It was not by confederations of this kind,
whether spontaneous or compulsory, that feudalism could be bridled. The twelfth
and thirteenth centuries, the great age of medieval statesmanship, saw other
and more effectual remedies applied. In the free cities of France, Italy, the Netherlands
and Germany, the commercial classes perfected a form of association which,
however faulty in other respects, was successful in excluding feudalism from
the principal centres of urban industry. In the larger states, whether kingdoms
or not, the rulers, supported by the Church and the commons, bestirred
themselves to slay the many-headed Hydra. Feudalism was not extirpated, but it
was brought under the law.
In many districts it defied repression. To the end
of the Middle Ages the Knights of Suabia and the Rhineland maintained the
predatory traditions of the Dark Ages; and everywhere feudalism remained a
force inimical to national unity. But the great feudatories who survived into the
age of Machiavelli and of the new despotisms had usually some claims upon the
respect of their subjects. The Duchy of Brittany, the Burgundian inheritance,
the German electorates, were mainly objectionable as impeding the growth of
better communities - better because more comprehensive, more stable, more fitted
to be the nurseries of great ideas and proud traditions.
