Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/680

 670 N. M. Trenholme insurrection and violence could go long unpunished. The central authority was always powerful enough to interfere in the affairs of the towns and a resort to force on the part of the townsmen was sure to be severely punished. The strong alliance between Church and State which existed throughout the middle period made it cer- tain in England that if ecclesiastical lords would not grant liberties to their burgesses peaceably, and few were inclined to do so, there was little hope of winning such liberties by force and violence. Thus it was that the struggle, which took place in so many monastic towns, in 1327, ended so disastrously for the townsmen. They gained nothing in the way of greater liberty and self-govern- ment, nay, rather they lost something, in that the control of the abbot and convent over them was strengthened and they sank back in the scale of municipal development. What little result these risings may have had was to teach the ecclesiastical corporations the danger and folly of driving the townsmen too far and of keeping too strict a hand over them. As an interesting phase of English municipal history the risings in the monastic towns in 1327 are worthy of note, for they show the strength and influence of the monastic system in England, and how in many a town the monastic corporation was able to beat down and suppress the growing muni- cipal spirit of the time, though we cannot but agree with the un- known versifier who wrote : " Saint Benet made never none of them To have lordship of man nor town." N0RM.A.N :Iacl.ren Trenholme.