And yet, the current of mutual aid and support did not die out in the masses, it continued to flow even after that defeat.  It rose up again with a formidable force, in answer to the communist appeals of the first propagandists of the reform, and it continued to exist even after the masses, having failed to realize the life which they hoped to inaugurate under the inspiration of a reformed religion, fell under the dominions of an autocratic power.  It flows still even now, and it seeks its way to find out a new expression which would not be the State, nor the medieval city, nor the village community of the barbarians, nor the savage clan, but would proceed from all of them, and yet be superior to them in its wider and more deeply humane conceptions.

Notes: 

1.  The literature of the subject is immense; but there is no work yet which treats of the medieval city as of a whole.  For the French Communes, Augustin Thierry’s Lettres and Considerations sur l’histoire de France still remain classical, and Luchaire’s Communes francaises is an excellent addition on the same lines.  For the cities of Italy, the great work of Sismondi (Histoire des republiques italiennes du moyen age, Paris, 1826, 16 vols.), Leo and Botta’s History of Italy, Ferrari’s Revolutions d’Italie, and Hegel’s Geschichte der Stadteverfassung in Italien, are the chief sources of general information.  For Germany we have Maurer’s Stadteverfassung, Barthold’s Geschichte der deutschen Stadte, and, of recent works, Hegel’s Stadte und Gilden der germanischen Volker (2 vols.  Leipzig, 1891), and Dr. Otto Kallsen’s Die deutschen Stadte im Mittelalter (2 vols.  Halle, 1891), as also Janssen’s Geschichte des deutschen Volkes (5 vols. 1886), which, let us hope, will soon be translated into English (French translation in 1892).  For Belgium, A. Wauters, Les Libertes communales (Bruxelles, 1869-78, 3 vols.).  For Russia, Byelaeff’s, Kostomaroff’s and Sergievich’s works.  And finally, for England, we posses one of the best works on cities of a wider region in Mrs. J.R.  Green’s Town Life in the Fifteenth Century (2 vols.  London, 1894).  We have, moreover, a wealth of well-known local histories, and several excellent works of general or economical history which I have so often mentioned in this and the preceding chapter.  The richness of literature consists, however, chiefly in separate, sometimes admirable, researches into the history of separate cities, especially Italian and German; the guilds; the land question; the economical principles of the time. the economical importance of guilds and crafts; the leagues between, cities (the Hansa); and communal art.  An incredible wealth of information is contained in works of this second category, of which only some of the more important are named in these pages.

2.  Kulischer, in an excellent essay on primitive trade (Zeitschrift fur Volkerpsychologie, Bd. x. 380), also points out that, according to Herodotus, the Argippaeans were considered inviolable, because the trade between the Scythians and the northern tribes took place on their territory.  A fugitive was sacred on their territory, and they were often asked to act as arbiters for their neighbours.  See Appendix xi.