of these bulwarks of the country should not be subjected to any
servitude beyond their care and defence; but the citizen who
might absent himself for a longer period than forty days was
considered a deserter and deprived of his rights. It was about
the year 1100 that the commons began to possess the privilege of
regulating their internal affairs; they appointed their judges
and magistrates, and attached to their authority the old custom of
ordering all the citizens to assemble or march when the summons
of the feudal lord sounded the signal for their assemblage or
service. By this means each municipal magistracy had the disposal
of a force far superior to those of the nobles, for the population
of the towns exceeded both in number and discipline the vassals of
the seigniorial lands. And these trained bands of the towns made
war in a way very different from that hitherto practiced; for the
chivalry of the country, making the trade of arms a profession for
life, the feuds of the chieftains produced hereditary struggles,
almost always slow, and mutually disastrous. But the townsmen,
forced to tear themselves from every association of home and
its manifold endearments, advanced boldly to the object of the
contest; never shrinking from the dangers of war, from fear of
that still greater to be found in a prolonged struggle. It is this
that it may be remarked, during the memorable conflicts of the
thirteenth century, that when even the bravest of the knights
advised their counts or dukes to grant or demand a truce, the
citizen militia never knew but one cry--"To the charge!"

Evidence was soon given of the importance of this new nation,
when it became forced to take up arms against enemies still more
redoubtable than the counts. In 1301, the Flemings, who had abandoned
their own sovereign to attach themselves to Philip the Fair, king