Page:The State Its Historic Role.djvu/19

Rh delivers up to him the produces of judicial fines for the maintenance of his soldiers; but it forbids him to interfere with the business of the city. Or, lastly, too feeble to emancipate itself entirely entirely from its neighbours,—the feudal vultures,—the city will retain, as a more or less permanent military protector, a bishop or a prince of some family—Guelf or Ghibelline in Italy, from the family of Rurik in Russia, or of Olgerd in Lithuania,—but it will watch with jealousy that the bishop's or prince's authority shall not extend beyond the soldiers encamped in the castle. It will even forbid them to enter the town without permission. You no doubt know that even at the present day the Queen of England cannot enter the city of London without the Lord Mayor's permission.

I should like to speak to you at length about the economic life of cities in the Middle Ages; but I am obliged to pass it over in silence. It was so varied that it would need rather long developments. Suffice it to remark that internal commerce was always carried on by the guilds—not by isolated artisans—prices being fixed by mutual agreement; that at the beginning of that period, external commerce was carried on exclusively by the city: that it only became the monopoly of the merchants' guild later on, and still later of isolated individuals; that never was any work done on Sunday or on Saturday afternoon (bathing day); lastly that the city purchased the chief necessaries for the life of its inhabitants (corn, coal, etc.) and delivered them to the inhabitants at cost price. That custom of the city making the purchases of grain was retained in Switzerland till the middle of our century. In fact, it is proved by a mass of documents of all kinds, that humanity has never known, neither before nor after, a period of relative well-being as perfectly assured to all, as existed in the cities of the Middle Ages. The present poverty, insecurity and over-work were absolutely unknown then.

With these elements—liberty, organisation from simple to complex, production and exchange by trade-unions (guilds), commerce with foreign parts carried on by the city itself, and the buying of main provisions by the city—with these elements, the towns of the Middle Ages, during the first two centuries of their free life, became centres of well-being for all the inhabitants. They were centres of opulence, civilization, such as we have not seen since then.

Consult documents that allow of establishing the rates of wages for work, compared to the price of provisions,—Rogers has done it for