1300 - Prosperous Towns
By the 13th Century Holland became increasingly independent of the imperial authority. The fragments of Lorraine, Holland, Guelderland, Utrecht, Brabant, and Flanders paid little heed to their nominal lord; Holland especially, so far from the center of the empire, so nearly forgotten in the greater troubles of Italy or Switzerland, was left to herself. She made her own laws, imposed river-dues (a recognized imperial right), named her own officers, held high court of justice, coined money, made peace or war at will.
Even the de jure authority of the empire over Holland is a matter of doubt, much debated by publicists and historians. The independent development of the country took a municipal form; and as the constitutions of her cities had throughout affected her history, they demand some consideration. Before the 14th century there were in Holland no estates, nor any general political life; the count was all powerful over the country districts he set his "baljews" or bailiffs, and in towns and villages his "schouts" or local judges.
In the 13th century, when any greater matter had to be discussed in a city, all citizens were summoned by ring of the great bell to the public square, and there decided the question by democratic vote. Justice was administered "by a man's peers" according to the Saxon code in the east, the Frisian in the north, and the Frankish or Salian in the south, each district having also its several uses or customs.
Taxation for the count's benefit was styled his "beden" or prayer for supplies, and fell chiefly on the towns. And as the towns paid most, and were generally built on the count's lands, they claimed his protection, receiving charters and liberties from him in return for their dues and levies of men.
In time the vague civic democracy gave place to an oligarchical government. While the Flemish towns were opposed to their feudal lord, in the north it was the other way; the counts of Holland were with the cities against the other classes of society. Consequently, though the Dutch towns began later, they in the end enjoyed far more steady prosperity than their southern neighbors. Thus under William II and Floris V, Dort and Delft, Haarlem, Alkmaar, Middelburg, Leyden, Schiedam, and others began their prosperous career.
Each of those cities was at first ruled by the count's "schepenen"' or judges, supported by councilors, one from each quarter of the town, from whom sprang the title of burgomaster, by which they became known in later days. The "schepenen" administered justice, while the councilors or burgomasters attended to civil affairs, and by degrees threw the judges into the background. Peace and defense were entrusted to a local militia, armed with the cross-bow.
Dort was the earliest of these prosperous towns; it enjoyed a very strict stapleright; the commerce of the northern districts was compelled to pass through its market. Two centuries later came the prosperity of Amsterdam, and with it the European fame of Dutch butter and cheese; then the wealth arising from the herring-fishery, of which the center was Enkhuysen. In the 14th century the chief towns had joined the Hansa, and though that exclusive body in the 15th century ejected them, they far more than recovered the loss of their trade through the newly opened worlds of India and America.
