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  • 4 - Government and Community

  • Edited by David Luscombe, University of Sheffield, Jonathan Riley-Smith, University of Cambridge
  • Book:
    The New Cambridge Medieval History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    14 October 2004, pp 86-112

  • Summary

    This chapter presents an overview of government and community in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Government at every level, from that of kingdoms down to villages or estates, depended on a great deal of collective activity. Ideas about justice, public welfare and good government did not, however, start from the individualist and egalitarian premises that have developed since the seventeenth century. Individuals were born into gentes as they were born into families, and they were born under the authority of the ruler or rulers of their gens. During the twelfth century, the word commune came into use to describe city governments but it does not seem to have had particularly revolutionary overtones. The mark of a commune is sometimes thought to have been the collective oath taken by its members, which turned a local community into something closer, more united, and therefore more revolutionary.