royal tithe was hardly ever paid, the kings were obliged to look to other means for replenishing their treasuries; and coining false money was a common practice.  Unfortunately each great vassal vied with the kings in this, and to such an extent, that the enormous quantity of bad money coined during the ninth century completed the public ruin, and made this a sad period of social chaos.  The freeman was no longer distinguishable from the villain, nor the villain from the serf.  Serfdom was general; men found themselves, as it were, slaves, in possession of land which they laboured at with the sweat of their brow, only to cultivate for the benefit of others.  The towns even—­with the exception of a few privileged cities, as Florence, Paris, Lyons, Rheims, Metz, Strasburg, Marseilles, Hamburg, Frankfort, and Milan—­were under the dominion of some ecclesiastical or lay lord, and only enjoyed liberty of a more or less limited character.

Towards the end of the eleventh century, under Philip I., the enthusiasm for Crusades became general, and, as all the nobles joined in the holy mission of freeing the tomb of Jesus Christ from the hands of the infidels, large sums of money were required to defray the costs.  New taxes were accordingly imposed; but, as these did not produce enough at once, large sums were raised by the sale of some of the feudal rights.  Certain franchises were in this way sold by the nobles to the boroughs, towns, and abbeys, though, in not a few instances, these very privileges had been formerly plundered from the places to which they were now sold.  Fines were exacted from any person declining to go to Palestine; and foreign merchants—­especially the Jews—­were required to subscribe large sums.  A number of the nobles holding fiefs were reduced to the lowest expedients with a view to raising money, and even sold their estates at a low price, or mortgaged them to the very Jews whom they taxed so heavily.  Every town in which the spirit of Gallo-Roman municipality was preserved took advantage of these circumstances to extend its liberties.  Each monarch, too, found this a favourable opportunity to add new fiefs to the crown, and to recall as many great vassals as possible under his dominion.  It was at this period that communities arose, and that the first charters of freedom which were obligatory and binding contracts between the King and the people, date their origin.  Besides the annual fines due to the King and the feudal lords, and in addition to the general subsidies, such as the quit-rent and the tithes, these communities had to provide for the repair of the walls or ramparts, for the paving of the streets, the cleaning of the pits, the watch on the city gates, and the various expenses of local administration.