The Turks have ever remained quite insensible to the influences of European civilization, and their government has been a perfect blight and curse to the countries subjected to their rule. They have always been looked upon as intruders in Europe, and their presence there has led to several of the most sanguinary wars of modern times. Gradually they are being pushed out from their European possessions, and the time is probably not very far distant when they will be driven back across the Bosporus, as their Moorish brethren were expelled long ago from the opposite corner of the continent by the Christian chivalry of Spain.
CHAPTER XLV.
GROWTH OF THE TOWNS: THE ITALIAN CITY-REPUBLICS.
RELATION OF THE CITIES TO THE FEUDAL LORDS.—When Feudalism took possession of Europe, the cities became a part of the system. Each town formed a part of the fief in which it happened to be situated, and was subject to all the incidents of feudal ownership. It owed allegiance to its lord, must pay to him feudal tribute, and aid him in his war enterprises. As the cities, through their manufactures and trade, were the most wealthy members of the Feudal System, the lords naturally looked to them for money when in need. Their exactions at last became unendurable, and a long struggle broke out between them and the burghers, which resulted in what is known as the enfranchisement of the towns.
It was in the eleventh century that this revolt of the cities against the feudal lords become general. During the course of this and the succeeding century, the greater number of the towns of the countries of Western Europe either bought, or wrested by force of arms, charters from their lords or suzerains. The cities thus chartered did not become independent of the feudal lords, but they acquired the right of managing, with more or less supervision, their own affairs, and were secured against arbitrary and oppressive taxation. This was a great gain; and as, under the protection of their charters, they increased in wealth and population, very many of them grew at last strong enough to cast off all actual dependence upon lord or suzerain, and became in effect independent states —little commonwealths. Especially was this true in the case of the Italian cities, and in a less marked degree in that of the German towns.
RISE OF THE ITALIAN CITY-REPUBLICS.—The Italian cities were the first to rise to power and importance. Several things conspired to secure their early and rapid development, but the main cause of their prosperity was their trade with the East, and the enormous impulse given to this commerce by the Crusades.
[Illustration: A MEDIÆVAL SIEGE, SHOWING BALLISTAE, ETC. (By Alphonse de
Neuville.)]
With wealth came power, and all the chief Italian cities became distinct, self-governing states, with just a nominal dependence upon the pope or the emperor. Towards the close of the thirteenth century, Northern and Central Italy was divided among about two hundred contentious little city- republics. Italy had become another Greece.
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF TYRANNIES.—Just what happened among the contending republics of Greece took place in the case of the quarrelling city- commonwealths of Italy. Their republican constitutions were overthrown, and the supreme power fell into the hands of an ambitious aristocracy, or was seized by some bold usurper, who often succeeded in making the government hereditary in his family. Before the close of the fourteenth century almost all the republics of the peninsula had become converted into exclusive oligarchies or hereditary principalities.
We shall now relate some circumstances, for the most part of a commercial character, which concern some of the most renowned of the Italian city- states.