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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY

From Hutton Webster's, Early European History (1917); edited for this on-line publication, by ELLOPOS

XX. EUROPEAN CITIES DURING THE LATER MIDDLE AGES

Em. Macron, Rediscovering the Path to Europe

» Contents of this Chapter

Growth of the Cities   * City Life   * Civic Industry—the Guilds   * Trade and Commerce   * Money and Banking   * Italian Cities   * German Cities, the Hanseatic League   * The Cities of Flanders

Page 4

CIVIC FREEDOM

The free city had no room for either slaves or serfs. All servile conditions ceased inside its walls. The rule prevailed that anyone who had lived in a city for the term of a year and a day could no longer be claimed by a lord as his serf. This rule found expression in the famous saying: "Town air renders free."

RISE OF THE "THIRD ESTATE"

The freedom of the cities naturally attracted many immigrants to them. There came into existence a middle class of city people, between the nobles and clergy on the one side and the peasants on the other side—what the French call the bourgeoisie. [4] As we have learned, the kings of England and France soon began to summon representatives of this middle class to sit in assemblies as the "third estate," by the side of the nobles and the clergy, who formed the first two estates. Henceforth the middle class, the bourgeoisie, the "third estate," distinguished as it was for wealth, intelligence, and enterprise, exerted an ever-greater influence on European affairs.

[4] From French bourg, "town."

 

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THE MAKING OF EUROPE / EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY: Table of Contents

url: www.ellopos.net/politics/european-history/default.asp

IN PRINT

Cf. The Ancient Greece * The Ancient Rome
Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) * Western Medieval Europe * Renaissance in Italy