Cities/towns were understood as centers for many things, noticeably for commerce and trade, and for handicraft industries. There was usually a cathedral in a town, which made it a Church center as well. But were cities/towns also seats of governments in medieval times?
For places like Paris and London, there were the royal palaces, which must be the political center of a kingdom. Yet at the same time, a city was governed by guilds/oligarchs/councils, which were not branches of the royal household/government.
Similarly, the feudal lords resided in their castles or chateaus, and provincial cities/towns enjoyed their own municipal autonomy.
In that sense, could we say that medieval cities were not seats of governments, unlike the situation today?
The answer varies by what country you're looking at.
In Medieval Italy, the answer is yes. For example, the Venetian Republic was ruled exclusively from the city and not from any of the surrounding areas, the same applies to the Florentines, Genoese, etc.
The Genoese government came into power in the 10th century, primarily due to negligence to the previous rulers of the city. A rural aristocracy gained control of the city and held on to it after defeating excursions of Muslim pirates coming from the Tyrrehnian sea. They would raid the countryside, which forced the nobles to flee to the city and strengthen its walls and militia. Once they had secured the city, they used it as a center of power for the surrounding areas.
The Italian City States were such centers of power that their architecture changed. An example is the fact that the nobles were not used to living in the city and having limited amounts of space. Since they could not expand to their sides most of the time, they built towers. The towers often served as the headquarters for individual families (a good example is the Torre degli Alberti, which belonged to the Alberti family of Florence.)
Due to this, you often had families competing politically in city centers, the feud between Medicis and Patsis being one of the most famous one. The power moves were not limited to family politics but often included religious, military and workers guild as well.
To learn more about government in Medieval Italy, i recommend the following reads:
*Medieval and Renaissance Pistoia: the Social History of an Italian Town, 1200-1430 -Cities And Society In Medieval Italy (1980)
*Communes and Despots in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, edited by John E. Law
*The Commercial Revolution of the Middle Ages, 950-1350 by Robert Sabatino Lopez
*Commercial Agreements and Social Dynamics in Medieval Genoa by By Quentin van Doosselaere
In what is now the UK, the oldest form of local government were the self-governing "boroughs". Those were settlements of greater importance which received special privileges from the King. London was the largest one and in 1075 was granted a "royal charter", which meant right to self-govern and remain outside the feudal system. A century later there were already couple of hundred of them.
Such towns/boroughs were ran by a "corporation" consisting of town's elders who selected themselves. The borough took care of the roads, the poor, could levy certain taxes and basically manage most things local. They paid taxes directly to the Sovereign and from the 13th century onwards would also send two townspeople as representatives in the Parliament. Thus boroughs had a say not only in governing the local affairs, but also in the affairs of the whole country.
Outside the towns, the Sheriff is the oldest secular officer in the country (still exists today, although their function now is only ceremonial). At first each county, or "shire", had a senior administrative officer named "shire reeve", which later turned into a "sheriff". The Sheriff was the local representative of the Sovereign, upheld the law, hold court, pursued felons, gathered militia etc. The Sheriff collected taxes and dues to the Crown lands, and were in charge of the Crown property within the shire. With time, their powers were gradually restricted and given to other officers (such as the Justices of Peace). In the late medieval period, some cities became so independent, they had their own Sheriff.
Some cities had so much power, their authority extended out into a county of their own (such as Canterbury, Lincoln, Nottingham, York, London's City).
But it was the larger administrative unit, the "county" which was gaining more powers of "local government". The county gradually took control of important issues such as building bridges, prisons, main roads, public buildings, regulation of weights and measures, levy of local taxes. The officers in charge at county level were the magistrates/judges, since the courts were the only body which acted county-wide at the time.
In the smaller administrative units, the parishes (area of control of a church), the parish councils became the local government simply because they already had certain responsibilities within the rural community. They were not government organisations but the law required them to carry out certain duties such as the upkeep of local roads or the local poor.
The above system existed up until 1888, when it was thoroughly updated.
Thanks for the very informative replies. So there was a difference between the city states on Italian Peninsula and the more feudal arrangement in England. I wonder what the situation was like in the Netherlands, as far as local government was concerned. Was it more similar to Italy, or England?