Mutual Aid by Peter Kropotkin (ebook reader play store .txt) 📕

followers have certainly proved that the traditions of the Roman municipia had never totally disappeared. But they took no account of the village community period which the barbarians lived through before they had any cities. The fact is, that whenever mankind made a new start in civilization, in Greece, Rome, or middle Europe, it passed through the same stages⁠—the tribe, the village community, the free city, the state⁠—each one naturally evolving out of the preceding stage. Of course, the experience of each preceding civilization was never lost. Greece (itself influenced by Eastern civilizations) influenced Rome, and Rome influenced our civilization; but each of them begin from the same beginning⁠—the tribe. And just as we cannot say that our states are continuations of the Roman state, so also can we not say that the medieval cities of Europe (including Scandinavia and Russia) were a continuation of the Roman cities. They were a continuation of the barbarian village community, influenced to a certain extent by the traditions of the Roman towns. ↩

M. Kovalevsky, Modern Customs and Ancient Laws of Russia (Ilchester Lectures, London, 1891, Lecture 4). ↩

A considerable amount of research had to be done before this character of the so-called udyelnyi period was properly established by the works of Byelaeff (Tales from Russian History), Kostomaroff (The Beginnings of Autocracy in Russia), and especially Professor Sergievich (The Vyeche and the Prince). The English reader may find some information about this period in the just-named work of M. Kovalevsky, in Rambaud’s History of Russia, and, in a short summary, in the article “Russia” of the last edition of Chambers’s Encyclopaedia. ↩

Ferrari, Histoire des révolutions d’Italie, i, 257; Kallsen, Die deutschen Städte im Mittelalter, Bd. I (Halle, 1891). ↩

See the excellent remarks of Mr. G. L. Gomme as regards the folkmote of London (The Literature of Local Institutions, London, 1886, p. 76). It must, however, be remarked that in royal cities the folkmote never attained the independence which it assumed elsewhere. It is even certain that Moscow and Paris were chosen by the kings and the Church as the cradles of the future royal authority in the State, because they did not possess the tradition of folkmotes accustomed to act as sovereign in all matters. ↩

A. Luchaire, Les Communes françaises; also Kluckohn, Geschichte des Gottesfrieden, 1857. L. Sémichon (La paix et la trève de Dieu, 2 vols., Paris, 1869) has tried to represent the communal movement as issued from that institution. In reality, the treuga Dei, like the league started under Louis le Gros for the defence against both the robberies of the nobles and the Norman invasions, was a thoroughly popular movement. The only historian who mentions this last league⁠—that is, Vitalis⁠—describes it as a “popular community” (“Considérations sur l’histoire de France,” in vol. iv of Aug. Thierry’s Œuvres, Paris, 1868, p. 191 and note). ↩

Ferrari, i, 152, 263, etc. ↩

Perrens, Histoire de Florence, i, 188; Ferrari, Histoire des révolutions d’Italie, i, 283. ↩

Aug. Thierry, Essai sur l’histoire du Tiers État, Paris, 1875, p. 414, note. ↩

F. Rocquain, “La Renaissance au XIIe siècle,” in Études sur l’histoire de France, Paris, 1875, pp. 55⁠–⁠117. ↩

N. Kostomaroff, “The Rationalists of the Twelfth Century,” in his Monographies and Researches (Russian). ↩

Very interesting facts relative to the universality of guilds will be found in “Two Thousand Years of Guild Life,” by Rev. J. M. Lambert, Hull, 1891. On the Georgian amkari, see S. Eghiazarov, Gorodskiye Tsekhi (“Organization of Transcaucasian Amkari”), in Memoirs of the Caucasian Geographical Society, xiv, 2, 1891. ↩

J. D. Wunderer’s “Reisebericht” in Fichard’s Frankfurter Archiv, ii, 245; quoted by Janssen, Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, i, 355. ↩

Dr. Leonard Ennen, Der Dom zu Köln, Historische Einleitung, Köln, 1871, pp. 46, 50. ↩

See previous chapter. ↩

Kofod Ancher, Om gamle Danske Gilder og deres Undergang, Copenhagen, 1785. Statutes of a Knu guild. ↩

Upon the position of women in guilds, see Miss Toulmin Smith’s introductory remarks to the English Guilds of her father. One of the Cambridge statutes (p. 281) of the year 1503 is quite positive in the following sentence: “Thys statute is made by the comyne assent of all the bretherne and sisterne of alhallowe yelde.” ↩

In medieval times, only secret aggression was treated as a murder. Blood-revenge in broad daylight was justice; and slaying in a quarrel was not murder, once the aggressor showed his willingness to repent and to repair the wrong he had done. Deep traces of this distinction still exist in modern criminal law, especially in Russia. ↩

Kofod Ancher, Om gamle Danske Gilder og deres Undergang, Copenhagen, 1785. This old booklet contains much that has been lost sight of by later explorers. ↩

They played an important part in the revolts of the serfs, and were therefore prohibited several times in succession in the second half of the ninth century. Of course, the king’s prohibitions remained a dead letter. ↩

The medieval Italian painters were also organized in guilds, which became at a later epoch Academies of art. If the Italian art of those times is impressed