In Germany the towns were in the early Middle Ages appanages of the vassals of the Empire, and were governed by the bishops as their vicars: the 74 process of emancipation here was that at first, in the 12th century, the townsmen carried on a government side by side with the bishop, and in the 13th century got rid of him either by purchase or main force, and so at last reached the goal of holding directly of the Empire. When this was accomplished, they were more completely freed than elsewhere in Europe, and ensured their independence by the formation of confederacies of cities, of which the Hanseatic League was the most famous.
In Flanders, owing to the great development of production by handicraft, the cities, though not theoretically so free, were powerful enough to carry on a struggle with their feudal lord through almost the whole of the 14th century, and were not altogether crushed, even when the battle of Rosebeque and the death of Philip van Artavelde closed the more dramatic phase of that struggle. As an example of the completeness of the legal recognition of the status of these cities, it may be mentioned that, in the second act of the war with the Earl of Flanders, when the younger 75 Artavelde was entering on the scene, the city of Ghent summoned to its banner certain knights and lords to do it due military feudal service, while these very lords were in the Earl's camp preparing to do battle against Ghent: but it 1s clear that the historian recognises to the full the right of the city in the matter, though he applauds the refusal of the vassals on “gentlemanly” grounds.
Footnotes
- Cf. Gomme’s Village Communities.Back
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