was felt to be positive and real, the change in the character of the local governor was of little moment; but as soon as the power of the central government weakened—­during the inglorious reigns of the immediate successors of the great emperor—­its hold on the administration of the local units slackened immediately; and in proportion as the vitality of the new central control diminishes, we see appearing the effects which must always result when the strong hand of an active central power is removed from a system of administration which had been based on the exercise of such a power.  These effects are the increased importance—­I may now say the increased independence—­of the local units; of these local units themselves as distinguished from the heads who rule over them.

The change had made these units more organic parts of the state than they had ever been before:  we have seen them first made prominent by being the seats of the rulers of the civitas, and now we are to see them gain a more significant advance by coming into relation with the head of the state directly, instead of through the personal power of their lord.  For the local ruler has yielded his individual pre-eminence to the central government; and when this fails to maintain its authority, in any community whose inhabitants are capable of fostering the seeds of independence once sown, it is difficult if not impossible for a successor to repossess himself of the privileges which have been forfeited.  In any state where the seat of central authority is distant or its power only exercised feebly and at intervals, the local units secure much greater independence and importance, through the very necessity of performing many functions left unheeded by the ruler of all; and if the people are self-reliant in character, they will in time develop a sort of self-government which, although it would not at first think of questioning the theoretical right and overlordship of the central power, will eventually brook but little interference with its modes of procedure and with its exercise of functions, which the lapse of time has transformed from enforced duties into jealously guarded privileges.

This is the keynote of the later history of the Italian cities.  This it was, and not any real lack of patriotism, which made them choose a German emperor instead of an Italian king.  There was no room at that time for the idea of Italian unity, as we now understand it:  the nature of the people alone would have rendered such a thing impossible, even if we leave out of account the fact that Italy was the meeting-ground of the two great powers of the mediaeval world, the Pope and the Emperor.  Italy then must have had two masters, or have been the slave of one.  The same spirit of civic independence which caused the development of Ancient Greece by preventing the universal rule of one power, caused the Italians, under different conditions, to pit one master against another to attain the same end.  Even Liutprand,