German Culture Past and Present | Page 5

their head, round many of the

palace-castles that he founded. "A new epoch," says Von Maurer,
"begins with the villa-foundations of Charles the Great and his
ordinances respecting them, for that his celebrated capitularies in this
connection were intended for his newly established villas is
self-evident. In that proceeding he obviously had the Roman villa in his
mind, and on the model of this he rather further developed the
previously existing court and villa constitution than completely
reorganized it. Hence one finds even in his new creations the old
foundation again, albeit on a far more extended plan, the economical
side of such villa-colonies being especially more completely and
effectively ordered."[2] The expression "Palatine," as applied to certain
districts, bears testimony to the fact here referred to. As above said, the
development of the township was everywhere on the same lines. The
aim of the civic community was always to remove as far as possible the
power which controlled them. Their worst condition was when they
were immediately overshadowed by a territorial magnate. When their
immediate lord was a prince, the area of whose feudal jurisdiction was
more extensive, his rule was less oppressively felt, and their condition
was therefore considerably improved. It was only, however, when cities
were "free of the empire" (Reichsfrei) that they attained the ideal of
mediæval civic freedom.
It follows naturally from the conditions described that there was, in the
first place, a conflict between the primitive inhabitants as embodied in
their corporate society and the territorial lord, whoever he might be. No
sooner had the township acquired a charter of freedom or certain
immunities than a new antagonism showed itself between the ancient
corporation of the city and the trade-guilds, these representing the later
accretions. The territorial lord (if any) now sided, usually though not
always, with the patrician party. But the guilds, nevertheless, succeeded
in ultimately wresting many of the leading public offices from the
exclusive possession of the patrician families. Meanwhile the leading
men of the guilds had become hommes arrivés. They had acquired
wealth, and influence which was in many cases hereditary in their
family, and by the beginning of the sixteenth century they were
confronted with the more or less veiled and more or less open
opposition of the smaller guildsmen and of the newest comers into the

city, the shiftless proletariat of serfs and free peasants, whom economic
pressure was fast driving within the walls, owing to the changed
conditions of the times.
The peasant of the period was of three kinds: the leibeigener or serf,
who was little better than a slave, who cultivated his lord's domain,
upon whom unlimited burdens might be fixed, and who was in all
respects amenable to the will of his lord; the höriger or villein, whose
services were limited alike in kind and amount; and the freier or free
peasant, who merely paid what was virtually a quit-rent in kind or in
money for being allowed to retain his holding or status in the rural
community under the protection of the manorial lord. The last was
practically the counterpart of the mediæval English copyholder. The
Germans had undergone essentially the same transformations in social
organization as the other populations of Europe.
The barbarian nations at the time of their great migration in the fifth
century were organized on a tribal and village basis. The head man was
simply primus inter pares. In the course of their wanderings the
successful military leader acquired powers and assumed a position that
was unknown to the previous times, when war, such as it was, was
merely inter-tribal and inter-clannish, and did not involve the
movements of peoples and federations of tribes, and when, in
consequence, the need of permanent military leaders or for the
semblance of a military hierarchy had not arisen. The military leader
now placed himself at the head of the older social organization, and
associated with his immediate followers on terms approaching equality.
A well-known illustration of this is the incident of the vase taken from
the Cathedral of Rheims, and of Chlodowig's efforts to rescue it from
his independent comrade-in-arms.
The process of the development of the feudal polity of the Middle Ages
is, of course, a very complicated one, owing to the various strands that
go to compose it. In addition to the German tribes themselves, who
moved en masse, carrying with them their tribal and village
organization, under the overlordship of the various military leaders,
were the indigenous inhabitants amongst whom they settled. The latter

in the country districts, even in many of the territories within the
Roman Empire, still largely retained the primitive communal
organization. The new-comers, therefore, found in the rural
communities a social system already in existence into which they
naturally fitted, but as an aristocratic body over against the