It has been shown that the city
did not inherit any such position from its immediate predecessor the
Roman _municipium_, which we have learnt to consider as overthrown,
from a constitutional standpoint as annihilated; but that the new
principle introduced into state life by the northern conquerors of
Italy, the principle of administration by county rather than by urban
divisions, relegated the city to an inferior place as part of a rural
holding, instead of leaving it the centre of a circle of rural
dependencies. Having demonstrated the absence of all constitutional
recognition of the municipal unit as such, I have attempted to show
how a condition of such legal insignificance became generally a
condition of actual importance; how from a position of such negative
interest, the advance of the city was commenced along a road which was
ultimately to restore it its old pre-eminence, even adding to this in
time the almost forgotten attribute of sovereignty. The motives for
this advance we have seen to be no higher ones than convenience and
expediency, which made the _urbs_ of every _civitas_ the natural
centre of its local administration, thereby in fact, if in no way by
law, restoring to it some of the elements of individuality, if not of
pre-eminence, which it had lost. The means employed we have seen to be
the functions of the various officers of state: the _dux_, the count
and the gastald, who connected the city with the state, and the
_scabinus_ and the bishop, who represented this connection to the
consciousness of the people.
Pages:
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111