around the castles, abbeys, and churches. The old cities, once spacious, razed their former suburbs and restricted their limits so as to have less area to defend, as at Paris, Bordeaux, Evreux, Poitiers, and Sens. Roman monuments are discovered to-day outside the enclosures which these towns made for themselves at the time of the inva

sions. All towns, whenever possible, encircled themselves with ramparts, with embattled walls surrounded by moats, and armed their counterscarps with traps, abatis, and palisades. Inside the city the population, although not numerous, must have lived crowded together, as the architecture of the houses shows. The Roman dwelling was spread out in a comfortable way, with a large inner court, the atrium, and was generally low. Now the atrium was given up, filled in, and the roof rose high over a series of stories, which perhaps already were built so as to overhang, to gain still more room. As for monuments, the only ones which adorned the towns were those which the Romans had left. And sometimes even these were appropriated to strange uses, like the temple of Vesuna at Périgueux, which was changed into a tower for purposes of defense, or like the circus of Nîmes, which sheltered a part of the inhabitants and formed a veritable "quarter." Sometimes, too, these monuments were destroyed that the materials might be used for other constructions, especially for fortifications.

Between the church and the seigniorial dwelling, which was usually built to one side upon a precipitous hill or upon an artificial mound, the townsman passed his monotonous life, happy when a private war or an incursion for pillage did not bring upon his house or upon him the horrors of assault. Of political rights, he had none. The lord or his officers ruled the inhabitants as masters, imposed dues upon them, arrested, and judged them. The civil condition of the inhabit

ants must also have grown harder. It seems, indeed, that the number of freemen had noticeably diminished in the towns as well as in the country. Perhaps the cities of the south, thanks to their privileged situation, may have escaped in part this social decline; but this decline was general in the north, where only those preserved their independence who made it their business to bear arms in the following of a seignior and to live at the expense of others.

Thus from the sixth to the tenth century, townsmen did not count in society. Bishop Adalberon, in a famous poem to King Robert, considered around him only two classes; churchmen and nobles, beneath whom, but very far beneath, were the commons who worked.

(b) By the Thirteenth Century

On the whole, nothing could be more variable, or diverse, than the condition of the towns in the middle of the thirteenth century. Diverse in their origin, some dated back to antiquity; others, born of the wretchedness of the times, during the ninth and tenth centuries, were slowly formed by continuous agglomeration about a monastery or castle; a goodly number were of recent and artificial formation and owed their existence to the intelligent initiative of a few barons. Diverse in their history, some sustained struggles that were prolonged and hard, and sometimes savage; many bought more privileges than they gained by conquest; certain ones neither had to fight nor spend money, and saw themselves granted privileges which they did not ask for. Diverse in their prerogatives, some became independent republics, others consular municipalities or sworn communes, free like the lords, and involved like them in the feudal hierarchy; some, finally, possessed liberties so strictly limited to the civil and administrative order that historians have made of them a separate class, under the name of towns of burgessy. These innumerable differences should not surprise us; it is the law of life and of progress. Societies, like

species, become diversified as they develop.

Development, in fact, is the common characteristic of the history of urban populations of the Middle Ages; the variety of their development is infinite. Let us note the profound transformation they underwent. In place of small bourgs, continually narrowing their boundaries in order to have less to defend, and becoming depopulated through wars, pillage, and famines that commerce no longer mitigated, were substituted more numerous and larger towns, which outgrew their walls and had powerful suburbs, and in which, thanks to the impulse of industry and trade, inhabitants abounded. In place of miserable and servile populations succeeded new generations, which attained competence, sometimes wealth, and through competence liberty: personal and civil liberty always and everywhere; often also collective and political liberty, although in infinitely varied degrees and very unequally dis

tributed. The towns from the seventh to the tenth century seemed mute; a sepulchral atmosphere pervaded them. In the thirteenth century the cities hummed like hives. The streets were still narrow, irregular, and unsanitary, but they were teeming with life. Encumbering them were bales, baskets, venders crying their wares, and enormous signs swinging in the wind, which sometimes imperiled the safety of passers-by. It was a new civilization bursting into bloom. Splendid monuments arose, attesting the public prosperity and the genius of modest, unknown builders; romanesque and gothic churches lifted toward heaven their domes, campaniles, or spires; glorious belfries, which dominated and threatened their surroundings, awaiting the approaching time when the inimitable town halls, with their brilliant ornamentations of stone, should cause them to be forgotten. The town bell was the public voice of the city, as the church bell was the voice of souls. The city in the thirteenth century lived, spoke, and acted. It was a new factor in society. A heretofore unknown order, which grand and distant destinies awaited, was slowly growing. This order was the Third Estate.

95. An English Town Charter

(Gross, Charles, The Gild Merchant, vol. II, p. 244. Oxford, 1890) The following town charter, granted by Henry II (1154–89), to the town of Wallingford, England, is illustrative of these mediaval documents. Note the importance of the guild merchant in the government of the town and in freedom of travel.

Henry, by the grace of God, King of England, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou, . . . I command you that my burgesses of Wallingford shall have my secure peace through my whole land of England and Normandy, wherever they may be. And know that I have given and conceded to them forever all their liberties and laws and customs well and honorably, just as they had them best and most honorably in the time of King Edward, and in the time of my great grandfather King William, and of his son, the second King William, and in the time of King Henry, my grandfather; that is to say, that they should have freely the guild merchant with all its customs and laws, so that neither my bailiff nor any justice of mine should meddle with their guild; but only their own alderman and officer. And if my officers or any justice shall have brought suit against them in any plea or for any occasion or shall have wished to lead them into a suit, I forbid it, and require that they should not make defense in any manner, except in their own proper portmote. And if the reeve himself shall implead them on any occasion without an accuser, they shall not respond, and if on account of any transgression, or by a right judgment

any one of them shall have made forfeiture by a right consideration of the burgesses, to the reeve shall he pay it. I forbid, moreover, and require that there shall be no market in Crowmarsh, nor any merchant, unless he is in the guild of merchants; and if any one goes out from the borough of Wallingford and lives from the merchandise of the same Wallingford, I command that he should make the right guild of the merchants with the same burgesses, wherever he may be, within the borough or without. Know moreover, that I have given and conceded forever to all the men of Wallingford full quittance from my yearly rent, which they were accustomed to pay from the borough of Wallingford, that is to say, from that which pertains to me in the borough. All these laws and customs and liberties and quittances I give to them and concede forever, and all others which they are able to show that their ancestors had, freely, quietly, and honorably, just as my citizens of Winchester ever had them at the best; and this on account of the great service and labor which they sustained for me in the acquisition of my hereditary right in England. I concede to them, moreover, that wherever they shall go in their journeys as merchants, through my whole land of England and Normandy, Aquitaine and Anjou, “"by water and by strand, by wood and by land," they shall be free from toll and passage fees, and from all customs and exactions; nor are they to be troubled in this respect by any one, under a penalty of £10. I forbid, moreover, and require under the same penalty, that the reeve of Wallingford shall not make any fine of scotale or New Year's gift from any one, and that he shall not establish any custom in Wallingford which shall injure the burgesses of the town. Of this grant and concession, the witnesses are Theobald, archbishop of Canterbury and others. Given at Oxford, the first day before the Ides of January.

96. Oath of a New Freeman in a Medieval Town (Sharpe, R.R., Calendar of Letter Books Preserved among the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London at the Guildhall, Letter Book D, p. 195. London, 1899-1912) Apprenticeship in England goes back to the thirteenth century. The regulations as to freemen, their oaths, and the number and conditions of apprenticeship were early prescribed. The following oath of a Freeman has been preserved at the Guildhall, in London, and dates from 1275.

Ye shall swear that ye shall be faithful and loyal unto our Lord the King, King of England . . . and the franchises and customs of the City ye shall maintain according to your power. . . . Ye shall take no apprentice for less than seven years, and ye shall cause him to be enrolled as such within the first year of your covenant, and at the end of his term, if he has well and loyally served you, you shall cause his

egress to be enrolled. . . . And ye shall take no apprentice unless he be a free man and not a bondsman. All of which points aforesaid ye shall well and truly keep, so God you help and all his saints.

97. Ordinances of the White-Tawyer's Guild

(Riley, Henry T., Memorials of London, p. 232)

The following ordinances of the guild of white-tawyers, that is those who dressed leather with salt, alum, and other substances, to give it a white surface, is typical of guild regulations and guild activities of the time. The date of the document is uncertain, but probably about the middle of the fourteenth century.

In honor of God, of our Lady, and of all Saints, and for the nurture of tranquillity and peace among the good folks the megucers, called white-tawyers, the folks of the same trade have, by assent of Richard Lacer, mayor, and of the aldermen, ordained the points under-written.

In the first place, they have ordained that they will find a wax candle, to burn before our Lady in the church of Allhallows, near London wall.

Also, that each person of the said trade shall put in the box such sum as he shall think fit, in aid of maintaining the said candle.

Also, if by chance any one of the said trade shall fall into poverty, whether through old age or because he cannot labor or work, and have nothing with which to keep himself, he shall have every week from the said box 7d. for his support, if he be a man of good repute. And after his decease, if he have a wife, a woman of good repute, she shall have weekly for her support 7d. from the said box, so long as she shall behave herself well and keep single.

And that no stranger shall work in the said trade, or keep house for the same in the city, if he be not an apprentice, or a man admitted to the franchise of the said city.

And that no one shall take the serving-man of another to work with him, during his term, unless it be with the permission of his master. And if any one of the said trade shall have work in his house that he cannot complete, or if for want of assistance such work shall be in danger of being lost, those of the said trade shall aid him, that so the said work be not lost.

And if any one of the said trade shall depart this life, and have not wherewithal to be buried, he shall be buried at the expense of their common box. And when any one of the said trade shall die, all those of the said trade shall go to the vigil, and make offering on the morrow. And if any serving-man shall conduct himself in any other manner than properly toward his master, and act rebelliously toward him, no one of the said trade shall set him to work, until he shall have made