By Carol Symes, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
In the decades around the year 1100, growing awareness of their own crucial roles in fueling Europe’s burgeoning economy and sustaining its complex trading networks empowered townspeople to make new and unprecedented demands on their ecclesiastical and secular lords. They demanded, not only freedom, but the right to self-governance.
Formation of ‘Sworn Association’
In the wealthy Franco-Flemish town of Arras, which had grown up around the abbey of Saint-Vaast—and which was separate from the impoverished episcopal city of Arras—the abbey’s serfs were able to leverage their business acumen to force the monks to enfranchise them, on the grounds that the monks could then tax them and make even more money.
Then, the free of men of Arras banded together to form a new kind of corporation—a coniuratione, or ‘sworn association’—to protect their common interests—their commune—from any future encroachments or attempts to renege on the abbey’s promises.
After obtaining a charter of liberties from the count of Flanders, in 1127, they claimed the right to govern themselves, electing their own officers and council, and even adopting some of the trappings of lordship—ceremonial banners and oath-taking rituals, the right to make laws and judge civil cases, and even the right to use a seal for authenticating documents and transactions.
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Power of Oratory
In that same year, a chronicler in nearby Bruges observed that the extraordinary economic growth of Flemish towns and such novel forms of civic governance had created a new kind of public sphere. Because weapons were now forbidden in places set aside for common use, opinions and ideas could be as readily exchanged as money and goods. It seemed, in fact, said Galbert of Bruges, that “Anyone could defend himself with the power and eloquence of oratory if he were attacked, or if he attacked his enemy … for there were even many unlearned men in whom Nature herself had implanted the means of eloquence and the endowments of reason, the ways of conjecture and argumentation.”
In other words, those whose social status might have denied them the right to bear arms outside the walls of towns—like knights and lords—now had the advantage within those walls, and could fight with words against the men who were usually armed with swords.
Tension and Conflict
As one can imagine, this new public forum was a source of immense opportunity but also of tensions and conflict, since established elites were not readily willing to give ground to upstart townspeople. In Bruges itself, the count of Flanders denied his own serfs the freedoms their counterparts had won in Arras and the other towns of his domain—prompting members of his own household to assassinate him, and unleashing months of civic turmoil.
Similar things happened in other towns whose episcopal or princely rulers refused to allow the enfranchisement of urban laborers or the formation of communes. In the French city of Laon, northeast of Paris, the citizens took advantage of the bishop’s absence, who was in England extracting the payment of a loan from the king, to form a commune.
When the bishop returned and refused to acknowledge their commune, the citizens turned violently against him.
Opposition to Communes
Although many rulers would continue to oppose the adoption of communes in their realms, it was only a generation or so before any form of urban servitude proved utterly untenable anywhere in Europe: the collective will—and wealth—of the townspeople was too strong. To be sure, the king of France, among a few other rulers, still refused to recognize any formal corporation of free men to exist in his realm, but he had to grant significant individual liberties to his towns and cities in order to compete with his wealthier neighbors, in whose realms free, self-governing cities were economic and, indeed, cultural, powerhouses.
While Paris drew a certain prestige from its status as a royal capital, it would be centuries before it eclipsed Arras, or Bruges, or London in wealth or artistry. That is because Paris could not guarantee the liberties of any man (or woman) who moved there in search of work or advancement—but those other towns and cities could.
In England, Flanders, the Low Countries, most of Germany, northern Italy, and Spain (Christian or Muslim), towns were havens for unfree peasants or abused laborers in search of a better life. If one could get to a town and establish residence there for a year and a day, they were free. And once there, the possibilities for self-reinvention were, at least theoretically, boundless.
Common Questions about Rise of Communes and Empowerment of People in Medieval Towns
The free men of Arras banded together to form a new kind of corporation—a coniuratione, or ‘sworn association’—to protect their common interests—their commune—from any future encroachments or attempts to renege on the abbey’s promises.
After obtaining the charter of liberties from the count of Flanders, in 1127, the free men of Arras claimed the right to govern themselves, electing their own officers and council, and even adopting some of the trappings of lordship—ceremonial banners and oath-taking rituals, the right to make laws and judge civil cases, and even the right to use a seal for authenticating documents and transactions.
The king of France, among a few other rulers, refused to recognize any formal corporation of free men to exist in his realm, but he had to grant significant individual liberties to his towns and cities in order to compete with his wealthier neighbors, in whose realms free, self-governing cities were economic and cultural powerhouses.
