The development of the communal movement was based on. Coursework: Communal movement of medieval cities of Western Europe

Nevertheless, it was the city that was the cradle of freedom and “equal” rights in the medieval world. For the most part, these rights were won by the burghers during the so-called communal revolutions, when the burgher class managed to challenge the feudal lords for some of their rights as rulers of the city's lands.

In German cities, where the lord of the city was the archbishop, communal movements took on a particularly acute character. The citizens of Cologne were among the first to achieve communal freedom. The lord of the city, who concentrated all power in his hands, was the archbishop. It was he who held court here, and any city dweller, be it a poor man or a rich merchant, was completely dependent on the autocracy of the lord.

The Annals of Lambert of Hersfeld tells how for the first time (in 1074) the townspeople opposed the archbishop's tyranny. The archbishop's order to obtain a suitable ship for his guest turned into a trading disaster for one of the local merchants. The archbishop's servants, who captured the ship, threw all its goods overboard. A fight broke out between the merchant's son, his comrades and the archbishop's men.

Soon, the burghers who joined the injured merchant, among whom were the “first, most respectable,” as the chronicler writes, townspeople, surrounded the archbishop’s palace and began to throw stones at it, threatening the opposing side with weapons. The matter assumed such proportions that the archbishop was initially forced to hide in the Cathedral of St. Peter and then run.

At the initial stage of the struggle for their rights, the people of Cologne were defeated. The ruling archbishops plundered the city, punishing the rebel burghers, destroyed their houses, subjected them to corporal punishment, blinded them, imposed huge fines on them, etc.

However, as E. Ennen correctly noted, the wealth of the Cologne townspeople became a political factor. It was this that prompted the burghers to unite into a new community - an urban community, or commune, whose formation dates back to the 12th-13th centuries. It was this that provided the means to resist the power of the lord.

Thus, in 1106, the burghers, contrary to the will of the archbishop, surrounded the city with new fortifications, which meant a violation of one of the privileges of the lord - the right to erect city walls, strengthen and expand the territory of the city.

Already in the middle of the 12th century. In Cologne, such a corporation as Richerzeche appears - the “Workshop of the Rich”, which gradually begins to acquire more and more powers in managing the city. One of the first workshops in Germany - the Cologne workshop of bedspread weavers - was established without any consent of the archbishop and his officials.

In Forstadt, a trade and craft suburb of Cologne, the burghers erected the famous “House of Citizens,” which later became known as the town hall. It was here, far from archbishop's supervision, that the most important affairs of the Cologne city community were decided, burgomasters were elected, who represented the executive power in the city along with the seigneurial administration.

The people of Cologne had to overcome many obstacles on the way to gaining communal liberties. The need for money forced the archbishops to make certain concessions and transfer some of the privileges to the city commune. With the help of money, it was possible to attract political allies.

In 1288, Cologne's long struggle with the lord-archbishops ended after the battle of Warringen with the defeat and capture of another lord. The Duke of Brabant and the Count of Berg fought on the side of the Cologne people. After these events, Cologne actually became a free imperial city, only the highest court remained with the archbishop.

The history of Cologne's struggle for its freedoms - the right to freely dispose of income from crafts and trade, to independently govern the city - is the most striking example of the struggle of German cities with lords. Not everywhere the burghers managed to achieve such impressive results. The burghers had to repeatedly confirm every modest achievement by redeeming or winning certain rights and privileges from their lords.

Often communal movements resulted in the defeat of the townspeople and the strengthening of the seigneurial regime. However, the general trends in the development of the new urban structure were such that in most cities the burghers managed to oust the lord and secure for themselves some vital rights and privileges.

What were these rights? The picture of what the burghers achieved during the communal movements is extremely varied. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify a number of more or less general provisions of charters and regulations that assigned their rights to the burghers.

The most important achievement of the burgher “revolutions” was personal freedom guaranteed to city residents. Thus, the imperial privilege for Bremen stated that every person who lived in it “a year and a day” gained freedom. “The air of the city makes it free” - this legal formula opened up fundamentally new opportunities for citizens both for craft and trade activities, and for choosing a life path in a variety of areas. It is characteristic that this rule applied not only to the urban population itself, but also to newcomers, including dependent peasants.

The basis of the foundations of city liberties is its own, not seigneurial court. Thus, the residents of Strasbourg were granted the right by the emperor, according to which none of the townspeople, “whatever their condition,” could be summoned to “a judicial assembly established outside their city.” Even the lord of the city or the emperor himself did not have the right to summon a citizen to trial outside the city territory.

The meaning of privilege is quite clear. It was much more difficult to achieve justice in a seigneurial court, and even more so in someone else’s curia. It was not suddenly and not immediately that the city court became a sovereign authority. At first, the townspeople, as a rule, reprimanded or bargained for the opportunity to introduce their representatives to the seigneurial court. Citizens did not always achieve full judicial power, as can be seen in the example of Cologne. In cities where the lord was a clergyman, the process of gaining judicial independence proceeded with greater obstacles than where the lordship was secular. However, in general, the ousting of the lord's people from the judiciary ended in success for most cities.

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Detailed solution to paragraph 9 of history for 10th grade students, authors V.I. Ukolova, A.V. Revyakin Profile level 2012

Define the concepts and give examples of their use in historical science:

guilds - self-governing associations of artisans who defended the rights of their members, but at the same time regulated the quality and quantity of products produced, production technology, rules for obtaining the title of master and other aspects of internal life;

guilds - an association of merchants that defended the rights of its members, but at the same time regulated the rules of trade;

communal movement - the struggle of medieval cities for partial or complete liberation from feudal dependence and self-government;

burghers - citizens of free cities, the urban part of the working class;

scholasticism is a medieval science based on a synthesis of the achievements of antiquity and medieval Christianity, based mainly on the Holy Scriptures, as well as the works of Plato and Aristotle, and received the bulk of knowledge about antiquity from the works of Arab scientists, through the prism of their perception.

1. Why were there very few cities in Europe in the Early Middle Ages? When and why did cities begin to revive?

At the beginning of the Early Middle Ages, subsistence farming dominated in Europe. The peasants produced almost everything they needed themselves and bought a little from rural artisans. There was no room in the economy for separate settlements of artisans and traders. Therefore, the cities devastated during the invasion of the barbarians were not revived, but rather became increasingly empty.

They also became empty because the rural areas could not feed them. Within the Roman Empire, a significant part of the food was delivered to Gaul, Britain, etc. from the Mediterranean, with the formation of separate barbarian kingdoms and the general decline in trade, these supplies ceased. At the same time, European farmers continued to grow crops using Mediterranean methods that were simply not suitable for the colder climates of France, let alone Saxony. Several centuries before the spread of legumes and the widespread use of natural fertilizers, rural residents simply did not have enough surplus produce to support large cities.

The gradual revival of cities began in the 10th-11th centuries. Then new legumes and natural fertilizers increased yields, and exchange increased, also with the East.

A significant impetus to the development of cities was given by trade with the East after the First Crusade: as a result of it, Europeans bought eastern goods not from Muslims and Byzantines, but in their own trading posts on the territory of the new crusader states.

2. Describe the class of townspeople. What place did it occupy in the structure of medieval society?

The class of burghers (formally, bishops were also townspeople) was not homogeneous: it included apprentices of artisans, who were in many ways in the position of servants if their master’s business did not prosper, often went hungry, and the richest bankers, on whom some monarchs were financially dependent. There was a hierarchy within it.

Initially, artisans and traders played almost the same role in society as peasants. But gradually, with the development of the communal movement and the growth of the cities themselves, their importance grew. In many countries they played a major role in the process of centralization of states; in the Holy Roman Empire they became an independent political and military force. For example, the Hanseatic League of Cities in 1367-1370 confronted an entire kingdom (Danish) and was able to completely defeat its troops. In Northern Italy there were powerful city republics, such as Venice, Genoa, etc., which all countries in the region had to reckon with.

3. Explain the reasons for communal movement. What forms did it take?

The growth of cities and their strengthening;

The reluctance of the city elite to pay the feudal lords, as well as to make emergency payments at their request;

Periodic interference of feudal lords in trade matters (which also affected crafts) to the detriment of the city;

Absence of centralized states: in conditions of feudal fragmentation, rights could be achieved by the corporation that had the strength to defend them.

Ways to liberate cities from feudal dependence:

Some cities bought their independence from the feudal lords;

Sometimes cities bought the king's intercession with the feudal lord;

Others waged armed struggle for her sake;

Sometimes the armed struggle of cities took place in alliance with monarchs, who also fought against large feudal lords.

4. Prepare a report and electronic presentation about European merchants who traveled to distant lands.

Sample message/presentation plan:

1) designation of the time that will be discussed (because throughout the Middle Ages the situation changed several times);

2) a story about guilds and their place in European society;

3) a story about cities where merchants purchased goods for long journeys;

4) a story about the relationship between merchants and feudal lords, the borders of whose numerous possessions had to be crossed during the journey;

5) a story about other dangers on the roads, including robbers;

6) description of the proposed route (the most active trade was with the East);

7) a story about ships and navigation of the described time;

8) description of trading posts in the East (if we are talking about the times when they existed);

9) description of the sale of goods in the country of destination (in the case of eastern trade - to Byzantine or Arab merchants).

5. What was the basis of the worldview of medieval Europe? Using the map (p. 109), determine which religion spread throughout Europe. When did it happen?

The basis of the worldview was Christianity; it was precisely this that in the Early Middle Ages supplanted the ancient heritage and, even after its partial return, continued to play a key role in the Middle Ages and further until the era of Enlightenment and secularization of the 19th century.

It was Catholic Christianity that spread throughout Europe. The territory of the Roman Empire was baptized before its fall (however, the territory of modern England, during the conquest of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, again became pagan and was re-Christianized later). Also, before the onset of the Middle Ages, Ireland adopted Christianity (though it interpreted it in a very unique way). Many other peoples were baptized throughout the Early Middle Ages. The creation of Charlemagne’s empire played a big role in this (in particular, he also led a long and persistent struggle against the tribes of Saxony for their Christianization). Scandinavia and Rus' were baptized later (in the 10th-11th centuries). The Iberian Peninsula, which adopted Christianity as part of the Roman Empire, mostly became Muslim after the Arab conquest of 711-718 (and Islamization was voluntary). The Christian Church again became dominant in this territory during the Reconquista, which ended in 1492.

7. Continue filling out the “Stages of the Middle Ages” table.

see previous paragraph

1. Describe medieval European civilization from the point of view of historical (cultural) anthropology.

Until the end of the Middle Ages, this culture was agrarian (despite the development of cities) and Christian. Both made her quite conservative. Constant wars and poverty of people (hunger was a relatively frequent visitor) also left a significant mark; at the end of the period, epidemics also played a significant role.

2. Prepare a report on the three sources of Western European culture of the Middle Ages: ancient heritage, Christianity and the culture of barbarian peoples.

The basic outline of the message is formulated in the question itself.

3. List the distinctive features of the medieval city. Consider whether there are any contradictions between the description of the city in the paragraph and the words of the historian J. Le Goff: “The silhouette of the majestic city buildings, an instrument and symbol of the dominance of the rich in the city, gave rise to mixed feelings among the urban people, in which pride and admiration predominated. Urban society has managed to create... aesthetic, cultural, spiritual values.”

Distinctive features:

The corporatism of its inhabitants (guilds and workshops);

Craft and trade as the main occupations of the residents;

The presence of self-government or the struggle for it;

Protection by city walls;

Small size compared to the previous and subsequent eras;

Great crowding of life;

Significant unsanitary conditions by modern standards.

There is no contradiction between the statement of the great historian and the text of the paragraph. The quote probably refers to the grandeur of the buildings of the rich compared to the houses of more modest townspeople, mostly half-timbered, that is, with walls consisting of a wooden frame and filler in the form of straw and clay. The poverty of urban development is mentioned in the paragraph. Pride was associated with the communal movement: thanks to their wealth, the city elite was not inferior in power to many feudal lords. This movement is also discussed in the paragraph.

4. What were the causes of the crisis in the 14th-15th centuries? Can this era be considered the end of the progressive development of European civilization?

European civilization, both before and after these centuries, knew both sharp upheavals (the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the beginning of the Crusades, the Great Geographical Discoveries, a number of revolutions, including the industrial revolution) and gradual development in most areas of human activity. Therefore, these two centuries cannot be considered a milestone in this regard.

The reasons for the crisis of that time are as follows:

The formation of centralized states while maintaining the feudal worldview of society;

Redistribution of land between centralized states;

Fierce political struggle between monarchs and the church during the creation of centralized states;

The crisis of the Catholic Church as a result of defeat in the fight against the monarchs (the Captivity of Avignon, the schism of the church and the conciliar movement);

Large-scale epidemics;

The development of proto-capitalist relations, which came into conflict with the feudal order;

Loss for the Christian world of the Holy Land and Byzantium;

The expansion of the Ottoman Empire, which disrupted Europe's traditional trade ties with the East.

5. Select arguments from the textbook that prove the existence of a crisis in the 14th-15th centuries. Study additional literature and provide facts indicating positive trends during this period. Discuss the validity of scientists' claims about the crisis.

Arguments in favor of a crisis:

The wars of centralized states were much larger than feudal ones;

According to some estimates, epidemics claimed up to a third of the inhabitants of Western Europe;

The spiritual crisis manifested itself in a previously unprecedented struggle against heresy and magic;

The development of monetary relations, as well as population decline due to epidemics, led to a fall in feudal rent.

Based on these arguments, it is clear that a crisis was indeed observed. Crises are usually characteristic of the transition between historical eras.

However, there were also positive trends:

In Italy, the Renaissance was developing, which was preparing to flourish at the beginning of the 16th century;

Centralized states, despite large-scale wars, allowed a significant part of the population to feel safe, unlike the era of feudal strife;

Centralized states spurred the development of trade by removing some customs between the possessions of feudal lords and making roads safer;

The development of shipbuilding and navigation seriously failed the Europeans in the Age of Discovery, etc.

sah of the richest townspeople (Augsburg, etc.).

§2. City law of "liberties"

The most important result of the struggle of cities with lords is the liberation of the majority of residents from personal dependence. A rule was also established according to which a dependent peasant who fled to the city, after living there for “a year and one day,” became free. It was not for nothing that the medieval proverb said that “city air makes you free.”

Let us give examples from city law documents in which this rule is recorded.

In the City Charter of St. - The Omer (1168) records:

"32. If a serf of any lord becomes a citizen, he cannot be captured in the city, and if any lord would like to take him as his own serf, then let him bring his closest heirs, his maternal uncles and aunts for examination of this case; if he does not do this, he must be released."1

Articles 1 and 2 of the City Law, granted by Emperor Frederick II to the city of Goslar on July 13, 1219, read:

“1. If someone lived in the city of Goslar and during his life was not caught by anyone in a slave state, then after his death no one will dare to call him a slave or reduce him to a slave state.

2. If any stranger came to live in the named city and remained there for a year and a day, and he was never exposed to the condition of slavery, he was not convicted of this, and he himself did not admit it, then let him take advantage of common freedom with other citizens; and after his death, no one will dare to declare him their slave."

"If any man or woman stays unhindered in the city of Bremen within what is popularly called the Weichbild (city limits) for a year and a day and if anyone after that decides to challenge his freedom, then by imposing silence on the complainant , let him be allowed to prove his freedom by reference to the above-mentioned period."

The city thus became a symbol of independence in the Middle Ages, and thousands of serfs flocked here to escape feudal oppression. Not a single feudal lord had the right to seize his former serf in the city, now a free citizen, and again turn him into a bonded person.

The rights and liberties received by medieval townspeople were in many ways similar to immunity privileges and were of a feudal nature.

Thus, as a result of the liberation struggle, the population of cities took a special place in the life of feudal society and began to play a prominent role in class-representative assemblies.

Without constituting a socially monolithic layer, the inhabitants of medieval cities were constituted as a special class. Their disunity was strengthened by the dominance of the corporate system within the cities.

The most important result of the struggle of cities with lords was the liberation of citizens from personal dependence, enshrined in city law.

Conclusion

Having examined the theories of the origin of medieval cities, the ways of their emergence, the peculiarities of the relationship between townspeople and lords that led to communal movements, the features, forms and results of the liberation struggle of medieval cities, we came to the following conclusions.

Cities of a new, feudal type grew rapidly in Western Europe in the 10th - 13th centuries. as a result of the separation of crafts from agriculture and the development of exchange, as a result of the flight of peasants. They were centers of crafts and trade, differing in the composition and main occupations of the population, its social structure and political organization. The specific historical paths to the emergence of cities were varied. Despite all the differences in place, time, and specific conditions for the emergence of this or that city, it was always the result of a social division of labor common to all of Europe.

A medieval city arose on the land of a feudal lord and had to obey him. The desire of the feudal lords to extract as much income as possible from the city inevitably led to a communal movement - a struggle between cities and lords. At first, the townspeople fought for liberation from the most severe forms of feudal oppression, for a reduction in the lord's exactions, and for trade privileges. Then political tasks arose: gaining city self-government and rights. The outcome of this struggle determined the degree of independence of the city in relation to the lord, its economic prosperity and political system. The struggle of the cities was not carried out against the lords, but to ensure the existence and development of cities within the framework of this system.

The forms of communal movement were different. Some cities managed to obtain liberties and privileges from the lord for money. Other of these rights, especially the right of self-government, were won as a result of a long armed struggle.

Communal movements took place in different countries in different ways, depending on the conditions of historical development, and led to different results. Many cities became self-governing city communes. But many could not achieve complete self-government. Many cities, especially small ones that belonged to spiritual lords, remained entirely under the authority of the lord.

The most important result of the struggle of cities with lords was the liberation of the majority of Western European citizens from personal dependence.

List of sources and literature

Sources;

1. City law of the city of Goslar // Medieval city law of the 12th - 13th centuries. / Edited by S.M. Stama. Saratov, 1989. P.154-157.

2 . City law of the city of Strasbourg // History of the Middle Ages. Reader. In 2 parts. Part 1 M., 1988. P.173-174.

3 . Nozhansky Guibert. A story about one’s own life // History of the Middle Ages. Reader. In 2 parts. Ch.1.M., 1988. P.176-179.

4. Charter of the City of Saint-Omer // Medieval urban law of the 12th - 13th centuries. /Under the editorship of S.M. Stama. Saratov, 1989. P.146-148.

Literature;

1 . City of medieval civilization in Western Europe / Edited by A. A. Svanidze M., 1999-2000. T.1-4.

2 . Karpacheva E.S. The early stage of communal movement in medieval Carcass // Medieval city. Issue 4 1978 P.3-20.

3 . Kotelnikova L.A. Feudalism and cities in Italy in the VIII - XV centuries. M., 1987.

4 . Levitsky Y.A. City and feudalism in England. M., 1987

5. Negulyaeva T.M. Formation of the urban patriciate in medieval Strasbourg // Medieval City. Issue 4 1978. pp. 81-110.

6. Rogachevsky A.L. German burghers in the XII - XV centuries. St. Petersburg, 1995.

7 . Svanidze A.A. Genesis of the feudal city in early medieval Europe: problems and typology // Urban life in medieval Europe. M., 1987.

8. Stam S.M. Economic and social development of the early city. (Toulouse X1 - XIII centuries) Saratov, 1969.

9. Stoklitskaya-Tereshkovich V.V. The main problems of the history of the medieval city of the X - XV centuries. M., 1960.

10. Tushina G.M. Cities in the feudal society of Southern France. M., 1985.

Communal movements took place in different countries in different ways, depending on the conditions of historical development, and led to different results.

In Southern France, townspeople achieved independence without bloodshed (IX - XIII centuries). The counts of Toulouse, Marseille, Montpellier and other cities of Southern France, as well as Flanders, were not only city lords, but sovereigns of entire regions. They were interested in the prosperity of local cities, distributed municipal liberties to them, and did not interfere with relative independence. However, they did not want the communes to become too powerful and gain complete independence. This happened, for example, with Marseille, which for centuries was an independent aristocratic republic. But at the end of the 13th century. after an 8-month siege, the Count of Provence, Charles of Anjou, took the city, placed his governor at its head, and began to appropriate city revenues, dispensing funds to support the city’s crafts and trade that were beneficial to him.1

The cities of Northern France (Amiens, Laon, Beauvais, Soissons, etc.) and Flanders (Ghent, Bruges Lille) became self-governing city-communes as a result of persistent, mostly armed, struggle. The townspeople elected from among themselves a council, its head - the mayor and other officials, had their own court, military militia, finances, and independently set taxes. These cities were freed from rent and seigneurial duties. In return, they paid the lord a certain small monetary annuity, in case of war they deployed a small military detachment, and often themselves acted as a collective lord in relation to the peasants of the surrounding territories.

The cities of Northern and Central Italy (Venice, Genoa, Siena, Florence, Lucca, Ravenna, Bologna, etc.) became communes in the 9th - 12th centuries. One of the brightest and typical pages of the communal struggle in Italy was the history of Milan - the center of crafts and trade, an important transit point on the routes to Germany. In the 11th century The power of the count there was replaced by the power of the archbishop, who ruled with the help of representatives of aristocratic and clerical circles. Throughout the XI century. the townspeople fought with the lord. She united all the city strata. Since the 50s, the movement of the townspeople resulted in a civil war against the bishop. It was intertwined with the powerful heretical movement that then swept Italy - with the speeches of the Waldenses and especially the Cathars. The rebel townspeople attacked the clergy and destroyed their houses. The sovereigns were drawn into the events. Finally, at the end of the 11th century. the city received the status of a commune. It was headed by a council of consuls made up of privileged citizens - representatives of merchant-feudal circles. The aristocratic system of the Milan commune, of course, did not satisfy the masses of the townspeople; their struggle continued in subsequent times.

In Germany in the XII - XIII centuries. so-called imperial cities appeared - they were formally subordinate to the emperor, but in reality they were independent city republics (Lübeck, Frankfurt - on the Main, etc.). They were governed by city councils, had the right to independently declare war, conclude peace and alliances, mint coins, etc.

But sometimes the liberation struggle of cities was very long. The struggle for independence of the northern French city of Lana lasted for more than 200 years. His lord (from 1106) Bishop Gaudry, a lover of war and hunting, established a particularly harsh regime in the city, even to the point of killing the townspeople. The inhabitants of Laon managed to buy from the bishop a charter granting them certain rights (a fixed tax, the abolition of the right of the “dead hand”), paying the king for its approval. But the bishop soon found the charter unprofitable for himself and, by bribing the king, achieved its cancellation. The townspeople rebelled, plundered the courtyards of the aristocrats and the bishop's palace, and killed Gaudry himself, hiding in an empty barrel.

One of the first memoir works of medieval literature, the autobiography of Guibert of Nozhansky, “The Story of My Own Life,” provides vivid evidence of the uprising of the townspeople of the Lanskaya commune.

Guibert of Nogent (lived in the 11th - 12th centuries) was born into a French knightly family, became a monk, and received an excellent literary (partially philosophical) and theological education in the monastery. Known as a theologian and historian. His historical works are especially interesting. Possessing the talent of a writer, Guibert describes events vividly and colorfully.

Defending the interests of the church and standing guard over the feudal system as a whole, Guibert was hostile to the rebel townspeople. But at the same time, he openly exposes the vices and crimes of individual representatives of the ruling class, and speaks with indignation about the greed of the feudal lords and their atrocities.

Guibert of Nozhansky writes: “This city has long been burdened with such misfortune that no one in it feared either God or the authorities, and everyone, in accordance only with their own strengths and their desires, carried out robberies and murders in the city.

...But what can I say about the situation of the common people? ...The lords and their servants openly committed robberies and robberies; the passerby had no security at night; to be detained, captured or killed was the only thing that awaited him.

The clergy, archdeacons and lords... looking for every possible way to extract money from the common people, entered into negotiations through their intermediaries, offering to grant the right, if they paid a sufficient amount, to form a commune.

...Having become more accommodating from the golden rain that fell on them, they made a promise to the people, sealing it with an oath, to strictly observe the concluded agreement.

... Inclined by the generous gifts of the commoners, the king agreed to approve this agreement and seal it with an oath. My God! Who could tell of the struggle that broke out when, after the gifts had been accepted from the people, and so many vows had been made, these same people began to try to destroy what they had sworn to support, and tried to restore the slaves to their former state, once freed and delivered from all the burden of the yoke? Unbridled envy of the townspeople actually consumed the bishop and lords...

...The violation of the agreements that created the Lanskaya commune filled the hearts of the townspeople with anger and amazement: all persons holding positions stopped performing their duties...

...it was not anger, but the rage of a wild beast that gripped the people of the lower class; they formed a conspiracy, sealed by a mutual oath, to kill the bishop and his associates...

...Numerous crowds of townspeople, armed with swords, double-edged axes, bows, axes, clubs and spears, filled the temple of the Blessed Virgin and rushed into the bishop's courtyard...

...Finally unable to repel the bold attacks of the people, the bishop dressed himself in the dress of one of his servants, fled to the basement under the church, locked himself there and hid in a wine barrel, the hole in which was plugged by one faithful servant. Gaudry thought he was well hidden.

...the townspeople managed to find their victim. Gaudry, although a sinner, was nevertheless God's anointed one, was pulled out of the barrel by the hair, showered with many blows and dragged, in broad daylight, into a narrow monastery alley... The unfortunate man begged in the most pitiful terms for mercy, promised to take an oath that he would never will be their bishop, offered them large sums of money and undertook to leave the fatherland, but everyone answered him with bitterness only with insults; one of them, Bernard, raising his double-edged axe, fiercely cut this, although sinful, but sacred... man.”

The above document paints a vivid picture of the struggle of the townspeople of the city of Lana with the lord-bishop Gaudry, a typical representative of his class. From the document it follows that the townspeople of Lan, already possessing some material power, legally remained in the same dependence on their feudal lord as before. The senor could still

rob and oppress them, mock their dignity. Therefore, an uprising breaks out in the city, as a result of which the Lanskaya commune was destroyed. The King of France, Louis VI, who recognized the commune, treacherously broke his promise.

The king, with his armed hand, restored the old order in Lahn, but in 1129 the townspeople raised a new uprising. For many years there was then a struggle for a communal charter with varying success: sometimes in favor of the city, sometimes in favor of the king. Only in 1331 did the king, with the help of many local feudal lords, achieve a final victory. Its judges and officials began to govern the city.

Cities located on royal land, in countries with a relatively strong central government, could not achieve full self-government. This was almost a general rule for cities on royal land, in countries with a relatively strong central government. They enjoyed, however, a number of privileges and liberties, including the right to elect self-government bodies. However, these institutions usually operated under the control of an official of the king or another lord. This was the case in many cities in France (Paris, Orleans, Bourges, Lorris, Nantes, Chartres, etc.) and England (London, Lincoln, Oxford, Cambridge, Gloucester, etc.). Limited municipal freedoms of cities were typical for the Scandinavian countries, many cities in Germany, Hungary, and they did not exist at all in Byzantium.

Most of the small towns, which did not have the necessary forces and funds to fight their lords, also remained under the rule of the lords; This was especially true for cities that belonged to spiritual lords.

Thus, communal movements in different countries took place in different forms, depending on specific historical conditions.

Some cities managed to obtain liberties and privileges for money. Others won these liberties in a long armed struggle.

Some cities became self-governing cities - communes, but many cities either could not achieve full self-government or remained entirely under the authority of seigneurial administration.

1. Social structure of a medieval city.

When studying a medieval city, the problem of the social structure of its population inevitably arises. There are many aspects to this problem. The main one is: who are they, medieval townspeople, where did the urban population come from, what are its economic and social specifics? Other issues are also touched upon: property and social differentiation among townspeople and at the same time the integration of various elements and groups into the class of townspeople, full rights and lack of rights within the urban masses, etc. Who did the urban population consist of? From heterogeneous elements: from merchants who initially lived in isolated settlements, which in Germany were called “Wick”; from free and unfree artisans, dependent on the feudal lord, lord of the city; from the vassals of the city lord, from his servants who performed various administrative duties - they administered court, collected taxes from the population, they were called ministerials. The majority of the townspeople were originally unfree peasants, artisans, and fugitive rural people (who fled from their former masters). Most of the lands on which peasants worked, by the 11th century. belonged to the feudal lords. Peasants whose life was especially difficult were called servas in France, and villans in England. During continuous internecine wars, peasants sought protection from a neighboring lord or monastery. Having found a powerful patron, the peasant was forced to admit his dependence on him and transfer his land plot to him. The dependent peasant continued to farm on his previous plot, but for the use of it the master demanded the fulfillment of corvee labor and the payment of dues. The power of the feudal lord over the peasant was manifested not only in the fact that he worked as a corvee and paid quitrent, he was personally subordinate to the feudal lord, the landowner tried him in his court, the peasant did not have the right to move to another area without the permission of his master. However, despite the land and personal dependence on the feudal lord, the peasant was not completely powerless. The lord could not execute him, drive him away from his allotment (if he fulfilled his duties), sell or exchange him without land and separately from his family. A huge role in the life of medieval people was played by custom, which was observed by both peasants and lords. The size of the quitrent, the types and duration of corvee work did not change from generation to generation. What was established once and for all was considered reasonable and fair. The lords could not voluntarily increase peasant duties. The lords and peasants needed each other: some were “universal breadwinners”; from others, working people expected protection and patronage.

In the Middle Ages, the entire population of Europe was divided into three groups - three estates (people included in the three estates had different rights and responsibilities). The ministers of the church (priests and monks) constituted a special layer of the population - the clergy, who were believed to guide the spiritual life of people - to take care of the salvation of the souls of Christians; knights protect the country from foreigners; Peasants and townspeople are engaged in agriculture and crafts.

The fact that the clergy came first is not at all accidental, because the main thing for a medieval European was his relationship with God, the need to save his soul after the end of earthly life. The clergy had their own ecclesiastical hierarchy and discipline, as well as a sum of privileges that sharply separated them from the secular world. Church servants in general were more educated than knights and, especially, peasants. Almost all scientists, writers and poets, artists and musicians of that era were clergy; they often occupied the highest government positions, influencing their kings. The clergy was divided into white and black, or monasticism. The first monasteries - communities of monks - appeared in Europe after the fall of the Western Empire. Monks were mostly deeply religious Christians who wanted to devote their lives exclusively to serving God. They made vows (promises): to renounce the family, not to get married; give up property, live in poverty; unquestioningly obey the abbot of the monastery (in women's monasteries - the abbess), pray and work. Many monasteries owned vast lands, which were cultivated by dependent peasants. Schools, book copying workshops, and libraries often appeared at monasteries; monks created historical chronicles (chronicles). In the Middle Ages, monasteries were centers of education and culture.

The second estate consisted of secular feudal lords, or knighthood. The most important activities of knights were war and participation in military competitions - tournaments; The knights spent their leisure time hunting and at feasts. Teaching writing, reading and mathematics was not compulsory. Medieval literature describes the rules of worthy behavior that every knight had to follow: to be selflessly devoted to God, to faithfully serve his lord, to take care of the weak and defenseless; comply with all obligations and oaths. In reality, knights did not always follow the rules of honor. During wars, they often committed all sorts of outrages. The feudal lords lived in strong stone castles (there were about 40 thousand of them in France alone). The castle was surrounded by a deep moat; it was possible to get inside only with the drawbridge lowered. Defensive towers rose above the castle walls; the main one, the donjon, consisted of several floors. The donjon contained the feudal lord's dwelling, a feast hall, a kitchen, and a room where supplies were stored in case of a long siege. In addition to the feudal lord, his family, warriors and servants lived in the castle.

The bulk of the population of Europe in the Middle Ages was the peasantry, living in small villages of 10-15 households each. The peasants tried to free themselves from the oppression of the feudal lords by participating in the crusades, pilgrimages, and fled to the forests and to the reviving and emerging cities. They could only really free themselves by escaping to the cities. Thus, most of them were freed from personal dependence. We can be convinced of this by reading article 2 of the city law of the city of Goslar, granted by Emperor Frederick II in 1219: “If any stranger enters this city to live and stays in it for a year and a day so that no one accuses and will not catch him in a state of servility, may he rejoice in freedom, which is the common property of other townspeople, and after death no one will dare to make claims against him as his own servant.” A city man, an artisan or merchant, ceased to be a serf if he managed to live in the city for a certain period of time. He no longer felt the oppression of the landowner regime over him. The city air became magical and made the serf free. Only in the city, independently engaged in craft or trade, did the peasant have the opportunity to develop his activities. But this freedom was not absolute freedom. This was freedom from feudal-manorial oppression. The city lord still taxed the townspeople, but this taxation could no longer absorb the entire mass of surplus labor of artisans and all the trade profits of merchants.

On economic grounds, a new social layer, previously unknown to feudalism, was formed and united - the townspeople. Within the framework of the ruling class - the estate of feudal lords, more or less large estates operated, belonging to which provided a certain social status.

CM. Stam points out that the townspeople were a very heterogeneous group. But they were united by a common interest in the greatest freedom of development of urban commodity production and exchange. The objectivity of this social community was realized in the communal struggle, in the development of city law. City law is recorded in sources as a privilege. But how could it be otherwise in a society where law was a monopoly of the feudal class, and everyone else had no rights? The townspeople, naturally, had to win their rights and fix them, so to speak, as an exception. But these were not the privileges of the masters, but the conquest of the oppressed. For the first time in feudal society, city law violated the legal monopoly of the feudal lords and protected the interests of commoners, giving them full civil rights.

ON THE. Khachaturian draws attention to city corporations and notes that in order to realize his ability to work, an artisan had to become part of a guild organization that unites artisans of a given specialty and strives for a monopoly on production. Inside the workshop, he was forced to submit to the workshop regulations with their characteristic egalitarian tendencies, which can be considered as a peculiar manifestation of the non-economic coercion of the workshop organization in relation to its members.

The workshop is not the only type of community organization in the city. The form closest in nature to it was the merchant guild - an association of merchants with a certain discipline, common capital and common property in the form of an insurance fund and warehouse space. Even apprentices' unions - organizations already associated with the category of medieval labor, with a general mutual aid fund, control over working conditions and discipline - paid tribute to medieval corporatism. Finally, we should mention the city community itself as a whole, within which the unity of small professional corporations (guilds, guilds) or larger social groups (patriciate, burghers) was realized and a social community of city residents was formed.

The history of the city community itself, finally, which can be observed in the changes in the leading forces of the city community and forms of government, as well as changes in the status of full rights, which gradually became the property of a very narrow circle of people who not only own real estate, but also have access to city government, will reflect the deep shifts in the social structure of the urban class, which became more complex as feudalism developed.

The urban community is more likely to appear united and cohesive when it comes to its pressing economic, social and political interests. The main enemy, the main danger, was the lord; everything else retreated into the shadows and was rarely discovered. Economically, the new class was most associated with trade and craft activities. Usually the urban class is identified with the concept of “burghers”. The word “burgher” in some European countries originally meant all urban residents. Later, “burger” began to be used only for full-fledged citizens.

Cities nowhere played such a huge political role in the Middle Ages as in Italy, and nowhere was the scope of their trade relations as great as in this country. In addition, not only the emergence, but also the flourishing of Italian cities belonged to an earlier time than in other Western European countries. However, the various Italian cities differed greatly from each other in both their economies and their social structures.

Some of these cities (Venice, Genoa, Pisa) throughout the Middle Ages played mainly the role of the largest trading centers and were mainly engaged in foreign trade. At the same time, the growth of handicraft production in the cities of Central and Northern Italy increased the need for workers employed in urban crafts, and consequently, the influx of population from the countryside to the city. But this could only become possible by breaking the feudal shackles of the personal dependence of the peasants on the feudal lords. Meanwhile, although in the XII - first half of the XIII century. Among the peasantry of Northern and Central Italy there were a large number of personally free holders - libellarii; a significant part of the peasants continued to remain unfree (servi, masnaderii).

The liberation of the peasants, which occurred on a large scale in the second half of the 13th century. in Central Italy, was expressed in the personal liberation of peasants for ransom, without land. From the end of the 11th century. groups of personally free peasants began to create so-called rural communes, which had self-government and their own elected officials. These rural communes arose during a period when the cities, in their struggle against the lords, supported the peasants' desire for independence from the feudal lords. But after the victory over their own lords, the cities began to subjugate rural communes and abolish their self-government. They seized the communal lands of rural communes, and rich townspeople bought up peasant plots. By the end of the 13th century. in Florence, different layers of citizens with directly opposing interests have already sharply emerged. Merchants, money changers and moneylenders, united in seven “senior workshops”, were called “fat people”. Members of the junior guilds, their apprentices and the urban plebeians made up the majority of the population of Florence; they were called “the skinny people.”

The problem of the social structure of the city of Southern Italy is very complex. The social and economic appearance of cities was determined by many closely related factors, both pan-European and specific to a given region. The patriciate of the large cities of the Adriatic coast - Bari, Brindisi, Trani - accepted even in the 12th - early 13th centuries. active participation in trade with Byzantium and other Mediterranean countries. Another area of ​​activity that gave the patriciate great profits was the credit business. It was not uncommon for individuals or companies to combine maritime trade with shipping operations. Another part of the patriciate was more closely connected with the royal power than the trade and usury: from these families came officials who played a leading role in the internal political life of the city - baiuls, katepans and numerous judges. There were knights only in certain patrician families, and this did not change the social appearance of the upper stratum. The Normans settled in the cities in small numbers; Meanwhile, it was they who constituted the main backbone of chivalry before the Angevin conquest. Urban knighthood was distinguished by its originality not only in its activities.

The social structure of large cities located on the Tyrrhenian coast was somewhat different. If we exclude Amalfi (whose merchants settled in other cities, forming entire colonies there), the merchants of the ports of Salerno, Naples, and Gaeta in the 12th century. participated little in foreign trade. Partly for this reason, the nobility here was more closed. In the 13th century members of noble cities begin to make relatively widespread use of typically urban sources of income: they own shops and warehouses, and sometimes rent out houses and commercial premises. The profit received by a noble person from shops and houses is sometimes the object of a donation to the church. The bulk of the middle layer of the urban population were craftsmen. The increasing lag of the crafts of the South from Northern and Central Italy at this time is primarily explained by the economic policy of the Norman kings, and especially Frederick II, who provided patronage to the Venetian, Genoese and Pisan merchants, who delivered handicrafts here and exported grain and other agricultural products. In the cities of Campania - Naples, Salerno - artisans often passed on their profession by inheritance and were closely connected with each other, settling on

Literature on one street or around one church. Even in large cities there lived many small owners who were engaged in cultivating their lands, which were located not far from the city. Many of these owners, as the city economy weakened and fiscal oppression increased, became poorer and joined the heterogeneous motley mass of the urban plebs - unskilled laborers, loaders, day laborers. As we see, these were people of different social status. But over time, these differences are smoothed out, and a population, albeit heterogeneous in property terms, is created in its own way, bound by common rights and the obligation of mutual assistance, just as it was in the rural peasant community.

Finally, the townspeople used the labor of dependent people, as well as slaves, mainly for domestic work. Even in the 13th century. there were quite a few of them, especially in Bari, the main market for slaves captured on the Balkan Peninsula. Slaves were included in the dowry, handed over to heirs in a will, and pledged when receiving a loan. In the 13th century, when the opportunity to engage in a craft or find a profitable occupation in the city narrowed, the influx of rural residents into a large city decreased. The exception was Naples, which Charles I turned into the capital of the kingdom. After the Angevin conquest, many small and medium-sized cities were distributed as fiefs to the associates of Charles I, which significantly influenced their future fate. But the character of the big city and the position of individual sections of its population have undergone a noticeable transformation. The agrarianization of the city began, associated with the entry of the economy of Southern Italy into a long period of decline.

1. Marginalized people in a medieval city

The concept of marginality serves to designate borderline, peripheral or intermediate in relation to any social communities (national, class, cultural).

Marginal person (from Latin Margo - edge) – a person who is on the border of different social groups, systems, cultures and is influenced by their contradictory norms, values, etc. .

A marginal person, simply put, is an “in-between” person. The main sign of marginalization is the breakdown of social ties, and in the “classical” case, economic, social and spiritual ties are consistently broken.

There are individual and group marginality:

Individual marginality is characterized by the individual's incomplete inclusion in a group that does not fully accept him, and his alienation from the group of origin that rejects him as an apostate. The individual turns out to be a “cultural hybrid”, sharing the life and traditions of two or more different groups.

Group marginality arises as a result of changes in the social structure of society, the formation of new functional groups in economics and politics, displacing old groups, destabilizing their social position.

Speaking about the medieval city, it should be noted that not every resident of the city was a burgher. To become a full-fledged citizen of the city, one had to initially own a plot of land, and later - at least part of a house. Finally, a special fee had to be paid.
Outside the burghers stood the poor and beggars living on alms. Non-burghers also included people who were in the service of the burghers, as well as apprentices, clerks, people in the city service and day laborers.
Poverty was a temporary condition that people sought to overcome, and begging was a profession. They were doing it for a long time. Local beggars were firmly part of the structure of urban society.

Traveling artists. One of the marginal layers were traveling artists. Among them and their ancestors were ruined peasants, artisans who exchanged their instruments for the viol and harp, homeless clergy, wandering students and even impoverished people from noble families. On foot or in the saddle, they wandered around the world: in winter they spent the night in roadside taverns and on farms, paying with songs for shelter and meager food, and in the warm season they settled wherever necessary: ​​on the edge of the forest, near the village outskirts or on the market square of the city.
Representatives of the tribe of nomadic entertainers were despised as degenerate vagabonds who wandered around day and night and were not particularly picky in their choice of food. The preachers attacked the wandering motley people for their immorality and threatened them with excommunication; repentant histrions were not allowed to take communion; they were refused to be buried in consecrated ground.
Monuments of German legislation declared actors incompetent, although they did not equate them with thieves or robbers ("Saxon Mirror" (13th century). Violence could be inflicted on them without any compensation. The "Saxon Mirror" indicates a penalty for ridicule: "Actors and to all those who transfer themselves into the property of another, the shadow of a person serves as compensation,” in other words, they can punish only the shadow of the offender. A disdainful attitude did not exclude envy towards those who, despite all the squalor and disorder of their existence, despite all their dependence on the generosity of spectators or a noble patron had “carnival” rights and liberties.
Jews. The problem of the Jews in medieval Europe is, first of all, the problem of strangers. Their residence in Christian countries was not something that was taken for granted in the eyes of the indigenous population. The few Jewish communities lived off trade, which became their most distinctive feature. The Jewish moneylender was necessary for society as a lender - hated, but useful and irreplaceable. Jews and Christians especially often argued over the Bible. Public and private meetings between priests and rabbis continued. At the end of the 11th century. Gilbert Crispi, Abbot of Westminster, related the success of his theological dispute with a Jew who arrived from Mainz. Andrew of Saint-Victor, in the middle of the 12th century. set out to restore biblical exegesis, consulted rabbis
Executioners. This was a large family that carried out the justice of the law in all its simplicity, power and majesty. The elders, wise men, and priests gathered, judged, made judgments, and the whole people carried out the sentence that they passed. Since the concept of justice was connected with the name of God (Gods), then in their concept - to punish the guilty is to glorify the Creator. Refusing to participate in the punishment was not only shameful, but was even considered sacrilege. The executioner's house is painted red and stands away from the others. They very often add their pious exhortations to those of the priest, and when the execution of the unfortunate man is completed, they beg for heavenly forgiveness for forcibly separating the person from this light. The income of the executioners was very significant. At each market they had the right to demand from each seller game or livestock worth two soles. Previously, they had the right to receive tribute in eggs from sellers of this product. In Spain, the executioner wore a jacket made of brown cloth with red lapels (trimmings), a yellow belt and a wide-brimmed hat on which a ladder was woven in silver or gold.

Midwives. Obstetrics has been a predominantly female activity for centuries. Before the modern period, it was almost impossible to imagine male doctors assisting in childbirth. However, already in the Middle Ages, the institutions of patriarchal society through regulation began to influence the field of obstetrics. Birth was considered within the framework of the religious picture of the world of the late Middle Ages as one of the fateful, existential events in which the divine and human were especially closely intertwined. It was not only a purely medical process that required skilled artisanal support, but was seen as a divinely determined event, as an act of creation, and was therefore shrouded in an aura of fear and taboo.
In this sphere, between the divine and worldly principles of human existence, stood the midwife. Using various herbs, spells, prayers and ritual actions, midwives could perform an easy birth and deliver a healthy child, or, conversely, they could curse him and dedicate him to demons or the devil. In those days, there was a widespread belief that midwives practiced protective and protective witchcraft, designed to protect mother and child from demonic influence, from the evil eye and other harm to the child. It was this goal that was pursued by such ritual actions as, for example, untying ribbons from an apron, stockings and shoes, as well as unlocking locks throughout the house. Church catalogs of confessions confirm that these magical rituals, dating back to pre-Christian times, were still used quite often in the late Middle Ages.

Jesters. The psychological phenomenon of medieval culture is the “wisely mad” jester, an integral character of the holiday, his buffoonish accompaniment. The figure of a professional wit and foul-mouthed man is inseparable from the element of public entertainment. Jesters and fools were “permanent, fixed in ordinary (i.e., non-carnival) life, bearers of the carnival principle.” They completely got used to their comedic “mask”; the role and existence of the buffoon coincided. The type of jester contains a universal comedy, extending to the asociality and intemperance of the trickster himself (self-parody), to his fooled victims, high rituals, etc. The appearance of a city or court jester aroused contradictory feelings, oscillating between lively joy and reverent fear: after all, fools and holy fools (blessed ones possessed by madness) were endowed with the gift of clairvoyance and witchcraft.
For people of the Middle Ages, the jester (fool) was not just a comic figure, but also a bearer of the prophetic gift, for example, in courtly romance. Alien to the human world, he comes into contact with the invisible world, with higher powers (madness is a sign of divine possession).

Prostitutes. The religious element had a decisive influence on the development of sexual ethics in the Middle Ages, and at the same time on the attitude of the state and individuals towards prostitution and its organization. For the subordination of religion and the church, both in the East and in the West, was generally equivalent at that time to the development of life in accordance with the demands of reason. But life developed in a certain social environment, and the East and the West reveal both similar features and peculiar differences in this regard. These latter determined the different conditions of origin and various forms of manifestation of medieval prostitution, as well as its different relationships to the so-called “social question,” that is, to economic and social life (in the broadest sense of the word). Paris, Padua, Salamanca, Cologne, Leipzig and Vienna were considered the most disgraced due to the drunkenness and debauched life of students. Celibacy, as a favorable moment for the development of prostitution in the Middle Ages, is inferior in its significance to the then very widespread in all countries of the atrocities of the so-called “harmful” people, that is, people without certain means of living, whose existence was possible only thanks to beggary, all kinds of permissible tricks, theft and other criminal acts, as well as through prostitution.

1. Early urban culture. Universities. Pierre Abelard.

The burghers, who in their lives differed significantly from other segments of medieval society, also created their own culture. Urban culture was secular in nature and was closely connected with folk art. Poetic fables and jokes were popular among city residents, telling stories about resourceful city residents who found a way out of any difficult situations.

Urban culture had a striking manifestation in the development of literature. The most famous and beloved work of city residents was the French “Roman of the Fox,” in which, under the guise of animals, all layers of medieval society are represented - feudal lords, kings, priests, and townspeople. The main character is Renard the Fox, smart, cheerful, able to find a way out of any situation. Renard is the personification of a rich burgher. He constantly leads the Wolf Isegrin and his brother Primo by the nose (Primo personified as images of knights): either he will force Isegrin to catch fish with his tail and he will be beaten by the peasants, or he will convince Primo to serve in the church and he will barely escape from the angry peasants. November deceives Leo (king), mocks the Donkey (priest). Like a real Fox, he chases hares and chickens (Ordinary people), but nothing comes of it. The novel amused everyone. One abbot complained that his monks were more willing to read a novel than the Bible.

No less popular was “The Romance of the Rose,” which glorifies nature and human reason and affirms the equality of people. Urban literature fostered a sense of humanity. It reflected the self-awareness of townspeople who valued their freedom and independence.

An integral part of the city culture was the work of traveling actors, musicians, singers, dancers and acrobats, magicians, who were called jugglers. They were favorites of city dwellers. Traveling from city to city, they showed their performances in open-air city squares.

There were relatively few educated people in the Middle Ages. In the early Middle Ages, as you know, educated people lived mainly in monasteries.

The rise of Europe, which began in the 10th century, created a desire for knowledge and a need for educated people. Education began to expand beyond the monasteries.

In medieval Europe, three levels of schools can be distinguished. Lower schools existed in churches and monasteries, providing basic knowledge to those wishing to devote themselves to serving God. Here they studied the Latin language, which was used for worship, prayers and the order of worship itself. Secondary schools were often established at the residences of bishops. They studied the families of the liberal sciences - grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry. The latter contained geography, astrology, music. The first three sciences constituted the “trivium”, the next four - the “quadrivium”.

Since the 11th century. Higher schools arose in Europe, which were later called universities (from the Latin universitas - a totality). This name comes from the fact that the first universities were communities that united teachers and students (the students called the university “alma mater” - Affectionate Mother.) Such associations had their own clear rules of behavior, their own structure and claimed their independence from the city authorities, in where they were located.

The first such associations arose in the Italian cities of Salerno and Bologna, where they studied medicine and Roman law. During the XII - XIII centuries. the number of universities has increased steadily. The most famous were Paris (Sorbonne), Oxford and Cambridge (in England), Salamanca (in Spain), etc. In 1500 there were 65 universities in Europe.

The University of Paris became a model for European universities. It arose in the first half of the 12th century. and existed as a "free school". In 1200, King Philip II Augustus of France granted the “school” special rights. The university had four faculties: artistic (Preparatory, which studied the “seven free sciences”), medical, legal, and theological (philosophical).

Teaching at universities was conducted in Latin. This made it possible for students to begin their studies in one and finish in another. There was no clear duration of study at universities, and therefore some students studied for quite a long time. Students who traveled from one university to another were called vagantas(Vagabonds). The main forms of teaching were lectures and debates between professors.

Abelard Pierre Palais - French philosopher, theologian, poet. He developed a doctrine later called conceptualism. He developed scholastic dialectics (the essay “Yes and No”). Abelard's rationalistic orientation (“I understand in order to believe”) caused protest from orthodox church circles: Abelard's teaching was condemned by the councils of 1121 and 1140. The tragic story of Abelard's love for Heloise is described in his autobiography, "The History of My Disasters."

Born in the vicinity of Nantes into a noble family. Having chosen a career as a scientist, he renounced his birthright in favor of his younger brother.

Abelard reached Paris and became a student there of the Catholic theologian and philosopher Guillaume of Champeaux. Abelard began to openly and boldly oppose the philosophical concept of his teacher and this caused great dissatisfaction on his part. Abelard not only left the cathedral school, but also decided to open his own.

The school was opened, and the lectures of the new master immediately attracted many students. In Paris, as in other cities of North-Eastern France, there was a stubborn struggle between representatives of various philosophical schools. In medieval philosophy, two main directions emerged - realism and nominalism. The founder of medieval nominalism was Roscelin, Abelard's teacher, and contemporary realism was represented by Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, the learned mentor of the theologian Anselm of Lansky, whose closest student was Abelard's philosophical enemy, Guillaume of Champeaux.

Proving the “reality” of the existence of objects of faith, medieval realism met the interests of the Catholic Church and found full support on its part.

The nominalists contrasted the teaching of the realists with the doctrine that all general concepts and ideas (universals) are only names (“nomia” - “names”) of things that actually exist and precede concepts. The nominalists' denial of the independent existence of general concepts undoubtedly cleared the way for the pursuit of empirical knowledge.

The Church immediately saw danger in the teachings of the nominalists and at one of the church councils (in Soissons, in 1092) anathematized their views.

Returning from Laon to Paris in 1113, Abelard resumed lecturing on philosophy.

In 1118, he was invited by a teacher to a private house, where he became the lover of his student Heloise. Abelard transported Heloise to Brittany, where she gave birth to a son. She then returned to Paris and married Abelard. This event was supposed to remain secret. Fulbert, the guardian of the girl, began to talk everywhere about the marriage and Abelard again took Heloise to the Argenteuil convent. Fulbert decided that Abelard forcibly tonsured Heloise a nun and, having bribed hired people, ordered Abelard to be castrated.

The philosopher entered the monastery of Saint-Denis and resumed teaching.

A church council convened in 1121 in Soissons condemned Abelard's views as heretical and forced him to publicly burn his theological treatise. Returning to the monastery of Saint-Denis, Abelard immersed himself in reading monastic manuscripts and spent several months doing this. In 1126, he received news from Brittany that he had been elected abbot of the monastery of St. Gildasius. Completely unprepared for the role of leader, he quickly spoiled relations with the monks and fled from the monastery of St. Gildasius.

Returning from Brittany to Paris, Abelard again settled on the hill of St. Genevieve. As before, Abelard's lectures were well attended, and his school once again became a center for public discussion of theological problems.

The book “The History of My Disasters” played a significant role in Abelard’s special popularity. The most famous among students and masters of the “liberal arts” at this time were such works of Abelard as “Dialectics”, “Introduction to Theology”, the treatise “Know Thyself” and “Yes and No”.

The basic principle of Abelard's ethical concept is the affirmation of a person's full moral responsibility for his actions - both virtuous and sinful. A person's activities are determined by his intentions. In itself, no action is either good or evil. It all depends on intentions. In accordance with this, Abelard believed that the pagans who persecuted Christ did not commit any sinful actions, since these actions were not in conflict with their beliefs. The ancient philosophers were not sinful either, although they were not supporters of Christianity, but acted in accordance with their high moral values.

these principles. The general spirit of Abelard's teaching made him, in the eyes of the church, the worst of heretics.

The initiator of a new church council in 1140 was Bernard of Clairvaux. Along with representatives of the highest clergy, King Louis VII of France also arrived at the Sens Cathedral.

The council participants condemned Abelard's writings. They asked Pope Innocent II to condemn the heretical teachings of Abelard, merciless reprisals against his followers, prohibiting Abelard from writing, teaching, and the widespread destruction of Abelard's books.

Sick and broken, the philosopher retires to the Cluny monastery.

In 1141-1142, Abelard wrote "Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew and a Christian." Abelard preaches the idea of ​​religious tolerance. Every religion contains a grain of truth, so Christianity cannot claim that it is the only true religion.

Abelard died on April 21, 1142. Heloise transported Abelard's ashes to the Paraclete and buried him there.

1. Creativity of vagants.

Vagants (from the Latin clerici vagantes - wandering clerics) - “wandering people” in the Middle Ages (XI-XIV centuries) in Western Europe, capable of writing and performing songs or, less often, prose works.

In the wide use of the word, the concept of vagants will include such socially heterogeneous and undefined groups as French jugglers (jongleur, jogleor - from the Latin joculator - “joker”), German spielmans (Spielman), English minstrels (minstral - from the Latin ministerialis - “servant” ) etc. However, usually the word vaganta is used in a narrower sense to designate wandering poets who used in their work exclusively, or at least predominantly, the Latin language - the international class language of the clergy. The first vagants were clergy who lived outside their parish or did not hold a specific church position at all; Over time, the vagantas began to be replenished by school student associations, moving from one university to another. Only later - already in the era of weakening of the poetry of the vagantes - representatives of other classes, in particular the urban one, began to join this group.

The social composition of this group determines both the forms and content of the poetry of the vagants. In the forms of their lyrical and didactic poetry, the Vagantes are closely connected with the learned Latin poetry of the Carolingian era, in which all the elements of the Vagant form (tonic versification, rhymes, vocabulary, images and stylistic decorations) are presented in a separate form, and through it - with the Latin poetry of early Christianity and the ancient world. For the love lyrics of the Vagants, the importance of Ovid (“The Science of Love” and other works) is especially great.

The influence of ancient poetry is reflected not only in the mythological accessories (Venus, Cupid, Cupids, sometimes even nymphs and satyrs) with which the vagantes loved to decorate their works, and in the names of the characters (Flora, Phyllida, etc.), but also in the concept love and the image of the beloved, completely devoid of reminiscences of feudal relations (courtly service to a lady) so typical of courtly lyrics and imbued with the purely earthly joy of carnal pleasure; It is characteristic that the description of a naked body (an interesting motivation in one of the songs is a spied bath) is more typical of vagant poetry than the lyrics of troubadours and minnesingers (see “Walter von der Vogelweide”). An echo of learned poetry is the penchant of vagantes for forms of dialogic discussion of the casuistry of love (conflictus, certamen).

One can establish reminiscences of ancient poetry in the descriptions and symbolism of nature in the vagants, which in the brightness of their colors often surpass the spring beginnings of courtly lyrics; on the other hand, in the symbolism of nature, the Vagants have many similarities with folk songs, which undoubtedly influenced their poetry. The motifs of wine and drunkenness come into contact with the motives of love in the lyrics of the vagants; Numerous student songs were subsequently developed from the genre of drinking songs of the vagants: “Meum est propositum” (op. “Archipiites”, 12th century), “Gaudeamus igitur”, and others.

Formally, the vagantes use elements of religious literature in their satire - they parody its main forms (vision, hymn, sequence, etc.), going so far as to parody the liturgy (“Missa gulonis”) and the Gospel (“Evangelium secundum Marcam argentis”).

In their connection with ancient poetry, vagantes are the harbingers of the Renaissance. The work of the vagants is anonymous, but some authors are still known: Gautier from Lille - aka Walter of Chatillon (second half of the 12th century), who wrote “Contra ecclesiasticos juxta visionem apocalypsis”; Primate of Orleans (early 12th century); a German vagant, known by his nickname “Archipoeta” (second half of the 12th century), and a few others.

The Vagantas have been persecuted by the church and the state throughout their existence; in the 16th century, they, drawing closer to the wandering professional jugglers - "joculatores", - were completely identified with the so-called "vagabundi" (rabble). In the south (except Italy, where the vagantes are attested) and in the east of Europe, only the belated beginnings of the vagante movement took place.

HUGO OF ORLEANS Primate (1093? - 1160)

ARCHITHE OF COLOGNE (1130-1140 - after 1165) a knight of low birth, an expert in antiquity, a certain secular gloss in his lyrics

WALTER OF CHATILLION (mid 12th - early 13th centuries)

THOMAS BENET

Two themes of the vagants’ lyrics: love, satirical

Genres: love songs, pastoral, satirical denunciation, laments and panigyrics (often custom-made), complaints, poetic short stories or ballads.

1. The disintegration of the guild and the rise of free craft in the countries of Western Europe.

Craft - small handmade production of products - arose long before the Middle Ages and continues to this day. The Middle Ages, however, are the era of its heyday. Professional artisans coexisted with all classes of medieval society. As a rule, there were rural artisans in every village; specialists - gunsmiths, bakers, saddlers, etc. - served knightly castles and could even be ignoble vassals of the lowest rank, having received a forge or bakery as fief; monasteries, as more or less closed economic organisms, could, like secular estates, flourish only with a sufficient supply of handicrafts, hence the highly developed monastic craft of the Middle Ages. However, the main place for the development of crafts was the city. In the village, the blacksmith was the only professional craftsman; in the castle and monastery, artisans were usually a small part of the servants or brethren; in the cities, they formed a considerable (if not the main) share of the members of the commune. It was in the cities that the question arose about organizing them into self-governing collectives - guilds, which, however, did not take shape everywhere: in many cities of Western Europe, artisans reported directly to city authorities.

Medieval guilds - associations of urban artisans of the same or similar specialties - appear, apparently, in the 10th-11th centuries, the fixation of their statutes dates back to the 12th - early 14th centuries. Actually, the production team itself was small: due to the low level of division of labor, the product did not change hands, and one master, albeit with several assistants - family members, apprentices, students - made the entire thing. But in the traditional, class-based, corporate society of the Middle Ages, the constitution of any activity most successfully occurred through the unification of those involved in this activity into a collective recognized by society. Therefore, in most urban crafts in Western Europe, the heads of production teams sought to unite into workshops. The workshops were divided by profession, and the dividing criteria were based not on the nature of production, but on the products produced, distinguished by function. For example, technologically identical household knives and combat daggers were made by members of different workshops: cutlers and gunsmiths, respectively. The unit of the workshop was its full member - the foreman who owned the workshop. Ideally (and if this did not contradict technological capabilities), the product should have been manufactured completely within one workshop: from preparing the material to decorating the finished item. The master was assisted in his activities by workers subordinate to him: journeymen and apprentices. The student worked for board and shelter and often paid for his education himself (or his relatives). The apprenticeship usually lasted from two to seven years, and in some cases even 10-12 years. Having completed the apprenticeship, he became an apprentice who received payment for his work. However, he was not so much a hired worker on the model of modern workers, but rather an assistant to the master, who usually lived with him under the same roof. An apprentice could already become a master himself, but for this it was necessary to have a certain income, often a family, and in some places - to first travel around the world, improving his skills. In addition, an exemplary product had to be produced - a masterpiece, which was evaluated by a council of shop foremen. If the product complied with the established rules, then the apprentice - after treating the workshop members - became a full-fledged master and could participate in the life of the corporation, in the election of its leadership, in making internal shop decisions, etc. (however, sometimes apprentices also had a limited right to vote in the affairs of the workshop).

People of the Middle Ages did not know the division of their life and activities into industrial, public, private, etc. A medieval workshop is a community not of producers, but of people, with their own thoughts, feelings, values, beliefs, united by a common type of production activity. Therefore, the main task of the workshop is to regulate not production, but human relations. The word "shop" comes from the German "Zeche" - feast, i.e. derived from the concept of "feast"; This is also the origin of the word “guild”, which united both communities of traders and, often, communities of artisans. In the medieval sense of the word, “feast” is not private entertainment, but a special form of interpersonal communication, an act of social communication, and even a type of element of a system of management and self-government. The workshops - not everywhere, but where they achieved an official position in the communes - were units of city self-government, and the city militia was organized in the workshops. But the central function of the guild is to ensure a decent life for its members, decent not only in the economic, but even in the everyday sense: the leadership of the guild monitored the good behavior of its members, especially apprentices, demanded an unblemished reputation, and monitored marriage ties, entertainment, clothing and jewelry of the masters , their wives and henchmen. The workshop strictly regulated production: the quality and quantity of products produced by each master. Bad, low-quality products tarnished the good name of the workshop, therefore those who produced such products were punished with fines, exclusion from the corporation, and even disgraceful punishments. Quality was meant not only in the material sense we are familiar with. There is a known ban on purchasing raw silk from Jews, i.e. The quality of the material also included the quality of religion and other personal characteristics of the manufacturer of this material.

The production of not only bad goods or those produced in insufficient quantities was suppressed, but also those that were too good or made in too many quantities, because differences in the volume and quality of goods produced could lead to the fact that someone would buy more from someone, someone would buy more from someone else. the cost of production is lower and, therefore, he will be richer than the other, and this will cause stratification and conflicts in the community. Therefore, the number of auxiliary workers was limited, i.e. journeymen and apprentices, length of working day, etc. The guild cash register, to which the artisans contributed a share of their income, was intended to help the impoverished members of the guild, their widows and orphans.

Forced equality within the workshop was combined with inequality between different workshops. The point is not only that some workshops - for example, jewelers - were richer than others, say, porters, or that some, for example, sculpture carvers, required more skill than others, for example, furriers. The character and area of ​​activity, the “honor” of both played a role: for example, doctors, who gave life to people, were revered more than butchers, who took life from animals.

Almost any phenomenon of the Middle Ages - the state and classes, diseases and natural disasters, sins and virtues - had their own saints, “responsible” for these phenomena, caring for them, or turning them away from them. Every craft and every workshop had its heavenly patron. Admirers of this saint united in local organizations - brotherhoods. The duties of the latter included charity towards their fellow members, including their worthy burial and funeral services, and the creation of churches and chapels in honor of their saint, and the organization of guild festivities dedicated to the saint - the patron saint of the craft. The entire life of a medieval guild artisan - social, economic, industrial, religious, everyday, festive - took place within the framework of the guild brotherhood.

The technical achievements of medieval crafts and the positive knowledge accumulated by medieval artisans are especially mentioned. Actually, scientific knowledge was not widespread in the craft environment. It does not follow from this, however, that there was no “quasi-theory” that explained craft actions and knowledge. Studies of recipe collections that have come down to us, albeit in a small number, show that the craft was closely connected with magic. The most exotic means were used, such as basilisk ash, dragon blood, hawk bile or red-haired boy urine, and the use of only some of these ingredients has a rational technical basis. Analysis of recipes shows that behind craft activities there is a mythical and magical picture of the world. The production act of a craftsman could be considered as a fragment of some magical ritual, reproducing a myth, in particular, a snake-wrestling myth. The master craftsman, as it were, repeated in his actions the initial struggle of cosmic forces, the creation of the Cosmos and things useful to man, and elevated himself to a demiurge and cultural hero.

The widespread use of magic not approved by the church, traditionally present in a number of crafts, led to conflicts with orthodox religious views. Theological works, including those that relate to “popular theology”, to the religion of the masses, and not the intellectual elite (see, for example, “The Lamp of Honorius of Augustodunus”) speak of the “deceptiveness” of the creativity of the masters. Studying manuals for preachers, i.e. texts that more or less reflect the knowledge that the local clergy conveyed to their parishioners, allows us to conclude that certain ancient Christian ideas reached the latter: that the world was created by God, consists of matter and form created by God, that everything that comes from God is beautiful, etc. In the eyes of the artisan, the creation of things was thus comprehended in the forms of not only archaic myth, but also ancient Christian ideas.

The description of any product begins with an indication of the origin of the source material. For example, with the thesis “crystal is water solidified into ice, and ice turns into stone over time,” the recipe for making a crystal top for a bishop’s crozier begins. Information about decorating the product (“decorate it with a notch of flowers, and let the golden flower certainly be replaced by a silver one”) completes the group of recipes for melting iron. Discussions about decorating objects are connected in the mind of the artisan (if you believe the prologue to one of the recipe collections of the 12th century) with the idea that the form of the product comes from God; and the proof that the master has faithfully reproduced it, seen with spiritual eyes, or, in the words of Thomas Aquinas, “conceived in the depths of his mind,” is the beauty of the product. This is why, among other things, medieval crafts are inextricably linked with art. The Latin "ars", from which the modern European words for art are derived, in the Middle Ages meant rather "skill". And if the “artes” were divided into “free” (grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, the latter meaning the doctrine of harmony, and not the performing arts) and “mechanical” (from blacksmithing or carpentry to healing and acting), then this was not a division into “low craft” and “High Art”, but a distinction between the ability to think and the ability to do; the first, however, was more prestigious than the second.

Craft knowledge, thus, was a special knowledge-skill, knowledge that made it possible to understand the essence of things. This knowledge is secret, kept secret, and not only because its possession allows the craftsman to rise above the ignorant, or to make much better products, but also because this knowledge is too strong to fall into the wrong hands - and this is another an argument in favor of mandatory “good behavior” for those entering the guild. At the same time, knowledge should be open to all “good” people, i.e. to all members of a given workshop, because within it no one can or should hide anything from others: craft knowledge must be common to all members of the workshop.

The craftsman felt himself to be part of a certain whole - a community, a corporation, uniting with it not so much in the process of everyday work, but in life, through social connections, and not narrow production ones. Medieval cities were relatively small, and the number of guild members was limited. All this - the size of the workshop, workshop, city - contributed to personal contacts between the craftsmen and the development of informal connections between them. Constant personal contact was even expressed in the fact that the boundaries of a person’s personality and even “physical” boundaries did not pass where we draw them today. The guild of Cologne barbers forbade its fellow members to undergo surgical operations without the consent of the guild elders, i.e. the bodies of the masters seemed to not completely belong to them.

The knowledge of artisans was empirical, acquired by the labor of many generations, and therefore, as it were, independent of a specific person, but belonging to the working community as a whole. And since in the activities of a craftsman personal and production were not separated, then in his knowledge, in his everyday behavior, technological skills and moral and ethical properties merged together. His knowledge was not science, but a skill and a gift from above. This lay on top of the specific information recorded in the recipe and could only be transmitted through personal communication, which again strengthened informal connections, and also led to the fact that this skill, inseparable from a person, was transmitted along with his other personal properties, and the mentor and the student seemed to be united by personalities, i.e. had, so to speak, common personal qualities. But not only these two united, but also all the previous mentors, so that in each person the entire workshop, including the masters of the past, seemed to be concentrated. This “continuity of personality” greatly contributed to the continuity of knowledge, but at the same time, its conservatism.

The master became close not only with his fellow workers, but also with the products he produced. They were not faceless goods, but, as it were, part of himself. The products imprint the personality of the master in all his integrity, with all his life qualities. So it's like a bad person

Chapter I: The emergence of medieval cities. Cities under the rule of lords

§3. City under the rule of a lord

Chapter II. Forms and features of the urban liberation movement

Conclusion

List of sources and literature

Introduction

By the X - XI centuries. Important changes took place in the economic life of Western Europe. The growth of productive forces, associated with the establishment of the feudal mode of production, in the early Middle Ages was most rapid in crafts. It was expressed there in the gradual change and development of technology and mainly the skills of crafts and trades, in their expansion, differentiation, and improvement. Craft activities required increasing specialization, which was no longer compatible with the work of a peasant. At the same time, the sphere of exchange improved: fairs spread, markets emerged, the minting and circulation of coins expanded, and means and means of communication developed. The moment came when the separation of crafts from agriculture became inevitable: the transformation of crafts into an independent branch of production, the concentration of crafts and trade in special centers. Another prerequisite for the separation of crafts and trade from agriculture was progress in the development of the latter. The cultivation of grain and industrial crops expanded: vegetable gardening, horticulture, viticulture, and winemaking, oil-making, and milling, closely related to agriculture, developed and improved. The number of livestock has increased and the breed has improved. The use of horses brought important improvements to horse-drawn transport and warfare, large-scale construction and soil cultivation. The increase in agricultural productivity made it possible to exchange part of its products, including those suitable as handicraft raw materials, for finished handicraft products, which relieved the peasant of the need to produce them himself.

Along with the above-mentioned economic prerequisites, at the turn of the 1st and 2nd millennia, important social and political prerequisites appeared for the formation of specialized crafts and medieval cities in general. The process of feudalization was completed. The state and the church saw their strongholds and sources of income in the cities and contributed to their development in their own way. A ruling stratum emerged, whose need for luxury weapons and special living conditions contributed to an increase in the number of professional artisans. And the growth of state taxes and seigneurial rents, until a certain time, stimulated market relations of peasants, who increasingly had to endure not only surpluses, but also part of the products necessary for their life. On the other hand, the peasants, subjected to increasing oppression, began to flee to the cities, this was a form of their resistance to feudal oppression.

In the village, crafts were very limited, since the market for handicraft products there was narrow, and the power of the feudal lord deprived the artisan of the independence he needed. Therefore, artisans fled from the village and settled where there were the most favorable conditions for independent work, marketing their products, and obtaining raw materials. The movement of artisans to market centers and cities was part of a general movement of rural residents there. As a result of the separation of crafts from agriculture and the development of exchange, as a result of the flight of peasants, including those who knew any craft, in the X - XIII centuries. (and in Italy from the 9th century) cities of a new, feudal type grew rapidly throughout Western Europe. They were centers of craft and trade, differing in the composition and main occupations of the population, its social structure and political organization. The formation of cities in this way

not only reflected the social division of labor and social evolution of the early Middle Ages, but was also the result of them.

Medieval cities had a significant impact on the feudal society of Western Europe and played an important role in its socio-political economic and spiritual life. In particular, the emergence of a medieval city was the beginning of the stage of developed feudalism with a new economic structure represented by small-scale crafts. The city significantly changed the structure of medieval society, giving rise to a new social force - the class of townspeople. Within its walls a special social psychology, culture and ideology were formed, which had a great influence on the social and spiritual life of society. In addition, the development of urban production was one of the factors contributing to the decomposition of feudalism and the emergence of early capitalist relations.

Having arisen on the land of a feudal lord, the city found itself completely dependent on its lord. This situation hampered its further development. Thus, starting from the 10th century, a communal movement developed in Western Europe. The degree of urban freedoms and privileges, the economic development of the city, as well as the political structure of the urban community depended on the outcome of this struggle.

One of the main goals of the anti-seniorial movement was to obtain self-government rights for the city. However, the results of this struggle in different regions and countries were different.

The degree of independence of the city depended on the freedoms and privileges laid down in the city charter, which determined its economic and political growth. Therefore, the study of the features and forms of communal movement in medieval cities of Western Europe is relevant.

The purpose of this work is: to identify the essence and main forms of communal movement in medieval cities of Western Europe.

1) reveal the essence of the main theories of the origin of medieval cities; show the ways of their emergence, identify the peculiarities of the position of cities in relation to the lords;

2) show the main forms of communal movement in medieval cities;

3) identify the main results of the communal movement.

The political and socio-economic history of medieval cities in Western Europe has been the topic of many studies, which also reflect some of the problems of the communal movement. Issues of the development of medieval cities of Western Europe, their struggle for communal freedoms are presented in the works of such recognized medievalists as A.A. Svanidze, S.M. Stam, Stoklitskaya - Tereshkovich V.V. and etc.

Of the newest studies, the most generalizing one is the collection of works of domestic urbanists, “The City of Medieval Civilization of Western Europe.” The publication covers the period from the emergence of medieval cities to the end of the 15th century and covers various aspects.

The works of L.A. are devoted to the problems of the emergence and development of individual cities of medieval Europe, the peculiarities of the liberation struggle of these cities. Kotelnikova (city of Italy), Y.A. Levitsky (city of England), G.M. Tushina (city of France), A.L. Rogachevsky (city of Germany), etc.

There are very few special studies devoted to the communal movement of cities. Among them is an article by M.E. Karpacheva "The early stage of the communal movement in medieval Carcass", article by T.M. Negulyaeva, dedicated to the results of the struggle against the lords and the formation of the urban patriciate in medieval Strasbourg.1

In addition to research, various sources were used in the work. Among them are narrative ones, such as an excerpt from the autobiography of Guibert of Nozhansky, in which he talks about the uprising of the townspeople of the Lan commune.

The rise of cities and the formation of city self-government required legal regulation of both intra-city life and relations with feudal lords. Based on agreements with the latter, local customs and the reception of Roman law, city law itself is formed, reflected in city charters and statutes.

This work used excerpts from the city law of Strasbourg, from the charter of the city of Saint-Omer (1168), from the city law of the city of Goslar, from the decree of Emperor Frederick I Barbarossa on the approval of rights outside the city of Bremen.

Chapter I: The emergence of medieval cities. Cities under the rule of lords

§1. Theories of the origin of medieval cities

Trying to answer the question about the causes and circumstances of the emergence of medieval cities, scientists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Various theories have been put forward. A significant part of them is characterized by an institutional-legal approach to the problem. Most attention was paid to the origin and development of specific urban institutions, urban law, and not to the socio-economic foundations of the process. With this approach, it is impossible to explain the root causes of the origin of cities.1

Historians of the 19th century was primarily concerned with the question of what form of settlement the medieval city emerged from and how the institutions of this previous form were transformed into cities. The “romanistic” theory (F. Savigny, O. Thierry, F. Guizot, F. Renoir), which was based mainly on the material of the Romanized regions of Europe, considered medieval cities and their institutions to be a direct continuation of late ancient cities. Historians, relying mainly on material from Northern, Western, and Central Europe (primarily German and English), saw the origins of medieval cities in the phenomena of a new, feudal society, primarily legal and institutional. According to the “patrimonial” theory (K. Eighhorn, K. Nitsch), the city and its institutions developed from the feudal estate, its administration and law. The “Mark” theory (G. Maurer, O. Gierke, G. von Below) put city institutions and the law out of action for the free rural community-mark. The “burgh” theory (F. Keitgen, F. Matland) saw the grain of the city in the fortress-burg and in burgh law. The “market” theory (R. Som, Schroeder, Schulte) derived city law from market law that operated in places where trade was carried out.

All these theories were one-sided, each putting forward a single path or factor in the emergence of the city and considering it mainly from formal positions. Moreover, they never explained why most of the patrimonial centers, communities, castles and even market places never turned into cities.

German historian Ritschel at the end of the 19th century. tried to combine the “burg” and “market” theories, seeing in the early cities settlements of merchants around a fortified point - a burg. The Belgian historian A. Pirenne, unlike most of his predecessors, assigned a decisive role in the emergence of cities to the economic factor - intercontinental and interregional transit trade and its carrier - the merchants. According to this “trade” theory, cities in Western Europe initially arose around merchant trading posts. Pirenne also ignores the role of the separation of crafts from agriculture in the emergence of cities, and does not explain the origins, patterns and specifics of the city specifically as a feudal structure. Pirenne's thesis about the purely commercial origin of the city was not accepted by many medievalists.

In modern foreign historiography, much has been done to study geological data, topography and plans of medieval cities (F.L. Ganshof, V. Ebel, E. Ennen). These materials explain a lot about the prehistory and initial history of cities, which is almost not illuminated by written monuments. The question of the role of political-administrative, military, and cult factors in the formation of medieval cities is being seriously explored. All these factors and materials require, of course, taking into account the socio-economic aspects of the emergence of the city and its character as a feudal culture.

Many modern foreign historians, trying to understand the general patterns of the genesis of medieval cities, share and develop the concept of the emergence of a feudal city precisely as a consequence of the social division of labor, the development of commodity relations, and the social and political evolution of society.

In domestic medieval studies, serious research has been carried out on the history of cities in almost all countries of Western Europe. But for a long time it focused mainly on the social = economic role of cities, with less attention to their other functions. Recently, the whole variety of social characteristics of the medieval city has been considered. The city is defined as "Not only the most dynamic structure of medieval civilization, but also as an organic component of the entire feudal system"

§2. The emergence of European medieval cities

The specific historical paths of the emergence of cities are very diverse. Peasants and artisans leaving the villages settled in different places depending on the availability of favorable conditions for engaging in “urban affairs”, i.e. matters related to the market. Sometimes, especially in Italy and Southern France, these were administrative, military and church centers, often located on the territory of old Roman cities that were revived to a new life - already as cities of the feudal type. The fortifications of these points provided the residents with the necessary security.

The concentration of the population in such centers, including feudal lords with their servants and retinue, clergy, representatives of the royal and local administration, created favorable conditions for artisans to sell their products. But more often, especially in Northwestern and Central Europe, artisans and traders settled near large estates, estates, castles and monasteries, the inhabitants of which purchased their goods. They settled at the intersection of important roads, at river crossings and bridges, on the shores of bays, bays, etc., convenient for ships, where traditional markets had long operated. Such “market towns,” with a significant increase in their population and the presence of favorable conditions for craft production and market activities, also turned into cities.1

The growth of cities in certain regions of Western Europe occurred at different rates. First of all, in the VIII - IX centuries. feudal cities, primarily as centers of craft and trade, were formed in Italy (Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Bari, Naples, Amalfi); in the 10th century - in the south of France (Marseille, Arles, Narbonne, Montpellier, Toulouse, etc.). In these and other areas, with rich ancient traditions, crafts specialized faster than in others, and the formation of a feudal state with its reliance on cities took place.

The early emergence and growth of Italian and southern French cities was also facilitated by trade relations between these regions and the then more developed Byzantium and the countries of the East. Of course, the preservation of the remains of numerous ancient cities and fortresses there, where it was easier to find shelter, protection, traditional markets, rudiments of craft organizations and Roman municipal law, also played a certain role.

In the X - XI centuries. Feudal cities began to emerge in Northern France, the Netherlands, England and Germany - along the Rhine and the upper Danube. The Flemish cities of Bruges, Ypres, Ghent, Lille, Douai, Arras and others were famous for their fine cloth, which they supplied to many European countries. There were no longer many Roman settlements in these areas; most cities arose anew.

Later, in the XII - XII centuries, feudal cities grew on the northern outskirts and in the interior regions of Trans-Rhine Germany, in the Scandinavian countries, in Ireland, Hungary, the Danube principalities, i.e. where the development of feudal relations was slower. Here, all cities grew, as a rule, from market towns, as well as regional (former tribal) centers.

The distribution of cities across Europe was uneven. There were especially many of them in Northern and Central Italy, in Flanders and Brabant, along the Rhine.

“With all the differences in place, time, and specific conditions for the emergence of a particular city, it has always been the result of a social division of labor common to all of Europe. In the socio-economic sphere, it was expressed in the separation of crafts from agriculture, the development of commodity production and exchange between different spheres of the economy and different territories; in the political sphere - in the development of statehood structures."

§3. City under the rule of a lord

Whatever the origin of the city, it was a feudal city. It was headed by a feudal lord, on whose land it was located, so the city had to obey the lord. The majority of the townspeople were initially unfree ministerials (servants of the lord), peasants who had long lived in this place, sometimes fleeing from their former masters, or released by them on quitrent. At the same time, they often found themselves personally dependent on the lord of the city. All city power was concentrated in the hands of the lord; the city became, as it were, his collective vassal. The feudal lord was interested in the emergence of a city on his land, since urban trades and trade gave him considerable income.

Former peasants brought with them to the cities the customs of communal organization, which had a noticeable influence on the organization of city government. Over time, it increasingly took on forms that corresponded to the characteristics and needs of city life.

In the early era, the urban population was still very poorly organized. The city still had a semi-agrarian character. Its inhabitants bore agricultural duties in favor of the lord. The city did not have any special municipal government. He is under the authority of a seigneur or seigneurial clerk, who judged the city population and collected various fines and fees from them. At the same time, the city often did not represent unity even in the sense of seigneurial government. As a feudal property, a lord could bequeath a city by inheritance in the same way as a village. He could divide it among his heirs, and could sell or mortgage it in whole or in part.1

Here is an excerpt from a document from the late 12th century. The document dates back to the time when the city of Strasbourg was under the authority of a spiritual lord - a bishop:

“1. Strasbourg was founded on the model of other cities, with such a privilege that every person, both a stranger and a local native, would always enjoy peace in it from everyone.

5. All the officials of the city are under the authority of the bishop, so that they are appointed either by himself or by those whom he appoints; the elders define the younger ones as if they were subordinate to them.

6. And the bishop should not give public office except to persons from the world of the local church.

7. The bishop invests with his power the four officials in charge of the administration of the city, namely: the Schultgeis, the Burgrave, the Mytnik and the Chief of Coin.

93. Individual townspeople are also required to serve an annual five-day corvee, with the exception of

coiners... tanners... saddlemakers, four glovers, four bakers and eight shoemakers, all blacksmiths and carpenters, butchers and wine barrel makers...

102. Among the tanners, twelve people are obliged, at the bishop’s expense, to prepare leather and skins as much as the bishop needs...

103. The duty of the blacksmiths is as follows: when the bishop goes on an imperial campaign, each blacksmith will give four horseshoes with his nails; Of these, the burgrave will give the bishop horseshoes for 24 horses, and keep the rest for himself...

105. In addition, the blacksmiths are obliged to do everything that the bishop needs in his palace, namely, doors, windows and various things that are made of iron: at the same time, they are given material and food is supplied for the entire time ...

108. Among the shoemakers, eight people are obliged to give the bishop, when he is sent to the court on a sovereign campaign, covers for candlesticks, basins and vessels...

115. Millers and fishermen are obliged to carry the bishop on water wherever he wishes...

116. Anglers are obliged to fish for ... the bishop ... annually for three days and three nights with all their gear ...

118. Carpenters are obliged to go to work every Monday for the bishop at his expense...”

As we see from this document, the security and peace of the townspeople was ensured by his lord, who “invested his power” in the city officials (i.e., he entrusted them with leading the city government). The townspeople, for their part, were obliged to bear corvée for the lord and provide him with all kinds of services. These duties were not much different from the duties of peasants. It is clear that as the city grows stronger, it begins to become more and more burdened by dependence on the lord and strives to free itself from it.

The organization of the city arose in the process of struggle with the lord, a struggle that necessitated the unification of the various elements that made up the urban population. At the same time, the class struggle in the village intensified and intensified. On this basis, from the 11th century. the desire of the feudal lords to strengthen their class dominance by strengthening the feudal organization of the state is noticeable. “The process of political fragmentation was replaced by a tendency towards the unification of small feudal units and the unification of the feudal world.”

The struggle of cities against feudal lords begins from the very first steps of urban development. In this struggle, the urban structure takes shape; those disparate elements that made up the city at the beginning of its existence are organized and united. The political structure that the city receives depends on the outcome of this struggle.

The development of commodity-money relations in cities exacerbates the struggle between the city and the feudal lord, who sought to expropriate the growing urban accumulation by increasing feudal rent. The lord's demands on the city were increasing. The lord resorted to methods of direct violence against the townspeople, trying to increase the amount of his income from the city. On this basis, clashes arose between the city and the lord, which forced the townspeople to create a certain organization to gain independence for themselves, an organization that was at the same time the basis for city self-government.

Thus, the formation of cities was the result of the social division of labor and social evolution of the early Middle Ages. The emergence of cities was accompanied by the separation of crafts from agriculture, the development of commodity production and exchange, and the development of the attributes of statehood.

The medieval city arose on the land of the lord and was under his authority. The desire of the lords to extract as much income as possible from the city inevitably led to the communal movement.

Chapter II. Forms and features of the urban liberation movement

§1. Communal movement of medieval cities and its forms

Communal movement (from Late Latin communa - community) - in Western Europe in the 10th - 13th centuries. - movement of townspeople against the lords for self-government and independence.1

Cities that arose in the Middle Ages on the land of feudal lords found themselves under their rule. Often a city was owned simultaneously by several lords (for example, Amiens - 4, Marseille, Beauvais - 3, Soissons, Arles - 2, etc.).2 The urban population was subjected to cruel exploitation by the lords (all kinds of extortions, duties on trade turnover, even corvee duties, etc.), judicial and administrative arbitrariness. At the same time, the real economic grounds for preserving the seigneurial movement were very shaky. The artisan, unlike the feudal-dependent peasant, was the owner of the means of production and the finished product and did not depend (or almost did not depend) on the lord in the production process. This almost complete economic independence of urban commodity production and circulation from the lord-landowner was in sharp contradiction with the regime of lordly exploitation, which hampered the economic development of the city.

In Western Europe from the end of the X - XI centuries. The struggle of cities for liberation from the power of the lords developed widely. At first, the demands of the townspeople were limited to limiting feudal oppression and reducing taxes. Then political tasks arose - gaining city self-government and rights. The struggle was not against the feudal system, but against the lords of certain cities.

The forms of communal movement were different.

Sometimes cities managed to obtain from the feudal lord certain liberties and privileges, recorded in city charters, for money; in other cases, these privileges, especially the right of self-government, were achieved as a result of prolonged, sometimes armed, struggle.

Very often the communal movement took the form of open armed uprisings of townspeople under the slogan of commune - urban independence (Milan - 980, Cambrai - 957, 1024, 1064, 1076, 1107, 1127, Beauvais - 1099, Lahn - 1112, 1191, Worms - 1071, Cologne - 1072, etc.).

The commune is both an alliance directed against the lord and an organization of city government.

Kings, emperors, and large feudal lords often intervened in the struggle of cities. "The communal struggle merged with other conflicts - in a given area, country, international - and was an important part of the political life of medieval Europe."

§2. Features of communal traffic in various cities of medieval Europe

Communal movements took place in different countries in different ways, depending on the conditions of historical development , and led to different results.

In Southern France, townspeople achieved independence without bloodshed (IX - XIII centuries). The counts of Toulouse, Marseille, Montpellier and other cities of Southern France, as well as Flanders, were not only city lords, but sovereigns of entire regions. They were interested in the prosperity of local cities, distributed municipal liberties to them, and did not interfere with relative independence. However, they did not want the communes to become too powerful and gain complete independence. This happened, for example, with Marseille, which for centuries was an independent aristocratic republic. But at the end of the 13th century. after an 8-month siege, the Count of Provence, Charles of Anjou, took the city, placed his governor at its head, and began to appropriate city revenues, dispensing funds to support the city’s crafts and trade that were beneficial to him.1

The cities of Northern France (Amiens, Laon, Beauvais, Soissons, etc.) and Flanders (Ghent, Bruges Lille) became self-governing city-communes as a result of persistent, mostly armed, struggle. The townspeople elected from among themselves a council, its head - the mayor and other officials, had their own court, military militia, finances, and independently set taxes. These cities were freed from rent and seigneurial duties. In return, they paid the lord a certain small monetary annuity, in case of war they deployed a small military detachment, and often themselves acted as a collective lord in relation to the peasants of the surrounding territories.

The cities of Northern and Central Italy (Venice, Genoa, Siena, Florence, Lucca, Ravenna, Bologna, etc.) became communes in the 9th - 12th centuries. One of the brightest and typical pages of the communal struggle in Italy was the history of Milan - the center of crafts and trade, an important transit point on the routes to Germany. In the 11th century The power of the count there was replaced by the power of the archbishop, who ruled with the help of representatives of aristocratic and clerical circles. Throughout the XI century. the townspeople fought with the lord. She united all the city strata. Since the 50s, the movement of the townspeople resulted in a civil war against the bishop. It was intertwined with the powerful heretical movement that then swept Italy - with the speeches of the Waldenses and especially the Cathars. The rebel townspeople attacked the clergy and destroyed their houses. The sovereigns were drawn into the events. Finally, at the end of the 11th century. the city received the status of a commune. It was headed by a council of consuls made up of privileged citizens - representatives of merchant-feudal circles. The aristocratic system of the Milan Commune, of course, did not satisfy the mass of the townspeople; their struggle continued in subsequent times.1

In Germany in the XII - XIII centuries. so-called imperial cities appeared - they were formally subordinate to the emperor, but in reality they were independent city republics (Lübeck, Frankfurt - on the Main, etc.). They were governed by city councils, had the right to independently declare war, conclude peace and alliances, mint coins, etc.

But sometimes the liberation struggle of cities was very long. The struggle for independence of the northern French city of Lana lasted for more than 200 years. His lord (from 1106) Bishop Gaudry, a lover of war and hunting, established a particularly harsh regime in the city, even to the point of killing the townspeople. The inhabitants of Laon managed to buy from the bishop a charter granting them certain rights (a fixed tax, the abolition of the right of the “dead hand”), paying the king for its approval. But the bishop soon found the charter unprofitable for himself and, by bribing the king, achieved its cancellation. The townspeople rebelled, plundered the courtyards of the aristocrats and the bishop's palace, and killed Gaudry himself, hiding in an empty barrel.

One of the first memoir works of medieval literature, the autobiography of Guibert of Nozhansky, “The Story of My Own Life,” provides vivid evidence of the uprising of the townspeople of the Lanskaya commune.

Guibert of Nogent (lived in the 11th - 12th centuries) was born into a French knightly family, became a monk, and received an excellent literary (partially philosophical) and theological education in the monastery. Known as a theologian and historian. His historical works are especially interesting. Possessing the talent of a writer, Guibert describes events vividly and colorfully.

Defending the interests of the church and standing guard over the feudal system as a whole, Guibert was hostile to the rebel townspeople. But at the same time, he openly exposes the vices and crimes of individual representatives of the ruling class, and speaks with indignation about the greed of the feudal lords and their atrocities.

Guibert of Nozhansky writes: “This city has long been burdened with such misfortune that no one in it feared either God or the authorities, and everyone, in accordance only with their own strengths and their desires, carried out robberies and murders in the city.

...But what can I say about the situation of the common people? ...The lords and their servants openly committed robberies and robberies; the passerby had no security at night; to be detained, captured or killed was the only thing that awaited him.

The clergy, archdeacons and lords... looking for every possible way to extract money from the common people, entered into negotiations through their intermediaries, offering to grant the right, if they paid a sufficient amount, to form a commune.

...Having become more accommodating from the golden rain that fell on them, they made a promise to the people, sealing it with an oath, to strictly observe the concluded agreement.

... Inclined by the generous gifts of the commoners, the king agreed to approve this agreement and seal it with an oath. My God! Who could tell of the struggle that broke out when, after the gifts had been accepted from the people, and so many vows had been made, these same people began to try to destroy what they had sworn to support, and tried to restore the slaves to their former state, once freed and delivered from all the burden of the yoke? Unbridled envy of the townspeople actually consumed the bishop and lords...

...The violation of the agreements that created the Lanskaya commune filled the hearts of the townspeople with anger and amazement: all persons holding positions stopped performing their duties...

...it was not anger, but the rage of a wild beast that gripped the people of the lower class; they formed a conspiracy, sealed by a mutual oath, to kill the bishop and his associates...

...Numerous crowds of townspeople, armed with swords, double-edged axes, bows, axes, clubs and spears, filled the temple of the Blessed Virgin and rushed into the bishop's courtyard...

...Finally unable to repel the bold attacks of the people, the bishop dressed himself in the dress of one of his servants, fled to the basement under the church, locked himself there and hid in a wine barrel, the hole in which was plugged by one faithful servant. Gaudry thought he was well hidden.

...the townspeople managed to find their victim. Gaudry, although a sinner, was nevertheless God's anointed one, was pulled out of the barrel by the hair, showered with many blows and dragged, in broad daylight, into a narrow monastery alley... The unfortunate man begged in the most pitiful terms for mercy, promised to take an oath that he would never will be their bishop, offered them large sums of money and undertook to leave the fatherland, but everyone answered him with bitterness only with insults; one of them, Bernard, raising his double-edged axe, fiercely cut this, although sinful, but sacred... man.”

The above document paints a vivid picture of the struggle of the townspeople of the city of Lana with the lord-bishop Gaudry, a typical representative of his class. From the document it follows that the townspeople of Lan, already possessing some material power, legally remained in the same dependence on their feudal lord as before. The senor could still

rob and oppress them, mock their dignity. Therefore, an uprising breaks out in the city, as a result of which the Lanskaya commune was destroyed. The King of France, Louis VI, who recognized the commune, treacherously broke his promise.

The king, with his armed hand, restored the old order in Lahn, but in 1129 the townspeople raised a new uprising. For many years there was then a struggle for a communal charter with varying success: sometimes in favor of the city, sometimes in favor of the king. Only in 1331 did the king, with the help of many local feudal lords, achieve a final victory. Its judges and officials began to govern the city.

Cities located on royal land, in countries with a relatively strong central government, could not achieve full self-government. This was almost a general rule for cities on royal land, in countries with a relatively strong central government. They enjoyed, however, a number of privileges and liberties, including the right to elect self-government bodies. However, these institutions usually operated under the control of an official of the king or another lord. This was the case in many cities in France (Paris, Orleans, Bourges, Lorris, Nantes, Chartres, etc.) and England (London, Lincoln, Oxford, Cambridge, Gloucester, etc.). Limited municipal freedoms of cities were typical for the Scandinavian countries, many cities in Germany, Hungary, and they did not exist at all in Byzantium.

Thus, communal movements in different countries took place in different forms, depending on specific historical conditions.

Some cities managed to obtain liberties and privileges for money. Others won these liberties in a long armed struggle.

Some cities became self-governing cities - communes, but many cities either could not achieve full self-government or remained entirely under the authority of seigneurial administration.

Chapter 3. Results of the liberation struggle of cities. City law of "liberties"

§1. Socio-economic and political results of the liberation struggle of cities

In the process of the development of cities, the struggle of townspeople with lords in the urban environment in feudal Europe, a special medieval class of townspeople took shape.

Economically, the new class was most associated with trade and craft activities, and with property based not only on production, but also on exchange. In political and legal terms, all members of this class enjoyed a number of specific privileges and liberties (personal freedom, jurisdiction of the city court, participation in the city militia, in the formation of the municipality, etc.), constituting the status of a full citizen. Usually the urban class is identified with the concept of "burghers".

The word “burgher” in a number of European countries originally designated all urban residents (from the German Burg - city, from where the medieval Latin burgensis and the French term bourgeoisie, which originally also denoted townspeople, came from). Later, the term “burgher” began to be used only to designate full-fledged citizens, which could not include representatives of the lower classes removed from city government.1

The struggle of cities with lords in the overwhelming majority of cases led to the transfer, to one degree or another, of city government into the hands of citizens. But by that time there was already a noticeable social stratification among them. Therefore, although the fight against the lords was carried out by all the townspeople, only the top of the urban population fully exploited its results: homeowners, including those of the feudal type, moneylenders and, of course, merchant-wholesalers engaged in transit trade.

This upper, privileged layer was a narrow, closed group (the patriciate), which had difficulty admitting new members into its midst. The city council, mayor (burgomaster), judicial panel (scheffen, echeven, scabini) of the city were chosen only from among the patricians and their proteges. City administration, court and finance, including taxation, construction - everything was in the hands of the city elite, used in its interests and at the expense of the city's broad trade and craft population, not to mention the poor.

But as the craft developed and the importance of the guilds grew stronger, artisans and small traders entered into a struggle with the patriciate for power in the city. Usually they were also joined by hired workers and poor people. In the XIII - XVI centuries. This struggle, the so-called guild revolutions, unfolded in almost all countries of medieval Europe and often took on a very sharp, even armed character.

“We see many cities where poor and middle-aged people have no participation in government, but the rich have it all, because the people of the commune are afraid of them either because of their wealth or because of their relationship. It happens that some of them, after being mayor for a year, juror or treasurer, the next year they make their brothers, nephews or other close relatives so, so that for ten or twelve years the rich have all the government in good cities. When the people of the commune want an account from them, they hide behind the indication that they are de one reported to the other; but in such cases this cannot be tolerated, because in the affairs of the commune reports should not be accepted by those who themselves must report,” says the “Augsburg Chronicle” (1357).1

In some cities where handicraft production was highly developed, guilds won (Cologne, Basel, Florence, etc.). In others, where large-scale trade and merchants played the leading role, the city elite emerged victorious from the struggle (Hamburg, Lübeck, Rostock and other cities of the Hanseatic League). But even where the guilds won, city governance did not become truly democratic, since the top of the most influential guilds united after their victory with part of the patriciate and established a new oligarchic administration that acted in the interests of the richest citizens (Augsburg, etc.).

§2. City law of "liberties"

The most important result of the struggle of cities with lords is the liberation of the majority of residents from personal dependence. A rule was also established according to which a dependent peasant who fled to the city, after living there for “a year and one day,” became free. It was not for nothing that the medieval proverb said that “city air makes you free.”

Let us give examples from city law documents in which this rule is recorded.

In the City Charter of St. - The Omer (1168) records:

"32. If a serf of any lord becomes a citizen, he cannot be captured in the city, and if any lord would like to take him as his own serf, then let him bring his closest heirs, his maternal uncles and aunts for examination of this case; if he does not do this, he must be released."1

Articles 1 and 2 of the City Law, granted by Emperor Frederick II to the city of Goslar on July 13, 1219, read:

“1. If someone lived in the city of Goslar and during his life was not caught by anyone in a slave state, then after his death no one will dare to call him a slave or reduce him to a slave state.

2. If any stranger came to live in the named city and remained there for a year and a day, and he was never exposed to the condition of slavery, he was not convicted of this, and he himself did not admit it, then let him take advantage of common freedom with other citizens; and after his death, no one will dare to declare him their slave."

"If any man or woman stays unhindered in the city of Bremen within what is popularly called the Weichbild (city limits) for a year and a day and if anyone after that decides to challenge his freedom, then by imposing silence on the complainant , let him be allowed to prove his freedom by reference to the above-mentioned period."

The city thus became a symbol of independence in the Middle Ages, and thousands of serfs flocked here to escape feudal oppression. Not a single feudal lord had the right to seize his former serf in the city, now a free citizen, and again turn him into a bonded person.

The rights and liberties received by medieval townspeople were in many ways similar to immunity privileges and were of a feudal nature.

Thus, as a result of the liberation struggle, the population of cities took a special place in the life of feudal society and began to play a prominent role in class-representative assemblies.

Without constituting a socially monolithic layer, the inhabitants of medieval cities were constituted as a special class. Their disunity was strengthened by the dominance of the corporate system within the cities.

The most important result of the struggle of cities with lords was the liberation of citizens from personal dependence, enshrined in city law.

Conclusion

Having examined the theories of the origin of medieval cities, the ways of their emergence, the peculiarities of the relationship between townspeople and lords that led to communal movements, the features, forms and results of the liberation struggle of medieval cities, we came to the following conclusions.

Cities of a new, feudal type grew rapidly in Western Europe in the 10th - 13th centuries. as a result of the separation of crafts from agriculture and the development of exchange, as a result of the flight of peasants. They were centers of crafts and trade, differing in the composition and main occupations of the population, its social structure and political organization. The specific historical paths to the emergence of cities were varied. Despite all the differences in place, time, and specific conditions for the emergence of this or that city, it was always the result of a social division of labor common to all of Europe.

A medieval city arose on the land of a feudal lord and had to obey him. The desire of the feudal lords to extract as much income as possible from the city inevitably led to a communal movement - a struggle between cities and lords. At first, the townspeople fought for liberation from the most severe forms of feudal oppression, for a reduction in the lord's exactions, and for trade privileges. Then political tasks arose: gaining city self-government and rights. The outcome of this struggle determined the degree of independence of the city in relation to the lord, its economic prosperity and political system. The struggle of the cities was not carried out against the lords, but to ensure the existence and development of cities within the framework of this system.

The forms of communal movement were different. Some cities managed to obtain liberties and privileges from the lord for money. Other of these rights, especially the right of self-government, were won as a result of a long armed struggle.

Communal movements took place in different countries in different ways, depending on the conditions of historical development, and led to different results. Many cities became self-governing city communes. But many could not achieve complete self-government. Many cities, especially small ones that belonged to spiritual lords, remained entirely under the authority of the lord.

The most important result of the struggle of cities with lords was the liberation of the majority of Western European citizens from personal dependence.

Sources;

1. City law of the city of Goslar // Medieval city law of the 12th - 13th centuries. / Edited by S.M. Stama. Saratov, 1989. P.154-157.

2 . City law of the city of Strasbourg // History of the Middle Ages. Reader. In 2 parts. Part 1 M., 1988. P.173-174.

3 . Nozhansky Guibert. A story about one’s own life // History of the Middle Ages. Reader. In 2 parts. Ch.1.M., 1988. P.176-179.

4. Charter of the City of Saint-Omer // Medieval urban law of the 12th - 13th centuries. /Under the editorship of S.M. Stama. Saratov, 1989. P.146-148.

Literature;

1 . City of medieval civilization in Western Europe / Edited by A. A. Svanidze M., 1999-2000. T.1-4.

2 . Karpacheva E.S. The early stage of communal movement in medieval Carcass // Medieval city. Issue 4 1978 P.3-20.

3 . Kotelnikova L.A. Feudalism and cities in Italy in the VIII - XV centuries. M., 1987.

4 . Levitsky Y.A. City and feudalism in England. M., 1987

5. Negulyaeva T.M. Formation of the urban patriciate in medieval Strasbourg // Medieval City. Issue 4 1978. pp. 81-110.

6. Rogachevsky A.L. German burghers in the XII - XV centuries. St. Petersburg, 1995.

7 . Svanidze A.A. Genesis of the feudal city in early medieval Europe: problems and typology // Urban life in medieval Europe. M., 1987.

8. Stam S.M. Economic and social development of the early city. (Toulouse X1 - XIII centuries) Saratov, 1969.

Strasbourg. The most ancient city law (end of the 12th century) // History of the Middle Ages. Reader. At 2 p.m. Part 1./ Comp. V. E. Stepanova, A. Ya. Shevelenko. M., 1988. pp. 173-174.

Stam S.. M. Decree op. P. 159.

Svanidze A. A. Decree. op. P. 198.

NozhanskyGuibert. A story about one’s own life // History of the Middle Ages. Reader. In 2 parts. Part 1. M., 1988С. 176-179.

City law of the city of Goslar//Medieval city law of the 12th – 13th centuries/Ed. S. M. Stama. Saratov, 1989. pp. 154-157.

Quote by: Negulyaeva T. M. Formation of the urban patriciate in medieval Strasbourg // Medieval city. Vol. 4 1978. From 97.