53.  A. Babeau, La ville sous l’ancien regime, Paris, 1880.

54.  Ennen, Geschichte der Stadt Koln, i. 491, 492, also texts.

CHAPTER VI

Mutual aid in the mediaeval city (continued)

Likeness and diversity among the medieval cities.  The craftguilds:  State-attributes in each of them.  Attitude of the city towards the peasants; attempts to free them.  The lords.  Results achieved by the medieval city:  in arts, in learning.  Causes of decay.

The medieval cities were not organized upon some preconceived plan in obedience to the will of an outside legislator.  Each of them was a natural growth in the full sense of the word—­an always varying result of struggle between various forces which adjusted and re-adjusted themselves in conformity with their relative energies, the chances of their conflicts, and the support they found in their surroundings.  Therefore, there are not two cities whose inner organization and destinies would have been identical.  Each one, taken separately, varies from century to century.  And yet, when we cast a broad glance upon all the cities of Europe, the local and national unlikenesses disappear, and we are struck to find among all of them a wonderful resemblance, although each has developed for itself, independently from the others, and in different conditions.  A small town in the north of Scotland, with its population of coarse labourers and fishermen; a rich city of Flanders, with its world-wide commerce, luxury, love of amusement and animated life; an Italian city enriched by its intercourse with the East, and breeding within its walls a refined artistic taste and civilization; and a poor, chiefly agricultural, city in the marsh and lake district of Russia, seem to have little in common.  And nevertheless, the leading lines of their organization, and the spirit which animates them, are imbued with a strong family likeness.  Everywhere we see the same federations of small communities and guilds, the same “sub-towns” round the mother city, the same folkmote, and the same insigns of its independence.  The defensor of the city, under different names and in different accoutrements, represents the same authority and interests; food supplies, labour and commerce, are organized on closely similar lines; inner and outer struggles are fought with like ambitions; nay, the very formulae used in the struggles, as also in the annals, the ordinances, and the rolls, are identical; and the architectural monuments, whether Gothic, Roman, or Byzantine in style, express the same aspirations and the same ideals; they are conceived and built in the same way.  Many dissemblances are mere differences of age, and those disparities between sister cities which are real are repeated in different parts of Europe.  The unity of the leading idea and the identity of origin make up for differences of climate, geographical situation, wealth, language and religion.  This is why we can speak of the medieval city as of a well-defined phase of civilization; and while every research insisting upon local and individual differences is most welcome, we may still indicate the chief lines of development which are common to all cities.(1)