III.] GROWING IMPORTANCE OF THE KINGS. 19 himself up in the keep, till he was forced by hunger to surrender, when he promised to amend his ways, and was released. Then he repaired his castle, allied himself with Theobald of Bids, who had quarrelled with the icing for not making this very castle over to him, began his robberies again, and besieged the little town of Touri. Lewis, who was absent in Flanders, hurried home, and after a sharp war of varying success, at last made the Count of Blois prisoner, and overthrew the robber castle of Puiset. This was the first instance of baronial violence being repressed by a legal sentence ; and other acts of justice ensued, which showed that the nobles' time of impunity was drawing to a close. 2; The Communes, 1 1 14. — Another change was working in the cities. Many of the towns in Southern Gaul had kept some trace of their old municipal rights handed down from Roman times. But in France itself, and generally in the north, very few, if any, enjoyed any freedom or self-government. All had become the fiefs of some count, baron, or bishop, some of two or three at once, and their lords were constantly calling on them for dues, on a death, on marrying a daughter, or knighting a son, joining the army, &c. Indeed they were squeezed and misused without any such reasonable cause whenever it pleased the noble or his followers. At last, when the exactions had become intolerable, some revolted, the inhabitants taking an oath to each other to maintain their freedom and defend one another. Le Mans had done this under Philip I., and had become a free commonwealth, and though it was overcome and forced to surrender to William of Normandy, it remained a privileged municipality. In other places, when the lord was in distress for money, the townsmen who were prospering in trade banded together to buy from their lord freedom and right of self-government, as a coinnume. The needs of crusading nobles made them willing to sell these charters of freedom, but it sometimes became convenient to forget the transac- tion, and resume the old claim. Then followed struggles and appeals to the king; and Lewis had no fixed principles of dealing with them. He Avould allow no fresh com- m.unes that he could help in his own lands ; elsewhere he cared more for weakening his enemies than strengthen- ing the burghers. Thus when Laon had obtained a grant, he withdrew it on the offer of 700 pounds of silver (rom the bishop and the nobles. He marclied to Laon ;
