All towns outside of Italy were evidently small in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and, like the manors on which they had grown up, they had little commerce as yet with the outside world. They produced almost all that their inhabitants needed except the farm products which came from the neighboring country. There was likely to be little expansion so long as the town remained under the absolute control of the lord or monastery upon whose land it was situated. The townspeople were scarcely more than serfs, in spite of the fact that they lived within a wall and engaged in industry instead of farming. They had to pay irritating dues to their lord, just as if they had still formed a farming community. The emancipation of the townsmen from their lords and the establishment of a suitable form of government for their town were necessary preliminaries to the free development of town life. [Sidenote: Increase of trade promotes the growth of the towns.] With the increase of trade came the longing for this freedom. For when new and attractive commodities began to be brought from the East and the South, the people of the towns were encouraged to produce goods with the idea of exchanging them at some neighboring fair for the products of distant lands. But no sooner did the townsmen begin to engage in manufacturing and to enter into relations with the outside world, than they became conscious that they were greatly hampered by their half-servile condition and were subject to exactions and restrictions which would render progress impossible. Consequently during the twelfth century there were many insurrections of the towns against their lords and a general demand that the lords should grant the townsmen _charters_ in which the rights of both parties should be definitely stated. [Illustration: A Castle on the Rhine with a Village below it] [Sidenote: The communes.] In France the citizens organized themselves into what were called _communes_, or unions for the purpose of gaining their independence. This word _commune_ appeared a new and detestable one to the lords, for, to their minds, it was merely another name for a company of serfs leagued against their masters. The nobles sometimes put down the insurrections of their townsmen with great cruelty. On the other hand, the lords often realized that they would increase the prosperity of their towns by granting them freedom from arbitrary taxation and the right to govern themselves. In England the towns gained their privileges more gradually by purchasing them from the lords. [Sidenote: Town charters.]