he Middle Ages, the only
form which could resist that utterly prostrating action of later
mediaevalism. Feudalism stamped out civilization; monasticism warped it;
in the open country it was burnt, trampled on, and uprooted; in the
cloister it withered and shrank and perished; only within the walls of a
city, protected from the storm without, and yet in the fresh atmosphere
of life, could it develope, flourish, and bear fruit.

But this system of the free town contained in itself, as does every
other institution, the seed of death--contained it in that expanding
element which developes, ripens, rots, and finally dissolves all living
organisms. A little town is formed in the midst of some feudal state, as
Pisa, Florence, Lucca, and Bologna were formed in the dominions of the
lords of Tuscany; the _elders_ govern it; it is protected from without;
it obtains privileges from its suzerain, always glad to oppose anything
to his vassals, and who, unlike them, is too far removed in the feudal
scale to injure the commune, which is under his supreme jurisdiction but
not in his land. The town can thus develope regularly, governing itself,
taxing itself, defending itself against encroaching neighbours; it
gradually extends beyond its own walls, liberates its peasantry, extends
its commerce, extinguishes feudalism, beats back its suzerain or buys
privileges from him; in short, lives the vigorous young life of the
early Italian commonwealths. But now the danger begins. The original
system of government, where every head of a family is a power in the
State, where every man helps to govern, without representation or
substitution, could exist only as long as the commune remained small
enough for the individual to be in proportion with it; as long as the
State remained small enough for all its citizens to assemble in the
market-place and vote, for every man to know every detail of the
administration, every inch of the land. When the limits were extended,
the burgher had to deal with towns and villages and men and things which
he did not know, and which he probably hated, as every small community
hated its neighbour; witness the horrible war, lasting centuries,
between the two little towns of Dinant and Bouvines on the Meuse. Still
more was this the case with an important city: the subjugated town was
hated all the more for being a rival centre; the burghers of Florence,
inspired only by their narrow town interest, treated Pisa according to