This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1846 edition. Excerpt: ...bear the same date, are not all suitable at the same time. The terms " servitude and. freedom," for example, recall to our minds ideas far more precise and definite than the facts of the eighth, ninth, or tenth centuries to which they relate. If we say that the towns in the eighth century were in a state of ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1846 edition. Excerpt: ...bear the same date, are not all suitable at the same time. The terms " servitude and. freedom," for example, recall to our minds ideas far more precise and definite than the facts of the eighth, ninth, or tenth centuries to which they relate. If we say that the towns in the eighth century were in a state of freedom, we say by far too much: we attach now to the word "freedom" a signification which does not represent the fact of the eighth century. We shall fall into the same error, if we say that the towns were in a state of servitude; for this term implies a state of things very different from the circumstances of the municipal towns of those days. I say again, then, that the towns were neither in a state of freedom nor servitude: they suffered all the evils to which weakness is liable: they were a prey to the continual depredations, rapacity, and violence of the strong: yet, notwithstanding these horrid disorders, their impoverished and diminishing population, the towns had, and still maintained, a certain degree of importance: in most of them there was a clergyman, a bishop who exercised great authority, who possessed great influence over the people, served as a tie between them and their conquerors, thus maintaining the city in a sort of independence, by throwing over it the protecting shield of religion. Besides this, there were still left in the towns some valuable fragments of Roman institutions. We are indebted to the careful researches of MM. de Savigny, Hullmann, Mdle. de Lezardiere, &c., for having furnished us with many circumstances of this nature. We hear often, at this period, of the convocation of the senate, of the curise, of public assemblies, of municipal magistrates. Matters of police, wills, donations, and a multitude of civil...
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