It is refreshing to turn back from the period of
disillusionment to that of sanguine expectations, and to study the commune in
the period of infancy and growth, when no other refuge from anarchy and
oppression was open to the industrial classes, and when emancipated serfs were
still intoxicated with the dream of liberty.
Curiously enough, the communal revolution began most
quietly in the land where it was ultimately responsible for the fiercest
conflicts. The cities of North Italy gained their first instalments of freedom,
at different periods in the eleventh century, by bargains or by usurpations of
which few records have come down to us. At Pisa we hear of an agreement between
the bishop and the citizens (1080-1085) under which the latter are permitted to
form a peace-association, to hold mass-meetings, and to elect consules
who shall co-operate with the bishop in the government. At Genoa, on the other
hand, the commune appears (in 1122) after several earlier conjurationes
have been successfully resisted and dispersed. Probably the case of Pisa is
more typical than that of Genoa, since we usually hear of a commune for the first
time when it is already a fully developed institution. In most of the North
Italian cities it was at the expense of a bishop that the commune was
established. Legally the change meant the transference, from the bishop or
another seigneur to the town, of powers derived by delegation from the Emperor;
and it took place in the course of the Investitures contest, when the bishops,
conscious of simony and other offences which made their position insecure, were
more concerned to dissuade their citizens from siding with the party of
ecclesiastical reform than to fulfil their duties as officials of the Empire.
The Emperors themselves, hard-pressed in the struggle with the Papacy and eager
to purchase support at any price, contributed to the success of the communal
movement by the charters which they bestowed on some important cities.
