The steady progress made by the people of Flanders and Germany in arts and manufactures was largely due to their liberty. They were not altogether exempt from the bondage of feudalism: there was some discord in Germany, and never-ceasing strife between the nobles and middle class, but the German burgher maintained his independence and lived in comfort.[1] The need of peace and personal liberty as preparations for the introduction of printing may be more clearly perceived in a glance at the social condition of the people.
The discontent of common people at their treatment by constituted authorities was never greater than during the last twenty years of the fourteenth century. Southern Europe was afflicted by sanguinary wars, into which the rulers of the people dragged their unwilling peasantry.[2] Armed bands of
- ↑ As early as the twelfth century; the emperor Henry v undertook to curb the exactions of feudalism by the establishment of free cities, and by the grant of extraordinary privileges to mechanics and manufacturers. To the nobility and petty princes of Germany these privileges were a constant offense, and the occasion of many local strifes; but the burghers were industrious and public-spirited, and took care of their rights. To protect their trade from the rapacity of the princes on the Elbe and the coast, the cities of Germany, in the year 1249, established a mercantile organization, known as the Hanseatic League. In the fifteenth century, this league was constituted of traders from all parts of the Netherlands and Germany. It was so powerful that it monopolized the trade of Northern Europe: by threat of war it compelled Edward vi of England to grant extraordinary concessions; it made successful war against Sweden, Norway and Denmark. The Hanseatic League is a wonderful example of the sudden development of successful legislative and executive ability among men of little or no culture, who till then had been excluded from every position of honor in the state.
- ↑ Peasants could not claim exemption from arbitrary arrest or military servitude. They had no liberty to choose a residence, to learn a trade, to travel, to go to school, to marry, to keep property, to transact business, or to associate with others in any peaceable enterprise. Practically, they were but little better than slaves. Beaumanoir, a French jurist of the thirteenth century, defines the nature of their servitude in the plainest words. He says that
The third estate of man is that of such as are not free; and these are not all of one condition, for some are so subject to their lord, that he may take all they have, alive or dead, and imprison them whenever he pleases, being accountable to none but God ; from others the lord can take nothing but the customary payments, though at their death all they have escheats to him.
