PEACE AS A FACTOR IN SOCIAL REFORM. 235 



law of the demesne, they began to acquire a municipal organization 

 only at the moment when, along with the primitive population, a for- 

 eign population became established that maintained itself by industry 

 and commerce." Because of the absence of the fighting populations 

 of Europe during the Crusades, the pacific and industrial populations 

 left behind gained the strength and wealth that enabled them to 

 break the chains of feudal despotism, and to purchase the liberties 

 that make the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the gateways to 

 modern civilization. It was after the slow recovery from the devas- 

 tating wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the agita- 

 tion in behalf of freedom ended in the terrific explosion of the French 

 Revolution and the restoration of the rule of the despots. Again, it 

 was after the long peace following the Napoleonic w^ars that the 

 agitation was renewed, and, in England, led to the passage of the 

 Reform Bill, and, on the Continent, to the demand for popular con- 

 stitutions. 



Peace is also the progenitor of intellectual freedom. The forces 

 that shattered the despotism of the autocrat and aristocrat shattered 

 the despotism of the ecclesiastic. Since the power of the latter grew 

 out of the same conditions that produced the power of the former, 

 the establishment of the new conditions was certain to be fatal to 

 both alike. As soon as men began to think and act for themselves 

 in industrial matters, they began to think and act for themselves in 

 ecclesiastical as well as political matters. Accordingly, we find 

 everywhere that the revolt against the church as well as the state 

 started in the industrial centers. " In European history," says Tho- 

 rold Rogers, " discontent with existing religious institutions and the 

 acceptance of heresy on speculative topics have always been charac- 

 teristic of manufacturing regions. It was the case in Toulouse in 

 southern Erance, in Elanders, in eastern England. The French 

 Huguenots were the manufacturers and merchants of the country 

 in the seventeenth century, and when they were expelled carried with 

 them their skill and capital. Only Italy is an exception," he adds, 

 " and Italy profited so greatly by the papacy that it was not disposed 

 to quarrel with the institution, although it had no love for the repre- 

 sentative of it." The era of comparative peace that began with the 

 establishment of feudalism and the opening of the Crusades and 

 ended with the conflicts between Charles V and Francis I gave a 

 powerful impulse to industry and commerce, and these again to the 

 human intellect. Without the cessation of the anarchy that fol- 

 lowed the downfall of Rome, the awakening of the minds of men 

 that flowered in the Renaissance and the Reformation would not 

 have been possible. But before they could gain their freedom, the 

 mediaeval conception of the duty of the individual toward the polit- 



