The population of Florence was then formed, as was that of the greater number of Italian towns, of two very distinct classes--the patricians and the people; the former included the descendants of noble families and the burghers free since the conquest; the latter included all the other inhabitants of the town, the ancient tributaries of the bishop or the clients of the nobles whom they had freed. The descendants of these freed men, and also those of immigrants from other towns, were born free, earned much by the luxury of the upper classes, and were soon as rich as the patricians. So, later on, they desired, and were able to obtain for their special functionaries, entrance into the posts of the republic, and thus it was that popular revolutions took place in the thirteenth century. Before this time, the people were satisfied to assist in the election of magistrates without dreaming of claiming the honour for themselves. As for the nobles of the surrounding country who refused to submit to the government, they were pursued, their lands devastated and burned, even their fortresses were destroyed, so that in a short time Florence had sole rule over the neighbouring land. The entire century during which this constitution was in force, is filled with the sound of strife with the nobles. At one time the young republic subdued the rock of Fiesole, a veritable retreat of brigands; then the powerful family of the Buondelmonti, of Monte Buono. This family, so famous and so fatal to Florentine happiness, possessed a small castle about five miles distant from the town which, commanding the Siena road, enabled them to impose a toll upon all merchandise in its passage. Florence complained of this imposition, and being refused redress destroyed their castle, obliging them without further spoliation to become Florentine citizens; others followed; and so they continued adding bit after bit to their possessions by money, conquest, or persuasion, but still maintaining a close alliance with Pisa, which at this period, although the most commercial and military nation of Tuscany, was rivalled by Florence in ambition and warlike propensities if not in power and celebrity. _Municipal Wars_ [Sidenote: [1144-1146 A.D.]] In the year 1144 all Tuscany was in arms, partly on account of these republics, but more from those dissensions that spring from mutual jealousy in rising states commencing the race of ambition and of blood, who league for war as a pastime, and regard the butchery of their fellow-creatures as legitimate amusement. Lucca and Pisa were in constant collision, and the friendship of the former with Siena, of the latter with Florence, occasioned a quadruple war between those states, each jealous of the other’s ascendency; the necessities of commerce, untouched as yet by its rivalry, kept peace between Pisa and Florence; and the distance of the other two diminished their points of contact and consequently their chances of quarrel.