the attributes which the State appropriated later on for its bureaucracy and police, and much more than that.  It was an association for mutual support in all circumstances and in all accidents of life, “by deed and advise,” and it was an organization for maintaining justice—­with this difference from the State, that on all these occasions a humane, a brotherly element was introduced instead of the formal element which is the essential characteristic of State interference.  Even when appearing before the guild tribunal, the guild-brother answered before men who knew him well and had stood by him before in their daily work, at the common meal, in the performance of their brotherly duties:  men who were his equals and brethren indeed, not theorists of law nor defenders of some one else’s interests.(38)

It is evident that an institution so well suited to serve the need of union, without depriving the individual of his initiative, could but spread, grow, and fortify.  The difficulty was only to find such form as would permit to federate the unions of the guilds without interfering with the unions of the village communities, and to federate all these into one harmonious whole.  And when this form of combination had been found, and a series of favourable circumstances permitted the cities to affirm their independence, they did so with a unity of thought which can but excite our admiration, even in our century of railways, telegraphs, and printing.  Hundreds of charters in which the cities inscribed their liberation have reached us, and through all of them—­notwithstanding the infinite variety of details, which depended upon the more or less greater fulness of emancipation—­the same leading ideas run.  The city organized itself as a federation of both small village communities and guilds.

“All those who belong to the friendship of the town”—­so runs a charter given in 1188 to the burghesses of Aire by Philip, Count of Flanders—­“have promised and confirmed by faith and oath that they will aid each other as brethren, in whatever is useful and honest.  That if one commits against another an offence in words or in deeds, the one who has suffered there from will not take revenge, either himself or his people... he will lodge a complaint and the offender will make good for his offence, according to what will be pronounced by twelve elected judges acting as arbiters, And if the offender or the offended, after having been warned thrice, does not submit to the decision of the arbiters, he will be excluded from the friendship as a wicked man and a perjuror.(39)

“Each one of the men of the commune will be faithful to his con-juror, and will give him aid and advice, according to what justice will dictate him”—­the Amiens and Abbeville charters say.  “All will aid each other, according to their powers, within the boundaries of the Commune, and will not suffer that any one takes anything from any one of them, or makes one pay contributions”—­do we read in the charters of Soissons, Compiegne, Senlis, and many others of the same type.(40) And so on with countless variations on the same theme.