Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/756

 740 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

of officials who naturally enjoyed the political power connected with their position. Thus a small fraction of the total guild membership became the real rulers of the town.

That this assumption of power aroused no great opposition is due to the fact that at the time when it took place the economic and political interests of the citizen were beginning to extend beyond the limits of the town. At the close of the fourteenth century the English towns had reached the height of independent development. " With the ages of restless growth lying behind them, and with their societies as yet untouched by the influence of the Renaissance or the Reformation or the new commercial system, the boroughs had reached their prosperous maturity."' During the succeeding century England passed through her first industrial revolution. From a cloth-importing she became a cloth-exporting country. The establishment of commercial rela- tions with foreign countries carried the interest of the citizen beyond the territorial limits of municipal control. The spirit of independence and assertive individualism thus created reacted unfavorably upon local institutions, while local ties, being largely economic, were weakened with the disappearance of economic dependence upon the community. As soon as the citizen began to appreciate the possibilities of individual activity independent of the cooperation and sanction of the public authority, the vigor and intensity of town life began to decline.

With the fifteenth century we enter upon a period of political development which was destined to destroy the importance of the town as a political unit, reducing it to the condition of a subordinate administrative subdivision of the state. The growth of national life proved fatal to town independence in England, as well as on the continent. In England, however, the period of local autonomy was considerably lengthened by the failure of the feudal lords to extend their political power at the expense of the crown. Before reaching national unity the countries of conti- nental Europe passed through a period of territorial integration, in which the small but independent sovereignties were in a state of constant conflict with the towns.

'Mrs. J. R. Green, Town Life in the Fifteenth Century.