Communal Movements

Risings of townsmen against their ecclesiastical or lay lords not only demonstrated the growing importance of such groups in society but also frequently took on the form of communal movements, as in northern France, northern Spain, northern Italy, Flanders and some of the Rhine towns. A classic account of such a communal struggle in the northern French town of Laon in 1112 is given by the Benedictine Abbot Guibert of Nogent although it tends to be lost among his many stories and observations about miracles and even anecdotes of a folk-loric

Nature. Not that the religious dimension was irrelevant to communal movements. On the contrary, they were frequently influenced by the Christian value of love, also to be found in the 'Peace of God' movements which coincided with the emergence of the early communes and like them aimed to eliminate conflict and vendettas. Indeed the word 'commune' could be associated with the communion (communio) of Christians in the Eucharist, and it was not uncommon for the urban authorities of some towns of the later medieval and early modern period to attempt to

Disperse dangerous urban uprisings by confronting the rioters with consecrated hosts carried in procession by members of the clergy.

The religious dimension was evident in other ways. The emergence of towns is frequently associated with economic causes such as the growth of trade and the appearance of markets, but these too were influenced by religious factors. The towns which grew up along the famous pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela are a case in point. The townsmen who settled in Sahagun, for example, included pilgrims and others from the various regions of France and Italy, and even Germans and English. But although many of those who settled in Compostela, Sahagun, Carrion, Burgos and Palencia grew relatively prosperous as merchants and artisans, they found that their wealth and status was not accompanied by any participation in the local power structure, and chroniclers' accounts of some of the ensuing troubles are remarkably similar to that of Guibert of Nogent.

According to the anonymous chronicler of Sahagun, the town had been founded by Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile (1065-1109). However the king had taken care to protect the rights and jurisdiction of the monastery that already existed there. Thus if any townsmen held lands within the lordship of the monastery they could only do so on the terms and conditions laid down by the abbot; all those with houses in the town were to pay a yearly sum of money to the monastery as a rent and recognition of the monastic lordship, and all bread had to be baked in the monastery's oven. Friction over this latter requirement was resolved by commuting the obligation into yet another cash payment, the townsmen now having to pay one sum at Christmas for the oven and another at All Saints as rent and recognition of lordship.

The townsmen, however, not only resisted the lordship of the monastery but sought to replace its authority by their own. In a typical incident, for example, they forced their way into the monastic chapter, produced a document of new laws and customs which they themselves had drawn up, and forced the monks to sign in agreement.

Although the objective of such rebellions was to establish communal power, this was envisaged in practical terms and not as an abstract ideal. Frequently, too, the disturbances were linked to more widespread tensions, such as conflicts between the monarchy and nobility, or the townsmen recruited help from other discontented sectors of society, as they did in Compostela where they exercised de facto communal power for a whole year, during which the political and jurisdictional powers of the ecclesiastical lordship virtually ceased to exist.

A. MacKay