Page "Citizenship" Paragraph 14

During the Renaissance, people transitioned from being subjects of a king or queen to being citizens of a city and later to a nation.

Each city had its own law, courts, and independent administration.

And being a citizen often meant being subject to the city's law in addition to having power in some instances to help choose officials.

City dwellers who had fought alongside nobles in battles to defend their cities were no longer content with having a subordinate social status, but demanded a greater role in the form of citizenship.

Membership in guilds was an indirect form of citizenship in that it helped their members succeed financially.

The rise of citizenship was linked to the rise of republicanism, according to one account, since independent citizens meant that kings had less power.

Citizenship became an idealized, almost abstract, concept, and did not signify a submissive relation with a lord or count, but rather indicated the bond between a person and the state in the rather abstract sense of having rights and duties.