CHAP. VIII revolution. But, while multitudes of men were emancipated from their local lords, all remained subjects of the King. A. D. 987-1313 The Third Estate An excellent example of the indirect influence of personal liberty is found in the modification effected in the droit d'aubaine. By this inhuman custom a stranger became the serf of the noble in whose domains he resided; and, after a year and a day, if he had not attached himself to a particular master, he was subject to a heavy fine. But the crusaderssoldiers or pilgrims - often lost on the way, were soon widely adrift in foreign lands, and could not be treated as ordinary vagabonds. The rights of the crusaders thus furnished a means of security to every fugitive, who had only to show some evidence, real or fictitious, of his crusading intentions, in order to enjoy the immunity of a soldier or a pilgrim. The feudal lords having become habituated to the presence of strangers, the droit d'aubaine gradually lost its inhuman severity; for the stranger was finally permitted to live in peace on profession of his vassalage to the King alone. Thus arose a class of "King's men" adhering directly to the sovereign without subservience to the local magnate. Feudal society recognized only two social classes or estates, the Nobility and the Clergy. These alone had any authority or influence. The population in general, attached to the soil and held in servitude to the feudal lords, lay and ecclesiastic, had no voice in public affairs and but little private property. But in the towns that grew up under the protection of the feudal castles, a new order of society came into existence. At first subject to the will of the feudal lords, these communities by purchase and other means gradually acquired the rights of freemen, and thus arose the Third Estate, composed of free citizens. 1 See Croiseul-Daillecourt, De l'influence. The droit d'aubaine continued, however, to be imposed as a claim upon the property left by the stranger who died in a foreign land, and continued in use generally throughout Europe until it was abolished in France by the National Assembly in 1790. 1 A. D. 987-1313 Before the period of the crusades, these communities pos- CHAP. VIII sessed but feeble strength and very limited liberties; for the feudal régime was unfavorable to their development. But the social revolution produced by the absence of great! numbers of nobles in the East, the concessions granted by them for the equipments furnished, the arrangements made for local government during the long expeditions, the increase of the urban population by the emancipated class returning from the crusades, and their rapid development under conditions of greater freedom, gave to the towns a new character and created a bourgeoisie of vast utility in augmenting the royal power. substantial cor- Growth of the cities the towns grew, Under the direction of their communes, porations, often armed with royal charters, into wealthy and populous cities, in which industry and commerce enjoyed a new and vigorous life. Beside the feudal nobility, a class of free citizens was thus formed, ambitious to extend its liberties and increase its rights. In the struggle between the kings and the feudal magnates, the cities became the determining force; for in their efforts; to throw off the tyranny of the local barons they were in natural alliance with the royal authority. Taking advantage of this powerful support, almost everywhere the kings granted liberal municipal charters to the cities, supported them in their struggles against feudal oppression, and thus became their protectors. In return, the cities — provided with their own magistrates and governed to a certain extent by their own laws - formed their own companies of militia for their defence against feudal aggression, and gladly rendered service and paid taxes to the King in exchange for the royal protection. The more cruel and rapacious the feudal barons became, the more attractive were the broad and liberal requirements of the King. To a population emerging 1 Before the end of the thirteenth century, nearly a hundred French communes had received royal charters, comprising almost all the cities of France. A. D. CHAP. VIII from the thraldom of feudalism and seeking its further enfranchisement, the kings seemed veritable "fathers of the people." 987-1313 The path to liberty opened The stimulating ideas of comfort and luxury brought back from the East, whose mature civilization was a fruitful revelation to the astonished eyes of the Western pilgrims and warriors, the opening of new routes of trade by land and sea, the new impulses to industry and commerce, the improvement of ways of communication between city and city, the increased security of possession under the royal protection, the influences operating for internal peace while war was being waged against the Infidel, all combined to build up the cities and to render the citizens not only active, affluent, and patriotic, but devoted to the royal supremacy. The growth of the cities was not only a fatal blow to feudalism as a régime, it opened an asylum of liberty to those who wished to become "King's men." The serf who could escape from his master's domain and succeed in remaining unreclaimed for one year in a city was thenceforth free. Under the pretext of joining a crusade, multitudes escaped from their servitude to enter by this means the class of "burghers," and the municipal authorities - interested to augment the strength of the cities at the expense of the feudal barons - became ready accomplices in this emancipation.1 The kings were, in general, eager to avail themselves of this movement toward popular enfranchisement, and even to lead in advancing it. A powerful blow was struck at feudal oppression when, in 1315, Louis X of France accorded liberty to all the serfs of the crown, adding the memorable 1 The droit de cite was accorded also to persons who could not find habitations within the city's walls, but dwelt outside under its protection. The term "Pfahlbürger" - which the French erroneously translated "faux bourgeois," from which they derived the expression "faubourg was applied to persons who dwelt beyond the walls, but whose property was marked with a Pfahl, or post, which indicated that they were under the jurisdiction and protection of a city. A. D. 987-1313 words: "Our kingdom being the kingdom of the 'Francs,' CHAP. VIII that is, the Free,' we wish that the fact be in harmony with the name." Thus a wide area of freedom was opened in the midst of feudal servitude, a new asylum for "King's men,” — and the King became the chief liberator of his age.1 tary power The development of cities and the formation of a citizen The fiscal class promoted the royal power by placing within its reach basis of miliat the same time the materials for a permanent military! force and the means of sustaining it. The feudal army, composed of contingents of men furnished for short periods by the feudal lords, depended for its very existence upon the co-operation of the nobles, and could not, therefore, always be used against them. But when the King's own immediate forces, augmented by the population of the cities, could be assembled by the direct command of their sovereign and supported by funds obtained from general taxation, the situation was completely changed. With such an army, properly equipped, carefully disciplined, regularly paid, and kept permanently in the field, the King had at his disposition a new and superior force which the local barons could not resist. While they were obliged to depopulate their fields and suspend the industries of their domains, in order to oppose him with an armed force, he had only to march his professional soldiers against them. When gunpowder was invented the character of warfare was radically changed. The heavy armor of the mounted knights and the spears and cross-bows of the mediaeval footmen were worse than useless in the presence of disciplined troops armed with flint-locks. When, soon afterward, artillery came into use, the Middle Ages had passed away, so far as warfare was concerned; and feudalism, with all its picturesque but antiquated defences, received its deathblow. Thenceforth it was money, as well as men, that constituted the sinews of war. Without it, war, in a serious sense, was 1 As early as 1302, Philip the Fair had permitted certain serfs to! purchase their liberty. A. D. 987-1313 CHAP. VIII impossible. It was only the kings, possessing a great number of taxable subjects, and monopolizing the right to coin money, the value of which they often fixed by arbitrarily debasing the coinage, who were able to conduct a war. The ordinary nobles were wholly at the mercy of the central power, and only the great dukes could even attempt the unequal contest. Thus, by the introduction of a fiscal system, the establishment of "coin of the realm," the organization of permanent armies, and their equipment with improved weapons, the kings were able to enforce their authority over widening areas of central government. The universities The revival of Roman law But it was not as the possessors and champions of brute force that the kings won their most brilliant victories, it was rather by assuming the leadership of the people in every form of social progress in opposition to the rude provincialism and selfish greed of the local barons. In his reorganization of Southern Italy, Frederick II had set the example of patronizing learning by founding the University of Naples, " in order," as he expressed his purpose, that those who hunger after knowledge may find in the kingdom itself the nourishment they seek, and not be compelled to go abroad and beg of the stranger." The act and sentiment of Frederick II were those of the monarchical movement in general, and there were few kings who had not the wit to see in the universities a powerful aid to their royal policies. Originally free associations of teachers and learners brought together by a craving for knowledge and the instinct of imparting it, the universities, under the patronage of the kings, received formal charters, were raised to the eminence of autonomous corporations, and were enriched by munificent largesses from the royal treasuries. It was not unnatural that the monarchies and the universities should find themselves not only in sympathy but in alliance, for both represented similar elements of human progress. The expansion which the universities were giving to the human mind in the sphere of thought, the monarchs |