The Commune of the middle ages takes its origin, on the one hand, from the village community, on the other from those thousands fraternities and guilds which were constituted outside terri- torial unions. It was a federation of these two kinds of unions, deve- loped under the protection of the fortified enclosure and the turrets of the city.
In many a region it was a natural growth. Elsewhere — and this is the rule in Western Europe, — it was the result of a revolution. When the inhabitants of a borough felt themselves sufficiently protected by their walls, they made a "con-juration". They mutually took the oath to put aside all pending questions concerning feuds arisen from insults' assaults or wounds, and they swore that henceforth in the quarrels that should arise, they never again would have recourse to personal revenge or to a judge other than the syndics nominated by themselves in the guild and the city.
It was long since the regular practice in every art or good- neighbourship guild, in every sworn fraternity. In every village commune, such had formerly been the custom, before bishop or kinglet had succeeded in introducing^-and later in enforcing — his judge. Now the hamlets and the parishes which constituted the borough, as well as all the guilds and fraternities that had developed there, con- sideied themselves a single amitas. They named their judges and swore permanent union between all these groups.
A charter was hastily drawn up and accepted. In case of need they sent for the copy of a charter to some small neighbouring commune, (we know hundreds of these charters to'day,) and the commune was constituted. The bishop or prince, who had up till then been judge of the commune and had often become more or less its master, had only Tfa State: Its Uittoric Kole. 15 to recognize the accomplished fact — or else to fight the young "con- juration" by force of arms. Often the king — that is to Hay the princa who tried to gain KUJMJI -ioi -ity over other princes, and whose coffers were always empty, — "granted" the charter, for ready nn»n.-y. H«- th us re- nounced imposing /</* judge on the commune, whil»- giving him** portance before other feudal lords. But it was in nowise tlie rule: hundreds of communes lived without any other sanction th.-m their good pleasure, their ruin parts and their lances.
In a hundred years this movement spread, with striking unity, to the whole of Europe, — by imitation, observe well, — including Scotland, France, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland and Russia. And to-day, when we compare the charters and internal organisation of French, English, Scotch, Iri-h. S. • mdinavian, German, Bohemian, Russian, Swiss, Italian and Spanish communes, we are •( with the almost complete sameness of these charters, and of the or sation which grew up under the shelter of these " social contracts." What a striking lesson for Romanists and Hegelists who know no other means to obtain similarity of institutions than servitude before tli From the Atlantic to the middle course of the Volga, and fmn way to Italy, Europe was covered with similar communes— some be- coming populous cities like Florence, Venice, Nuremberg or Novgorod, otheis remaining boroughs of a hundred or even twenty families, and nevertheless treated as equals by their more or less prosperous sisters.
Organisms full of vigour, the communes evidently grew dissimilar in their evolution. The geographical position, the character of external commerce, the obstacles to be vanquished outside, gave every commune its own history. But for all, the principle was the same. Pskov in Russia and Brugge in Flanders, a bcotch borough of three hundred in- habitants and rich Venice with its islands, a borough in the North of Fiance or in Poland, and Florence the Beautiful represent the same* amitas. The same fellowship of village communes and of ast* •« guilds; the same constitution in its general outline.
Generally, the town, whose enclosure grows in length and breadth with the population and surrounds itself with higher and higher towers, erected, each, by such and such a parish or such guild, and having its own individual character, — generally, I say, the town is divided into four, five or six districts or sections which radiate from the citadel to the ramparts. In preference these districts are inhabitated, each, by one "art" or craft, whereas new trades — the "young arts" — occupy the suburbs, which will soon be enclosed in a new fortified circle.
The street or parish, represents a territorial unit, corresponding to 16 The State: Its Historic the ancient village community. Each street or parish has its popular assembly, its forum, its popular tribunal, its elected priest, militia, banner, and often its seal as a symbol of sovereignty. It is federated with other streets, but it nevertheless keeps its independence.
,^he professional junit, which often corresponds, or nearly so, with ttje. district, or...section, is the guild — the trade union. This union also retains its saints, its assembly, its forum, its judges. It has its treasury, its landed property, its militia and banner. It also has its seal and it remains sovereign. In case of war, should it think right, its militia will march and join forces with those of other guilds, and it will plant its banner, side by side with the great banner, or carosse (cart) of the city.
And lastly the city is the union of districts, streets, parish* guilds, aud it has its plenary assembly of all inhabitants in the large forum, its great belfry, its elected judges, its banner for rallying the militia of the guilds and districts. It negociates as a sovereign with other cities. federates with whom it likes, concludes national and foreign alliances. ^l>k«s the English " Cinque Ports " round Dover are fede- rated with- French and Xrtherland ports on the other side of the Channel; th<#- Russian Novgorod is the ally of Scandinavian, Germanic Hans.i, and MW-ti 'In r i ii relations, every city possesses all the prerogatives of the modern State, and from that time forth is consti- tuted, by free contrasts, that body of agreements which later on became known as International law, and was placed under the sanction of public opinion of all'-'xiities^ while it was more often violated than res- pected by the States later oi>.
How often a city, not being able to decide a dispute in a complicated case, sends for "finding the sentence" to a neighbouring city! How 'often the ruling spirit of the time — arbitration, rather. than the judge's authority — is manifested in tLe fact of twt. c.nniuuhes taking a thiid as arbitrator!
Trade unions behave in the same way. They carry on their com- mercial and trade affairs beyond the cities and make treaties, without taking their nationalities into account. And when, in our ignorance, we talk boast i ugly of our international workers' congresses, we forget that international trade congresses and even apprentice congresses were already held in the fifteenth century.
Lastly, the city either defends itself against aggressors and wages its own stubborn wars against neighbouring feudal lords, nominating each year one or rather two military commanders of its militias; or else it accepts a "military defender" — a prince or duke, who is chosen by the city for a year, and whom it can dismiss when it pleases. It usually . idi.-r.-: hut it ' '• - • ' idal VtlM nent military prol lint- in 1 1 know ti; Jam! cannot • city of 1.
on.
>tild like to s; oak • about tl 'ife of I -1 ihat it woul<...•« rk that internal «;uilds - not by isolai • it only ints1 j^niltl later on, ami stil! lat». wa- any \\-«>rk done on Sunday or 01 S \ that the city purchased tho cl 'ife of ;;al)it:ints (corn, coal, etc.) and deli' That custom of th< ;ained in Switzerland till the middle of 01 is proved by a mass of documents of all kinds, that him - never known, neither before nor after, a period of relativ t't-ctly assured to all, as existed in the citi. I resent poverty, insecurity and over-work were a then.
V.
With these elements — liberty, organisation from sin.i:;plex, production and exchange by trade-unions (guilds), i with foreign parts carried on by the city itself, and the!•• - by the city — with the>e elements, the town- of the M • luring the first two centuries of their free lit. well-being for all the inhabitant*. They were centres of opt. li/Mtion, such as we have not seen since then.
Consult documents that allow of establishing the rat. work, compared to the price of provisions, — ROL it for 18 The State: Its Historic Role.
England and a great number of writers have done it for Germany, — and we see that the work of the artisan, and even of a simple day-la- bourer, was remunerated at the time by a wage not even reached by skilled workmen nowadays. The account-books of the University of Oxford and certain English estates, also those of a great number of German and Swiss towns are there to testify to it.
On the other hand, consider the artistic finish and the quantity of decorative work which a workman of those days used to put into the beautiful work of art he did. as well as in the simplest thing of dom- estic life, — a railing, a candelstick, an article of pottery — and you see at once that he did not know the pressure, the hurry, the overwork of our times; he could forge, sculpture, weave, embroider at his leisure — as but a very small number of artist- workers can do nowadays. And if we glance over the donations to the churches and to houses which be- longed to the parish, to the guild or to the city, be it in works of art — in decorative panels, sculptures, cast or wrought iron and even silver works — or in simple mason's or carpenter's work, we understand what degree of well-being those cities had realized in their midst. We can conceive the spirit of research and invention that prevailed, the breath of liberty that inspired their works, the sentiment of fraternal solidari- ty that grew in those guilds in which men of a same craft were united, not only by the mercantile and technical side of a trade but also by bonds of srciability and fraternity. Was it not, in fact, the guild-law that two brothers were to watch at the bedside of every sick brother? or that the guild would take care of burying the dead brother or sister —a custom which called for devotion, in those times of contagious dis- eases and plagues, — follow him to the grave, and take care of his widow and children?
Black misery, depression, the uncertainty of to-morrow for the greater number, which characterize our modern cities, were absolutely unknown in those " oases sprung up in the twelfth century in the middle of the feudal forest." In those cities, under the shelter of their liberties acquired under the impulse of free agreement and free initiative, a whole new civilization grew up and attained such expansion, that the like has not been seen up till now.
All modern industry comes to us from those cities. In three centu- ries, industries and arts developed there to such perfection that our cen- tury has been able to surpass them only in rapidity of production, but rarely in quality, and very rarely in beauty of the produce. In the higher arts which we try to revive in vain to-day, have we surpassed the beauty of Raphael? the vigour and audacity of Michel Angelo? the science and art of Leonardo da Vinci? the poetry and language of Dante? or the architecture to which we owe the cathedrals of Laon, The State: Ii$ Historic Role. 19 , Cologne—" the people were its masons " Victor Hugo h*s aaid so \v«'ll — the treasures of beauty of Florence and V»-; u ImlU of Bremen anil IVa^im, the towers of Nuremberg ami l'i.-a, ami ao on a<l in fin itn in t All these great conquests of ait were the product of that period.
Do you wish to measure the progress of tint civilization «t a glance? Compare the Dome of St. Marc in \'.-ni««- t«» tl >? Normauds, Raphael's pictures to the naiv<- pin'hn.id.-i!••- ami carpet* of K-INVUX, the mathematical and phy.-ir.il instrument -.md clocks ot Nur- emberg to the sand clocks of the preceding cent' i • Dante's sonorous language to the barbarous Latin of the tenth century. A new world has opem-d up between the two!
Never, with the exception of that other glorious period of ancient Greece— free cities again — had humanity inadi- such a stride forwards. Never in two or three centuries, had man undergone so profound a change nor so extended his power over the forces of nature.
You perhaps may think of the progress of civilisation in our own century which is ceaselessly boasted of? But in each of its mai tions it is hut the child of the civilization which grew up in th»- of free communes! All the great discoveries which have made modern science,— the compass, the clock, the watch, printing, the maritime dis- coveries, gunpowder, the law of gravitation, the law of atmospheric pressure, of which the steam-engine is but a development, the rudi- ments of chemistry, the scientific method already pointed out by Roger Bacon, and practised in Italian universities, —where does that all come from, if not from the free cities which developed under the shelter of communal liberties?
But 3'ou may say perhaps, that I forget the conflicts, the internal struggles of which the history of these communes is full; the street tumults, the ferocious battles sustained against the landlords; the in- surrections of " young arts " against the " ancient arts "; the blood that was shed and the reprisals which took place in these struggles...
I forget nothing. But, like Leo and Botta, the two historians of medieval Italy, like Sismondi, like Ferrari, Gino Capponi, and so many others, I see that these struggles were the guarantee itself of free life in a free city. I perceive a renewal of and a new flight towards pro- gress after each one of these struggles. After having described these struggles and conflicts in detail, and after having measured the immen- sity of progress realized while these struggles stained the streets with blood, viz: well-being assured to all the inhabitants.:md a renovation of civilization, Leo and Botta concluded by this thought, so true, that so often comes to my mind: 20 The State: Its Historic Role.
" A commune," they said, " only then represents the picture of a moral whole, only then appears universal in its behaviour, like the human mind itself, when it has admitted conflict and opposition in its- midst" Yes, conflict, freely thrashed out, without an external power, tin* State, throwing its immense weight into the balance, in favor of one of the struggling forces.
Like those two authors, I also think that " far more misery has often been caused by imposing peace, because in such cases contradictory things were forcibly allied in order to create a general politic order, and by sacrificing individualities, and little organisms, in order to absorb them in a vast body without colour and without life."
This is why the communes, — so long as they themselves did not strive to become States and to impose submission around them, so as to create " a vast body without colour or life " — always grew up, always came out younger and stronger after every struggle; this is why they flourished at the sound of arms in the street, while two centu- ries later that same civilization was crumbling at the noise of wars brought about by Star In the commune, the struggle was for the conquest and maintenance of the liberty of the individual, for the principle of federation, for the right to unite and act; whereas the wars of the States aimed to des- troy these liberties, to subjugate the individual, to annihilate free agreement, to unite men in one and the same servitude before the king, the judge, the" priest, and the State.
There lies all the difference. There are struggles and conflicts that kill. And there are those that launch humanity forwards.
VI.
In the course of the sixteenth century, modern barbarians come and destroy the whole civilization of the cities of the Middle Ages. These barbarians do not completely annihilate it; they cannot do so, but they check it, at least, in its progress for two or three centuries. They drive it in a new direction.
They fetter the individual, they take all his liberties away, they order him to forget the unions which formerly were based on free initiative and free agreement, and their aim is to level the whole of society in the same submission to the master. They destroy all bonds between men, by declaring that State and Church alone must henceforth constitute the union between the subjects of a State; that only Church and State have the mission of watching over industrial, commercial, judiciary • had heen wont to uiiih- din dlv.
the three forming a mutual in- three united iii one power th.it will command in tin- f ::d will cni:sh ' ',aturai!y . foriliei \\ iiKpieM from f That strength, they tir-4 of a!i foMnd in the vi\\ communes of anciei \vh<i.lid • t li« M iii' : • tiino at folk to help in his enfranchisement. Ouir of Italy, Spain a.ir.l (Ji-rniMny ftin lords. Prodigies of heit>i8XB and iii that war against the feudal < in*- niastrrs of tile castles of feudalism and to ("it dou i, • that eiivelopod thfin. But they only half • d. Then, tired of war, th- peace he head of tin- peas;iL!. 'I'o boy [ e ant up to the lord, cmteid rit«n-y \vliii-i: coinnniTie. In Italy an<l ( Ji-i-jnany they even ei;d>- -1 lord as fellow citizen on condition that lie should reside with, commune. In other parts they ended l>y sharing his «!:i over the peasant. And the lord avenged himself on these common people, whom he hated and despised, l>y drenching their >treets in l.lood during the struggles and acts of revenge of nohle families, th. carried before communal judges and syndics, whom the noble but were settled by the sword in the >u.
The nobles demoralised the towns by their munith ir intrigues, their great style of living, by their education bishop's or the king's court. They made the ci; ily struggles. And the citizen ended hy imitating the lord, and be- came a lord in his turn, enriching himself, he too. by the lahour of Fs encamped in the villa L v walls.
After which, the peasant lent a and to Popes, when they began to build their k; and to 22 The State: Its Historic Role.
bring the towns under subjection. When not marching by their orders, the peasant left them free to act.
It is in the country, in a fortified castle, situated in the midst of rural populations, that royalty was slowly constituted. In the twelfth century it existed but in name, and to-day we know what to think of the rogues, chiefs of little bands of brigands, who adorned themselves with this title, which after all — Augustin Thierry has so well demons- trated it — had very little meaning at that time; in fact the Norse fishermen had their " Nets' Kings," even the beggars had their "iKings" — the word having then simply the signification of " temporary leader."
Slowly, tentatively, a baron mora powerful or more cunning than the others, succeeded here and there in rising above the others. The Church no doubt bestirred itself to support him. And by force, cunning, money, sword, and poison in case of need, one of these feudal barons be- came great at the expense of the others. But it was never in one of the free cities, which had their noisy forum, their Tarpeian rock, or their river for the tyrants, that royal authority succeeded in constituting itself: it was always in the country in the village.
After having vainly tried to constitute this authority in Rheims or in Lyons, it was established in Paris, — an agglomeration of villages and boroughs surrounded by a rich country, which had not yet known the life of free cities; it was establisehd in Westminster, at the gates of po- pulous London City; it was established in the Kremlin which was built in the midst of rich villages on the banks of the Moskva, after having failed at Souzdal and Vladimir, — but never in Novgorod or Pskov, in Nuremberg or Florence could royal authority be consolidated.
The neighbouring peasants supplied them with grain, horses and men; and commerce — royal, not communal — increased the wealth of the grow- ing tyrants. The Church looked after their interests. It protected them, came to their succour with its treasure chests; it invented a saint and miracles for their royal town. It encircled with its veneration Notre-Dame of Paris or the Virgin of Iberia at Moscow. And while the civilization of free cities, emancipated from the bishops, took its youthful bound, the Church worked steadily to reconstitute its authority by the interme- diary of nascent royalty, it surrounded with its tender care, its incense and its ducats, the family cradle of the one whom it had finally chosen, in order to rebuild with him, and through him, the ecclesiastical autho- rity. In Paris, Moscow, Madrid and Pi-ague, you see the Church bend- jng over the royal cradle, a lighted torch in its hand.
Hard at work, strong in its State education, leaning on the man of will or cunning whom it sought out in any class of society, learned in in- trigue as well as in Roman and Byzantine law — you see the Church marching without respite towards its ideal: the Hebrew King, absolute* The State: Its Historic R6k. 23 but obeying the high priest — the simple secular arm of ecclesiastic*! power.
In the sixteenth century, the long work of the two conspirator* ia already in full force. A king already rules over the barons, his rivals, and that force will alight on the free cities to crush them in their turn.
Besides, the towns of the sixteenth century were not what they were in the twelfth, thirteenth or fourteenth centuries.
They were born out of a libertarian revolution. But they had not the courage to extend their ideas of equality, neither to the neighbour- ing rural districts nor even to those citizens who had later on estab- lished themselves in their enclosures, refuges of liberty, there to create industrial arts. A distinction between the old families who had made the revolution of the twelfth century — or curtly "the families" — and the others who established themselves later on in the city, is to be met with in all towns. The old " Merchant Guild " had no desire to receive the new-comers. It refused to incorporate the " young arts " for com- merce. And from simple clerk of the city, it became the go-between, the intermediary, who enriched himself by distant commerce, and who imported oriental ostentation. Later on, the " Merchant Guild " allied itself to the lord and the priest, or it went and sought the support of the nascent king, to maintain its monopoly, its right to enrichment. Having thus become personal, instead of communal, commerce killed the free city.
Besides, the guilds of ancient trades, of which the city and its government were composed at the outset, would not recognise the same rights to the young guilds, formed later on by the younger trades. These had to conquer their rights by a revolution. And that is what they did everywhere. But while that revolution became, in most big cities, the starting of a renewal of life and aits (this is so well seen in Florence), in other cities it ended in the victory of the richer f or<fera over the poorer ones— of the " fat people " (popolo grasso) over tlie " low people (popolo basso) — in a despotic crushing of the masses, in number- less transportations and executions, especially when lords and priesta took part in it.
And — need we say it? — it was " the defence of the poorer orders " that the king, who had received Macchiavelli's lessons, took later on aa a pretext when he came to knock at the gates of the free cities!
And then the cities had to die, because the ideas themselves of men had changed. The teaching of canonical and Roman law had perverted them.
The twelfth century European was essentially a federalist. A man.
24 The State: Its Historic Rok.
of free initiative, of free agreement, of unions freely consented to. He saw in the individual the starting point of all society. - He did not seek salvation in obedience; he did not ask for a savior of society. The., idea of Christian or Roman discipline was unknown to him.
But under the influence of the Christian Church— always fond of authority, always zealous to impose its rule on the souls and especially on the arms of the faithful; and on the other hand, under the influence of Roman law, which already, since the twelfth century, invaded the courts of the powerful lords, the kings and the popes, and soon became a favorite study in the universities— under the influence of these two teachings, which agreed so well although they were enemies at the begin- ning,— minds grew depraved in proportion as priest and legist tri- umphed.
Men became enamoured of authority. If a revolution of the lower trades was accomplished in a commune, the commune called in a saviour. It gave itself a dictator, a municipal Caesar, and it endowed him with full powers to exterminate the opposite party. And the dictator pro- fited by it, with all the refinement of cruelty that the Church or the examples which were brought from the despotic kingdoms of the East inspiied him with.
The Church, of course, supported that C?esar. Had it not always dreamt of the biblical king, who kneels before the high priest, and is his docile tool? Had it not, with all its might, hated the ideas of ra- tionalism which inspired the free towns during the first Renaissance, — that of the Twelfth century — as also those " pagan " ideas which brought man back to Nature under the influence of the rediscovery of Greek civilisation? as also, later on, those ideas which in the name of primitive Christianity incited men against the Pope, the priest and Faith in gen- eral? Fire, wheel, gibbet— these weapons so dear to the Church in all times — were put into play against those heritics. And whoever was the tool, pope, king or dictator, it was of little importance to the Church, so long as the wheel and the gibbet worked against heretics...And under the twofold teaching of the Roman legist and the priest, the old federalist spirit, the spirit of free initiative and free agreement, was dying out to make room for the spirit of discipline, organisation and pyramidal authority. The rich and the poor alike asked for a saviour.
And when the saviour presented himself; when the king, who had become enriched far from the Forum's tumult, in some town of his crea- tion, leaning on the wealthy Church, and followed by vanquished nobles and peasants, when the king knocked at the city gates, promising the " lower orders " his mighty protection against the rich, and to the obe- dient rich his protection against the revolting poor— the towns, which '•b.
' -i min.'d: : a thr tliii ' ader th.- i and p and powerful -,; W ".xtre- inity, •r powerful Kmpn < - ragon, supported by tli«' I; the sword and ttes, the little were, inevitably doe«n,fd tu »•«• swallowed 14. l»y the big ones...VII.
victory of the State i»v«-r the comm::: he federalist institutions of the Middle AU>-S did not tnke {>!;; Atone time the S tat t- was so threatened fchai i' - vic\ •ubtful.
A -i.Mt popular movement—. in form ajid expression, bat eminently communistic in- its adpipations ami >tri\ — originated in the towns and rural p; Already in the t'ourri-iMith t-t-i.tuiy (in l.">.'»,s in J-YMIUV and in 1381 in tnd), two great siuiilai movHuients had taken place. Two power- •voits, that of the Jacquerie nnd that of Wat Tyler had shaken society to its foundations. Both, however, had been principally directed -• feudal lords. Both were deff:iU-d: but the peasant revolt in England completely put an end to serfdom, and the Jacquerie in I so checked it in its development that henceforth the institution of serf- dom could only vegetate, without ever attaining the development it subsequently attained in Germany and in Eastein Europe.
Now, in the sixteenth cemtury. a similar movement took place in central Europe. Tinder the name of " Mu>>ite" in Bohemia, "Ana- baptist '' in (4ermany, in Switzerland and in the Netherlands, and of "Troubled Times" in Russia (;it the beginning of the next centur was over and above a struggle against feudal lords — a complete revolt against Church and State, against Canonic and Roman law. in tlu' name of primitive Christianity.