ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the early civic community closely hemmed in by an environment—partly consisting of feudal households, but still more of communities in whose life its own life was very closely intermingled—bodies of monks and cathedral clergy, of templars and hospitallers, and foreign merchants. The period during which the city had been acquiring its political independence on a patrician basis had been marked by an immense growth of communities representing nearly every variety of religious, social and economic aim. The mediaeval city owed nearly as much to this patrician class as it had done to its early bishops. The functions which the gilds performed in the later period of civic development were performed by these communities for the city of the patrician period. They were largely recruited from the patrician class, and served as the natural organs of its expansion.
