e.[15]

The fortunes acquired inn the wandering commerce by the parvenus of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries soon transformed them into landed
proprietors. They invest a good part of their gains in lands, and the
land they thus acquire is naturally that of the towns in which they
reside. From the beginning of the thirteenth century one sees this land
held in large parcels by an aristocracy of patricians, _viri
hereditarii_, _divites_, _majores,_ in whom we cannot fail to recognize
the descendants of the bold voyagers of the gilds and the hanses. The
continuous increase of the burghal population enriches them more and
more, for as new inhabitants establish themselves in the towns, and as
the number of the houses increases, the rent of the ground increases in
proportion. So, from the commencement of the thirteenth century, the
grandsons of the primitive merchants abandon commerce and content
themselves with living comfortably upon the revenue of their lands. They
bid farewell to the agitations and the chances of the wandering life.
They live henceforward in their stone houses, whose battlements and
towers rise above the thatched roofs of the wooden houses of their
tenants. They assume control of the municipal administration; they and
their families monopolize the seats in the _echevinage_ or the town
council. Some even, by fortunate marriages, ally themselves with the
lesser nobility and begin to model their manner of living upon that of
the knights.

But while these first generations of capitalists are retiring from
commerce and rooting themselves in the soil, important changes are going
on in the economic organization. In the first place, in proportion as
the wealth of the towns increases, and with it their attractive power,
they take on more and more an industrial character, the rural artisans
flocking into them _en masse_ and deserting the country. At the same
time, many of them, favored by the abundance of raw material furnished
by the surrounding region, begin to devote themselves to certain
specialties of manufacture--cloth-making or metallurgy. Finally, around
the principal aggregations many secondary localities develop, so that
all Western Europe, in the course of the thirteenth century, blossoms
forth in an abundance of large and small towns. Some, and much the
greater number of them, content themselves perforce with local commerce.
Their production is determined by the needs of their population and that
of