CHAP. IX

Alliances
Among
Medieval
Cities

operation, when the invasion of Xerxes was impending.” “So, too, was it with the Teutonic races. The German tribes originally without federal bonds, formed occasional alliances for opposing enemies. Between the first and fifth centuries these tribes massed themselves into great groups for resistance against, or attack

upon, Rome.” 5 Kropotkin has shown how apt were the medieval cities for forming alliances among themselves. When the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa invaded Italy " enthusiasm was roused in many towns by popular preachers. Crema, Piacenza, Brescia, Tortona, etc., went to the rescue; the banners of the guilds of Verona, Padua, Vicenza, and Trevisa floated side by side in the cities' camp.” “Next year the Lombardian League came into existence, and sixty years later we see it reinforced by many other cities and forming a lasting organization. . . . In Tuscany, Florence headed another powerful league, to which Lucca, Bologna, Pistoia, etc., belonged, and which played an important part in crushing down the nobles in Middle Italy, while smaller leagues were of common occurrence."

" Similar leagues were formed in Germany for the same puspose. When ... the land was the prey of interminable feuds between the nobles, the Westphalian towns concluded a league against the knights. When the knights and the nobles lived on plunder and murdered whom they chose to murder, ... the cities on the Rhine (Mainz, Cologne, Speier, Strasburg, and Basel) took the initiative of a league which soon numbered sixty allied towns, repressed the robbers, and maintained peace.”

Not often, however, do enduring societies come into being in this way. Union for emergency action is not at first sustained either by the sentiment of kinship or by any close political organization. Born of practical necessity, the league tends to fall apart into its original elements after this necessity disappears. Only lasting pressure causing alliance to persist thru several generations generates a real nation, and such lasting pressure is rarely supplied.

Finally, there is the union of social groups brought about by force. The history of pre-Columbian America shows that groups consisting each of a single principal pueblo and several subordi5“ Principles of Sociology," Vol. II, p. 279. 6" Mutual Aid," 204-206.

Forced
Union

nate ones were most commonly formed by the simple process of CHAP. IX war, terminating in conquest, between neighboring pueblos. A frequent cause of war is occasional scarcity of food or of females. The relative military strength of neighboring pueblos is generally approximately known; and when such scarcity makes it-ell felt, the stronger tribe attacks the weaker one as a matter of course. In time the weaker pueblo buys itself free of attack by agreeing to furnish a fixed tribute of labor and agricultural produce and sometimes of women, on condition of freedom from m.lestation and assistance in case of attack by other tribes. Where the rival forces are nearly matched such terms may be diberately imposed on the conquered as a means of permanent ezieeblement

Conquests of this kind tend to enlarge themselves; and in this way the districts occupied by the strongest tribes become the centers of a military domination more or less widely extended.

Hisory begins with the compound society consisting of several Conquest mrs aggregated into a group in subjection to a dominant pueblo. Social

Process driten this in turn is annexed with its dependencies by a rival; the repetition of this process results in large aggregations. The Surgies and vicissitudes of the dominant pueblos make his

Starts a

ory!

The super-position of conquerors can occur in one of two ways. Two Ways Sepose a regiment of white soldiers comes to dominate a Cen- Down a

Conquered ::: African region. The colonel may keep his men together and People re's the country from one point. Thus did the Dorians in Lacebeton, the Medes and Persians in Assyria, the Turks in the 2.2.5. This policy is not very fruitful in social results. The wat way is for the regiment to break up into companies and rapy and govern districts. Each captain rules within his dis21 but bonds of sympathy and tradition unite the dispersed I punes. On anniversaries they join in some religious or magic iestival. Such was the mode of establishment of the Erites in Greece, the Hebrews in Palestine, the Normans in candy, Great Britain, Sicily, Neustria and Russia. It is ***" fecund because it rapidly transforms a simple tribe of

nuerors into a complex nation by the inclusion of the conjusted populations. "Pate, op. cit. Vol. II. p. 51. Der Erste. “L'experience des peuples," pp. 562-64.

CHAP. IX

Conse

The superposing of one people upon another usually calls into Social being great landed estates. The conquerors plant themselves at quences of various strong points over the country in order to be able to nip Conquest

in the bud any uprising. They assign large bodies of land to their foremost men who thus become a territorial nobility. The lordship of these immense tracts is given not only as a reward for past military services, but on the condition that the holder keep his district in subjection and organize a local force for the defense of the realm.

Sharp impassable lines of demarcation within society generally originate in conquest. Bagehot thinks that caste “could only begin in a country several times conquered and where the boundaries of each caste rudely coincide with the boundaries of certain sets of victors and vanquished."9

Religious syncretism is another outgrowth of superposition. In ancient Babylonia, for example, the cities were in the first instance the places of residence of fellow tribesmen and were built around the temple of their divinity of fertility. The struggle between these cities for supremacy made now one city supreme over the others for a century or two and now another. Empire fell to Shirpurla, then Erech, then Agade, then Erech, Ur, Isin, Ur, and Larsa in succession, and finally to Babylon about 2300

One result was a hierarchy of gods. The city that led for a few centuries would gain for its god a high place in the minds of the subjugated people and the city that gained the supremacy first and held it for a long period, would win for its god the headship of the pantheon. The deities of the other cities would be grouped around him as sons, daughters, or subordinates. Among the ancient Mexicans the same process had brought about

a pantheon. 10 forced Union

The reason why conquest is sociologically so much more sigProduces

nificant than alliance is now apparent. Association for fighting More Social does not intermingle the allied populations or oblige them to than Free

relinquish any of their dissimilar characteristics. Internally the Union

allied groups are little modified. Subjugation, on the other hand,
is likely to pour the peoples through one another, so that thence-
forth separation is impossible. Moreover, it creates such new
relations as master and slave, lord and villain, noble and com-

9" Physics and Politics,” p. 149.
10 See Barton, “A Sketch of Semitic Origins."

Results

Has Pro

moner; substitutes positive law for custom; makes landed prop- CHAP. IX erty an engine of exploitation; and gives birth to the centralized coercive state.

The compounding and recompounding of men by force has Violenco immensely accelerated social integration. At present all man- duced a

Premature kind are embraced in not more than half a hundred sovereign Massing

of Human group-units. Had the fraternal teachings of Buddha and Jesus, of Epirtetus and Francis and George Fox been followed, such into Largo

Societies a stage of massing might not have been reached for thousands of years. The radiation and interchange of culture elements would in time have produced likemindedness, which paves the way for the spontaneous fusion of social groups; but, without waiting for this slow process to achieve results, conquerors and empirebuilders integrated men by violent methods. How different wild be the grouping of human beings to-day if economic advantage rather than force had been the parent of societies! What Enes would have been spared him if man had not early overcome ris instinctive shrinking from combat with his kind and by the purification and worship of dominion steeled himself to the whesale taking of human life. Despising the gospel of peace cuilize! man has hurried exultantly along the war path until D* he finds himself holding a knife at his own throat. The next fr.crement may sever his jugular.

thetic

KINDS OF SOCIETIES
Disinguishing according to the social bond - which depends

or.ly upon the mode of origin of the society but also upon its size of development - Giddings recognizes the following kinds ci society:

"1. There is a homogeneous community of blood-relatives, SympaComposed of individuals that from infancy have been exposed to Society à cummon environment and to like circumstances, and who, therefore, by heredity and experience are alike. Always con*cies of themselves as kindred, their chief social bond is symEsthy. The kind or type of society, therefore, that is represented by a group of kindred may be called the Sympathetic. * 2 There is a community made up of like spirits, gathered Congeniel

Society perhaps from widely distant points, and perhaps originally stran25, but drawn together by their common response to a belief or eugana, or to an opportunity for pleasure or improvement. Such

tional

CHAP. IX is the religious colony like the Mayflower band, or the Latter-Day

Saints; such is the partisan political colony, like the Missouri and the New England settlements in Kansas; and such is the communistic brotherhood, like Icaria. Similarity of nature and agreement in ideas constitute the social bond, and the kind of society so

created is therefore appropriately called the Congenial. Approba

“3. There is a community of miscellaneous and sometimes Society lawless elements, drawn together by economic opportunity - the

frontier settlement, the cattle range, the mining camp. The newcomer enters this community an uninvited but unhindered probationer, and remains in it on sufferance. A general approbation of qualities and conduct is practically the only social bond.

This type of society, therefore, I venture to call the Approbational

The three types of society thus far named are simple, spontaneously formed groups. The first two are homogeneous, and are found usually in relatively isolated environments. The third is heterogeneous, and has a transitory existence where exceptional economic opportunities are discovered on the confines of established civilizations.

“ Societies of the remaining five types are in a measure artificial, in part created by reflection -- by conscious planning. They are usually compound, products of conquest or of federation, and, with few if any exceptions, they are of heterogeneous composition. They are found in the relatively bountiful and differ

entiated environments. Despotic

" 4. A community of the fourth type consists of elements Society

widely unequal in ability: the strong and the weak, the brave and the timorous, exploiters and the exploited — like enough conquerors and the conquered. The social bonds of this community are despotic power and a fear-inspired obedience. The social type is

the Despotic. Authori.

“5. In any community of the fifth type arbitrary power has Society been established long enough to have identified itself with tradi

tion and religion. Accepted as divinely right, it has become authority. Reverence for authority is the social bond, and the

social type is, therefore, the Authoritative. Conspirital “6. Society of the sixth type arises in populations that, like Society

the Italian cities at their worst estate, have suffered disintegration of a preexisting social order. Unscrupulous adventurers come forward and create relations of personal allegiance by

tative