have to
make this chapter a little longer than many of the others. It is
too important to be reduced to three or four pages, devoted to mere
political events.

The ancient world of Egypt and Babylonia and Assyria had been a world
of cities. Greece had been a country of City-States. The history of
Phoenicia was the history of two cities called Sidon and Tyre. The Roman
Empire was the "hinterland" of a single town. Writing, art, science,
astronomy, architecture, literature, the theatre--the list is
endless--have all been products of the city.

For almost four thousand years the wooden bee-hive which we call a town
had been the workshop of the world. Then came the great migrations. The
Roman Empire was destroyed. The cities were burned down and Europe once
more became a land of pastures and little agricultural villages. During
the Dark Ages the fields of civilisation had lain fallow.

The Crusades had prepared the soil for a new crop. It was time for the
harvest, but the fruit was plucked by the burghers of the free cities.

I have told you the story of the castles and the monasteries, with their
heavy stone enclosures--the homes of the knights and the monks, who
guarded men's bodies and their souls. You have seen how a few artisans
(butchers and bakers and an occasional candle-stick maker) came to
live near the castle to tend to the wants of their masters and to find
protection in case of danger. Sometimes the feudal lord allowed these
people to surround their houses with a stockade. But they were dependent
for their living upon the good-will of the mighty Seigneur of the
castle. When he went about they knelt before him and kissed his hand.

Then came the Crusades and many things changed. The migrations had
driven people from the north-east to the west. The Crusades made
millions of people travel from the west to the highly civilised regions
of the south-east. They discovered that the world was not bounded by the
four walls of their little settlement. They came to appreciate better
clothes, more comfortable houses, new dishes, products of the mysterious
Orient. After their return to their old homes, they insisted that they
be supplied with those articles. The peddler with his pack upon his
back--the only merchant of the Dark Ages--added these goods to his old
merchandise, bought a cart, hired a few ex-crusaders to protect him
against the crime wave which followed this great international war,
and went forth to do bu