Oriental trade and the rise of the Lombard communes

ORIENTAL TRADE AND THE RISE OF
THE LOMBARD COMMUNES

BY

LINCOLN HUTCHINSON

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

REPRINTED FROM

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
VOL. XVI., MAY, 1902

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CONTENTS FOR FEBRUARY, 1902.

I. THE FECUNDITY OF THE NATIVE AND FOREIGN BORN

POPULATION IN MASSACHUSETTS. II R. R. Kuc2ynski

II. EXCISE TAXATION IN PORTO RICO J. H. Hollander

III. CAPITALIZATION OF THE UNITED STATES STEEL COR-
PORATION Edward Sherwood Meade

IV. A POSITIVE THEORY OF ECONOMICS Frederick B. Hawley

V. THE RISE AND SUPREMACY OF THE STANDARD OIL

COMPANY Gilbert Holland Montague

VI. TRADE CYCLES AND THE EFFORT TO ANTICIPATE . G. C. Selden

RECENT PUBLICATIONS UPON ECONOMICS.

CONTENTS FOR MAY, 1902.

I. THE SUPPOSED NECESSITY OF THE LEGAL TENDER

PAPER Don C. Barrett

II. PROPOSED MODIFICATIONS IN AUSTRIAN THEORY AND

TERMINOLOGY H.J.Davenport

III. BOHM-BAWERK ON RAE Charles W. Mixter

IV. ORIENTAL TRADE AND THE RISE OF THE LOMBARD

COMMUNES Lincoln Hutchinsoa

V. WAGES IN MUNICIPAL EMPLOYMENT John R. Commons

NOTES AND MEMORANDA:

Earnings of Integrated Industries G. C. Seldea

Note on Bishop Whately's View of Profits T. M. Blakslee

RECENT PUBLICATIONS UPON ECONOMICS.

756 c^.^~4

ORIENTAL TRADE AND THE RISE OF
THE LOMBARD COMMUNES

BY

LINCOLN HUTCHINSON

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA

REPRINTED FROM

THE QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
VOL. XVI., MAY, 1902

H-ENRY MORSE

GEO. H. ELLIS CO., PRINTERS, 272 CONGRESS ST., BOSTON

ORIENTAL TRADE AND THE RISE OF THE
LOMBARD COMMUNES.

IT requires something of boldness to reopen the old con-
troversy as to the rise of the Lombard communes. Many able
historians have dealt with the problem, and it would seem
probable that what is worth saying has already been said. Yet
no one who has followed the course of the discussion can leave
the subject without a certain feeling of dissatisfaction, — a cer-
tain questioning as to whether, after all, he has really reached
the root of the matter. In the past fifty years there has been
a gradual change of front on the part of students of mediaeval
communal movements, not only in Italy, but in all parts of
Western Europe as well. The old issue between the opposing
advocates of the Teutonic and the Roman theories has slowly
been relegated to a position of secondary importance, and
an ever-increasing emphasis has been laid upon the economic
forces which lay at the back of the movement. The origin of
towns, their growth in power, the organizing of the citizens
into gilds, their gradual assumption of control, and the slow
development of the independent commune have been shown to
rest upon something far more real and solid than either Roman
or Teutonic influence or inheritance. This inheritance at best
furnishes explanation only of local differentiation : the really
fundamental causes of the phenomena are largely economic.*

But, granting the economic causes of development and the
essential similarity of the movement in all parts of the West,
there still remains a further question, which does not seem to
have received as yet more than the vaguest answer. Why
was it that the communal movement in Italy generally, and in
Northern Italy particularly, was in advance of that in any

*The economic forces which were at work have been carefully examined by
Hegel, Geschichte der Stadtverfassung von Italien (1847) ; Cibrario (Economic
Politique du Moyen Age, 1859) strongly emphasizes them ; Bmerton (Mediaeval
Europe [1894], pp. 519-528) gives an excellent summary. Cf. also some of the his-
tories of single towns, such as E. Heyck's Genua und seine Marine im Zeitalter
der Kreuzzuge (1886), R. Bonf adini's Lt Origine del Commune di Afttano, etc.

other part of the West ? Why did the Lombard towns lead
not only in time, but also in brilliancy of development ? Was
it that the economic forces were here most active, or merely
that other circumstances, such as the unique relations of the
towns to Empire and Papacy, furnished more favorable op-
portunity for growth ?

A possible answer is presented by a glance at the later
history of these same towns, in the period of their most daz-
zling prosperity. That their later greatness rested upon a
basis which was primarily economic cannot be doubted, and
the corner-stone of the whole structure was their control of
the Oriental trade of Europe. This fact granted, the sugges-
tion at once fairly forces itself upon us that, possibly, the
same cause which brought the later success was potent also
in giving the first impulse. It has been more or less custom-
ary to deny this, and to attach but little importance to the
Eastern trade prior to the Crusades. Nevertheless, there is
reason to question this denial ; and it will be the object of the
present writer briefly to examine certain bits of evidence
which would seem to carry the commercial influence far
behind the period of the Crusades, and make it play an im-
portant r61e about the very cradle of the communes.

The inquiry is a twofold one. It will not be sufficient
merely to show that commercial conditions and activities in
Northern Italy were peculiarly conducive to municipal pros-
perity. What really concerns us here is the growth of the
communal government within the cities ; and we must there-
fore go a step beyond the establishment of commercial
prosperity, and show that, in the particular case we are con-
sidering, this prosperity did then and there have a direct
causative connection with the peculiar form of organization
known as communal.

Turning now to the first question, we must notice that the
economic inheritance from Rome very early made for material
prosperity. In the later years of the Roman rule, and during
the Ostro-Gothic, Lombard, and Frankish dominion, the towns
of Northern Italy lost their political importance, but commer-
cial and industrial activity in them was not dead.* In

*8ismondi, J. C. L. Simonde de, Histoire de la Renaissance de la Liberti en
Italie (1832), i. 10. This statement does not, of course, apply to Venice.

Roman times, not only was trade between towns continued,
but commercial connection with the Eastern Empire was kept
alive. Upon the conquest by the barbarians the cities were
not deliberately destroyed except in the rare cases of serious
resistance. Nor was any vital change made in their internal
economy.* Commerce and manufacture were undoubtedly
hampered in many ways, but they were by no means killed.
Roman artisans and traders in the towns and Roman tillers of
the soil were left to continue their occupations.! Evidence of
the presence of such a Roman artisan, trading, and agricultural
class in large numbers, is found in the laws of the Lombard
kings in Italy, particularly in those of Rothari $ and
Liutprand ; § and there is little reason to believe that they
vanished under Frankish dominion. There can be no doubt
that the industrial and commercial organization of the North-
ern Italian cities remained at the close of the ninth century in
a more advanced state than that which had at that time been
reached by the towns of any country outside of Italy, except
possibly those of Southern France. They were thus in a
position to take early advantage of any commercial or indus-
trial revival which might make its appearance. Added to
this was the peculiarly favorable combination in the Italian
character of energy and versatility, — the readiness as well as
the ability to grasp new opportunities.)!

Meantime a movement was going on which was to bring
such new opportunities, — an enormous increase in the extent
and profitableness of foreign trade. Roman trade with the
Levant and the Orient had been most important and most
varied, and had never wholly died out.lf Centuries before the

*T. Ho dgkin, Italy and her Invaders, vi. 586-592 ; Williams, The Communes
of Lombard from the VI. to the X. Century, 19. (In Johns Hopkins University
Studies, ix. pp. 239-318.)

t Hodgkin, vi. 586-590 ; Entwickelung der Verfassung der lombardischen
Stadte (1824), 4-5, 19.

$ Hodgkin, vi. 174-236; Muratori, Serum Italicarum Scriptnres, tome i.,
Part II., 17-48; C.Troya, Storie d1 Italia (1839-59;, iv., Part II.

§Hodgkin, vi. 389-414; Muratori, SS., 51-84. That there had been a Decline
in the importance of these business interests, however, is shown hy the strikingly
less attention given to such matters in the Lombard laws than in the Roman.

|| Emerton, 522.

IfW. Heyd, Histoire du Commerce du Moyen Age, i. 93, 110 et passim. Cf.
Muratori, Antiquitates Italicae Medti-Aevi, Dissertatio XXX. [e.-p. pp. 881-888].

6

First Crusade this intercourse had begun to revive * through
the influence of the Church, on the one hand, and the growth
of more luxurious tastes in the Christianized northern races,
on the other. Abundant evidence is found in all ecclesiastical
records of the great quantities of goods of Eastern origin
which were used by the clergy for personal adornment or by
the churches for decoration of altars and images.f Vest-
ments, altar cloths, gems, ornaments of the costliest sort, as
well as incense for the censers, were in great demand ; and, as
the Church spread its rule farther and farther over Europe, this
demand increased. t Moreover, the rising practice of medi-
cine,§ introduced by the Arabs, created a growing demand for
drugs; and they, too, were mostly of Eastern origin. The
taste for spices was also making its way through all classes of
Western society. || It would be almost impossible to exagger-
ate the importance of this taste for spices in the later years of
the Middle Ages. The quantity consumed was probably by
no means insignificant even as early as the period we are
now considering.1[

The demand for Oriental goods in Western Europe had
made itself felt within a comparatively short time after the
confusion of the barbarian invasions. The presence of Lom-
bard merchants at the fair of St. Denis in Paris in 629,**
probably dealing in Eastern goods ; the yearly revenue of
cloves, cinnamon, spikenard, dates, and pepper, mentioned in
716 as being received by the monastery of Corbie from the
port of Fos ; ft the activity of Charles the Great in promoting
dealings with the Far East, such as his treaty with Haroun al
RaschidjJt his attempt to open a canal between the Main and
the Danube, and his suppression of Arab pirates on the Med-
iterranean,— are typical of the many bits of evidence that the
taste for Byzantine, Asiatic, and African goods remained fairly

* P. de Haulleville, Histoire des Communes Lombardes (1857), 238.
t Heyd, i. M-95. $ For this whole subject see Heyd, i. 57-125.

§ W. Draper, Intellectual Development of Europe, i. 385, seq.
|| H. Pigeonneau, Histoire du Commerce de la France (1887), i. 122, 128 ; Heyd,
. 89-93.

II The loss of four Venetian cargoes of spices is chronicled as far away as
Merseburg in 1017. Heyd, i. 116.

» Heyd, i. 104. Ibid., i. 99. «Ibid., i. 100.

active throughout the Dark Ages. In England and Germany,
too, evidence leading to a similar conclusion is not difficult
to find. Bede makes frequent mention of silk-embroidered
goods brought to England by royal or ecclesiastical pilgrims
returning from Rome,* while a trade in Byzantine silk goods
and in pepper and other spices seems to have been carried on
with considerable regularity as early as the close of the tenth
century.f In Germany, as early as the time of Boniface, pep-
per, cinnamon, and other Eastern commodities are mentioned ;
and shortly after the close of the ninth century it is probable
that the purchases of spices, silks, precious stones, etc., from
Venice by merchants of Regensburg and Augsburg had
reached no inconsiderable amount per annum. $ In the
eleventh century Mainz appears also as an important em-
porium for Oriental goods. §

So long as the demand, or the principal part of it, had been
confined to Italy, the trade had been, for the most part, con-
ducted by six or eight of the Italian cities, which happened to
be in a specially favorable position to carry on the business, —
by Venice || in the north, and by Amalfi, Gaeta, Naples, Bari,
Brindisi, etc., in the south. H The trade of Rome seems to
have been largely in the hands of the merchants of Amalfi,**
while Venice probably supplied the Po Valley.ff But, when
the demand spread through Northern Europe, conditions
were changed. The south Italian cities were not so advan-
tageously situated for passing the goods forward to the north-
ern customers. Even Venice was at something of a disadvan-
tage ; for the eastern passes of the Alps were not much used at
that early period, and, if used, they led into a portion of
Europe not the most favorable to commercial enterprise.lt
Other routes to the East began to be opened, and other cities
took a hand in the trade. Yet the close connection of the
southern cities with the Eastern capital, §§ and their maritime
power, constituted an advantage over competitors which
probably would have enabled them to hold their own for a

•Heyd, i. 106. t Ibid., i. 98. $ Ibid., i. 96-97. § Ibid., i. 89-90.

|| Ibid., i. 108. IT Ibid., 96-98. **Ibid., 99-100.

tt Ibid., 110-112 ; Sismondi, Slstoire des Rtpubliquea Italiennes du Moyen Age
(1826), i. 378-383 ; Haulleville, 268. » Heyd, i. 112. §§ Ibid., i. 93.

8

long time to come, had it not been for the Saracen and Nor-
man conquests. The confusion resulting from these conquests
formed an effective check to the reviving economic life in the
southern cities * and helped to pave the way for the prosperity
of their northern rivals.

Of the new channels of trade which were opened, one was
by sea, between the maritime cities on the Mediterranean, in
Spain, France, and Northern Italy, f and the cities of the
Levant. The trade of the Spanish and French cities supplied
the countries in which they were situated, and for a time it
thrived. Then, early in the eleventh century, this intercourse,
like the commerce of the southern Italian cities, was violently
interrupted by internal disturbance. The weakness of the
successors of Charlemagne, the division of the empire, and the
beginnings of the development of separate nationalities led to
a period of anarchy and contending interests ; and in no place
were the effects more severely felt than in Southern and
South-eastern France. Burgundy and Provence became the
scene of a long and bitter struggle between the Empire and
the nascent kingdom of France, while at the same time the
selfish policy of the local nobility in these countries in striving
to advance each his own personal interests served to heighten
the confusion. Under these circumstances, we need not be
surprised that before the middle of the eleventh century the
Mediterranean commerce of these regions had virtually ceased
to exist, t The Italian traders profited by the misfortunes of
their Western neighbors, and the French trade passed into the
hands of the merchants of Lombardy.§

Two other new routes were also tried.|| One line passed
from the Baltic by land and water across to the head- waters of
the Volga, down that river to the Caspian, thence to the Oxus,
and so on to the Far East. The other branch ran across the
eastern frontier from Germany, down the Dnieper to the Black
Sea, 1[ and thence to Constantinople which was connected with

* Heyd, i. 107. These disturbances, of course, did not affect Venice.

t Ibid., i. 120. J Ibid., 92-93.

§ B. Gebhardt, Handbuch der deutschen Geschiehte (1891), i. 478 ; Heyd, i. 93.
Cf. Cibrario, i. 63.

|| Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, i. 84; Grebhardt,
i. 478 ; Heyd, i. 57-74. f Cunningham, i. 184 ; Heyd, i. 68-74.

9

the East through several channels. The volume and the im-
portance of this trade is shown by the quantities of Oriental
coins of the period found in Slavic and Scandinavian coun-
tries, and by other evidence from Arab sources.* But before
the eleventh century various causes, such as civil disturbances
in Russia and in Persia, had combined to kill this trade almost
completely ; f and Northern and Central Europe, which had
been partially supplied by these overland routes, were obliged
to turn to Italy. J Efforts had also been made for a direct
communication with Constantinople and thence to the East,
by passing down the Danube ; § but this trade (if it ever
existed) had never thrived.

It should also be borne in mind that side by side with the
expansion of Oriental trade there was a growing commerce
with the pagan peoples of the southern shores of the Med-
iterranean and through them with the interior regions of
Northern Africa. Many commodities similar to those Oriental
goods which were so rapidly becoming the object of European
demand were to be found both north and south of the Sahara,
and the caravan routes controlled by Moors and Arabs led
to the sources of supply. || That Italy was well situated for
taking possession of this trade is obvious.

Thus it had come to pass that before the middle of the
eleventh century, all Western Europe was looking to Northern
Italy If alone for the supply of articles for which the demand
was not only already large, but was rapidly increasing ; ** and
the industrial and commercial organization of the people fitted
them to take advantage of the opportunity presented.tt The

*O. R. Beazley, The Dawn of Modern Geography (1897), 402, seq.; Heyd, i. 66 ;
L. V. Ledebrun, Ueber die in den baltischen Landern in der Erde gefundenen
Zeugnisse eines Handels-Verkehrs mit dem Orient sur Zeit der arabischen
Weltherrschaft, p. 18, seq. Cf., also, Ch. Schiemann, Russland, Polen, und
Livland bis ins 17 Jahrhundert (1887-89) , i. 30, seq.

t Cunningham, i. 174-175 ; Heyd, i. 67, 78-74.

t Heyd, i. 80. § Ibid., i. 80-86.

II Mas Latrie, Relations et Commerce de VAfrique Septentrionale ou Magreb
avec les Nations Chretiennes au Moyen Age (1886), pp. 17-22.

IT Cunningham, i. 186.

*»M. A. V. Bethmann-Hollweg, Ursprung der lombardischen Stddtefreiheit
(1846), p. 127, mentions the importance of this Oriental trade revival ; also, Leo,
Entwiekelung der Verfassung der lombardischen Stddte (1824), p. 36.

tt Cf. Hegel, ii. 226.

10

geographical position of the northern cities, with reference to
the new trade, was also peculiarly advantageous. They had
sea connection with the Levant nearly as safe as that of the
southern cities (and quite as safe after the capture, about the
middle of the eleventh century, of Corsica, Sardinia, and
Sicily from the Saracens), while at the same time they were
in close river and land connection with the passes which led
to the rest of Europe. Several centuries were yet to elapse
before the dangers of the Atlantic were faced by Medi-
terranean seamen; and in the period we are considering all
goods that went north from Italy, and all that came south in
return, had to cross the Alpine passes. To these passes,
Lombardy held the key. From Venice and Genoa f the
trade passed by river and land through the Lombard cities,
enriching them in its course, through tolls, through the deal-
ings of their own merchants, and through the purchase of
goods to be sent East in return for the foreign articles. J
Then it moved on over the various passes — the Mt. Cenis,
the St. Bernard, the St. Gothard, the Splilgen, and the
Wormser § — to the head- waters of the rivers which formed the
commercial arteries of the north. || The silk, gems, spices,
and drugs of the East flowed through the Italian cities over
the whole of Western Europe. In return the woollen and
linen goods of Flanders, the iron-work of Germany, the fine
dyed stuffs of Italy,1f flowed through the same channels to the
Orient, while the heavy adverse balance was paid in silver.
There is abundant direct evidence of the existence and im-
portance of this trade. One can scarcely even glance through
any record of the time without hitting upon some mention of
articles of unmistakable Eastern origin, or of merchants and
traders — sometimes foreign traders — or of tolls on roads or
rivers, and all sorts of exactions which could fall only on the
trading classes.** And, if this was true before the First
Crusade, it was doubly so after that event. The Crusades

*Heyd, i. 123 et passim.

tlbid., i. 120 et passim; Heyck, IT ; Haulleville, 238.

* Haulleville, 238, 239-240.

§ Heyd, i. 111-112. o Leo, 36. f Ibid., 38.

**For the various sorts of tolls and exactions see Williams, 51, n.

11

gave the final stimulus by bringing the Occident into closer
dealings with the Orient than had existed for centuries.

These, then, are some of the reasons why the economic de-
velopment in Northern Italy was more rapid than elsewhere
in Europe. The growth of new demands throughout the West,
and the control by Northern Italy of the only channels through
which these demands could be satisfied, furnished the oppor-
tunity; while the inheritance of business ideas and a legal
system well adapted to industry and trade, together with racial
characteristics conducive to a quick seizing of new openings,
created the needed readiness to take advantage of the situa-
tion. The manner in which these cities actually made use of
the opportunity during the next three centuries, and the won-
derful commercial prosperity which came to them, is a story
too familiar to need repetition here. Nor does it particularly
concern us in this investigation.

Having thus disposed of the first problem spoken of above,
it remains for us to attack the second, — to show that there was
a direct causal connection between the reviving commercial
enterprise and the development of municipal independence.

The evidence in favor of any such direct connection between
rising commerce in the Lombard cities and the growth of the
free municipal organizations is, it must be admitted, not very
abundant ; but such as exists is significant. That there was
such direct connection in many of the cities of the more
northern countries of Europe is now a well-established fact,
but the argument from analogy is strong only if it can be sup-
ported by more direct proof. In the cities of England and
Germany a preliminary step to the assumption of municipal
power was the formation of commercial associations, the
gilds ; f and the first question which naturally confronts us in
this connection is whether there were such associations in the
Italian cities.

Two facts are well established. In the later Roman times

* Ashley, W. J., .Economic History, i. 71, seq.

t Gross, Gild Merchant, i. 281, points out similarity of development all over
Western Europe. Cf. L. Brentano on the History and Development of Gilds.
For the process by which the mercantile classes gained control in the German
towns see A. Doren, Untenuchung zur Geschichte der Kaufmannsgilden dea Af.A.
(1893), pp. 25-36.

12

there did exist in some, at least, of these cities, scolce and other
associations of traders and artisans,* bearing a certain resem-
blance to the later gilds.f Then, centuries afterwards, in the
later Middle Ages, we find well-developed corporations — the
Arti — precisely the same, in all essential particulars, as the Eng-
lish gilds and the German Zunfte.\ It would not, however,
be safe to assert, in the absence of positive evidence, that there
was any direct connection between these earlier and later
associations in Italy, § though in Southern France such con-
tinuous existence is fairly well established in some cases.|| But,
even if the direct connection between the two should be posi-
tively disproved, this much it is safe to say ; that in the urban
populations, with their Roman ancestry and traditions and
their Roman law, IF such associations would easily come into
being whenever occasion should arise. And there is some evi-
dence that they really did exist in certain places early in the
period of reviving commerce. In Ravenna, for example, there
seems to have been some formal organization of merchants —
scola negotiatorum — as early as 954.** In the eleventh cen-
tury we find a scola piscatorum.^ In Ferrara, in the middle
of the eleventh century, the curtenses, or residents in the royal
curies, are spoken of in such a way as to lead one to suppose
that they formed a more or less definitely organized body of
traders. %\ In Genoa, by the early part of the twelfth century,
the compagna, an organization clearly equivalent to the gild
of England or Germany,§§ had already made great strides
towards its later identification with the commune. |||| The de-
velopment of associations of negotiatores, or large traders, and
mercatores, or small traders,1F1T becomes more and more appar-

* Leo, i. 335-336.

t Ashley, Economic History, i. 77; Hegel, i. 53, seq., 82-84, 196, 256, etc.

$ Hegel, ii. 256. Cf. Cibrario, i. 99.

§ Hegel asserts that there was a continuous existence (i. 197), though not in
Lombardy (ii. 265).

|| Waitz, however, denies this (ii. 332) ; but see Ashley, i. 77, and Pigeonneau,
i. 116.

1 Troya, iv., Part II., 428; Hodgkin, vi. 399, 592.

** Hegel, i. 256, n. 3. tt Ibid.

it A. Frizzi, Memorie per la Storia di Ferrara (1791), ii. 90; Murat, Antiqui-
tates, v. 753.

§§Heyck, 22,30-3*. |||| Ibid., 17,22. TIT Leo, 116, n. 2.

13

ent ; and this growth was followed somewhat later by the for-
mation of the equally important craft associations.

Moreover, the rise of these various organizations to political
importance may be pretty clearly traced. Under the Lombard
and Frankish regime the foundation of society was military.*
The population was divided primarily into two great classes,
the fighting class, miUtes, who constituted the nobility, and the
working class. t Of the " workers" the larger portion were slaves
or serfs,$ or, if free, they paid tribute. § Probably they were, for
the most part, the original population who had been reduced to
serfdom by conquest ; || and they were therefore of Roman
nationality.il The agricultural "workers" in the rural dis-
tricts had little opportunity to change their condition, but it
was otherwise with the industrial and trading " workers " in
the cities. Trade and some kinds of industry had never been
considered so degrading as agriculture;** and early in the
Middle Ages we find instances where goldsmiths, coiners, iron
workers, traders, etc., were freemen.ft As economic condi-
tions improved and wealth increased, greater numbers of the
servile portions of the trading and industrial classes began to
gain their freedom through purchase and otherwise.^ That
many Arimanni, free but not noble Lombards, also turned to
trade, and in increasing numbers, is also certain ; §§ and by the
time with which we are most closely concerned, the eleventh
century, most merchants, if not all, were fully free. || || In many
cases, where traders and artisans had been dealt with in
groups for convenience of taxation,U"1F the organized body as a
whole obtained some alleviation of their burdens, or even ex-
emption from them.* In these and other ways they rose to
positions of greater dignity and power, and were ready to
form integral parts of the new city organization,! while their
commercial law and " good customs " constituted an important
element in the growing communal law.$

During the slow process of readjustment, when the West

*Leo, 12, 14, 15-17. t Cf. Hegel, i. 487. Z Leo, 5, 20. § Ibid., 21.

|| Hegel, i. 410-411. IT Leo, 5. ** Ibid., 10. tt Haulleville, 239; Leo, 33-35.
ttLeo, 41; Hegel, ii. 96; Haulleville, 243. §§ Hegel, ii. 95. |||| Leo, 37.
HIT Ibid., 29, 21 ; Hegel, i. 410-411. * Cf. Hegel, ii. 96. t Ibid., Ii. 95.

t Cibrario, i. 72-73; 61, 65-57.

14

was evolving a new order of civilization from the ruins of the
old, when the Roman hierarchy was beginning to assert itself
as a universal political as well as spiritual power, there came
a time when the control of such cities as existed passed gradu-
ally from the hands of the secular military or administrative
lords, the duces or the comites, into the hands of the bishops.
The bishops, of necessity resident in towns or larger rural
communities, gradually assumed political control wherever
their spiritual and religious control made itself a reality. But
their supremacy was destined to be eclipsed in turn by the
rising force of purely secular wealth, — by the growth of the
new order of things, based on intelligence and movable
wealth, which, step by step, drove back the old order based
on military service, birth, landed possessions, or religious
sentiment; and it is certain that, as the control of muni-
cipal affairs passed out of the hands of bishops f into those of
the cives themselves, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,
the rich traders, and those manufacturers, such as goldsmiths,
moneyers, makers of weapons, armor, etc.,t whose business
was not considered degrading in itself, took some sort of share
in the newly erected governments. Whether we look upon
the consules as the successors of the Roman curiales£ or of the
Teutonic scabini, || or however we may account for their origin,
it is certain that among their number were found representa-
tives of the new economic life H which was astir in the cities.1**
Next in rank to the two noble classes, the capitanei and the vdl-
vassores, were the cives in the narrower sense, among whom
were included free merchants and higher manufacturers, often
called collectively Arimanni.^ All of these classes were
represented among the consules. It was the recognition by
the two noble classes that their fortunes were bound up with
those of this rising burgher class, that made the rise of the
communes possible 4$

» Hegel, ii. 95-97; Heyck, 17-33. t Hegel, ii. 48-103. * Leo, 33-34.

§ L. V. Heinemann, Zur Entstehung der Stadtverfassung in Italien (1896), 38.
|| Ibid., 38-39. Cf. Hegel, ii. 163.

If W. V. Giesebrecht, Geschichte der deutschen Kalzerzeit, iii. 26.
** Hegel, ii. 96.

tt Ibid., ii. 143-146. See, also, Haulleville, 243, seq. ; Bonf adini, 132 ; Bethmann-
Hollweg, 134-136, etc. tt Emerton, 523 ; Hegel, ii. 96.

15

There is also another sort of evidence, more specific in its
character, which is of still greater weight in proving the direct
connection between the rising commercial prosperity and the
growth of corporate independence. It is found in the promi-
nent part which economic questions played in the struggle of
the cities against their bishops. During the period of the
ascendency of the bishops * all sorts of market privileges and
rights of taxation had been transferred to them by the secular
lords. Charter after charter conveyed to them the power to
collect the almost innumerable customary tolls and taxes.
Many of the conflicts which disturbed Italy in the ninth, tenth,
eleventh, and twelfth centuries turned upon the question of
the possession of these rights. The struggle was really a two-
fold one. That phase of it which appears most prominently
in the records was a conflict between secular and ecclesiastical
lords as to which should reap the harvest of these dues ; yet,
side by side with this contest, we catch glimpses of another of
a very different nature, — the effort of the townsmen them-
selves to obtain release from the burdens, whether imposed on
them by lay or by ecclesiastical superiors. This fact in itself
is not much to our purpose, for feudal inferiors often and in
many places struggled to free themselves from the exactions
of their lords: the really important point for us is that the
particular exactions which were being resisted here were those
that hindered commerce, and that the resistance was persisted
in until at last it gained its point.

In seeking to give evidence in illustration and confirmation
of these statements, it will be necessary to turn aside for a few
moments from the main thread of our argument and to enter
somewhat into details. For this purpose, it may be best to
confine our attention to a single city. Let us take Cremona,
and follow with some minuteness the course of its develop-
ment. When Cremona first appears, in a charter of 715 or
730,f it is as a portus at which royal officers collected tolls
and other dues from merchants from Comacchio, Venice, and
other places. A few decades later Charlemagne transferred

* Hegel, ii. 48-103.

t Muratori, Antiquitates, ii. 23-25. These dues were paid in kind ; and
among the articles mentioned we find pepper,— a sure indication that a portion,
at least, of the trade was in Oriental goods.

16

the rights to these dues to the church of Cremona, at the same
time giving it various royal cortes, and so far extending the
bishop's control of the banks of the Po as to cover nearly all
the district from the mouth of the Oglio to the mouth of the
Adda.* The claims of the Church to these territories and
dues, however, did not pass unchallenged ; and the bishops
were again and again obliged to defend their rights.!

The opposition came from three sources. In the first place,
the secular authorities of the royal cortes hesitated to give up
to the Church the revenues which formerly had come to them.
These cortes seem to have been a development from the
possessions which fell into the hands of the Lombard kings
soon after the conquest of Northern Italy. The kings not only
gained immediate possession of certain portions of the land
with its servile cultivators, but gradually gained rights of
tribute from artisans who were reduced to a semi-servile
position through burdens of taxation. J From a combination
of these two classes the royal cortes probably developed. The
inhabitants, therefore, were composed of agricultural serfs and
semi-servile artisans and small traders under direct control of
the king. In time, however, the king's rights in the cortes had
passed, by royal grant or otherwise, into the hands of provin-
cial lords ; and the secular authorities persistently resisted the
ecclesiastical encroachments. In the case of Cremona, par-
tiular mention is made of the determined and long-continued
opposition of the Cortis Sexpilas or Sexpilarum.§ In 916
this cortis was given to the Church outright ; || but even that did
not end the trouble, and frequent notice of the quarrel occurs
down into the eleventh century. The opposition of the
cortenses in this connection, and their claims to certain por-
tions of the river-bank,1[ are significant for our purpose, when
we consider that many of the inhabitants of a cortis were free

*This is affirmed in many of the later charters, commencing in 842. Muratori,
Antiquitates, ii. 977-978.

t See the numerous charters in Muratori and in Ughelli, Italia Sacra
(1717-22).

$Leo, 23; Hegel, ii. 262-263.

§ The modern Sospiro, a few miles south-east of Cremona.

|| Ughelli, iv. 794-966.

H Muratori, Antiquitates, ii. 881.

17

but tributary artisans and traders, and that, in some cases at
least, they were probably bound together in gilds.*

Another source of opposition was among traders from the
powerful maritime cities. Venice and Comacchio,f the one
lying to the north and the other to the south of the mouth of
the Po, apparently held a lion's share of the traffic of that river ;
and repeated mention is made of the merchants of these two
cities who came to Cremona. From time to time they sought
to evade the payment of the customary dues, but in each case the
rights of the bishop seem to have been successfully maintained.!

The point which most concerns us, however, is the third
source of opposition, which was among the citizens of Cre-
mona itself. Previous to about the year 845 these citizens had
not carried on any trading on their own account. They had
been engaged in trade, to be sure, but only in conjunction with
citizens of Cornacchio, and in ships belonging to the latter.
Jointly with them they had paid the taxes exacted by the
Cremonese church. But in the time of Bishop Panchoardus
(about 845) they had given up their connection with the mer-
chants of Comacchio, and had begun to carry on business in
their own ships and on their own account ; and within a few
years they made bitter complaints of the pressure of the epis-
copal exactions. The matter came to a head in 852. Com-
plaints were presented to the Emperor Louis II. " by Rothe-
carius, Dodilo, Gudibertus, et ceteri habitares of the city of
Cremona " that the Bishop Benedict was exacting from their
ships dues and tolls which neither they nor their ancestors had
ever paid before. A missus, Theodoricus, was ordered to in-
vestigate the case ; and, after examining many witnesses, he
rendered his decision in favor of the bishop. This decision
was made doubly binding by a new imperial charter of the
same year confirming the bishop's rights and condemning all
opposition.§ About twenty years later there was further

*See Hegel, i. 411, 483, 484, 491; ii. 262-263.

t The commerce of Comacchio is mentioned as early as the year 730. Heyd, i.
Ill, n. 4. See also Ughelli, iv. 786-788, and Lupus, Codex Diplomaticus Civitatis et
Eccleaiae Bergomatis (1874-99), ii. 278, seq.

t In 852, Muratori, Antiquitates, ii. 35-26; in 996, Muratori, Antiqutiates, i.
417-418, ete.

§For all this see Muratori, Antiquitates, ii. 951-954. The complaint of the
citizens was that Benedict, Bishop of Cremona, " muitaa violentias injuste feois-

18

difficulty, and once again the bishop's rights were upheld by
imperial decision. In this case the refusal to pay the tolls
seems to have come primarily from the traders of other cities
(guidam Longobardorum ac ceterarum gentium homines\ but
it is probable that the merchants of the city itself took a hand ;
for in the new charter which Louis granted the bishop (870)
pains is taken to condemn opposition from all persons whatso-
ever.* Still the friction continued to grow, and early in the
next century the traders of Cremona found the episcopal ex-
actions so unbearable that they determined to take a more
serious step. A document of 924 recites that they had " deceit-
fully " sought to move the " port " of the city to another place,
with the evident intention of escaping the dues which were
exacted from them in the old " port." The bishop promptly
appealed to Rudolph, King of Lower Burgundy and Italy;
and again he was victorious. A new charter confirmed all the
old rights and forbade any removal of the portus by the mer-
chants, f

In 978 and 992 fresh disputes arose, and Otto II. and Otto
III. again confirmed the rights of the bishop, this time more in
detail. $ Still another charter in 996 regranted the same
rights, mentioning them still more in detail, — gate dues,
wharfage dues, tolls on passing ships, " tarn Veneticorum quam
ceterorum navium." § Up to this point the royal or imperial
power seems always to have been on the side of the bishop ;
but now a change appeared, though it was to be but a tem-
porary one. The cives Cremonenses "illegally and by cun-
ning " obtained a decree from Otto III., transferring the con-
tested rights from the bishop to themselves. Their triumph was,

sot de suii navibus, que adducunt ad portum ipsius Civitatls, quod nobis ripati-
cum, et palilicturam sea paatum detulisset, qua nos nee parentes noBtros antea
numquain dederunt."

*Ughelli,iv. 788-790.

tMuratori, Antiquitates, vi. 49-52. " Denique negotiators ijusdem Civitatis
insidiose contra pref atam ecelesiam agere temptantes, si voluerunt Portum prae-
dictae Ecclesiae dissolvere, et diaboliea suasione in alia aliqua parte transmutare
. . . hoc contradieimus."

tTJghelli, iv. 794 ; Muratori, Antiquitates, vi. 219-220. In the latter year Otto
III. received the biBhop under his special protection, and insisted upon the recog-
nition of the Church's rights and hereditary possessions " quod a pravis hominibus
multa pateretur adversa."

§ Muratori, Antiquitates, i. 417-418.

19

however, very short-lived ; for Bishop Odelrich at once pro-
tested, and Otto annulled the grant to the citizens. Two
years later, in 998, the case came up again. The claim had
evidently been put forward on the part of the citizens that
the decree of Otto annulling their rights and reaffirming those
of the bishop was not authentic. A solemn court was held in
the cathedral at Cremona by an imperial missus. He sided
with the bishop, and declared that Otto's last decree was valid.f
The quarrel did not die here, however. In 1031 the citizens
refused to pay dues to the bishop, $ and the Emperor Conrad
was obliged to confirm to the Church once more all the old
rights, and to insist that the taxes should be paid by all mer-
chants, those of the city itself as well as outsiders. § In 1048
Henry III. wrote a long letter " cuncto populo Cremonensi,"
stating that he had received complaint from the bishop to the
effect that the church of Cremona had been subjected to many
infringements of the numerous concessions made by former
emperors to the bishops. || In order to bring quiet and to
settle the difficulty once for all, Henry once more confirmed
the bishop in his rights.^ The emphatic confirmation by
Henry was apparently, however, no more effective than those
of his predecessors ; for two new decrees were found necessary
within the next eighteen years, one by Henry IV. in 1058,**
and another by Pope Alexander II. in 1066.ft

We come now to an important turning-point. Every
extant charter granted during this long period which we have
been considering — more than two centuries — makes mention

*Muratori, Antiquitates, ii. 793-T94. The date of the charter which the
citizen* had obtained fraudulently is not given. The revocation of their right
came a few months after Otto's coronation, August 7, 996 : " Be it known to all our
faithful subjects . . . that the citizens of Cremona illegally and by cunning obtained
a decree" transferring the right to the tolls from the bishop to themselves.
" Having been informed by Odelric, Bishop of Cremona, of this fraud, we ...
have decreed that it shall be null and void," etc.

tlbid. t Hegel, ii. 139.

§ Muratori, Antiquitates, ii. 73,— " tarn ab incolis civitatia quam ab aliis aliunde
ad negotium venientibus."

HUghelli, iv. 808,— " de quibus se multas perturbationes et danina pati con-
queritur."

ITUghelli, iv. 808,— "et ripam Padi cum omni teloneo, seu curatura, atque
ripatico, a V ... usque ad oaput adduae, cunctasque piscationes . . . et navium
debito cursu." . . .

»* Ughelli, iv. 809-810. tt Ibid., 810-811 .

20

in one form or another of the contested dues. But the next
one which we have, that of 1098,* is ahsolutely silent on the
subject; and this silence makes it seem probable that the
bishops had at last given up the fight, and that the citizens
had finally gained the point on which they had so long been
insisting. Such negative proof as this could not, however, be
given much weight, were it not confirmed by a piece of evi-
dence, of little later date, which must be regarded as conclu-
^sive. In 1114, t Henry V. definitely, and in detail, confirmed
to the populo Cremonensi all the old revenue rights which had
formerly belonged to the bishops, speaking of them as having
been already for some time in the possession of the citizens
themselves. This same charter, furthermore, emphasizes the
direct connection between the acquisition of the bishop's
rights by the citizens and the commercial development of the
city by adding a special grant of freedom to trade throughout
Italy : . . . " et ut a Mari usque ad Papium secure et libere,
nemine eis quicquam moleste inferente; eundi et redeundi, et
mercandi secundum usum et antiquam consuetudinem eorum
cum navibus suis facultatem habeant, et per totum Regnum
nostrum Italiae secure vadant." It is important for our
purpose to note, too, that this charter which marks the tri-
umph of the citizens makes the first mention of the com-
mune.

Here, then, in this hasty glance over the history of
Cremona, we see an instance in which the rise and triumph
of the commune was connected pretty definitely with a com-
mercial quarrel which had been going on for two centuries
and a half between the bishop and the citizens, or a portion of
them. Just what part this quarrel played, how it was com-
plicated with other questions, we cannot say ; yet the outlines
of the development are sufficiently clear to make it certain
that, not only the rise of the citizens to political importance,
but also their assumption of control over their own affairs, was
closely associated with the growth of their commercial pros-
perity.

It would be possible to add other illustrations of the direct
influence of commercial growth on the communal organiza-

* Ughelli, iv. 812. t Muratori, Antiquitates, iv. 23-24.

21

tion.* In Ferrara we find traces of precisely the same sort of
quarrel as we have seen in Cremona. In Milan we find the
Motta, a party composed of valvassores, or lesser nobles who
had turned to trade because their failure to obtain adequate
income from their feudal possessions,! as early as the decade
between 1030 and 1040, forming a conspiracy for the main-
tenance jof their rights, t It is impossible, too, to read the
accounts of the disturbances of the Pataria in the latter half
of the century without being almost forced to the conclusion
that this party, nicknamed so contemptuously the ragamuffins^
contained in its ranks artisans, and perhaps small traders, who
were clamoring for a share in political rights. Our accounts
of these movements come to us through ecclesiastical channels,
and much of the emphasis is laid on the religious and ecclesi-
astical questions involved ; but the glimpses we get of a rising
commercial and industrial class,§ forcing their way into recog-
nition, are too distinct to be overlooked. In the present
paper, however, it will be impossible to examine these and
other similar cases in detail. The course of events in Cremona
alone, as we have traced it, is sufficient to establish at least
a strong presumption in favor of the suggestion advanced in
the early part of the paper. It only remains, therefore, to
sum up our conclusions as briefly as possible.

Accepting as a starting-point the general conclusion of re-
cent investigators that city development in Italy was caused
largely by economic forces, I have sought to explain just what
the peculiar economic forces were which so operated in these
particular cities as to advance them rather than other cities
of Europe to the leading place. This explanation we have
found to lie primarily in the unique position which Northern
Italy occupied with reference to the increasingly important
Oriental and African trade. Then, going a step farther, we
have noted certain arguments of a rather general nature

* Cf. for Ferrara, Frizzi ; Milan, Giesebrecht, iii. 28, seq., E. AnemttUer,
Oesc/nchte der Verfassung Mailands (1881), Bonfadini, Leo, Haulleville, etc. ;
Pavia, Leo, 99-100; Asti, Ughelli, iv. 605; Bergamo, M. Lupus, Codex Diplo-
maticus Civltatis et Ecclesiae Bergomatis (1784-99), ii. 621-624, etc.

t Leo, 116. t Ibid., 105, seq.

§ In Pavia the " artisans " as a body had created some sort of a disturbance
as early as 1004. See Leo, 99-100.

22

which go to establish a probability that upon the basis of
commercial prosperity there was a growth of power in the
hands of the mercantile classes in Italy similar to that which
took place in other parts of Europe. And, finally, making
a somewhat minute examination of the course of events in
a single city, in order to clinch the argument, we have found
that in that one instance, at least, there is fairly conclusive
evidence of intimate and direct connection between the com-
mercial development of the community and the assertion of
self-control on the part of the citizens. We must not, of
course, lose sight of the fact that the peculiar relations of
these Lombard cities to the Papacy on one hand and to the
Empire on the other furnished the political opportunity for
the development of the communes. The point to be empha-
sized is that the fundamental causes of development were
economic. Free city institutions in Northern Italy were not
merely one part of a favorable environment within which in-
dustry and commerce could flourish ; but these free institutions
themselves were, in the first instance at least, the direct re-
sult of economic development. A happy combination of
favorable political, geographical, and racial factors opened the
door to economic prosperity. Economic prosperity led directly,
first to municipal power, and then to independence and the
assumption, on the part of the wealthier citizens, of complete
control of affairs.

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