting themselves. The
international markets for which they worked, and the substantial capital they
required, did not permit them to submit to a system created for a restricted
market and for small producers equal among themselves; this system was
incapable of averting conflicts between capital and labour, which first
appeared in all their gravity during the course of the
thirteenth century. But these were quite rare exceptions. They do not prevent
us from regarding the industrial organisation of medieval towns as a
masterpiece of its kind. We know with what persistence it survived throughout
the centuries, and with what tenacity it resisted in modern times the
inevitable changes which resulted from the improvement in communications, in
technique, and in capitalism, until the time when the revolutionary movement at
the close of the eighteenth century destroyed it, perhaps, too violently.
As we have seen, the activity of urban
administration is essentially explicable by the economic problems which it had
to face. These problems moreover determined alike the internal and the external
policy of the towns.
Internally, it naturally happened that
municipal power was exercised, by that class of merchants whose trade had
formed the nucleus of the town, and who remained the mainstay of its
prosperity. In Flanders, in France, England, and the Rhineland of Germany, we
everywhere discover until the beginning of the thirteenth century, and
sometimes much later, that the members of the Merchant Gild or the
Confraternities exercised in actual fact the local
government. In all parts, magistrates were elected from the wealthy class which
contemporary documents refer to as maiores,
divites, homines hereditarii, boni homines, bonnes gens,
hommes heritables, etc., to whom modern
historians, by a very inexact parallel with antiquity, have assigned the name
of patricians. In short, the political system prevailing in medieval towns
began everywhere by being a plutocratic system. As it progressed, this system
naturally and increasingly exhibited all the characteristics of class
government, of which it possessed not only the virtues but also the vices.
These vices occasioned the opposition which it eventually aroused, which
towards the close of the thirteenth century almost always culminated either in
its complete overthrow, as in Flanders, Brabant, and the territory of Liege, or
in its transformation in a greater or lesser degree. It is nevertheless true
that these patricians for long shewed themselves worthy of the task they had
undertaken. They offered a magnificent spectacle from the middle of the twelfth
century to the end of the thirteenth by their intelligence, their diligent
activity, and their capacity for business. They devoted themselves to the
public weal with a single-heartedness which commands
our respect. It may be said that urban civilisation under their government
assumed those characteristics which distinguished it to the end. They created
municipal administration in all its details, and endowed it with the various public services which we have endeavoured to
describe above.
The external policy to which the
townsmen always remained faithful was also inaugurated by them. This policy was
moreover imposed by the very nature of the bourgeoisie. To understand it we
must realise that the bourgeoisie constituted a privileged class of society.
Its manner of life, necessitated by the requirements of its commerce and
industry, demanded that it should enjoy the highest possible degree of
autonomy, that it should be in a position to protect
its interests in the most efficacious manner, and consequently that it should
be freed as completely as possible from all external interference. The ideal of
every town was—as was said by Guy de Bampierre, Count
of Flanders, at the close of the thirteenth century—to be a “world apart.” In
other words, it was to become an independent republic, a “free town,” guardian
and sovereign over the rights of its burghers. Whether from the Church or from
the territorial ruler, it demanded complete autonomy. It wished to escape both
from their jurisdiction and from their taxation. It unceasingly strove to
obtain, or to seize, additional privileges. Hence so many conflicts with one or
the other, so many excommunications launched by the bishops, and so many
law-suits or armed conflicts with the lay princes. In most of Europe, the towns
did not attain the goal at which they aimed in spite of all their efforts. In England the monarchy maintained its authority over the
towns all the more easily because they had never been
very powerful. In France, the kings at first supported the communes, but at the
close of the twelfth century, when royal power had increased, this policy was
reversed. In the Netherlands—Flanders, Brabant, and the district of Liege—the
rulers, although almost always obliged to yield to
the demands of their towns, still
retained their right of suzerainty, either by pitting one town against another, or by summoning quite early
representatives from them to their councils. In fact, it was only in Germany
and Italy that the anarchy or weakness of the holders of territorial power
enabled the cities to become municipal republics, i.e. to become states. In all other parts, in spite of every effort, the towns remained within the framework of the state. And by
continuing to form part of the national community, they not only enabled the
latter to profit by their energy, but exerted a profound
influence on the nature of the national civilisation.
CHAPTER XVI
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