Within the city walls there are still various ranks and grades of political status. At first the old settlers, the men of rank equal with the nobles of the surrounding country, the ancient freemen of the burgh, refuse to the newcomers, usually poor artisans or hucksters, the right of sharing in the government. But, as we saw in the case of the maritime cities, such gradations of rank can not be maintained within a business community. The majority, intelligent, skeptical, closely organized and compact, forces the concession of equal rights. The only difference is that the contest is longer in a developed feudal state, because now the fight concerns not only the parties at interest. The great territorial magnates of the neighborhood and the princes hinder the full development of the forces by their interference. In the maritime states of the ancient world, there was no _tertius gaudens_ who could derive any profit from the contests within the city, since outside the cities there existed no system of powerful feudal lords. These then, are the political arms of the cities in their contest with the feudal state: alliances with the crown, direct attack, and the enticing away of the serfs of the feudal lords into the enfranchising air of the city. Its economic weapons are no less effective, the change from payments in kind to the system of _money as a means of exchange_ is inseparably connected with civic methods, is the means whereby the method of payment in kind is utterly destroyed, and with it the feudal state. (c) THE INFLUENCES OF MONEY ECONOMY The sociological process set into motion by the system of money economy is so well known and its mechanics are so generally recognized, that a few suggestions will suffice. Here, as in the case of the maritime states, the consequence of the invading money system is that the _central government becomes almost omnipotent, while the local powers are reduced to complete impotence_.