“The Rise of Free Cities:” Guizot’s Seventh Lecture

New York: D. Appleton and Company. 1896.

We have already, in our previous lectures, brought down the history of the two first great elements of modern civilization, the feudal system and the Church, to the twelfth century. The third of these fundamental elements—that of the commons, or free corporate cities—will form the subject of the present…

In order to understand the condition of the free cities at that time properly, it is necessary to consider them from two points of view. There are two great questions to be determined: first, that of the enfranchisement of the commons, or cities…The second question relates to the government of the free cities, the internal condition of the enfranchised towns, with reference to the burgesses residing within them, the principles, forms, and customs that prevailed among them.

From these two sources—namely, the change introduced into the social position of the burgesses, on the one hand, and from the internal government, from their municipal economy, on the other, has flowed all their influence upon modern civilization. All the circumstances that can be traced to their influence, may be referred to one of those two causes…In conclusion, I shall say a few words on the great diversity of conditions in the free cities of Europe…

In acquainting ourselves with the history of the enfranchisement of the free towns, we must remember what was the state of those towns between the fifth and eleventh centuries—from the fall of the Roman empire to the time when municipal revolution commenced. Here, I repeat, the differences are striking: the condition of the towns varied amazingly in the different countries of Europe; still there are some facts which may be regarded as nearly common to them all, and it is to these that I shall confine my observations. When I have gone through these, I shall say a few words more particularly respecting the free towns of France, and especially those of the north, beyond the Rhone and the Loire; these will form prominent figures in the sketch I am about to make.

After the fall of the Roman empire, between the fifth and tenth centuries, the towns were in a state neither of servitude nor of freedom…If we say that the towns in the eighth century were in a state of freedom, we say by far too much; we attach now to the word freedom a signification which does not represent the fact of the eighth century. We shall fall into the same error, if we say that the towns were in a state of servitude; for this term implies a state of things very different from the circumstances of the municipal towns of those days…They suffered all the evils to which weakness is liable; they were a prey to the continual depredations, rapacity, and violence of the strong; yet, notwithstanding these horrid disorders, and their impoverished and diminishing population, the towns had, and still maintained, a certain degree of importance; in most of them there was a clergyman, a bishop who exercised great authority, who possessed great influence over the people, and served as a tie between them and their conquerors, thus maintaining the city in a sort of independence, by throwing over it the protecting shield of religion. Besides this, there were still left in the towns some valuable fragments of Roman institutions…

These remains of urban activity and freedom were gradually disappearing, it is true, from day to day. Barbarism and disorder, evils always increasing, accelerated depopulation. The establishment of the lords of the country in the rural districts, and the rising preponderance of agricultural life, became added causes of the decline of the cities. The bishops themselves, after they had incorporated themselves into the feudal frame, attached much less importance to their municipal life. Finally, upon the triumph of the feudal system, the towns, without falling into the slavery of the agriculturists, were entirely subjected to the control of a lord, were included in some fief, and lost by this title, somewhat of the independence which still remained to them, and which, indeed, they had continued to possess, even in the most barbarous times—even in the first centuries of invasion. So that from the fifth century up to the time of the complete organization of the feudal system, the state of the towns was continually getting worse.

When once, however, the feudal system was fairly established, when every man had taken his place, and become fixed as it were to the soil, when the wandering life had entirely ceased, the towns again assumed some importance…No sooner was society a little settled under the feudal system, than the proprietors of fiefs began to feel new wants, and to acquire a certain degree of taste for improvement and melioration; this gave rise to some little commerce and industry in the towns of their domains; wealth and population increased within them,—slowly indeed, but still they increased. Among other circumstances which aided in bringing this about, there is…the protection which the churches afforded to fugitives. Before the free towns were constituted, before they were in a condition by their power, their fortifications, to offer an asylum to the desolate population of the country, when there was no place of safety for them but the Church, this circumstance alone was sufficient to draw into the cities many unfortunate persons and fugitives. These sought refuge either in the Church itself or within its precincts; it was not merely the lower orders, such as serfs, villeins, and so on, that sought this protection, but frequently men of considerable rank and wealth, who might chance to be proscribed. The chronicles of the times are full of examples of this kind. We find men lately powerful, who upon being attacked by some more powerful neighbor, or by the king himself, abandon their dwellings, carrying away all the property they can secure, enter into some city, and placing themselves under the protection of a church, become citizens. Refugees of this sort had, in my opinion, a considerable influence upon the progress of the cities; they introduced into them, besides their wealth, elements of a population superior to the great mass of their inhabitants. We know, moreover, that when once an assemblage somewhat considerable is formed in any place, other persons naturally flock to it, perhaps from finding it a place of greater security, or perhaps from that sociable disposition of our nature which never abandons us.

By the concurrence of all these causes, the cities regained a small portion of power as soon as the feudal system was not restored to an equal extent. The roving, wandering life had, it is true, in a great measure ceased, but to the conquerors, to the new proprietors of the soil, this roving life was one great means of gratifying their passions. When they desired to pillage, they made an excursion, they went afar to seek a better fortune, another domain. When they became more settled, when they considered it necessary to renounce their predatory expeditions, the same passions, the same gross desires, still remained in full force. But the weight of these now fell upon those whom they found ready at hand, upon the powerful of the world, upon the cities. Instead of going afar to pillage, they pillaged what was near. The exactions of the proprietors of fiefs upon the burgesses were redoubled at the end of the tenth century. Whenever the lord of the domain, by which a city was girt, felt a desire to increase his wealth, he gratified his avarice at the expense of the citizens. It was more particularly at this period that the citizens complained of the total want of commercial security. Merchants, on returning from their trading rounds, could not, with safety, return to their city. Every avenue was taken possession of by the lord of the domain and his vassals. The moment in which industry commenced its career, was precisely that in which security was most wanting…

Such, then, was the state of cities during the course of the tenth century. They possessed more strength, more importance, more wealth, more interests to defend. At the same time, it became more necessary than ever to defend them, for these interests, their wealth and their strength, became objects of desire to the nobles. With the means of resistance, the danger and difficulty increased also. Besides, the feudal system gave to all connected with it a perpetual example of resistance; the idea of an organized energetic government, capable of keeping society in order and regularity by its intervention, had never presented itself to the spirits of that period. On the contrary, there was a perpetual recurrence of individual will, refusing to submit to authority. Such was the conduct of the major part of the holders of fiefs towards their suzerains, of the small proprietors of land to the greater; so that at the very time when the cities were oppressed and tormented, at the moment when they had new and greater interests to sustain, they had before their eyes a continual lesson of insurrection. The feudal system rendered this service to mankind—it constantly exhibited individual will, displaying itself in all its power and energy. The lesson was applied; in spite of their weakness, in spite of the prodigious inequality which existed between them and the great proprietors, their lords, the cities everywhere broke out into rebellion against them…

I say insurrection, and I say it advisedly. The enfranchisement of the towns or communities in the eleventh century was the fruit of a real insurrection, of a real war—a war declared by the population of the cities against their lords. The first fact which we always meet with in annals of this nature, is the rising of the burgesses, who seize whatever arms they can lay their hands on;—it is the expulsion of the people of the lord, who come for the purpose of levying contributions, some extortion; it is an enterprise against the neighboring castle;—such is always the character of the war. If the insurrection fails, what does the conqueror instantly do? He orders the destruction of the fortifications erected by the citizens, not only around their city, but also around each dwelling. We see that at the very moment of confederation, after having promised to act in common, after having taken, in common, the corporation oath, the first act of each citizen was to put his own house in a state of resistance…

After a war has continued a certain time, whoever may be the belligerent parties, it naturally leads to a peace. The treaties of peace between the cities and their adversaries were so many charters. These charters of the cities were so many positive treaties of peace between the burgesses and their lords.

The insurrection was general. When I say general, I do not mean that there was any concerted plan, that there was any coalition between all the burgesses of a country; nothing like it took place. But the situation of all the towns being nearly the same, they all were liable to the same danger; a prey to the same disasters. Having acquired similar means of resistance and defence, they made use of those means at nearly the same time. It may be possible, also, that the force of example did something; that the success of one or two communities was contagious. Sometimes the charters appear to have been drawn up from the same model…I doubt, however, whether example had so great an influence as is generally conjectured. Communication between different provinces was difficult and of rare occurrence; the intelligence conveyed and received by hearsay and general report was vague and uncertain; and there is much reason for believing that the insurrection was rather the result of a similarity of situation and of a general spontaneous movement. When I say general, I wish to be understood simply as saying that insurrections took place everywhere; they did not, I repeat, spring from any unanimous concerted movement: all was particular, local; each community rebelled on its own account, against its own lord, unconnected with any other place.

The vicissitudes of the struggle were great. Not only did success change from one side to the other, but even after peace was in appearance concluded, after the charter had been solemnly sworn to by both parties, they violated and eluded its articles in all sorts of ways. Kings acted a prominent part in the alternations of these struggles…Too much has probably been said of the effects of royal influence upon the struggles of the people for freedom. These effects have been often contested, sometimes exaggerated, and in my opinion, sometimes greatly underrated. I shall here confine myself to the assertion that royalty was often called upon to interfere in these contests, sometimes by the cities, sometimes by their lords; and that it played very different parts; acting now upon one principle, and soon after upon another; that it was ever changing its intentions, its designs, and its conduct; but that, taking it altogether, it did much, and produced a greater portion of good than of evil.

In spite of all these vicissitudes, notwithstanding the perpetual violation of charters in the twelfth century—the freedom of the cities was consummated. Europe, and particularly France, which, during a whole century, had abounded in insurrections, now abounded in charters; cities rejoiced in them with more or less security, but still they rejoiced; the event succeeded, and the right was acknowledged…

And, at first…it effected nothing…All remained local, enclosed within the limits of the fief…

Although all still remained local, yet a new general class of society became formed by the enfranchisement of the commons. No coalition of the burgesses of different cities had taken place; as yet they had as a class no public or general existence. But the country was covered with men engaged in similar pursuits, possessing the same views and interests, the same manners and customs; between whom there could not fail to be gradually formed a certain tie, from which originated the general class of burgesses. This formation of a great social class was the necessary result of the local enfranchisement of the burgesses. It must not, however, be supposed that the class of which we are speaking was then what it has since become. Not only is its situation greatly changed, but its elements are totally different. In the twelfth century, this class was almost entirely composed of merchants or small traders, and little landed or house proprietors who had taken up their residence in the city. Three centuries afterwards there were added to this class lawyers, physicians, men of letters, and the local magistrates. The class of burgesses was formed gradually and of very different elements: history gives us no accurate account of its progress, nor of its diversity. When the body of citizens is spoken of, it is erroneously conjectured to have been, at all times, composed of the same elements. Absurd supposition! It is, perhaps, in the diversity of its composition at different periods of history that we should seek to discover the secret of its destiny; so long as it was destitute of magistrates and of men of letters, so long it remained totally unlike what it became in the sixteenth century; as regards the state, it neither possessed the same character nor the same importance. In order to form a just idea of the changes in the rank and influence of this portion of society, we must take a view of the new professions, the new moral situations, of the new intellectual state which gradually arose within it. In the twelfth century, I must repeat, the body of citizens consisted only of small merchants or traders, who, after having finished their purchases and sales, retired to their houses in the city or town; and of little proprietors of houses or lands who had there taken up their residence. Such was the European burgher class in its primary elements.

The third great result of the enfranchisement of the cities was the struggle of classes; a struggle which constitutes the very fact of modern history, and of which it is full.

Modern Europe, indeed, is born of this struggle between the different classes of society. I have already shown that in other places this struggle has been productive of very different consequences; in Asia, for example, one particular class has completely triumphed, and the system of castes has succeeded to that of classes, and society has there fallen into a state of immobility. Nothing of this kind, thank God! has taken place in Europe. One of the classes has not conquered, has not brought the others into subjection; no class has been able to overcome, to subjugate the others; the struggle, instead of rendering society stationary, has been a principal cause of its progress; the relations of the different classes with one another; the necessity of combating and of yielding by turns; the variety of interests, passions, and excitements; the desire to conquer without the power to do so: from all this has probably sprung the most energetic, the most productive principle of development in European civilization. This struggle of the classes has been constant; enmity has grown up between them; the infinite diversity of situation, of interests, and of manners, has produced a strong moral hostility; yet they have progressively approached, assimilated, and understood each other; every country of Europe has seen the rise and development within it of a certain public spirit, a certain community of interests, of ideas, of sentiments, which have triumphed over this diversity and war…

The greater part of the population of these cities were ignorant, brutal, and savage to a degree which rendered them exceedingly difficult to govern. At the end of a very short period, there was but little more security within these communities than there had been, previously, in the relations of the burgesses with the baron. There soon, however, became formed a burgess aristocracy. The causes of this are easily understood. The notions of that day, coupled with certain social relations, led to the establishment of trading companies legally constituted. A system of privileges became introduced into the interior of the cities, and, in the end, a great inequality. There soon grew up in all of them a certain number of considerable, opulent burgesses, and a population, more or less numerous, of workmen, who, notwithstanding their inferiority, had no small influence in the affairs of the community. The free cities thus became divided into an upper class of burgesses, and a population subject to all the errors, all the vices of a mob. The superior citizens thus found themselves pressed between two great difficulties: first, the arduous one of governing this inferior turbulent population; and secondly, that of withstanding the continual attempts of the ancient master of the borough, who sought to regain his former power. Such was the situation of their affairs, not only in France, but in Europe, down to the sixteenth century. This, perhaps, is the cause which prevented these communities from taking, in several countries of Europe, and especially in France, that high political station which seemed properly to belong to them. Two spirits were unceasingly at work within them: among the inferior population, a blind, licentious, furious spirit of democracy; among the superior burgesses, a spirit of timidity, of caution, and an excessive desire to accommodate all differences, whether with the king, or with its ancient proprietors, so as to preserve peace and order in the bosom of the community. Neither of these spirits could raise the cities to a high rank in the state.