Page:Henry Mayers Hyndman and William Morris - A Summary of the Principles of Socialism (1884).djvu/12

 organisation itself was one of the great causes of its extraordinary success throughout the so-called dark ages. Catholicism, in its best period, raised one continuous protest against serfdom and usury, as early Christianity, in its best form, had denounced slavery and usury too. But the economical tendencies were too strong for any protest to be much regarded at first. Divison of labour, and the structure of society thence resulting, at a time when the powers of man over nature were still limited, gave power and importance to the warrior caste and the priestly caste over the mere hinds and handicraftsmen. Yet, even in the earliest period of feudalism, the risings of the trading class, and with them at times the peasants and artizans, against the nobles and territorial clergy, were neither few nor far between. The engagement of the knight and his retainers to defend the agriculturists, handicraftsmen, and traders who clustered round the fortress of which he was the lord, led to demands on his side which the burghers and their people resented. In Italy, in Germany, in France, and in England, the great nobles and their feudatories were in time confronted by municipalities with privileges granted in return for services rendered, and the great cities of Flanders and Western Germany almost rivalled the Italian Republics in the influence they manifested of town over country which then first began to be felt in its modern form. The definite struggle between the nobility and the bourgeoisie, therefore, took shape at the same time, though assuming different aspects, in different countries.

On, the other hand, the unorganised risings of the peasantry, such as the Peasants' War in England, the