ound rents, tolls for protection by knights, and tolls on merchandise brought on the land. There were different courts with different rules that surfs had to follow one being church related and the other an overall court ruled by the king or the castle owner, not to mention rules set by each vassal.What merchants wanted was personal liberty or freedom to be able to come and go freely for trade purpose yet still be under protection of the feudal lord. For merchants and artisans needed to be able to travel from city to city to get different goods for trading and their survival. This would lead to the need for the creation of a special court of justice, which would allow the citizen of a town to avoid the variety of authority he would face in travel, which he was responsible to abide by. This greatly unconvinced him and hurt his social or economic activity. Next came the development of a penal code to guarantee security, having a less extensive degree of political independence and local self-government but yet more widespread common laws for merchants and artisans.Since none of the authorities took action and the population was so diverse it was necessary for some people to take action and represent the mass. Merchants stepped up and formed gilds, which were groups of merchants who initiated meetings to bring about changes and give them independence. The result little by little was the middle class beginning to stand out as a district and privileged group. Finally they acquired a status of freedom where difference and wealth had no baring all citizens were equal. Freedom of the old used to be held only by the privileged class. All you had to do was live on the city soil for one year and all limitations were abolished between surf and lord. Citizen and freeman became a term used interchangeably. This freedom of persons came with the freedom of land and no land could remain idle. Building of houses rapidly grew and the owner of...
