ABSTRACT
N the twelfth and thirteenth centuries municipal government was almost entirely in the hands of a Patriciate of landlords and rich merchants, who were strong enough to maintain urban independence against lay and spiritual princes, to develop a system of administration which gave unity to the city and to carry out a foreign policy adapted to local necessities. In close co-operation with the rest of the citizens, the Patriciate at first aimed at the creation of a self-sufficient economic area, within which each group of workers should contribute a fair share to the sustenance of the whole community. This primitive urban economy was destroyed by the new force of capital, which led to the opening of world markets and the rise of grand industry. As the patrician oligarchies represented the new capitalist class, their interests ceased to be identical with those of their subjects and the old harmony between the various members of urban communities was destroyed. Merchants and captains of industry found that the guild system was a stricture on freedom of economic action and worked to destroy it by breaking down tariffs, releasing merchants from the control of brokers, abolishing fixed prices and generally encouraging the unrestricted activity of individual enterprise. As a result of their efforts a new element appeared in urban society, a proletariate of wage-earners unprotected by corporate associations and entirely dependent on their capitalist employers. This great economic revolution inevitably had political consequences. From the end of the thirteenth century a double movement against patrician government gathered force. The guilds, jealous for their monopoly rights and critical of the whole foreign and domestic policy of the government, demanded a share of political control. The proletariate, rendered desperate by low wages, bad conditions of work and industrial crises, raised a cry for political rights as well as economic duties and hoped to improve their standard of living by organising themselves in guilds and securing for the guilds political power. The movement swept over the whole of western Europe, taking various forms—peaceful agitations, strikes, riots and even civil war—and lasting for over a century. In England and France the discontent of workers in both town and country found expression in the Peasants’ Revolt (1381) and the Jacquerie (1358). In Salonica sailors and artisans maintained for ten years (1342–52) a reign of terror, plundering wealthy manufacturers, landlords and clergy. About the same time the capitalist bourgeoisie of the chief cities of Aragon were forced to give up their monopoly of power and admit the guilds to a share in the government. In Italy the movement was confined to those cities which had retained a free form of government; it found its fullest expression in Germany and the Netherlands.
