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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lawrence of Arabica" data-source="post: 156489" data-attributes="member: 4256">town and countryAt risk of repeating what's already been said, let me try summarizing some different models for city-states and the surrouding countryside.Classical Greece: the typical city would rule an area of pehaps 15-20 miles from its center. There wasn't much political distinction between the urbanized area and the countryside.Medieval Italy: the cities started just controlling the area within their walls, but gradually they subdued the aristocrats in the countryside, until each city's sphere of control bordered on that of neighboring cities. There was a big distinction between city and countryside. For example, imports had to pass through the city. In some (and perhaps most) cases taxes put an unequal burden on the countryside.Renaissance Italy: the bigger cities dominated the smaller ones, until eventually just four cities had real independence. Each ruled a far larger territory than in the other eras, and many ways were little different from the territorial states such as France.Germany: I know less about this, but my understanding is that each Imperial Free City controlled just a very small area outside its walls.As for the fortresses vs. walls question: the Greek cities had walls but no border fortifications; the German cities had walls but had other options; the Italian cities had both (one of the aims of conquering the countryside being to get control of the fortifications, if nothing else in order to keep them out of the hands of enemies).</blockquote>

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