Fig. 19.—Fortified Gate of the Town of Aigues-Mortes, which Town obtained in 1246 a Communal Charter (Military Architecture of the Thirteenth Century).
In the Low Countries, which had always so highly exalted the sentiment of local patriotism, the struggle of the villains against the nobles, whether lay or ecclesiastic, differed but little from the struggle of the towns in the north of France against the seigniors, but it assumed larger proportions in accordance with the immense resources of every kind which they had at their disposal. The feudal lord had his drawbridge, his battlements, and his men-at-arms cased in iron; but his rebellious vassal could boast on his side, besides the narrow and winding streets of his stronghold and the number of his fellow-combatants, many warlike engines and well-made weapons which he himself had manufactured. When feudalism, in order to crush what it then termed the populace, summoned to its banner hordes of adventurers recruited from all parts of the world, it was encountered by undisciplined levies of armed mechanics and artisans, who issued forth from Ghent, from Bruges, and from Liége, and not unfrequently returned victorious.
Fig. 20.—Fortified Bridge, from Valentré to Cahors (1308).
Fig. 21.—Plan of the Fortified City of Carcassonne (Thirteenth Century).
Beyond the Meuse, the Moselle, and the Rhine, feudalism flourished. Lofty fortresses, surrounded with a triple moat, everywhere cast their shadows athwart the land, though the towns enjoyed a full share of municipal liberty, and were not unfrequently the disinterested spectators of the terrible struggles that the feudal nobility carried on between themselves. Nowhere did feudalism display more arrogance or more barbarity than in Germany, which resembled some vast camp to which the nobles flocked to meet face to face in desperate combat.
When it came to pass that the industrial and populous towns of Germany cried out for municipal liberties similar to those enjoyed by the towns of France, Italy, and the Low Countries, the emperor hastened to grant and confirm their desires. He did more, he gave them the right of immediate appeal against the princes of the empire—that is to say, any towns situated in the territory of any prince were responsible, not to the latter, but directly and immediately to the emperor himself, who thus laid for himself the foundations of strong natural supports in the very heart of the larger fiefs. The towns of Germany, already rich and flourishing, increased their commerce and their wealth, thanks to the new position they thus acquired.
The Emperor Henry V. greatly assisted this pacific revolution by granting privileges to the lower class of citizens and to the artisans, who up to that time had, according to the spirit of the Roman law, lived apart from the freedmen and remained at the lowest degree of the social scale. He relieved them, in particular, from the bondage of a custom by virtue of which the seignior at their deaths became entitled to all their personal property, or, at least, enjoyed the power of claiming everything worth having which they had left behind them.