Chapter 23 The Prosperity and Progress of Cities after the Collapse of China

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, urban dwellers were no better off than rural dwellers.However, the residents in the city at that time were very different from those in the ancient Greek Republic and the Italian Republic.In these ancient republics, the landowners constituted the majority of the population, and when they shared the common land, they all felt that their houses were adjoined and surrounded by walls for common defense.But after the collapse of the Roman Empire, most of the landlords scattered in the walls of their respective territories, living among their tenants and subjects.Most of the residents in the town are businessmen and craftsmen.Their situation is no different from slavery, or close to slavery.The rights conferred upon the inhabitants of the important cities of Europe by the charters of old are ample evidence of the conditions of their life before these rights were acquired.These charters allow urbanites, first, to marry their daughters freely without the consent of the lord; second, after his death, his property can be inherited by his children and grandchildren, not by the lord; third, his own inheritance can be disposed of by the will.The award of this right fully proves that before the award, they were almost the same as the rural farmers, or even exactly the same, in a state of low slavery.

These people are undoubtedly very poor and lowly. They carried the goods on their shoulders, crossed the market to the market, and ran from here to there, similar to today's peddlers who pull carts and loads.At that time, European countries, like the Tartar government in Asia now, often imposed taxes on the people and goods of these travelers when they passed certain fiefs, crossed certain bridges, went to the market, and set up stalls to sell their goods. superior.In England, these taxes are called boundary tax, bridge machine, landing theory, and apportionment tax.Sometimes kings, and in some cases great lords, who have this power, grant concessions to certain merchants, especially those residing in their dominions, from various taxes.These merchants are therefore called free merchants, though in every other respect the position is the same as or very similar to that of slavery.However, in return for the protection of their protectors, they usually have to pay a certain amount of poll tax every year.At that time, it was not easy to get protection without paying a lot of money.Such poll taxes may therefore be seen as the compensation they afford to protectors for abandoning other taxes.The practice of this quid pro quo was originally limited to individuals, and its duration was either limited to the person or according to the likes and dislikes of the protector.In the very incomplete records of several towns in the Land Registry of England, it is often mentioned how much such and such a citizen paid a poll tax to the king or great lord for this protection.Sometimes, it only records the sum of the taxes paid by these people.

However humble the condition of the city-dweller may have been at first, he attained his liberty and independence much earlier than the country cultivator.The poll tax for urban residents is a part of the king's income. Most of this part of the income is set by the king and outsourced to the city governor or other people for collection within a certain period of time.But the citizens themselves are often able to obtain such credits to collect this tax from their city, and are therefore jointly responsible for the whole amount of the tax.This method of tax collection is very suitable for the general economy of the kings of European countries, because they are used to handing over all the taxes of the manor to all the tenants of the manor, so that they are jointly responsible for all the taxes.But this method is also beneficial to the tenant farmers.They can conduct tax collection in the way they like, and pay the tax to the treasury through the hands of their own employees, without having to be brutalized by the officials sent by the king.This was considered a very important event at the time.

At the beginning, the rent tax of the city arranged by the citizens was the same as the tax paid by the farmers on the manor, and it had a limited number of years.Later, with the advancement of the times, it became permanent.The amount of tax is fixed and can never be increased in the future.As the amount of the tax becomes perpetual, so also the exemption from all other taxes which are conditional on the payment of this tax, becomes perpetual.The exemption from other taxes, therefore, is not confined to one person, and no longer belongs to the particular individual as an individual, but to all the citizens of a particular city.The city is thus called a free city; for the same reason its citizens are called free citizens or free merchants.

The important privileges mentioned above, namely, the right to marry a daughter, the right to inherit children, and the right to testate, are usually conferred along with these rights to ordinary citizens of a particular city.Whether privileges of that kind are often conferred upon individual citizens as individuals, I do not know.That may be true, but I can offer no direct evidence.However, in any case, slavery and the main attributes of slavery were thus removed from them, at least from this time on, they were free in the sense of the word we now use. Not only that.They usually set up a kind of self-government agency, which has the power to elect a mayor, establish a city council, establish a city government, issue city regulations, build castles for self-defense, and make the residents practice war and serve as garrison.In case of enemy attacks or accidents, all residents, regardless of day or night, must fulfill their defense responsibilities.In England they are generally exempt from county courts and state courts; all actions, other than public prosecutions, are adjudicated by the Mayor.In other countries, mayors receive especially great jurisdiction.

Cities, whose municipal taxes are borne entirely by the citizens, cannot fail to give them a certain jurisdiction by which the citizens are compelled to pay taxes.At this time, the country is in disarray, and it will be extremely difficult for them to go to other courts to ask for such a judgment.But it is very strange why the sovereigns of Europe exchange this part of their taxation for this fixed tax which cannot be increased.This tax, we know, is the least laborious of all taxes, and will naturally increase.It is also strange, besides, that princes should of their own accord establish in the center of their dominions a kind of independent democracy.

To understand the reason for this, it must be remembered that, in the turmoil of the time, perhaps none of the European sovereigns was able to protect the weaker subjects of their kingdoms from the oppression of the great lords.This part of the weak and small people can neither be protected by the laws of the country nor defend themselves, so there are only two ways to go. protect each other.Individually speaking, urban residents have no ability to defend themselves, but once they have an offensive and defensive alliance, their resistance cannot be underestimated.The lord often despises the citizens, not only thinking that the identities of the citizens are different from themselves, but also that the citizens are freed slaves, and their race is also different from themselves.Therefore, the richness of the citizens often makes the lords jealous and angry, and oppresses and abuses them whenever they have the opportunity, without any forgiveness.Of course the citizens hated and feared the lord.Coincidentally, the king also feared and hated the lord.On the other hand, although the king also despises the citizens, he has no reason to hate them or fear them.Mutual interest, therefore, brought the king and the citizens into alliance against the lord.The burghers are the enemy of the king's enemies, and therefore the king, for his own interest, does everything in his power to make the burghers' position independent of such enemies.Giving the citizens the power to elect mayors, make municipal regulations, build castles for self-defense, and conduct military training, the king thus gave the citizens all the means of independence and security within his power to make them independent of the lord.But for their free confederations to be able to provide them with permanent security, and to render considerable aid to the king, there must be a normal organization of government, and an authority to compel the obedience of the inhabitants.As for the permanent contracting of the city tax to them, it is to show his heart, so that those who he is willing to become friends and allies will not doubt that he will oppress them again in the future, and will increase the tax amount or transfer the tax to others.

The king who has the worst feelings for his lord is often the most lenient to the citizens.For example, King John of England was the most tolerant of the citizens.Philip I of France completely lost the power to command the lords.At the end of his life, according to Father Daniel, his son Louis, who was later called Fat Louis, discussed with the bishops in the country the most appropriate method to suppress the lord's atrocities.The opinions of the bishops can be summarized into two proposals.First, in the king's territory, the major cities have mayors and city councils to create a new jurisdiction system.Second, let the city residents organize a new militia, listen to the mayor's dispatch, and set out to assist the king when necessary.According to French archaeologists, the French mayoral system and the city council system were created at this time, and most of the free cities in Germany were also under the rule of the declining Suabia king. It was also at this time that it began to emerge.

At this time, the strength of the urban militia was no less than that of the rural militia, and it was easy to gather if something happened, so they often had an advantage in disputes with local lords.In Italy, Switzerland and other places, the monarchs have no power over them, either because they are far away from the capital, or because of their own natural strength, or for other reasons. Most of them gradually become independent democratic societies and conquer the local nobles. , forcing him to demolish the country castle and live in the city as a peaceful resident.A brief history of the Democratic Republic of Berne and several other Swiss cities, and so on.In addition to Venice, the history of countless great democracies in Italy from the end of the twelfth century to the beginning of the sixteenth century is also the same.

Although the royal power of Britain and France has sometimes declined, it has never been completely eliminated.Metropolises therefore have no chance of being fully independent.However, due to the growing power of the citizens, except for the upstream city tax, all the king's taxes must be collected with the consent of the citizens.When the king was in urgent need, he issued an edict to all cities in the country to send representatives to attend the Congress.These representatives, together with priests and nobles, can decide to grant special financial assistance to the king.Since the representatives of the townsmen mostly sided with the king, the king sometimes used their power to resist the great lords in the parliament.This is the origin of the representation of citizens in the parliaments of the great monarchies of Europe.

In this state order, good government, and individual liberty and security were established in the cities.But at this time, rural farmers were still persecuted by the nobles.A man in a state of defenselessness is naturally content with a mere means of subsistence; for the possession of more wealth only invites more severe demands from the oppressor.On the other hand, when men are sure of enjoying the results of their industry, they will naturally try to improve their own situation, not only the necessities of life, but also the conveniences and entertainments of life.Industries, therefore, having an object other than the production of the necessaries of life, were established much earlier in the cities than in the country.The poor peasants under the sway of the lords in the state of lowly slaves, if they have a little savings, they must hide their savings so that the lords will not see them and seize them for themselves, and they will flee to the city whenever they have the opportunity.Moreover, the law was so lenient to the citizens, and so eager to reduce the power of the lords over the peasants, that the peasants had only to flee to the cities and remain free for a year without being captured by the lords.Hence, the industrious inhabitants of the country, as soon as they have savings, will naturally flee to the cities, which they regard as their only safe refuge. The food, materials and industrial means of the city dwellers, in the final analysis, all come from the countryside.But the inhabitants of cities near the coast and along the rivers do not necessarily receive these goods from the neighboring countryside alone.They have a much larger range.They either exchange only the manufactures of their own industry, or engage in the transportation business between distant countries, exchanging the products of country A for the products of country B, and obtain all kinds of goods they need from distant places.A city can develop and become richer and stronger day by day when not only the surrounding villages are poor and declining, but also the villages it trades with are poor and declining.For each village, taken individually, may have limited food and employment opportunities, but taken together, they can provide a very considerable amount.However, when the scope of business was still extremely narrow, some countries were very rich and their industries were very developed.For example, the Greek Empire before its fall, the Saracens empire under Abbasids, Egypt unconquered by the Turks, somewhere on the Barbury Coast, and the Spanish provinces under the Moors. In Europe, the cities of Italy seem to have been the first to become rich through commerce.Italy was then at the center of the civilized and progressive part of the world.Although the Crusades destroyed much property, injured many inhabitants, and hindered the progress of most of Europe, they were very beneficial to the development of several cities in Italy.The armies that set out from all over to compete for the Holy Land gave great encouragement to the navigation industry of the cities of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa.Crusaders were sometimes transported by ships from these places, and their provisions were often supplied by them.They can be said to be the baggage train of the army.The Crusades, which so devastated the rest of Europe, became the source of prosperity for these democracies. The inhabitants of the commercial cities often ship their manufactures and luxuries to rich countries, to satisfy only the vanity of the rich, who are more than willing to barter a great deal of the produce of their country.The greater part of European commerce, therefore, consisted chiefly in the exchange of the native produce of the country for the manufactures of the more civilized countries.The wool of England was often exchanged for the wine of France and the fine cloth of Flanders; the corn of Poland was exchanged for the wine and brandy of France and the velvets of France and Italy. Thus the taste for fine manufactures has gradually spread, by foreign trade, to countries which have no fine manufactures.But when this taste became widespread in the country, it created such a great need that merchants, in order to avoid the expense of transportation, would naturally think of establishing a similar manufacture in their own country.This was the origin of the manufacturing industries established throughout Western Europe for distant sales after the collapse of the Roman Empire. But we must pay attention to that there has never been and will never exist in the world a large country that has no manufacturing industry at all. When I say a large country without manufacturing, I only mean sophisticated and advanced manufacturing, or manufacturing that is suitable for distant sales.The clothes and furniture which wear the greater part of the inhabitants of all great nations are the produce of their own industries.This kind of situation is especially common in the so-called poor countries without manufacturing industries, but it is not common in the so-called rich countries with developed manufacturing industries.Compared with poor countries, the daily clothing and furniture of the lower class people in rich countries are foreign products. There are two cases in which the manufactures of various countries are suitable for distant sales. The first type is domestic businessmen and entrepreneurs, as mentioned above, sometimes boldly (if it can be called that) to imitate a certain foreign manufacturing industry, and invest capital in their operations.Manufactures thus taking place are the result of foreign commerce.This is how the silk, velvet, and satin manufacturing industries that prevailed in Luca in the thirteenth century took place.These manufactures were later driven out by the violence of Castellacarni, one of Machiavelli's heroes.In 1310, 900 families were expelled from Luca; 31 of them retreated to Venice, where they suggested starting a silk business.Local officials allowed and granted various privileges.Therefore, they created the silk industry there.At the beginning, three hundred workers were employed.The cloth industry which was introduced into England in the Elizabethan age had already flourished in Flanders in ancient times, and the same seems to be happening now with the silk industry at Lyons and Spitalfields.The manufactures thus produced, as they are imitated from foreign countries, employ, for the most part, foreign materials.When the manufactures first started in Venice, all the materials were brought from Sicily and Livon.The materials used in the luka manufacturing industry earlier were also produced in foreign countries.The cultivation of mulberry trees and the breeding of silkworms seemed to be unknown to northern Italians before the sixteenth century.The technology of planting mulberry and raising silkworms was introduced to France in the era of Charles IX.The wool used in the manufactures of Flanders comes chiefly from Spain and England.Spanish wool, though not the original material of English woolen fabrics, was the first material of the woolen trade suitable for distant sales.The silk now employed in the manufactures of Lyons is also in the great part foreign origin; and, when it was first built, it was wholly or nearly wholly foreign.The materials employed in the manufactures of Spitalfields have probably never been entirely of English origin.Such a manufacturing industry is mostly established by the strategy of a few people, so the location of the establishment is sometimes a coastal city or an inland city, depending on the interests and ideas of the few people. Manufactures, suitable for distant sales, have sometimes been gradually improved in a natural way from those of household goods and crude goods.We have said that the poorest countries frequently have manufactures of household goods and crude goods.The manufactures which arose from the gradual improvement of this manufacture employed, for the most part, materials of native origin; and these materials were often at first worked in the interior, far from the coast, and sometimes even from navigable water-ways.The fertile soil in the interior is easy to cultivate, and the products produced have a lot of surplus besides what is needed to maintain the life of the cultivator.This kind of surplus is not easy to be transported to other places because the land freight is too expensive and the shipping is inconvenient.The abundance of produce, therefore, keeps food cheap, and thus encourages the workers to live there.They feel that laborization can obtain more necessities and conveniences of life elsewhere.The materials they use are locally produced. After they process the materials, they exchange them for finished products, or in other words, at the price of finished products, for more materials and food.They save the cost of transport from the interior to various places along the coast or to distant markets, and thus add a new value to the remainder of the native produce.The cultivator can thus obtain from this class what is useful or pleasing to them, on easier terms than before.The cultivators obtain a higher price for the remainder of the produce, and lower prices for the other conveniences they require.This encourages and enables farmers to further improve the land to work the land, thus increasing the remaining quantity.The fertility of the land gave birth to manufactures, and the development of manufactures, in turn, increased the productivity of the land.Manufactures initially supplied only the local market; later, as the work was refined and improved, it was able to supply distant markets.For it is very difficult for a native product, or even a rough one, to bear the cost of transporting it by land to a distant place, but it is not so difficult for a refined one.Refined manufactures, in small volumes, often contain the price of a great deal of native produce.A bolt of fine woolen cloth, for instance, which weighs only eighty pounds, contains not only the price of eighty pounds of wool, but also, sometimes, thousands of pounds of corn, that is, the laborers of all kinds and their immediate employers. The price of subsistence.If this kind of grain is shipped overseas in its original form, it must be extremely difficult.However, if it is transported in the form of refined products, it is easy to transport to the farthest corners.In this manner, the manufactures of Leith, Hillifax, Sheffield, Birmingham, Wolverhampton, etc., developed naturally.This manufacture is the result of agriculture.Its extension and improvement, in the modern history of Europe, are generally later than those of the manufactures brought about by foreign trade.More than a hundred years before the manufactures which now prosper in the above-mentioned places were suitable for export, England was famous for its fine cloth industry from Spanish wool.Manufactures of the first kind are extended and improved with the development of agriculture, and the extension and improvement of agriculture are the last and greatest result of foreign trade, and of the manufactures directly arising therefrom.On this point, I will explain below.Chapter Four Urban Commerce