ABSTRACT
The localism of the old urban system was to be broken by a political change, subordinating urban life generally to the centralizing tendency which the new Hansa and the capitalist undertakers favoured. Political power was to pass into the hands of the rich burghers, who came to be known, from an imperfect classical analogy, as “the patriciate.” The capitalist spirit remained keen among the large active section of the patricians, and there was never any acute cleavage between the two. “Each patrician family comprised members belonging to both categories. The capitalist undertaker with his Hansa was, perhaps, a more revolutionary force than had been the old trader with his gild in the struggle against feudalism. In the fifteenth century, moreover, capitalist undertaking regained its lost pride and freedom. The House of Burgundy, in the person of Philip the Good, united firmly under its control the major part of the Netherlands.
