gradually crushed the spontaneous life of the early mediaeval revival,
and reduced all to a dead, sterile mass, was neutralized by the
existence of democratic and secular communities; that phase in which,
while there existed not yet any large nations, or any definite national
feeling, there existed free towns and civic democracies. In this sense
the Renaissance began to exist with the earliest mediaeval revival, but
its peculiar mission could be carried out only when that general revival
had come to an end. In this sense, also, the Renaissance did not exist
all over Italy, and it existed outside Italy; but in Italy it was far
more universal than elsewhere: there it was the rule, elsewhere the
exception. There was no Renaissance in Savoy, nor in Naples, nor even in
Rome; but north of the Alps there was Renaissance only in individual
towns like Nuernberg, Augsburg, Bruges, Ghent, &c. In the North the
Renaissance is dotted about amidst the stagnant Middle Ages; in Italy
the Middle Ages intersect and interrupt the Renaissance here and there:
the consequence was that in the North the Renaissance was crushed by the
Middle Ages, whereas in Italy the Middle Ages were crushed by the
Renaissance. Wherever there was a free town, without direct dependence
on feudal or ecclesiastical institutions, governed by its own citizens,
subsisting by its own industry and commerce; wherever the burghers built
walls, slung chains across their streets, and raised their own
cathedral; wherever, be it in Germany, in Flanders, or in England, there
was a suspension of the deadly influences of the later Middle Ages;
there, to greater or less extent, was the Renaissance.

But in the North this rudimentary Renaissance was never suffered to
spread beyond the walls of single towns; it was hemmed in on all sides
by feudal and ecclesiastical institutions, which restrained it within
definite limits. The free towns of Germany were mostly dependent upon
their bishops or archbishops; the more politically important cities of
Flanders were under the suzerainty of a feudal family; they were subject
to constant vexations from their suzerains, and their very existence was
endangered by an attempt at independence; Liege was well-nigh destroyed
by the supporters of her bishop, and Ghent was ruined by the revenge of
the Duke of Burgundy. In these northern cities, therefore, the
commonwealth was restricted to a sort of mercantile
corporation--powerful within the town,