The history of the Middle Ages is one of the best illustrations of the power of
ideals and principles in human life. In Kropotkin’s view, in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries one could discern the domination of a conglomerate of four
interdependent ideas: self-reliance, federalism, sovereignty of the group and the
construction of the political body from the simple to the composite. These
leading ideas were reflected in the emerging brotherhoods or guilds and new
forms of political organization (ibid.: 220). With the continuous divergence of
occupations, arts and crafts and the increasing trade with distant countries, new
organizations grew up in which groups of carpenters, builders and tradesmen
assembled in order to defend common goals.