Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/385

 THE RISE OF TOWNS AND GILDS 335 turn now again to the social and political aspects of town life. Medieval men were fond of all sorts of soci- other eties and founded them not only for business popular 3.SSOC13.tlOIlS purposes, but for religious, philanthropic, and so- cial reasons. These brotherhoods, as they were called, usually sach had a patron saint whose day was celebrated both by religious services and by banquets and social gatherings. The members helped one another in case of need ; attended the baptisms and marriages and funerals in their associates' families ; and paid for masses to be said for their souls after death. Indeed, the associations of merchants and the indus- trial corporations usually had these features too. Such broth- erhoods also sometimes had a concealed political character and under the cover of social and religious meetings hatched schemes to win concessions or liberty from their lords. Such particular societies, then, often prepared the way for a more general organization representing the town as a whole. Or the emancipation of, or grant of privi- Movement leges to, some particular group of merchants or tow ard . 1 ,11 r r 11 11 municipal artisans by the lord was often followed by con- independ- cessions to all the townsmen. Sometimes the ence townspeople, forming a commune or union of the whole com- munity, succeeded in throwing off the rule of the lord en- tirely and became a self-governing and independent unit in the midst of feudal society and feudal states. The rise of towns reached its height at different periods in different parts of Europe. The degree of freedom and self-government gained by the townsmen and the forms under which they exercised it also varied in different places. Therefore, in the two following chapters we shall consider first the cities of Italy and then those of lands beyond the Alps. In the re- mainder of this chapter we may note a few more character- istics of medieval town life in general. The medieval towns had a considerable influence upon the development of European law, first through their Laws of local customs and second through the growth the cities of the law merchant in the Mediterranean cities. Every town, especially if it was self-governing and had a court of