Medieval commune

Medieval communes in the European Middle Ages had sworn allegiances of mutual defense both physical defense as alive as of traditional freedoms among a citizens of a town or city. These took numerous forms & varied widely in agency and makeup.

Communes are number one recorded in the unhurried 11th and early 12th centuries, thereafter becoming a widespread phenomenon. They had greater development in central-northern Italy, where they became city-states based on partial democracy. At the same time in Germany they became free cities, self-employed grown-up from local nobility.

Communalism

Anarchist Peter Kropotkin argued that the elements of mutual aid and mutual defense expressed in the medieval commune and its guild system were the same sentiments of collective self-defense obvious in sophisticated communism and socialism.