SOCIAL DIFFERENTIATION 183
And it also enables the individual to participate more fully
in the social life with all sides of his personality.
During the Middle Ages the individual was also in
many cases a member of different associations, but his relationships
 were much less determined by his individual
characteristics. The Hanseatic League united different
towns and enabled the individual citizen to participate in
a field which extended far beyond the city limits. The
guilds offered the individual a membership in associations
which extended and co-operated throughout the country.
But these social circles were concentric circles. The individual
 did not participate in the larger circle as an individual,
 but as a member of an existing group. The new participation
 was not on the basis of any individual characteristic
 and did not lead to any intersection with existing
circles. For that reason the result of these new associations
for the individual existence was different from that of additional
 associations in modern times. They did not lead to
a fuller determination of the individual’s place in society,
as they did not result from differentiations out of primary
groups. This is accounted for partly by the fact that the
individual devoted himself much more fully to his corporation,
 and partly by the fact that the principle of union was
a principle of equality. Only equals could combine and
unite in corporations. Therefore the larger combinations
were at first combinations of towns with towns, of convents
 with convents, and of guilds with related guilds. As
members of corporations the individuals were equal, and
only in so far as they were equal did the common bond
exist in the larger groups. It did not exist in so far as they
were individually differentiated. The individual as such
in his individual uniqueness remained outside the larger
union. It was not an association that attached itself to a
differentiated individual characteristic.