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taxes. The need for both time and money to sustain this role confined citizenship to those owning real estate in the town. The assumptions behind medieval government were far from any modern principle of democracy. But they were regularly debated, as at Norwich in the early fifteenth century when the bailiffs and the council of twenty-four were challenged by the assertion that their ordinances were invalid without
From commune to signoria , from independence to subjection The Italian communes of the thirteenth century have been celebrated for their recreation of the institutions and methods of ancient democracy. Political participation was widened beyond the families of a narrow élite. Appointment to executive boards and committees was based
despite wider participation in government in these cases, few would now concur with Pirenne’s vision of the cities of the Low Countries as early democracies. 34 Some guild deacons led a lifestyle not dissimilar to that of wealthier social groups, particularly in sectors producing luxury goods, and the guilds were increasingly becoming a closed and hereditary milieu. 35