!) 



88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



were " bound to attend the shire-moot and hundred-moot " under pen- 

 alty of " large fines for neglect of duty " ; and that in the thirteenth 

 century in Holland, Avhen the burghers were assembled for public pur- 

 poses, judicial or other, " any one ringing the town bell except by 

 general consent, and any one not appearing when it tolls, are liable to 

 a fine." 



After recognizing this primitive relation between popular duty and 

 popular power, we shall more clearly understand the relation as it re- 

 appears when popular power begins to revive along with the growth 

 of industrialism. For here again the fact meets us that the obli- 

 gation is primary and the jiower secondary. It is mainly as furnish- 

 ing aid to the ruler, generally for war purposes, that the deputies 

 from towns begin to share in public affairs. There recurs under a 

 complex form that which at an early stage we see in a simple form. 

 Let us pause for a moment to observe the transition. 



As was shown when treating of " Ceremonial Institutions," the 

 revenues of rulers are derived, at first wholly and afterward partially, 

 from presents. Beginning as irregular and voluntary, the making of 

 presents grows periodic and more or less compulsory. The occasions 

 on which assemblies are called together to discuss public affairs 

 (mainly military operations for which supplies are needed) naturally 

 become the occasions on which the expected gifts are offered and re- 

 ceived. When by successful wars the militant king consolidates small 

 societies into a large one when there comes an " increase of royal 

 power in intension as the kingdom increases in extension " (to quote 

 the luminous expression of Professor Stubbs) ; and when, as a conse- 

 quence, the quasi-voluntary gifts become more and more compulsory, 

 though still retaining such names as donimi and auxilium it gener- 

 ally happens that these exactions, passing a bearable limit, lead to 

 resistance : at first passive and in extreme cases active. If by conse- 

 quent disturbances the royal power is much weakened, the restoration 

 of order, if it takes place, is likely to take j^lace on the understand- 

 ing that, with such modifications as may be needful, the primitive sys- 

 tem of voluntary gifts shall be reestablished. Thus, when in Spain 

 the death of Sancho I was followed by political dissensions, the depu- 

 ties from thirty-two places, who assembled at Yalladolid, decided that 

 demands made by the king beyond the customary dues should be 

 answered by death of the messenger ; and the need for gaining the 

 adhesion of the towns during the conflict w^ith a pretender led to an 

 apparent toleration of this attitude. Similarly in the next century, 

 during disputes as to the regency while Alfonso XI was a minor, 

 the Cortes at Burgos demanded that the towns should " contribute 

 nothing beyond what was prescribed in " their charters. Kindred 

 causes wrought kindred results in France ; as when, by an insurrec- 

 tionary league, Louis Hutin was obliged to grant charters to the nobles 

 and burgesses of Picardy and of Normandy, renouncing the right of 



