: march, and several marches formed a pagus, or district. From these elements in the progress of population arose villages and towns."' The character of these tofts, or homesteads, is well illustrated by a passage from Dr. Whitaker's History of Craven :- A toft is a homestead in a village, so called from the small tufts of maple, elm, ash, and other wood, with which dwelling-houses were anciently overhung. Even now it is impossible to enter Craven without being struck with the isolated homesteads, surrounded by their little garths, and overhung with tufts of trees. These are the genuine tofts and crofts of our ancestors, with the substitution only of stone to the wooden crocks and thatched roofs of antiquity." The little towns which thus sprung up were subject of course to the feudal lord in whose domain they were situate; but, probably, the condition of their inhabitants was preferable to that of his dependents, who lived in the open country. Some small amount of manufacture and trade would necessarily arise in these infant communities, all of which doubtless had their weavers, smiths, and curriers, for the supply of garments and implements of husbandry to the rural labourers in the vicinity.* Germs of civic communities also appeared, in many instances, under the immediate shadow of the feudal castle. Groups of serfs who tilled the neighbouring fields, and some few artisans *Hallam's Middle Ages, c. ix. p. 1. who manufactured necessary articles for the household, gathered round the baronial abode, and formed a little village, out of which, in process of time, there arose a town of some importance. In a similar way, villages sprang up in the vicinity of convents; and no doubt, as Guizot has remarked, the progress of towns was considerably promoted by the right of sanctuary in churches. "Even before the boroughs were constituted, and before their force and ramparts enabled them to hold out an asylum to the wretched population of the fields, the protection which could be found in the church alone was sufficient to attract a great many fugitives into the towns. They came to shelter themselves, either in the church itself, or around the church; and they were not confined to men of the inferior class-serfs and boors--but were frequently men of consideration and wealth who had been proscribed. The chronicles of the epoch are full of such examples. We see men, formerly powerful, pursued by a neighbour yet more powerful, or by the king himself, abandoning their domains, carrying off all their movables, and flying to a town to put themselves under the protection of a church. These men became burgesses, and such refugees were, in my opinion, of some influence on the progress of towns, as they brought into them both wealth and the elements of a population superior to the bulk of the former inhabitants. Besides, is it not probable that, when anything like a considerable association had been formed in any quarter, men would flock to it, not only on account of the greater security afforded by it, but also from the mere spirit of sociability which is so natural to them."* Thus these towns became places of refuge; characters of all sorts, good and bad, those who fled from the oppressor, and those who sought to escape the avenger, were gathered together; and thus the rise of modern towns resembled the rise of ancient ones, and many a European city had an origin like that of Rome. "Many fled thither from the countries round about; those who had shed blood, and fled from the vengeance of the avenger of blood-those who were driven out from their own homes by their enemies, and even men of low degree who had run away from their lords. Thus the city became full of people."+ Such was the commencement of the proud patrician families of Rome, and in like manner originated many a wealthy and noble family of merchants in modern times. Till the ninth century, the people of Germany lived in open towns, or villages, under their feudal lords; but, at that period, the privilege of having walls began to be allowed. Hamburg was built, at that time, by Charlemagne, and was so distinguished; in the following century, a few more walled towns appeared on the banks of the Rhine and Danube, but their commerce was low and ⚫ Guizot, Civilisation of Europe, Lect. 7. feeble. A charter was granted to Magdeburg, A.D. 940, "to build and fortify their city, and exercise municipal law therein;"* but the most northern parts of Germany could not boast of any towns till a later period. The first which was erected on the shores of the Baltic was Lubeck, which was founded, A.D. 1140, by Adolphus count of Holstein.† Their In the Netherlands, the towns were in advance of those in Germany. In the tenth century, Thiel contained no less than fifty-five churches, from which it may be concluded that the population was very large. The people then had learned the art of draining their lands, and by the formation of dykes, they recovered from the waters extensive portions of territory. Habits of industry, union, and reciprocal justice were thus cherished, and the seeds of their subsequent commercial greatness sprang up in these Flemish communities. woollen manufactures, enabled them to trade with France, and thus to acquire considerable wealth, while their own population was clothed in good apparel. Baldwin, count of Flanders, established annual fairs, or markets in the cities of his dominion, without demanding any tolls of the merchants who trafficked there. It was some time, however, before any of these towns could boast of much that was imposing in their appearance. The houses, in the ninth century, were made of watlings of rods, or twigs * Anderson's History of Commerce. + Hallam. Macpherson's Annals of Commerce. plastered over with clay, and roofed with thatch, which, as trade advanced, gave way, no doubt, to habitations of a better order. But wood long remained the chief material in the construction of edifices, even of the superior order. As late as the eleventh century, buildings of stone were rare; and the parish church and the city bridges were commonly of timber. The noble cathedral of Tournay, bearing evident traces of resemblance to the Byzantine architecture, is, however, a proof that, at an early period, there were edifices to be found in the Netherlands of great magnificence. It is interesting to look at these communities in their earlier history, located on the borders of vast forests, and in the midst of wide-spread marshes, contending with the difficulties of their situation, patiently laying the foundations of commercial greatness and renown, and teaching posterity what can be accomplished by earnest enterprising industry. Some of the cities of the Netherlands were subject to episcopal jurisdiction, and the bishops of Liege, Utrecht, and Tournay, are distinguished in the annals of the middle ages; but other cities were subject to the counts of the province in which they were situate. Yet, at an early period, the shrewd people of that commercial country banded together for mutual protection and assistance, under the forms of guilds, or fraternities, which prepared for the municipal corporations of later times: and, in the case of the Frisons, or people of |