In Europe from the 12th to the 17th centuries, the corporate organization of labour and of town-market communities developed side-by-side with the ideals of personal liberty, market freedom and legal equality. Both affected the ideology of the European commune and city-state in specific and discernible ways. Self-governing labour organizations and civil freedom developed together as coherent practices. The values of mutual aid and craft honour on the one hand and of personal freedom amd legal equality on the other, formed the moral infrastructure of our civiliztion.