., five hundred and fifty years ago.

It is significant that these two writers should agree on so many of the
fundamental points which have been, ever since, the topic of
controversy; for they belonged to hostile schools, and one of them would
have thought the other worthy of death. St. Thomas would have made the
papacy control all Christian governments. Marsilius would have had the
clergy submit to the law of the land; and would have put them under
restrictions both as to property and numbers. As the great debate went
on, many things gradually made themselves clear, and grew into settled
convictions. For these were not only the thoughts of prophetic minds
that surpassed the level of contemporaries; there was some prospect that
they would master the practical world. The ancient reign of the barons
was seriously threatened. The opening of the East by the Crusades had
imparted a great stimulus to industry. A stream set in from the country
to the towns, and there was no room for the government of towns in the
feudal machinery. When men found a way of earning a livelihood without
depending for it on the good will of the class that owned the land, the
landowner lost much of his importance, and it began to pass to the
possessors of moveable wealth. The townspeople not only made themselves
free from the control of prelates and barons, but endeavoured to obtain
for their own class and interest the command of the State.

The fourteenth century was filled with the tumult of this struggle
between democracy and chivalry. The Italian towns, foremost in
intelligence and civilisation, led the way with democratic constitutions
of an ideal and generally an impracticable type. The Swiss cast off the
yoke of Austria. Two long chains of free cities arose, along the valley
of the Rhine, and across the heart of Germany. The citizens of Paris got
possession of the king, reformed the State, and began their tremendous
career of experiments to govern France. But the most healthy and
vigorous growth of municipal liberties was in Belgium, of all countries
on the Continent, that which has been from immemorial ages the most
stubborn in its fidelity to the principle of self-government. So vast
were the resources concentrated in the Flemish towns, so widespread was
the movement of democracy, that it was long doubtful whether the new
interest would not prevail, and whether the ascendency of the military
aristocracy would not pass over to the wealth and