XIV.
If we now compare the Florentine Statute Book with those of other Italian cities, we shall find it marked by various distinguishing characteristics, chiefly resulting from the fact that in it democratic freedom was carried to the farthest point obtainable during the Middle Ages. Not only had every feudal privilege gradually disappeared from it, but the great nobles had ended by finding themselves in a position inferior to that of the commonalty. Florence, as we have already seen, was one of the first Italian cities to abolish serfdom in her outlying territory by the law of 1289.[413] And although her rural population was always treated much worse than the inhabitants of the city, it nevertheless enjoyed far better conditions than prevailed in a great number of communes. We have proof of this in the contract of Mezzeria, which makes the cultivator of the soil an actual partner with the proprietor, and which still remains a great monument of civilisation and the cynosure of modern economists who have never been able to devise any better system.[414]
The freedom and strength of associations, the extraordinary ease with which any one might participate in the government of the Commune, all contributed to the triumph of democracy on the widest basis. Another general characteristic to be noted, not only in the Florentine, but in almost all the Italian statutes, is the constant endeavour to shake off the intervention of the ecclesiastical authority, which labours with incredible obstinacy to maintain its privileges undiminished, and even seeks to increase them; but which, nevertheless, finds them gradually reduced almost to zero. The statute of 1415 ordains that "no person, university, or church, no religious or clerical house shall presume to question the jurisdiction of the Commune under pretence of 'benefice' or privilege, and that any one who opposes this enactment shall be imprisoned until he renounce such privilege.[415] No excommunication nor interdict shall hinder or diminish the action of the magistrates or the effect of their decrees.[416] Every man may freely exercise his rights over all Church property derived from secular sources."[417]