Quotation from: Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period

Written by: Paul Lacroix


It does not follow that everywhere the Commune was established by means of
insurrection, for it was obtained after all sorts of struggles; and
franchises were sold in some places for gold, and in others granted by a
more or less voluntary liberality. Everywhere the object was the same;
everywhere they struggled or negotiated to upset, by a written
constitution or charter, the violence and arbitrary rule under which they
had so long suffered, and to replace by an annual and fixed rent, under
the protection of an independent and impartial law, the unlimited
exactions and disguised plundering so long made by the nobility and
royalty. Circumstanced as they were, what other means had they to attain
this end but ramparts and gates, a common treasury, a permanent military
force, and magistrates who were both administrators, judges, and captains?
The hotel de ville, or mansion-house, immediately became a sort of civic
temple, where the banner of the Commune, the emblems of unity, and the
seal which sanctioned the municipal acts were preserved. Then arose the
watch-towers, where the watchmen were unceasingly posted night and day,
and whence the alarm signal was ever ready to issue its powerful sounds
when danger threatened the city. These watch-towers, the monuments of
liberty, became as necessary for the burghers as the clock-towers of
their cathedrals, whose brilliant peals and joyous chimes gave zest to the
popular feasts (Fig. 37). The mansion-houses built in Flanders from the
fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, under municipal influence, are
marvels of architecture.

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