Mutual Aid - Peter Kropotkin (ereader that reads to you .TXT) 📗

The Economical Interpretation of History, London, 1891, p. 303. ↩

Janssen, Geschichte. See also Dr. Alwin Schultz, Deutsches Leben im XIV und XV Jahrhundert, grosse Ausgabe, Wien, 1892, pp. 67 seq. At Paris, the day of labour varied from seven to eight hours in the winter to fourteen hours in summer in certain trades, while in others it was from eight to nine hours in winter, to from ten to twelve in Summer. All work was stopped on Saturdays and on about twenty-five other days (jours de commun de vile foire) at four o’clock, while on Sundays and thirty other holidays there was no work at all. The general conclusion is, that the medieval worker worked less hours, all taken, than the present-day worker (Dr. E. Martin Saint-Léon, Histoire des corporations, p. 121). ↩

W. Stieda, “Hansische Vereinbarungen über städtisches Gewerbe im XIV und XV Jahrhundert,” in Hansische Geschichtsblätter, Jahrgang 1886, p. 121. Schönberg’s Wirthschaftliche Bedeutung der Zunfte; also, partly, Roscher. ↩

See Toulmin Smith’s deeply-felt remarks about the royal spoliation of the guilds, in Miss Smith’s Introduction to English Guilds. In France the same royal spoliation and abolition of the guilds’ jurisdiction was begun from 1306, and the final blow was struck in 1382 (Fagniez, Études sur l’industrie et la classe industrielle à Paris au XIIIme et XIVme siècle, Paris, 1877, pp. 52⁠–⁠54). ↩

Adam Smith and his contemporaries knew well what they were condemning when they wrote against the State interference in trade and the trade monopolies of State creation. Unhappily, their followers, with their hopeless superficiality, flung medieval guilds and State interference into the same sack, making no distinction between a Versailles edict and a guild ordinance. It hardly need be said that the economists who have seriously studied the subject, like Schönberg (the editor of the well-known course of Political Economy), never fell into such an error. But, till lately, diffuse discussions of the above type went on for economical “science.” ↩

In Florence the seven minor arts made their revolution in 1270⁠–⁠82, and its results are fully described by Perrens (Histoire de Florence, Paris, 1877, 3 vols.), and especially by Gino Capponi (Storia della repubblica di Firenze, 2nda edizione, 1876, i, 58⁠–⁠80; translated into German). In Lyons, on the contrary, where the movement of the minor crafts took place in 1402, the latter were defeated and lost the right of themselves nominating their own judges. The two parties came apparently to a compromise. In Rostock the same movement took place in 1313; in Zürich in 1336; in Bern in 1363; in Braunschweig in 1374, and next year in Hamburg; in Lübeck in 1376⁠–⁠84; and so on. See Schmoller’s Strassburg zur Zeit der Zunftkämpfe and Strassburg’s Bluthe; Brentano’s Arbeitergilden der Gegenwart, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1871⁠–⁠72; Eb. Bain’s Merchant and Craft Guilds, Aberdeen, 1887, pp. 26⁠–⁠47, 75, etc. As to Mr. Gross’s opinion relative to the same struggles in England, see Mrs. Green’s remarks in her Town Life in the Fifteenth Century, ii, 190⁠–⁠217; also the chapter on the Labour Question, and, in fact, the whole of this extremely interesting volume. Brentano’s views on the crafts’ struggles, expressed especially in §§ iii and iv of his essay “On the History and Development of Guilds,” in Toulmin Smith’s English Guilds remain classical for the subject, and may be said to have been again and again confirmed by subsequent research. ↩

To give but one example⁠—Cambrai made its first revolution in 907, and, after three or four more revolts, it obtained its charter in 1076. This charter was repealed twice (1107 and 1138), and twice obtained again (in 1127 and 1180). Total, 223 years of struggles before conquering the right to independence. Lyons⁠—from 1195 to 1320. ↩

See Tuetey, “Étude sur Le droit municipal⁠ ⁠… en Franche-Comte,” in Mémoires de la Société d’émulation de Montbéliard, 2e série, ii, 129 seq. ↩

This seems to have been often the case in Italy. In Switzerland, Bern bought even the towns of Thun and Burgdorf. ↩

Such was, at least, the case in the cities of Tuscany (Florence, Lucca, Sienna, Bologna, etc.), for which the relations between city and peasants are best known. (Luchitzkiy, “Slavery and Russian Slaves in Florence,” in Kiev University Izvestia for 1885, who has perused Rumohr’s Ursprung der Besitzlosigkeit der Colonien in Toscana, 1830.) The whole matter concerning the relations between the cities and the peasants requires much more study than has hitherto been done. ↩

Ferrari’s generalizations are often too theoretical to be always correct; but his views upon the part played by the nobles in the city wars are based upon a wide range of authenticated facts. ↩

Only such cities as stubbornly kept to the cause of the barons, like Pisa or Verona, lost through the wars. For many towns which fought on the barons’ side, the defeat was also the beginning of liberation and progress. ↩

Ferrari, ii, 18, 104 seq.; Leo and Botta, i, 432. ↩

Joh. Falke, Die Hansa Als Deutsche See- und Handelsmacht, Berlin, 1863, pp. 31, 55. ↩

For Aachen and Cologne we have direct testimony that the bishops of these two cities⁠—one of them bought by the enemy⁠—opened to him the gates. ↩

See the facts, though not always the conclusions, of Nitzsch, iii, 133 seq.; also Kallsen, i,