but also the rural communal leagues that had sprung up. Most leagues of towns were subsequently dissolved, sometimes forcibly, and where refounded, their political influence was much reduced. Nevertheless, some of these communes (as Frankfurt, Nuremberg, Hamburg) were able to survive in Germany for centuries and became almost independent city-state vassals to the Holy Roman Emperors (see Free imperial city). 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 apparent in modern communism and socialism. See also Lombard League Hanseatic League Italian city-states Signoria Free imperial city References Sources Jones, Philip. 1997. The Italian City-State: From Commune to Signoria. (Oxford: Oxford University Press) Lansing, Carol, 1992. The Florentine Magnates: Lineage and Faction in a Medieval Commune. (Princeton: Princeton University Press) Sella, Pietro, "The Statutes of the Commune of Bugelle (Biella)" 1904. 14th-century statutes of a Piedmontese commune (Latin and English translations), express the nature of the commune in vivid detail, productions of medieval society and the medieval personality. Tabacco, Giovanni, 1989. The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy: Structures of Political Rule, 400-1400, translator, Rosalind Brown Jensen (New York: Cambridge University Press) Waley, Donald, 1969 etc. The Italian City-Republics (3rd ed. New York: Longman, 1988.) Guelph University, "The Urban Past: IV. The Medieval City" A bibliography. External links Encyclopædia Britannica 1911: "Medieval commune" Itinerari medievali: risorse per lo studio del Medioevo Peter Kropotkin