THE early part of the Middle Ages had been an era of pioneering and of
settlement. A new people, who thus far had lived outside the wild range
of forest, mountains and marshes which protected the north-eastern
frontier of the Roman Empire, had forced its way into the plains of
western Europe and had taken possession of most of the land. They were
restless, as all pioneers have been since the beginning of time. They
liked to be "on the go." They cut down the forests and they cut each
other's throats with equal energy. Few of them wanted to live in cities.
They insisted upon being "free," they loved to feel the fresh air of
the hillsides fill their lungs while they drove their herds across the
wind-swept pastures. When they no longer liked their old homes, they
pulled up stakes and went away in search of fresh adventures.
The weaker ones died. The hardy fighters and the courageous women who
had followed their men into the wilderness survived. In this way they
developed a strong race of men. They cared little for the graces of
life. They were too busy to play the fiddle or write pieces of poetry.
They had little love for discussions. The priest, "the learned man" of
the village (and before the middle of the thirteenth century, a layman
who could read and write was regarded as a "sissy") was supposed to
settle all questions which had no direct practical value. Meanwhile the
German chieftain, the Frankish Baron, the Northman Duke (or whatever
their names and titles) occupied their share of the territory which
once had been part of the great Roman Empire and among the ruins of past
glory, they built a world of their own which pleased them mightily and
which they considered quite perfect.
They managed the affairs of their castle and the surrounding country to
the best of their ability. They were as faithful to the commandments of
the Church as any weak mortal could hope to be. They were sufficiently
loyal to their king or emperor to keep on good terms with those distant
but always dangerous potentates. In short, they tried to do right and
to be fair to their neighbours without being exactly unfair to their own
interests.
It was not an ideal world in which they found themselves. The greater
part of the people were serfs or "villains," farm-hands who were as much
a part of the soil upon which they lived as the cows and sheep whose
stables they shared. Their fate was not particularly happy nor was it
particularly unhappy. But what was one to do? The good Lord who ruled
the world of the Middle Ages had undoubtedly ordered everything for the
best. If He, in his wisdom, had decided that there must be both knights
and serfs, it was not the duty of these faithful sons of the church to
question the arrangement. The serfs therefore did not complain but when
they were too hard driven, they would die off like cattle which are not
fed and stabled in the right way, and then something would be hastily
done to better their condition. But if the progress of the world had
been left to the serf and his feudal master, we would still be living
after the fashion of the twelfth century, saying "abracadabra" when we
tried to stop a tooth-ache, and feeling a deep contempt and hatred for
the dentist who offered to help us with his "science," which most likely
was of Mohammedan or heathenish origin and therefore both wicked and
useless.
When you grow up you will discover that many people do not believe in
"progress" and they will prove to you by the terrible deeds of some of
our own contemporaries that "the world does not change." But I hope
that you will not pay much attention to such talk. You see, it took
our ancestors almost a million years to learn how to walk on their
hind legs. Other centuries had to go by before their animal-like
grunts developed into an understandable language. Writing--the art of
preserving our ideas for the benefit of future generations, without
which no progress is possible was invented only four thousand years ago.
The idea of turning the forces of nature into the obedient servants of
man was quite new in the days of your own grandfather. It seems to me,
therefore, that we are making progress at an unheard-of rate of speed.
Perhaps we have paid a little too much attention to the mere physical
comforts of life. That will change in due course of time and we shall
then attack the problems which are not related to health and to wages
and plumbing and machinery in general.
But please do not be too sentimental about the "good old days." Many
people who only see the beautiful churches and the great works of art
which the Middle Ages have left behind grow quite eloquent when they
compare our own ugly civilisation with its hurry and its noise and the
evil smells of backfiring motor trucks with the cities of a thousand
years ago. But these mediaeval churches were invariably surrounded by
miserable hovels compared to which a modern tenement house stands
forth as a luxurious palace. It is true that the noble Lancelot and the
equally noble Parsifal, the pure young hero who went in search of the
Holy Grail, were not bothered by the odor of gasoline. But there were
other smells of the barnyard variety--odors of decaying refuse which
had been thrown into the street--of pig-sties surrounding the Bishop's
palace--of unwashed people who had inherited their coats and hats from
their grandfathers and who had never learned the blessing of soap. I
do not want to paint too unpleasant a picture. But when you read in the
ancient chronicles that the King of France, looking out of the windows
of his palace, fainted at the stench caused by the pigs rooting in the
streets of Paris, when an ancient manuscript recounts a few details of
an epidemic of the plague or of small-pox, then you begin to under-stand
that "progress" is something more than a catchword used by modern
advertising men.
No, the progress of the last six hundred years would not have been
possible without the existence of cities. I shall, therefore, have to
make this chapter a little longer than many of the others. It is
too important to be reduced to three or four pages, devoted to mere
political events.
The ancient world of Egypt and Babylonia and Assyria had been a world
of cities. Greece had been a country of City-States. The history of
Phoenicia was the history of two cities called Sidon and Tyre. The Roman
Empire was the "hinterland" of a single town. Writing, art, science,
astronomy, architecture, literature, the theatre--the list is
endless--have all been products of the city.
For almost four thousand years the wooden bee-hive which we call a town
had been the workshop of the world. Then came the great migrations. The
Roman Empire was destroyed. The cities were burned down and Europe once
more became a land of pastures and little agricultural villages. During
the Dark Ages the fields of civilisation had lain fallow.
The Crusades had prepared the soil for a new crop. It was time for the
harvest, but the fruit was plucked by the burghers of the free cities.
I have told you the story of the castles and the monasteries, with their
heavy stone enclosures--the homes of the knights and the monks, who
guarded men's bodies and their souls. You have seen how a few artisans
(butchers and bakers and an occasional candle-stick maker) came to
live near the castle to tend to the wants of their masters and to find
protection in case of danger. Sometimes the feudal lord allowed these
people to surround their houses with a stockade. But they were dependent
for their living upon the good-will of the mighty Seigneur of the
castle. When he went about they knelt before him and kissed his hand.
Then came the Crusades and many things changed. The migrations had
driven people from the north-east to the west. The Crusades made
millions of people travel from the west to the highly civilised regions
of the south-east. They discovered that the world was not bounded by the
four walls of their little settlement. They came to appreciate better
clothes, more comfortable houses, new dishes, products of the mysterious
Orient. After their return to their old homes, they insisted that they
be supplied with those articles. The peddler with his pack upon his
back--the only merchant of the Dark Ages--added these goods to his old
merchandise, bought a cart, hired a few ex-crusaders to protect him
against the crime wave which followed this great international war,
and went forth to do business upon a more modern and larger scale. His
career was not an easy one. Every time he entered the domains of another
Lord he had to pay tolls and taxes. But the business was profitable all
the same and the peddler continued to make his rounds.
Soon certain energetic merchants discovered that the goods which they
had always imported from afar could be made at home. They turned part
of their homes into a workgshop.{sic} They ceased to be merchants and
became manufacturers. They sold their products not only to the lord of
the castle and to the abbot in his monastery, but they exported them to
nearby towns. The lord and the abbot paid them with products of their
farms, eggs and wines, and with honey, which in those early days was
used as sugar. But the citizens of distant towns were obliged to pay in
cash and the manufacturer and the merchant began to own little pieces of
gold, which entirely changed their position in the society of the early
Middle Ages.
It is difficult for you to imagine a world without money. In a modern
city one cannot possible live without money. All day long you carry a
pocket full of small discs of metal to "pay your way." You need a nickel
for the street-car, a dollar for a dinner, three cents for an evening
paper. But many people of the early Middle Ages never saw a piece of
coined money from the time they were born to the day of their death. The
gold and silver of Greece and Rome lay buried beneath the ruins of their
cities. The world of the migrations, which had succeeded the Empire, was
an agricultural world. Every farmer raised enough grain and enough sheep
and enough cows for his own use.
The mediaeval knight was a country squire and was rarely forced to pay
for materials in money. His estates produced everything that he and his
family ate and drank and wore on their backs. The bricks for his house
were made along the banks of the nearest river. Wood for the rafters of
the hall was cut from the baronial forest. The few articles that had to
come from abroad were paid for in goods--in honey--in eggs--in fagots.
But the Crusades upset the routine of the old agricultural life in a
very drastic fashion. Suppose that the Duke of Hildesheim was going to
the Holy Land. He must travel thousands of miles and he must pay his
passage and his hotel-bills. At home he could pay with products of his
farm. But he could not well take a hundred dozen eggs and a cart-load
of hams with him to satisfy the greed of the shipping agent of Venice or
the inn-keeper of the Brenner Pass. These gentlemen insisted upon cash.
His Lordship therefore was obliged to take a small quantity of gold with
him upon his voyage. Where could he find this gold? He could borrow it
from the Lombards, the descendants of the old Longobards, who had turned
professional money-lenders, who seated behind their exchange-table
(commonly known as "banco" or bank) were glad to let his Grace have a
few hundred gold pieces in exchange for a mortgage upon his estates,
that they might be repaid in case His Lordship should die at the hands
of the Turks.
That was dangerous business for the borrower. In the end, the Lombards
invariably owned the estates and the Knight became a bankrupt, who
hired himself out as a fighting man to a more powerful and more careful
neighbour.
His Grace could also go to that part of the town where the Jews were
forced to live. There he could borrow money at a rate of fifty or sixty
percent. interest. That, too, was bad business. But was there a way out?
Some of the people of the little city which surrounded the castle were
said to have money. They had known the young lord all his life. His
father and their fathers had been good friends. They would not be
unreasonable in their demands. Very well. His Lordship's clerk, a
monk who could write and keep accounts, sent a note to the best known
merchants and asked for a small loan. The townspeople met in the
work-room of the jeweller who made chalices for the nearby churches and
discussed this demand. They could not well refuse. It would serve no
purpose to ask for "interest." In the first place, it was against the
religious principles of most people to take interest and in the second
place, it would never be paid except in agricultural products and of
these the people had enough and to spare.
"But," suggested the tailor who spent his days quietly sitting upon his
table and who was somewhat of a philosopher, "suppose that we ask some
favour in return for our money. We are all fond of fishing. But his
Lordship won't let us fish in his brook. Suppose that we let him have
a hundred ducats and that he give us in return a written guarantee
allowing us to fish all we want in all of his rivers. Then he gets the
hundred which he needs, but we get the fish and it will be good business
all around."
The day his Lordship accepted this proposition (it seemed such an easy
way of getting a hundred gold pieces) he signed the death-warrant of his
own power. His clerk drew up the agreement. His Lordship made his mark
(for he could not sign his name) and departed for the East. Two years
later he came back, dead broke. The townspeople were fishing in the
castle pond. The sight of this silent row of anglers annoyed his
Lordship. He told his equerry to go and chase the crowd away. They went,
but that night a delegation of merchants visited the castle. They were
very polite. They congratulated his Lordship upon his safe return. They
were sorry his Lordship had been annoyed by the fishermen, but as his
Lordship might perhaps remember he had given them permission to do so
himself, and the tailor produced the Charter which had been kept in the
safe of the jeweller ever since the master had gone to the Holy Land.
His Lordship was much annoyed. But once more he was in dire need of some
money. In Italy he had signed his name to certain documents which were
now in the possession of Salvestro dei Medici, the well-known banker.
These documents were "promissory notes" and they were due two months
from date. Their total amount came to three hundred and forty pounds,
Flemish gold. Under these circumstances, the noble knight could not well
show the rage which filled his heart and his proud soul. Instead, he
suggested another little loan. The merchants retired to discuss the
matter.
After three days they came back and said "yes." They were only too happy
to be able to help their master in his difficulties, but in return
for the 345 golden pounds would he give them another written promise
(another charter) that they, the townspeople, might establish a council
of their own to be elected by all the merchants and free citizens of the
city, said council to manage civic affairs without interference from the
side of the castle?
His Lordship was confoundedly angry. But again, he needed the money. He
said yes, and signed the charter. Next week, he repented. He called
his soldiers and went to the house of the jeweller and asked for the
documents which his crafty subjects had cajoled out of him under the
pressure of circumstances. He took them away and burned them. The
townspeople stood by and said nothing. But when next his Lordship needed
money to pay for the dowry of his daughter, he was unable to get a
single penny. After that little affair at the jeweller's his credit was
not considered good. He was forced to eat humble-pie and offer to make
certain reparations. Before his Lordship got the first installment of
the stipulated sum, the townspeople were once more in possession of all
their old charters and a brand new one which permitted them to build
a "city-hall" and a strong tower where all the charters might be kept
protected against fire and theft, which really meant protected against
future violence on the part of the Lord and his armed followers.
This, in a very general way, is what happened during the centuries which
followed the Crusades. It was a slow process, this gradual shifting
of power from the castle to the city. There was some fighting. A few
tailors and jewellers were killed and a few castles went up in smoke.
But such occurrences were not common. Almost imperceptibly the towns
grew richer and the feudal lords grew poorer. To maintain themselves
they were for ever forced to exchange charters of civic liberty in
return for ready cash. The cities grew. They offered an asylum to
run-away serfs who gained their liberty after they had lived a number
of years behind the city walls. They came to be the home of the more
energetic elements of the surrounding country districts. They were proud
of their new importance and expressed their power in the churches and
public buildings which they erected around the old market place, where
centuries before the barter of eggs and sheep and honey and salt had
taken place. They wanted their children to have a better chance in life
than they had enjoyed themselves. They hired monks to come to their
city and be school teachers. When they heard of a man who could paint
pictures upon boards of wood, they offered him a pension if he would
come and cover the walls of their chapels and their town hall with
scenes from the Holy Scriptures.
Meanwhile his Lordship, in the dreary and drafty halls of his castle,
saw all this up-start splendour and regretted the day when first he had
signed away a single one of his sovereign rights and prerogatives. But
he was helpless. The townspeople with their well-filled strong-boxes
snapped their fingers at him. They were free men, fully prepared to hold
what they had gained by the sweat of their brow and after a struggle
which had lasted for more than ten generations.