264 Florence
- King Philip VI (r. 1328–50) helped the count
defeat several rebellious urban militias in 1328. At the
beginning of the Hundred Years’ War in 1337 at Ghent,
Jacob van ARTEVELDE, supported by artisans, allied him-
self with the English king EDWARD III. This was the
beginning of a wearing away of any allegiance to the king
of France in the course of the war.
These political and military conflicts harmed com-
mercial activities during the 14th century and there were
numerous economic recessions as Flanders lost its central
position in commerce and textile production. The French
king Charles VI (r. 1380–1422) won a victory over the
Flemish militias in 1382 and made Flanders part of his
duchy of Burgundy. The region then saw its commercial
decline worsen. In the 15th century the port of Bruges
silted up and the economic center moved northward to
Antwerp and east to BRABANT. The duke of Burgundy’s
efforts at centralization, however, were often stymied by
the resistance of the principal towns, Bruges, Ghent, and
Ypres. In a crisis in 1477 they imposed on him the “great
privilege,” which preserved much of their autonomy in
matters of taxation.
Further reading:Galbert of Bruges, The Murder of
Charles the Good, Count of Flanders: A Contemporary
Record of Revolutionary Change in Twelfth-Century Flan-
ders,ed. James Bruce Ross (New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 1959); David Nicholas, Medieval Flanders
(New York: Longman, 1992); Ellen Kittel, From “Ad hoc”
to Routine: A Case Study in Medieval Bureaucracy
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991);
William H. TeBrake, A Plague of Insurrection: Popular Poli-
tics and Peasant Revolt in Flanders, 1323–1328(Philadel-
phia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993).
Florence (Firenze, Florentia) Medieval Florence was
a major town in TUSCANYfrom the 12th century; by the
13th it was one of the largest cities in western Europe
and was at the heart of the Renaissance of the 15th cen-
tury. Roman Florentia had been a small colonial founda-
tion below the old Etruscan town of Fiesole. Little
evidence about the town in the early Middle Ages has
been found.
THE FORMATION OF THE COMMUNE AND
THE CONFLICTS OF THE 13TH CENTURYFrom the 10th century, and especially from the late 11th
century, Florence went through an important period
of growth and developed a communal form of govern-
ment. The society of the town became diverse, with rich
groups of merchants and artisans alongside the urban-
ized rural aristocracy or nobility. Between the 12th and
13th centuries, there were considerable conflict and
internal tension over participation in the communal
regime. The city became Guelf by tradition with that
vague political program’s propapal foreign policy and
antimagnate or aristocracy measures, the Ordinances of
Justice in 1293. They were intended to marginalize the
political power of the aristocratic and magnate class
made up of new and old NOBILITY. This reform gave con-
trol of the government to a corporative system of GUILDS.
This was also the era of civic building to demonstrate the
power of the commune as being at least equal to that of
the old magnate lineages and to demonstrate the con-
quest of the rural hinterland, towns, and nobility to pro-
duce a regional city-state. This aggressive expansion led
to further conflicts with neighboring communes of PISA,
Arezzo, Lucca, and SIENAand, on a wider scale, Floren-
tine involvement in wars among the PAPACY, the HOHEN-
STAUFEN, and the ANGEVINS. At the same time, Florentine
bankers became the most important companies in
Europe, replacing those of Siena.
By the 14th century and despite the instability of its
government, Florence was well provided for with an
excellent financial and commercial base linked with its
strong gold coin, the florin. One of the richest and most
sophisticated cities in Europe, it was blessed with a high
level of literacy and lay culture, especially among its
notaries and jurists. In the early 14th century it reached
its greatest size with, according to Giovanni VILLANI,
around 100,000 inhabitants, many employed in its lucra-
tive TEXTILEindustry.
From the mid-14th century, the city’s power and
wealth were threatened by a plague-driven population
decline, the financial collapse of its largest banking and
commercial firms, even greater instability in government,
the revolt of the CIOMPI, communal fiscal inadequacies
and difficulties, and a major war with the papacy. Yet it
remained one of the richest cities in Europe and a major
force in the politics of the Italian peninsula.THE 15TH CENTURY AND
THE RISE OF THE MEDICI
The commune’s financial resources were stretched even
further by the military requirements of the wars with the
VISCONTIof MILANand by the great expenses of the con-
quest of Pisa in 1406, which was carried out to give Flo-
rence an outlet on the sea. At the same time the new but
unstable oligarchic produced a period of prosperity dis-
tinguished by the development of public and private
building. This left superficially intact its democratic and
republican structures, but they were now more than ever
restricted to a few powerful families, who fought over
their control. This was also the era of the civic human-
ists, such as Leonardo BRUNI, who developed ideas of a
civic HUMANISMor a theory of “liberty” to stand behind
Florence’s now clearly aristocratic and explicitly oli-
garchic political institutions.
This period was followed by the establishment of a
factional lordship of the MEDICIfamily, who ruled the
city from 1434 to 1494 yet kept up the pretense of tradi-
tional political institutions that were in fact carefully