Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/679

Tlie Risings in the English Monastic Totvns 669 But the English monastic towns did not hold the important place in the national life of England held by the large and populous Bischofsstddte of the Continent. For while there the ecclesiastical towns led the others, in the struggle for liberty, the same class of towns in England were backward in obtaining privileges and immu- nities, being far outstripped in this, as in all other respects, by the royal boroughs. It was not until the second half of the thirteenth century that any general movement towards an assertion of their liberties is observable in the English monastic towns. The year 1327 marked the culmination of a period of secret discontent and conspiracy on the part of the townsmen under monastic control. It is, however, by comparing the struggle in England with that of an earlier date on the Continent that we can best understand how it was that the struggle in the English monastic towns proved so fruitless. The Continental towns were, as has been remarked, much larger and of relatively greater importance than those of the same nature in England, and, consequently, the populace were superior in number, organization and influence. A long tradition of continuous municipal development and civic stability enabled them to offer a solider opposition to their over-lord and to exert a greater influence on the politics of the day. Then too, the strug- gle on the Continent was generally one between the bishop by him- self against the mass of townsmen by themselves. Royalty did not interfere, save in exceptional instances, and in fact rather favored the development of the municipal power as weakening and under- mining the feudal. Then in France and Germany the townsmen had everything in their favor, and several other political factors of importance in the eleventh and twelfth centuries aided the efforts of the communes towards liberty and rendered their struggle a suc- cessful one. But in England all was different, and whenever the townsmen under the control of an abbot or prior made any efforts to win liberties and self-government the chances were all against the success of the movement. The ecclesiastical lords held their towns either by prescription or by royal charter, frequently by both, and no English king was inclined, unless his personal interests were involved, to deprive powerful religious bodies of rights long pos- sessed and enjoyed by them, or granted to them by his predeces- sors. The royal power in fact was, as we have seen, exercised on the side of ecclesiastical domination and it formed the most effective support for the monks. Even if the townsmen made good their stand for a short time, as at St. Albans, their lord was almost cer- tain to triumph in the end and reassert his rights over them. Eng- land was rarely, even during the Middle Ages, in such a state that