perchance been raided by some marauding noble
and his retainers. Circumstances, amongst others the fact that the
community to which they attached themselves had already adopted
commerce and thus become a guild of merchants, led to the
differentiation of industrial functions amongst the new-comers, and
thus to the establishment of craft-guilds.

Another origin of the townsfolk, which must not be overlooked, is to
be found in the attendants on the palace-fortress of some great
overlord. In the early Middle Ages all such magnates kept up an
extensive establishment, the greater ecclesiastical lords no less than
the secular often having several castles. In Germany this origin of
the township was furthered by Charles the Great, who established
schools and other civil institutions, with a magistrate at their head,
round many of the palace-castles that he founded. "A new epoch," says
Von Maurer, "begins with the villa-foundations of Charles the Great
and his ordinances respecting them, for that his celebrated
capitularies in this connection were intended for his newly
established villas is self-evident. In that proceeding he obviously
had the Roman villa in his mind, and on the model of this he rather
further developed the previously existing court and villa constitution
than completely reorganized it. Hence one finds even in his new
creations the old foundation again, albeit on a far more extended
plan, the economical side of such villa-colonies being especially more
completely and effectively ordered."[2] The expression "Palatine," as
applied to certain districts, bears testimony to the fact here
referred to. As above said, the development of the township was
everywhere on the same lines. The aim of the civic community was
always to remove as far as possible the power which controlled them.
Their worst condition was when they were immediately overshadowed by a
territorial magnate. When their immediate lord was a prince, the area
of whose feudal jurisdiction was more extensive, his rule was less
oppressively felt, and their condition was therefore considerably
improved. It was only, however, when cities were "free of the empire"
(_Reichsfrei_) that they attained the ideal of mediaeval civic freedom.

It follows naturally from the conditions described that there was, in
the first place, a conflict between the primitive inhabitants as
embodied in their corporate society and the territorial lord, whoever
he might be. No sooner