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 330 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE lord. But now such rents and services were stated and fixed in the charter; the lord could not henceforth exert arbitrary power over the peasants and demand payments and labor from them at will. They^ould move __abqut freely, marry outside the manor jwithout paving fines, and perhaps_sell or bequeath their land. Usually, however, they continued to attend the manorial court. Finally, we must remember that many peasants were not emancipated, especially in the less progressive portions of Europe, and that, on the other hand, some peasants had never sunk to serfdom, but had remained free through the early Middle Ages. If peasants whose lands lay exposed to ravaging and plunder could thus acquire at least some measure of free-; The towns dom, the inhabitants of walled towns would offer a fuller obviously acquire far more. Their denser popu- lation enabled them to organize more effectually; their trade and industry gave them more money with which to buy concessions from the lord. Indeed, it was the exist- ence of walled towns, where runaway serfs could find a hiding-place and an opportunity to engage in other than agricultural labor, that helped to make possible the emanci- pation movement among the peasantry. Gradually there grew up in the West a native merchant class, men who devoted most of their time to buying anc Rise of a selling. They found it advisable to band to- merchant gether for mutual support and protection and tc class: hanses e ... ., .. , form within each town a merchant gild or hanst of all the business men — a sort of medieval chamber oi commerce. Since such an association increased the townY prosperity, the lord was generally willing to grant its mem- bers some special privileges, such as personal liberty, ex- emption from agricultural labor and payments, freedom tc leave the manor for purposes of trade, protection on theii journeys, and trading privileges in other places under the lord's control. In return they would make payments tc him from their business profits instead of rendering theii previous services. In the twelfth century, when Normand and England were under the same ruler, the merchants o