 Chapter 5 of Mutual Aid, A Factor of Evolution. This is a library box recording. All library box recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit librarybox.org. Recording by Anku. Mutual Aid, A Factor of Evolution by Peter Kropotkin. Chapter 5, Mutual Aid in the Medieval City. Sociability and need of mutual aid and support are such inherent parts of human nature, that at no time of history can we discover men living in small isolated families, fighting each of the four means of subsistence. On the contrary, modern research as we saw it in the two preceding chapters proves that since the very beginning of their prehistoric life, men used to agglomerate into gents, clans or tribes, maintained by an idea of common descent, and by worship of common ancestors. For thousands and thousands of years, this organization has kept men together, even though there was no authority whatever to impose it. It has deeply impressed all subsequent development of mankind, and when the bonds of common descent had been loosened by migrations on a grand scale, while the development of a separated family within the clan itself had destroyed the old unity of the clan, a new form of union territorial in its principle, the village community was called into existence by the social genius of men. This institution again kept men together for a number of centuries, permitting them to further develop their social institutions, and to pass through some of the darkest periods of history without being dissolved into loose aggregations of families and individuals, to make a further step in their evolution and to work out a number of secondary social institutions, several of which have survived down to the present time. We have now to follow the further development of the same ever-living tendency for mutual aid, taking the village communities of the so-called barbarians at a time when they were making a new start of civilization after the fall of the Roman Empire. We have to study the new aspects taken by the sociable ones of the masses in the Middle Ages and especially in the medieval guilds and the medieval city. Far from being the fighting animals, they have often been compared to the barbarians of the first centuries of our era, open bracket, like so many Mongolians, Africans, Arabs and so on, who still continue in the same barbarian stage cause bracket, invariably preferred beast to war with the exception of a few tribes which had been driven during the Great Migrations into unproductive deserts or highlands and were thus compelled periodically to prey upon their better-favored neighbors. Apart from this, the Great bulk of the students, the Saxons, the Celts, the Slavudians and so on, very soon after they had settled in their newly conquered abodes, reverted to the Spade or to their herds. The earliest barbarian codes already represent to us societies composed of peaceful agricultural communities, not hordes of men at war with each other. These barbarians covered the country with villages and form houses, open footnotes, W. Arnold in his one-day organ, an Asiedi organ, their Dutchman, stamped page 431, even maintains that one-half of the now-arrable A.I.A. in Middle Germany must have been reclaimed from the 6th to the 9th century needs of the bracket. The Gersky Tutte, the Dutch Tutte, the Wolkes, abzig 1883, volume 1, close bracket, shares the same opinion, close footnotes. They cleared the forest, bridged the torrents, and colonized formerly quite uninhabited wilderness, and they left the uncertain warlike pursuits to brotherhoods sculling or trust of unruly men gathered around temporary shiftains who wanted about offering their adventurous spirit, their arms and their knowledge of warfare for the protection of populations only too anxious to be left in peace. The warrior bands came and went, persecuting their family threads, but the great mass continued to till the soil, taking but little notice of their would-be rulers, so long as they did not interfere with the independence of their village communities. Open Footnotes, Leo and Bota, Histoire d'Italie, French edition 1844, term Premier, page 37, close footnotes. The new occupiers of Europe evolved the systems of l'entenure and soil culture which are still enforced with hundreds of millions of men. They worked out their systems of compensation for wrongs, instead of the all-tribal blood revenge. They learned the first rudiments of industry, and while fortified their villages with palisade wars or erected towers and oven forts, were too to repair in case of a new invasion. They soon abandoned the tors of defending these towers and forts to those who made of war a speciality. The very peacefulness of the Barbarians certainly not their supposed warlike instincts thus became the source of their subsequent subjection to the military shift-hands. It is evident that the very mode of life of the armed brotherhoods offered them more facilities for enrichment than the tillers of the soil could find in their agricultural communities. Even now we see that armed men occasionally come together to shoot down matabeles and to rob them of their draughts of cattle, though the matabeles only want peace and are ready to buy it at a high price. The scolley of all certain were not more scrupulous than the scolley of our own time. Dwarfs of cattle, iron, oven brackets, which were extremely costly at that time, open-foot nerd. The composition for the stealing of a simple knife was 15 Solidi and of the iron parts of a mill, 45 Solidi. Open brackets see on this subject lamp-brick, which chaffed on the red-deer franquine in Romeus. Historic task-chain-butts, 1883, page 52, close brackets. According to the rip-or-yarn law, the sword, the spear, and the iron armor of the warrior, attained the value of at least 25 cows or two years of a three-month labor. A cuirass alone was valued in the Saliclaw oven bracket, desmicals coated by Michelin. Close brackets, at as much as 36 butchers of wheat, close-foot nerd, and slaves were appropriated in this way, and all the most acquisitions were wasted on the spot in the glorious feasts of which epic poetry has so much to say. Still some part of the rubbed butchers was used for further enrichment. There was plenty of wasteland and no lack of men ready to till it, if only they could obtain the necessary cattle and implements. Whole villages, ruined by murals, pest fires, or raids of new immigrants, were often abandoned by their inhabitants, who were at any wear in search of new abodes. They still do so in Russia in similar some circumstances, and if one of the herdmen of the armed brotherhoods offered the peasants some cattle for a fresh thought, some iron to make a plough, if not the plough itself, his protection from further raids, and a number of years free from all obligations before they should begin to repay their contracted debt based settled upon their land. And when after a hard fight with bad crops, inundations and pestilences, those pioneers began to repay their debts, they fell into servile obligations towards the protector of the territory. Wealth undoubted did did accumulate in this way, and power always follows wealth of an footnote. The chief wealth of the chieftains for a long time was in their personal domains people partly with prisoner slaves, but chiefly in the above way. On the origin of property, see Inamaste and Elix, die Osbildung, their gruesome gunhouse chafften, in Deutschland, in Smolers, Faust-Jungen, Midi, 1st, 1878, F. Dans, Auguste Ciccia, their German nation, and Roman nation, Volcaire, Berlin, 1881, Morers, Daufer, Sagun, Guizotte, a social history of France, means village community, but as is told, Italy, Sibom, Vinogradov, Gea, Green, etc. close footnote. And yet the more we penetrate into the life of those times, the 6th and 7th centuries of our era, the more we see that another element, besides wealth and military force, was required to constitute the authority of a few. It was an element of law and tight desire of the masses to maintain peace, and to establish what they considered to be justice, which gave to the chieftains of the school in King's dukes, nice and well-liked, the force they acquired 200 or 300 years later. That same idea of justice conceived as an adequate revenge for the wrong done, which had grown in the tribal stage, now paused as a red thread through the history of subsequent institutions. And much more even than military or economic causes, it became the basis upon which the authority of the kings and the feudal lords was founded. In fact, one of the chief preoccupations of the barbarian village community always was as it still is with our barbarian contemporaries, to put SPD into the third, which arose from the then current conception of justice. When a carrel took place, the community at once interfered, and after the folk-move had heard the case, it settled the amount of composition. Open bracket were galed, closed bracket to be paid to the wrong person or to his family, as well as the thread or fine-for-bridge or peace which had to be paid to the community. Two aya carrels were easily appeased in this way, but when foods broke out between two different tribes or two confederation of tribes, notwithstanding all measures taken to prevent them, open footnotes, Caesar, Henry, Mainz, International Law, London, 1888, closed footnotes, the difficulty was to find an orbiter or sentence fighter whose decision should be accepted by both parties alike, both for his impartiality and for his knowledge of the oldest law. The difficulty was the greater as the customary laws of different tribes and confederations were adherents as to the compensation due in different cases. It therefore became habitual to take the sentence fighter from among such families or such tribes as were reputed for keeping the law of all in its purity, of being verse in the songs, triad, sagas, etc., by means of which law was perpetuated in memory and to retain law. In this way became a sort of art, a mystery carefully transmitted in certain families, from generation to generation, verse in Iceland and in other Scandinavian lands, at every old thing or national folk mold, a law so mocked used to recite the whole law from memory for the enlightening of the assembly and in Ireland there was, as is known, a special clause of men reputed for the knowledge of the old traditions and therefore enjoying a great authority as judges. Open footnotes, ancient laws of Ireland, introduction, in nice, etude du droit international, d'un promien 1896, pages 86, sequence among the osse, the orbiters from pre-oldest villages enjoy a special reputation, when bracket M. Kovalevsky's modern custom and old law was drew 1886, second to 117, Russian coast bracket closed footnotes. Again when we are told by the Russian anas, that some stems of North-West Russia moved by the growing disorder which resulted from clans rising against clans, appealed to no men varying here, to be their judges and commanders of the Royal School. And when we see the nears or dukes elected for the next 200 years, always from the same Norman family, we cannot but recognize that the Slavonians trusted the Normans for a better knowledge of the law which would be equally recognized as good by different Slavonian kings. In this case the possession of runes used for the transmission of old customs was a decided advantage in favor of the Normans, but in other cases they often indicated that the eldest branch of a stem, the supposed mother branch, was appealed to supply the judges and his decisions were relied upon as just open footnotes. It is permissible to think that this conception open bracket related to the conception of Tanistri coast bracket played an important part in the life of the period, but research has not yet been directed that way, close footnotes. While at a later epoch, we see a distinct tendency that was taking the sentence finders from the Christian clergy, which at that time kept still to the fundamental now forgotten principle of Christianity, that retaliation is no arc of justice. At that time the Christian clergy opened the churches as places of asylum for those who fled from blood revenge, and they willingly acted as orbiters in criminal cases, always opposing the old tribal principle of life for life and wound for wound, ensuring the deeper we penetrate into the history of early institutions, the less we find grasp of the military territory of origin of authority, even that power which later on became such a source of oppression seems, on the contrary to have found its origin in the peaceful inclinations of the masses. In all these cases the threat which often amounted to half the condensation went to the folk mode, and from time immemorial it used to be applied to the folks of common utility and defense. It has still the same destination, open bracket, the erection of towers, closed bracket, among the cabels and certain Mongolian sems, and we have direct evidence that even several centuries later, the judicial finds in Pskov and several French and German cities continued to be used for the repair of the city walls open footnotes. It was distinctly stated in the Charter of Saint Quentin of 2002 that the ransom for houses which had to be demolished for crimes went for the city walls. The same destination was given to the Ungel in German cities at Pskov, the cathedral was the bank for the finds, and from this fund money was taken for the wheels closed footnotes. It was thus quite natural that the finds should be handed over to the sentenced finder who was bound in return both to maintain the schooling of armed men to whom the defense of the territory was trusted and to execute the sentences. This became a universal custom in the 8th and 9th centuries, even when the sentenced finder was an elected bishop, the germ of the combination of what we should now call the judicial power and the executive has made its appearance. But to these two functions, the attribution of the Duke or King was strictly emitted, he was no ruler of the people, the supreme power still belonging to the folk mold, not even a commander of a popular militia. When the folk took to arms, it marched under a separate also elected commander who was not a subordinate but an equal to the king of the land footnotes. Some, Francis, was too strong to read the Sapherson page 23 also needs just as the Duchetan volks first 78 closed footnotes. The king was a lord on his personal domain only, in fact in Barbagian language the word konung koning or sinning synonymous with the Latin rex had no other meaning than that of a temporary leader or chieftain of a bannerman. The commander of a flotilla of boats or even of a single pirate boat was also a konung, until the commander of fishing in Norway is named Nodkong, the king of the nets open footnotes. See the excellent remarks on this subject in Augustine, Thierry's let's you a l'histoire de France, 7th letter, the Barbagian translations of parts of the Bible are extremely instructive on this point. The veneration attached later on to the personality of the king did not yet exist, and while treason to the king was punished by death, the slaying of the king could be recouped by the payment of compensation. A king simply was valued so much more than a free man. 36 times more than a noble according to the Anglo-Saxon law. In the Code of Rotary, the slaying of the king is however punished by death. But open bracket, apart from Roman influence, closed bracket, this new disposition was introduced, open bracket in 646, closed bracket in the Lombardian law, as remarked by Leo and Buddha to cover the king from blood revenge. The king being at that time the executioner of his own sentences. Open bracket, as the trap formerly was of its own sentences, closed bracket, he had to be protected by a specialist position. The Mosul had several Lombardian kings before Rotary had been slain in succession. Then bracket, Leo and Buddha, 1st chapter, 1st 1690, closed bracket, closed footnote. And when king knew, open bracket, or carnuty, closed bracket, had killed one of men of his own scola, the saga represents him convoking his comrades to a thing where he stood on his knees in pardon. He was pardoned, but not till he had agreed to pay nine times the regular composition of which one third went to himself, through the love of one of his men, one third to the relatives of the slain men, and one third, open bracket, the thread, closed bracket to the scola. Open footnote. Kofman, Dutch, Gaekit, BD, 1st, Diegeman, and Uzet, page 133, closed footnote. In reality, a complete shade had to be accomplished in the current conceptions, under the double influence of the church and the students of Roman law, before an idea of sanctity began to be attached to the personality of the king. However, it lies beyond the scope of these essays to follow the gradual development of authority out of the elements just indicated. Historians such as Mr. and Mrs. Green for this country, Auguste, Thierry, Mishly, and Luccaire for France, Kofman, Janssen, W. Arnold, and even Nitz for Germany, Leo and Buddha for Italy, Bielaev, Kostomarov, and their followers for Russia, and many of us have little to all that tale. They have shown how populations, once free and simply agreeing to feed a certain portion of their military defenders, gradually became the surf of these protectors. How commendation to the church or to a load became a hard necessity for the free men. How each loads and bishops' costal became a robustness. How feudalism was imposed in a word. And how the crusades, by freeing the surf who wore the cross, gave the first impulse to popular emancipation. All this need not be retold in this place. Our chief envying to follow the constrictive genius of the masses in their mutual aid institutions. At the time when the lost vestiges of barbarian freedom simply disappeared and Europe fallen under the dominion of thousands of petty rulers was marching towards the constitution of such theocracies and despotic states as had fallen the barbarian stage during the previous sort of civilization or of barbarian monarchies, such as we see now in Africa, life in Europe took another direction. It went unanalyzed, similar to those it had once taken in the cities of Antigris, with a unanimity which seems almost incomprehensible and for a long time was not understood by historians. The urban agglomerations down to the smallest bugs began to shake off the yoke of the worldly and clerical loads. The fortified village rose against the lost costal, defined it first, attacked it next and finally destroyed it. The movement spread from spot to spot, involving every town on the surface of Europe. And in less than a hundred years, three cities had been called into existence on the coast of the Mediterranean, the North Sea, the Baltic, the Atlantic Ocean, down to the Church of Scandinavia, at the feet of the Appennines, the Alps, the Black Forest, the Grand Plains and the Corbines in the plains of Russia, Hungary, France and Spain. Everywhere the same revolt took place with the same features passing through the same phasers leading to the same results, where the men had found or expected to find some protection behind their town walls, they instituted their co-durations, their fraternities, their friendships united in one common idea and boldly marching towards a new life of mutual support and liberty, and they succeeded so well that in three or four hundred years they had changed their very face of Europe, they had covered the country with beautiful sumptuous buildings, expressing the genius of three unions of three men and rivals since for their beauty and expressiveness and the big width to the following generations, all the arts, all the industries of which our present civilization, with all its achievements and promises for the future, is only further development and when we now look to the forces which have produced these ground results, we found them not in the genius of individual heroes, not in the mighty organization of huge states or the political capacities of their rulers but in the very same current of mutual aid and support which we saw at work in the village community and which was vilified and reinforced in the middle ages by a new form of unions, inspired by the very same spirit, but shaped on a new model, the guilds. It is well known by this time that feudalism did not imply a dissolution of the village community, although the Lord had succeeded in imposing survival labor over the peasants and had appropriated for himself such rights as were formally vested in the village community alone, open-bracket taxes, mortem and duties and inheritance and more religious cause bracket, the peasants had nevertheless maintained the two fundamental rights of their communities, the common possession of the land and self- jurisdiction. In olden times, when a king sent his book to a village, the peasants received him with flowers in one hand and arms in the other and asked him which law he intended to apply, the one he found in the village of the one he brought with him and in the first case they handed him the flowers and accepted him, while in the second case they fought him, open-footed. Dr. F. Dunn, who gets to teach their German nation, the Roman nation, was here in Berlin 1881, BD 1st, 96, close-footed. Now they accepted the kings over those officials whom they could not refuse, but they maintained the folk-multe jurisdiction and themselves nominated six or seven or twelve judges who acted with the law judge in the presence of the folk-multe as orbiters and sentence-fighters. In most cases, the official had nothing left to him but to confirm the sentence and to live by the customary fight. This precious right of self-jurisdiction which at that time means that administration and self-regislation had been maintained through all the struggles and even the lawyers by whom Calver Great was surrounded could not abolish it, they were bound to confirm it. At the same time, in all matters concerning the community's domain, the folk-multe retained its supremacy and open-bracket as shown by Moria, whose bracket often claimed submission from the Lord himself in lengthy new matters. No growth of feudalism could break this resistance. The village community kept its ground and when in the 9th and 10th centuries the invasions of the Normans, the Arabs and the Ugrans had demonstrated that military school were of little value for protecting the land, a general movement began all over Europe for fortifying the villages with stone walls and citadels. Thousands of fortified centers were then built by the energies of the village communities and once they had built their walls, once the common new interests had been created in this new sanctuary, the town walls they should understood that they could help forward, resist the encroachments of their inner enemies, the lords as well as the invasions of foreigners. A new life of freedom began to develop within the fortified enclosures, the medieval city was born. Open footnote, if I thus follow the views long since advocated by Moria, open bracket, Gershchich der Stadtwehrsfassung in Deutschland, Erlangen 1869 close bracket. It is because he has fully proved the uninterrupted evolution from the village community to the medieval city and that his views alone can explain the universality of the communal movement. Savini and Hohn and their followers have certainly proved that the traditions of the Roman municipia had never totally disappeared, but they took no account of the village community period which the barbarians lived through before they had any cities. The fact is that whenever mankind made a new start in civilization in Greece, Rome or Middle Europe, it passed through the same stages. The tribe, the village community, the free city, the state, each one naturally evolving out of the preceding stage. Of course the experience of each preceding civilization was nevertheless Greece's open bracket itself influenced by eastern civilizations, close bracket influenced Rome and Rome influenced our civilization, but each of them began from the same beginning, the tribe, and just as we cannot say that our states are continuations of the Roman state, so also can we not say that the medieval cities of Europe, open bracket including Scandinavia and Russia, close bracket were a continuation of the Roman cities, they were a continuation of the barbarian village community influenced to a certain extent by the traditions of the Roman towns, because the nobiliate of history could better illustrate the constructive powers of the popular masses than the 10th and 11th centuries when the fortified villages and marketplaces representing so many others amidst the feudal forests began to free themselves from their lord's yoke, and slowly elaborated the future city organization, but unhappily this is a period about which historical information is especially scarce, we know their results, but little has reached us about the means by which they were achieved, under the protection of their walls, the city's folk molds, either quite independent or led by the chief noble or merchant families, conquered and maintained the right of electing the military defender and supreme judge of the town or at least of choosing between those who pretended to occupy this position. In Italy, the young communes were continually sending away their defences or dominies, fighting those who refused to go the same way on in the east, in Bohemia, rich and poor alike, open bracket, Bohemica, Gentis Magni and Povey, nobiles say in your bill, close bracket, to part in the election, open footnote. Mkovalevsky, modern customs and ancient laws of Russia, open bracket, ill chestier lectures, london 1891, lecture 4, close bracket, close footnote, while the Viek, open bracket, folk mocks, close bracket, of the Russian cities regularly elected by dukes, always from the same Rurik family, Kovina entered with them and sent the Knias away if he had provoked this content. Open footnote, a considerable amount of research had to be done before this character of the so-called Udyelny period was properly established by the works of BAEF, open bracket, first from Russian history, close bracket, Kostomarov, open bracket, the beginnings of autocracy in Russia, close bracket, and especially Professor Sekhevich, open bracket, the Viek and the Prince, close bracket. The English rhythm may find some information about this period in the just-name work of Mkovalevsky in Rambo's history of Russia and in short summary in the article Russia of the Lost Edition of Chambers and Cyclopedia, close footnote. At the same time in most cities of western and southern Europe, the tendency was to take full defense side, bishop whom the city had elected itself, and so many bishops took that lead in protecting the immunities of the towns and in defending the liberties that numbers of them were considered after their death as saints and special patrons of different cities, St. Ulte Red of Winchester, St. Ulrich of Augsburg, St. Wolfgang of Ratisbon, St. Harrybert of Cologne, St. Adalbert of Prague, and so on, as well as many abbots and monks became so many city saints who having acted in defense of popular rights. Open footnote. Ferrari is toward the revolution in Italy, 1st, 257, Karlsson died the chance to start in Metallidea, BD, 1st, Open Bracket Hall, 1891, close bracket, close footnote. And under the new defenses were the lake or clerical, the citizens conquered full self-jurisdiction and self-administration through their folk modes, open footnote. See the excellent remarks of Mr. G. Elgum as we got the folk mock of London, open bracket, the literature of local institutions, London 1886, page 76, close bracket, it must however be remarked that in royal cities the folk mock never attained the independence which is assumed elsewhere. It is even certain that Moscow and Paris were chosen by the kings and the church as the cradles of a future royal authority in the state because they did not possess the tradition of folk modes accustomed to act as sovereign in all matters. Close footnote. The whole progress of liberation progressed by a series of imperceptible acts of devotion to the common cause accomplished by men who came out of the masses by unknown heroes whose very name have not been preserved by history. The wonderful movement of the God's peace, open bracket, through that day close bracket by which the popular masters and the other to put a limit to the endless family thoughts of the noble families was born in the young towns, the bishops and the citizens trying to extend to the nobles the peace they had established within their town walls. Open footnote. Elu chair. Les communes françaises. Also Cloucon. Getskitte. This greatest freedom, 1857, El Semichon. Open bracket. La paix et la tref de Dieu. To volumes Paris 1869, Clou's bracket has tried to represent the communal movement as issued from that institution. In reality, the Trougade, like the league started under Luiz Le Gros for the defense against both the robberies of the nobles and the Norman invasions was a very popular movement. The only historian who mentions this lost league that is Vitalis describes it as a popular community. When bracket. Consideration, Serial History, Defense in volume 4th of August's series of Paris 1868 paged 191 and note Clou's bracket. Clou's footnote. Already at that period, the commercial cities of Italy and especially Amalfi open bracket which had its elected consuls since 844 and frequently changed its judges in the 10th century. Clou's bracket. Open footnote. Ferrari 1st, 152, 263 etc. Clou's footnote. Worked out the customary maritime and commercial law which later on became a model for all Europe. Ravenna elaborated its craft organization and Milan which had made its first revolution in 980 became a great center of commerce in straight enjoying a full independence since the 11th century. Open footnote. Perence, Histoire de Florence, 1st, 188, Ferrari, LC, 1st, 283. Clou's footnote. So also Bruges and Ghent. So also several cities of France in which the Marl O'Forum had become a quite independent institution. Open footnote. Obtiari, essentially stored here Paris, 1875, page 414, Nurt, Clou's footnotes. And already during that period began the work of artistic decoration of the town by works of architecture which we still admire and which loudly testify of the intellectual movement of the times. The Basi Decay were then renewed in almost all the universe Raoul Glébel wrote in his chronicle and some of the finest monuments of medieval architecture date from that period. The wonderful Old Church of Bremen was built in the 9th century. Saint Mark of Venice was finished in 1071 and the beautiful Dom of Pisa in 1063. In fact, the intellectual movement which has been described as the 12th century Renaissance, open footnote, F. Roquin, la Renaissance du 2ème siècle in étudial histoire de France, Paris, 1875, pages 55 to 117, Clou's footnote, and the 12th century no-rationalism, the precursor of the reform, open footnote, and Kostomarov, the rationalist of the 12th century in his monographies and researchers, open bracket, Russian, Kost bracket, Clou's footnote, date from that period when most cities were still simple agglomerations of small village communities enclosed by walls. However, another element besides the village community principle was required to give to these growing centers of liberty and enlightenment, the unity of thought and action, and the powers of initiative which made their force in the 12th and 13th centuries with a growing diversity of occupation, craft and art, and with a growing commerce in Disneyland, some new form of union was required and this necessary new element was supplied by the guilds. Volumes and volumes have been written about these unions which under the name of guilds, brotherhoods, friendships, and truth desktops mean authors in Russia, estates in Serbia and Turkey, Ankara in Georgia and so on, took such a formidable development in medieval times and played such an important part in the emancipation of the cities, but it took historians more than 60 years before the universality of this institution and its true characters were understood only now when hundreds of guild statutes have been published and studied and their relationship to the Roman College and the earlier unions in Greece and in India, open footnotes, very interesting facts related to the universality of guilds will be found in 2000 years of guild life by Reverend G. M. Lombard held in 1891 under Georgian Amkari, C. S. Egyazarov Grodzkyi Zegi open bracket organization of trans-Cucasian Amkari whose bracket in memos of the Cucasian Geographical Society 14th to 1891 cross footnote is known can we maintain with full confidence that these brotherhoods were but a further development of the same principles which we saw at work in the gents and the village community nothing illustrates better these medieval brotherhoods than those temporary guilds which were formed on board ships when a ship of the Hanzah had accomplished her first half of the passage after having left the port the captain open bracket Sifere gathered all crew and passengers on the deck and held the following language as reported by contemporary as we are now at the mercy of God and the waves he said each one must be equal to each other and as we are surrounded by storms high waves pirates and other dangers we must keep a strict order that we may bring our voyage to a good end that is why we shall pronounce the prayer for a good win and good success and according to Marine law we shall name the occupiers of the judges' seats open bracket Shufan Stelen close bracket then opened the crew elected a vogue and forced Kalbini to act as their judges at the end of the voyage the vogue and the Skabini abdicated their functions and addressed what has happened on board ship with crew as follows miss Porden to each other and consider as dead open bracket Tund Un Absen Lassen close bracket what we have just read was for the sake of justice this is why we beg you all in the name of honest justice to forget all the animosity one may nourish against another and to swear on bread and salt that he will not think of it in a bad spirit if anyone however considers himself wrong he must appeal to the length vogue and or justice from him before sunset unlanding the stock with the thread finds was handed over to the vogue of the seaport for distribution among the poor open foot nerd G. D. Wunderreds Rezeberik in Fischard, Frankfurter Archive II, 245 quoted by Janssen Gershkic, this Dutchian works first 335 this simple narrative perhaps better than anything else depicts the spirit of the medieval guilds like organizations came into existence where other a group of men fishermen hunters traveling merchants builders or settled craftsmen came together for a common pursuit thus there was on board ship the novel authority of the captain but for the very success of the common enterprise all men on board rich and poor masters and crew captain and sailors agreed to be equal in their mutual relations to be simply meant bound to aid each other and to settle their possible disputes before judges elected by all of them so also when a number of craftsmen masons carpenters turn cutters etc came together for building say a cathedral they all belonged to a city which had its political organization and each of them belonged more over to its own craft but they were united besides by the common enterprise which they knew better than anyone else and they joined into a body united by closer or the temporary bounds they founded the guild for the building of the cathedral open footnote took the leonard and then the adams who call historic eight lingwood called 1871 pages 4650 cross footnote we may see the same till now in the kabilienk of open footnote see previous chapter cross footnote the cabas have their village community but this union is not sufficient for all political commercial and personal needs of union and the closer brotherhood of the cough is constituted as to the social character of the medieval guild any guild statute may illustrate them taking for instance the straw of some early danish guild we read in it first a statement of the general brotherly feelings which must reign in the guild next come the regulations relative to self jurisdiction in cases of quarrels arising between two brothers or a brother and a stranger and then the social duties of a brethren are enumerated if a brother's house is burned or he has lost his chip or has suffered on a pilgrim's voyage all the brethren must come to his aid if a brother falls dangerously ill two brethren must keep watch by his bed till he is out of danger and if he dies the brethren must bury him a great affair in those times of pestilences and follow him to the church and the grave after his death they must provide for his children if necessary very often the widow becomes a sister to the guild open footnote kofod ansher umgal dansk gildir deres undegang kopenhagen 1785 statutes of a new guild close footnote these two leading features appeared in every brotherhood form for any possible purpose in each case the members treated each other as and named each of the brother and sister open footnote upon the position of women in guilds see miss tulmin smith introductory remarks to the English guilds of her father one of the Cambridge statutes open bracket page 281 close bracket of the year 153 is quite positive in the following sentence this statute is made by the combined assent of all the brethren and sisters of al-haloey guild close footnote all were equals before the guild they owned some chattel open bracket cattle land buildings places of worship or stock close bracket in common all brothers took the oath of abandoning all thirds of old and without imposing upon each other obligation of never quarrelling again they agreed that no quarrel should degenerate into a third or into a lawsuit before another court than the tribunal of the brothers themselves and if a brother was involved in a quarrel with a stranger to a guild they agreed to support him for bad and for good that is whether he was unjustly accused of aggression or really was the aggressor they had to support him and to bring things to a peaceful end so long as his was not a secret aggression in which case he would have been treated as an outlaw the brotherhood stood by him open footnote in medieval times only secret aggression was treated as a murder blood revenge in broad daylight was justice and slaying in a quarrel was not a murder once the aggressor showed his willingness to repent and to repay the wrong he had done due to traces of his distinction still exists in modern criminal law especially in russia close footnote if the relatives of the wrong men wanted to revenge the offense at once by a new aggression the brotherhood supplied him with a hose to run away or with a bird a pair of oars a knife and steel for striking light if he remained in town 12 brothers accompanied him to protect him and in the meantime they arranged the composition they went to court to support by oath the truthfulness of his statements and if he was found guilty they did not let him go to full ruin and become a slave through not paying the due compensation they all pay it just as the gents did in olden times only when a brother had broken the faith towards his guild brethren or other people he was excluded from the brotherhood with a nothing's name when bracket vascal han meleis half brood first cap met needing snath close bracket point footnote covered anchor lc this old booklet contains much that has been lost of by little explorers close footnote such were the leading ideas of those brotherhoods which gradually covered the whole of medieval life in fact we know of guilds among all possible professions guilds of serfs open footnote they played an important part in the revolts of the serfs and were therefore prohibited several times in succession in the second half of the 9th century of course the king's prohibitions remained a dead letter close footnote guilds of freemen and guilds of both serfs and freemen guilds called it to life over special purpose of hunting fishing or a trading expedition and dissolved when the special purpose had been achieved and guilds lost things for centuries in a given craft or trade and in proportion as life took an always greater variety of pursuits the variety in the guilds grew in proportion so we see not only merchants craftsmen hunters and peasants united in guilds we also see guilds of priors painters teachers of primary schools and universities guilds for performing the passion play for building a church for developing a mystery of a given school of art or craft or for a special recreation even guilds among beggars executioners and lost women all organized on the same double principle of self jurisdiction and mutual support open footnote the medieval italian painters were also organized in guilds which became at a later epoch academies of art if the italian art of those times is impressed with so much individuality that we distinguish even now between the different schools of Padua Bassano, Treviso, Veruna and so on although all these cities were under the sway of Venice this was due G. Paul Richter remarks to the fact that the painters of each city belonged to a separate guild friendly with the guilds of other towns but leading a separate existence the oldest guild statute known is that of Veruna dating from 133 but evidently copied from so much older statute fraternal assistance in necessity of whatever kind hospitality towards strangers when passing through the town as this information may be obtained about matters which one may like to learn an obligation of offering comfort in case of debility or among the obligations of the members open bracket 19th century November 1890 and August 1892 because bracket closed footnote poor Russia we have positive evidence showing that the very making of Russia was as much the work of its hunters fishermen and traders authors as of the budding village communities and up to the present day the country is covered with authors open footnote the chief works on the authors or name in the article Russia of the Encyclopedia Britannica 9th edition page 84 closed footnote these few remarks show how incorrect was the view taken by some early explorers of the guilds when they wanted to see the essence of the institution in its yearly festival in reality the day of the common mill was always the day of the morrow of the day of election of aldermen of discussion of alterations in the statutes and very often the day of judgment of carrels that had risen among the brethren open footnote see for instance the text of the Cambridge guilds given by Toulmin Smithman bracket English guilds 91870 pages 274 to 276 closed bracket from which it appears that the general and principal day was the election day or CHM closed the early history of the guild of the merchant-taylors 91888 1st 45 and so on the renewal of allegiance see the jumps viking saga mentioned in Papenheim's old Danish shoots guilden Breslow 1885 page 67 it appears very probable that when the guilds began to be prosecuted many of them inscribed in their statutes the mill day only over peers duties and only alluded to the judicial function of the guild in vague words but this function did not disappear till a very much later time the question who will be my judge has no meaning now since the state has appropriated for its bureaucracy the organization of justice but it was of paramodal importance in medieval times the Mosul as soldier decision meant self-administration it must also be remarked that the translation of Saxon and Danish guild brethren or brothers by the latin convivial must also have contributed to the above confusion close-foot nerd who of renewed allegiance to the guild the common mill like the festival at the old tribal folk mode the mal or malum or the Buryat Abba or the parish feast and the harvest supper was simply an affirmation of brotherhood it symbolized the times when everything was kept in command by the clan this day at least all belong to all all sat at the same table and partook of the same mill even at a much later time the inmate of the arms horse for the london guild sat this day by the side of the rich alderman as to the distinction which several explorers have tried to establish between the old Saxon Thrift Guild and the so-called social or religious guilds all the Thrift Guilds in the sense above mentioned open footnote see the excellent remarks open the Thrift Guild by G.R. Green and Mrs. Green in the Conquest of England London 1883 pages 229 to 230 close footnote and all were religious in the sense in which a village community or a city placed under the protection of a special saint is social and religious if the institution of the guild has taken such an immense extension in Asia African Europe if it has lived thousands of years reappearing again and again when similar conditions called it into existence it is because it was much more than an eating association or an association for going to church on a certain day or a burial club it answered to a deeply enrouted want of human nature and it embodied all the attributes which the state appropriated later on for its bureaucracy and police and much more than that it was an association for mutual support in all circumstances and in all accidents of life by deed and advice and it was an organization for maintaining justice with this difference from the state that on all these occasions a human a brotherly element was introduced instead of the formal element which is the essential characteristic of state interference even when appearing before the guild tribunal the guild brother answered before men who knew him well and has stood by him before in their daily work at the common mill in the performance of the brotherly duties men who were his equals and brethren indeed no theories of law no defenders of someone else interest it is evident that an institution so well suited to serve need of union without depriving the individual of his initiative could but spread grew and fortify the difficulty was only to find such form as good permit to federate the unions of the guilds without interfering with the unions of the village communities and to federate all these into one harmonious whole and when this form of combination and had been found any series of favorable circumstances permitted the cities to affirm their independence they did so with a unity of thought which can but excite our admiration even in our century of railways telegraphs and printing hundreds of charters in which the cities inscribed their liberation have reached us and through all of them notwithstanding the infinite variety of details which depended upon the more or less greater fullness of emancipation the same leading ideas run the city organises itself as a federation of both small village communities and guilds all those who belong to a friendship of the town so runs a shorter given in 1188 to the burgesses of air by Philip Count of Flanders are promised and confirmed by faith and oath that we will aid each other as brethren in whatever is useful and honest that if one commits against another and offends in words or in deeds the one who has suffered there from will not take revenge either himself or his people he will launch a complaint and the offender will make good for his offense according to what will be pronounced by 12 elected judges acting as orbiters and if the offender or the offender after having been warned thrice does not submit to the decision of the orbiters he will be excluded from a friendship as a weak man and a pudger open foot node requite des ordonnances des Rois-de-France, term dosième 562 quoted by Hogue Thierry in considération sur l'histoire de France page 196, edition 12, M. O. Crossfoot node, each one of the men of the commune will be faithful to his conjurer and will give him aid and advice according to what justice will dictate him the amnest and habibil shortest in all will aid each other according to their powers within the boundaries of the commune and will not suffer that anyone takes anything from any one of them or makes one pay contributions do we read in the chapters of Fosson Compiègne, Saint-Lis and many others of the same type open foot node, Alluchiae, les communes françaises pages 45 to 46 closed foot node and so on with countless variations on the same theme the commune d'Ilbert de Noguette Road is an oath of mutual aid open bracket mutual adjudgery conjure ratio closed bracket a new and detestable word through it the serfs open bracket capitis nc cross bracket or freed from all serfdom through it they can only be condemned to illegally determine fine for beaches of the law through it they cease to be liable to payments which the serfs always use to pay open foot node Gilbert de Noguette de Vitassua coated by Luccaire lc page 14 closed foot node the same way for emancipation red in the 12th century through all parts of the continent involving both rich cities and the poorest towns and if we may say that as a rule the italian cities were the first to free themselves we can assign a center from which the movement would have spread very often a small building central europe took the lead for its region and big agglomerations accepted the little towns charter as a model for their own thus the charter of a small town lorris was adopted by 83 towns in southwest france and that of Beaumont became the model for over 500 towns and cities in belgium and france special deputies were dispatched by the cities to their neighbors to obtain a copy from the charter and the constitution was framed upon that model however they did not simply copy each other they framed their own charters in accordance with the concessions they had updated from their loads and the result was that as remarked by an historian the charters of the medieval commons for the same variety of the gothic architecture of the churches and cathedrals the same leading ideas in all of them the cathedral symbolizing the union of parish and gil university and the same infinitely rich variety of detail self jurisdiction was the essential point and self jurisdiction means self-administration but the commune was not simply an autonomous part of the state such ambiguous words had not yet been invented by that time it was a state in itself it had the right of war and peace of federation and alliance with its neighbors it was sovereign in its own affairs and mixed with no others the supreme political power could be vested entirely in a democratic form as was the case in pskov whose vik sent and received ambassadors concluded treaties accepted and sent away princess or went on without them for dozens of years or it was vested in or usurped by an aristocracy of merchants or even nobles as was the case in hundreds of italian and middle european cities the principal nevertheless remained the same the city was a state and what was perhaps still more remarkable when the power in the city was usurped by an aristocracy of merchants or even nobles the inner life of the city and the democratism of its daily life did not disappear it depended but little upon what may be called the political form of the state the secret of this seeming anomaly lies in the fact that a medieval city was not a centralized state during the first centuries of its existence the city hardly could be named a state as regards its interior organization because the middle ages knew no more of the present centralization of functions than of the present territorial centralization each group had its share of severality the city was usually divided into four quarters or into five to seven sections radiating from the center each quarter of section roughly corresponding to a certain trade or profession which prevailed in it but nevertheless containing inhabitants of different social positions and occupations nobles merchant artisans or even half-suffs and each section or quarter constituted a quite independent agglomeration in venice each island was an independent political community it had its own organized trades its own commerce insult its own jurisdiction and administration its own forum and the nomination of the dodge by the city changed nothing in the inner independence of the units open footed le bret histoire de venice 1st 393 also marraine quoted by lew and buta in histoire de l'italie franchise edition 1844 dan promier 500 in colline we see the inhabitants divided into gay bush shaften and him shaften open bracket vissinia cos bracket that is neighbor guilds which dated from the franconian period each of them had its judge open bracket brettier cos bracket and the usual 12 elected centers finders open bracket chauvin cos bracket it is vogue to any script or commander of a local militia open footed doctor w order their fast sung guest chich their dutchian free stats 1854 bd 2nd 227 sequence in n gay chich their starkwell bd 1st 228 to 229 also the documents published by in n and a cat crossfoot nerd the story of early london before the conquest mr green says is that of a number of little groups scattered here and there over the area within the walls it's growing up with its own life and institutions guilds soaks will just houses and the like and only slowly drawing together into a municipal union open footed nerd conquest of england 1883 page 453 close footed nerd and if we refer to the annals of the russian cities north gorod and scott both of which are relatively rich in local details we find the section open bracket connects close bracket consisting of independent streets open bracket ulytsan close bracket each of which of the chiefly people with artisans of a certain craft had also merchants and landowners among its inhabitants and was a separate community it had the communal responsibility of all members in case of crime its own jurisdiction and administration by street alderman open bracket ulytsan's kia taros t close bracket its own seal and its case of need its own forum its own militia has also its self-elected price and its own collective life and collective enterprise but footnote believe russian history volumes 2nd and 3rd close footnote the medieval city thus appears as a double federation of all householders united into small territorial unions the street the parish the section and of individuals united by oath into guilds according to their professions the former being a produce of a village community origin of a city while the second is a subsequent growth called to live by new conditions to guarantee liberty self-administration and peace was the chief aim of the medieval city and labor as we shall presently see when speaking of the craft guilds was its chief foundation but production did not absorb the whole attention of the medieval economies with his practical mind he understood that consumption must be guaranteed in order to obtain production and therefore to provide for the common first food and lodging of poor and rich alike open bracket game mine not do from game armor on rich up open footnote w grommage they fast again they want to get rich they start hoesburg in 13 bis zoom 15 yaw hundred hoesburg 1882 page 34 close footnote close bracket was a fundamental principle in each city the purchase of food supplies and other first necessaries open bracket cool wood exegyrakus bracket before they had reached the market or all together in especially favorable conditions from which others would be excluded the pream sure in a word was entirely prohibited everything had to go to the market and be offered there for everyone's purchase till the ringing of the bell had closed the market then only could the retailer by the remainder and even then his profit should be an honest profit only open footnote when a boot brought a cargo of kohl to hoesburg kohl could only be sold in retail during the first eight days each family being entitled to no more than 50 basketfuls the remaining cargo could be sold wholesale but the retailer was allowed to raise a zitli chair profit only the unzitli chair or dissonance profit being strictly forbidden open bracket grommage lc close bracket same in london open bracket libre albus coded by oschenkovsky page 161 close bracket and in fact everywhere close footnote moreover when kohl was bought by a baker who wholesale after the close of the market every citizen had the right to claim part of the kohl open bracket about half a quarter because bracket for his own use at wholesale price if he did so before the final conclusion of the bargain and reciprocally every baker could claim the same if a citizen purchased kohl for reselling it in the first case the kohl had a need to be brought to the town mill to be ground in his proper turn for its settle price and the bread could be baked in the full banal or communal oven open footnote syphagnes étudial industrie la classe industrielle appare aux threesièmes et cartosième siècle pari 1877 pages 155 sequence it probably need be added that the tarts on bread and on beer as well was settled after careful experiments as to the quantity of bread and beer which could be obtained from a given amount of corn the amiens or chiefs contain the minutes of such experiences open bracket edu kallon mc pages 77 93 course bracket also those of london open bracket oceankovsky england's rich shaft lech and real keloon etc jena 1879 page 165 course footnote in short if a scar city visited the city all had to suffer from it more or less but apart from the calamities so long as the three cities existed no one could die in their midst from starvation as is unhappily to offend the case in our own times however all such regulations belong to later periods of the city's life while at an earlier period it was the city itself which used to buy all food supplies for the use of the citizens the documents recently published by mr gross are quite positive on this point and fully support his conclusion to the effect that the corgos of sub-distancers were purchased by certain civic officials in the name of the town and then distributed in shares among the merchant burgessers the one being allowed to buy wares landed in the port unless the municipal authorities refuse to purchase them this seems she adds to have been quite a common practice in england aiolan wells in scotland open footnote ch gross the gift mention oxford 1890 first 135 his documents prove that this practice existed in leverpool open bracket second 148 150 equals bracket waterford in aiolan nief in wells and linley culgo and torso in scotland mr gross texts also show that the purchases were made for distribution not only among the merchant burgessers but upon all citizens and communals open bracket page 156 note close bracket or as the torso ordinance of the 17th century runs to make offer to the merchants craftsmen and inhabitants of a sad bug that they may have their proportion of the same according to their necessities and ability close footnote even in the 16th century we find that common purchasers of corn were made for the commodity and profit in all things of this city and chamber of london and of all the citizens and inhabitants of the same as much as in us yet other mayor wrote in 1565 open footnote the early history of the guilt of merchant dealers by charles m clod london 1888 first 361 appendix 10 also the following appendix which shows that the same purchasers were made in 1546 close footnote in the nice the whole of a trading corn is well known to have been in the hands of the city the quarters on receiving the cereals from the board which administrated the imports being bound to send to every citizen's house the quantity allotted to him open footnote ciborario les conditions économiques de l'italie auton de dent Paris 1865 page 44 close footnote in France the city of amiens used to purchase salt and to distribute it to all citizens at cost price open footnote at the colon la vie municipale ocassium siac dollar no de la france paris 1880 pages 12 to 16 in 1485 the city permitted the export to antwerp of a certain quantity of corn the inhabitants of antwerp being always ready to be agreeable to the merchants and burgers of amiens open bracket ebid pages 75 to 77 and text close bracket close footnote and even now one sees in many french towns the house which formally were municipal deposits for corn and salt open footnote ababou la ville sous l'ancien régime paris 1880 close footnote in russia it was a regular custom in north gorod and scov the whole matter relative to the communal purchasers for the use of the citizens and the manner in which they used to be made seems not to have yet received proper attention from the historians of the period but they are here and there some very interesting parts which throw a new light upon it thus there is among mr gross documents a kilkenny ordinance of the year 1367 from which we learn how the prices of the goods were established the merchants and the sailors mr gross rights were to state on earth the first cost of the goods and the expenses of transportation then the media of the town and two discreet men were to name the price at which the wares were to be sold the same rule held good interests for merchandise coming by ceo len this way of naming the price so well answers to the very conceptions of trade which were current in medieval times that it must have been all but universal you have a price established by a third person was a very old custom and for all interchange within the city it certainly was a widely spread habit to leave the establishment of prices to discreet men to a third party and not to the vendor or the buyer but this order of things takes us still further back in the history of trade namely to a time when trade in steeper produce was carried on by the whole city and the merchants were only the commissioners the trustees of the city for selling the goods which it exported a waterfall ordinance published also by mr gross says that all money or march on this whatsoever king baby of shall be bought by the mayor and palace which been the bracket common buyers for the town cross bracket for the time being and to distribute the same on free man of the city then bracket the prop goods of three citizens and inhabitants only accepted cross bracket this ordinance can hardly be explained otherwise than by admitting that all the exterior trade of a town was carried on by its agents moreover we have direct evidence of such having been the case for north gorod mscove it was the sovereign of gorod and the sovereign scove who sent the caravans of merchants to distant lands we know also that in nearly all medieval cities of middle and western europe the craft skills used to buy as a body all necessary raw produce and to sell the producer their work through their officials and it is hardly possible that the same should not have been done for exterior trade the most as it is well done that up to the 13th century not only all merchants of a given city were considered abroad as responsible in a body for debts contracted by any one of them but the whole city as well was responsible for the debts of each one of its merchants only in the 12th and 13th century the towns on the Rhine entered into special treaties abolishing this responsibility the footnote in n gearskish gearstat called first 491 492 also takes closed footnote and finally we have the remote cable ip switch document published by mr gross from which document we learned that the merchant guild of the town was constituted by all who had the freedom of a city and who wished to pay their contribution when bracket their hands cause bracket to the guild the whole community discussing all together how better to maintain the merchant guild and giving it certain villages the merchant guild of ip switch thus appears rather as a body of trustees of the town than as a common private guild in short the more we begin to know the medieval city the more we see that it was not simply a political organization for the protection of certain political liberties it was an attempt at organizing on a much grander scale than in a village community a close union for mutual alien support for consumption and production and for social life all together without imposing upon men the fetters of a state but giving full liberty of expression to the creative genius of each separate group of individuals in all craft science commerce and political organization how far this attempt has been successful will be best seen when we have analyzed in the next chapter the organization of labor in the medieval city and the relations of the cities with the surrounding peace and population end of chapter five recording that and good