Prof. Martha Carlin
Week 5: Tuesday
COMMERCE AND TOWNS
Growth of towns in the 11th century and later:
At or near major seaports
(e.g., Lübeck, Bruges, Genoa, Venice, Naples)
On major rivers (e.g.,
London,
Paris, Toledo, Cologne, Rome) or roads
Site of major commercial
fairs (especially in county of Champagne, e.g., Troyes)
Typical
features of medieval towns and cities (but not of villages)
included:
Large population
Wide range of occupations
and incomes
Densely-packed housing
Fortifications or other
defenses
More than one church
One or more courts
One or more prisons
One or more markets
and fairs
Monetized economy (based on
£1 = 20s. = 240d.: click for images of grosso
(1s. = 12d.), penny
(1d.), halfpenny, (1/2d.), and farthing
(1/4d.)
Commercial entertainment
(drinking houses, brothels, professional entertainers)
Problems with sanitation,
rubbish-disposal, and traffic
Major medieval urban export industries included:
Woolen cloth production
(spinning and weaving)
Woolen cloth finishing
(fulling,
shearing, dyeing)
Linen cloth production
Luxury cloth production
(silks, velvets, etc.)
Arms and armor manufacture
Brewing
Metalworking (including
goldsmithing and minting)
Wholesale trading in major
commodities for export (e.g., grain, timber, minerals, furs, wine,
wool, spices)
Beginning in the 12th century, many towns formed communes
(sworn
self-governance associations)
that struggled to obtain a charter
granting self-government
rights from their lords (king, queen, prince,
bishop, etc.). Chartered towns paid a fee-farm (a fixed
annual fee) to their lords in return for the right
to collect their own taxes and tolls. Other benefits of a charter
might include the right for a town to:
elect its own government
make and enforce its own
laws
run its own courts
Many towns also established guilds to regulate crafts and
trades.
Membership in a guild made one a
citizen of the town. Only guild masters could keep
shops
and supervise apprentices (trainees) and
journeymen (wage-workers who had completed an apprenticeship
but could not afford to open their
own shop). Guilds enjoyed commercial monopolies in return
for undertaking responsibility for
self-regulation.
Online readings:
Charter of the shearers of Arras, 1236
Two apprenticeship contracts for weavers in Arras and Marseilles, c.
1250
A purchase on credit in Marseille, 1248
Regulations of the London Cordwainers' (shoemakers') guild, 1375
Photograph of two 15th-cent. shops with dwelling above, from
Horsham, Sussex
Jews
in medieval towns were excluded from citizenship
and from trade and craft guilds; many
thus entered unregulated occupations, such as
moneylending,
medicine, schoolteaching (in
Jewish schools), and wholesale trading
Steps in woolen and linen textile production:
Sort and wash raw wool
or flax
Comb (flax or
long-stapled wool) or card
(short-stapled wool)
Spin
combed or carded fibers
into yarn or thread with distaff and
spindle or a hand-turned spinning wheel
(usually done
by women). Wind spun
yarn or thread into a skein.
Weave yarn or
thread into cloth on
a horizontal loom
Finishing processes for
woolen cloth: fulling,
tentering, teaseling, shearing, dyeing,
pressing
Town
government:
Generally headed by a mayor
and
council drawn from the wealthiest families, sometimes
elected by the masters of the guilds, sometimes by the "better sort" of
the citizens,
sometimes self-perpetuating, sometimes chosen by the lord
Courts might be held
by several authorities:
by the lord of the town (especially for capital offenses)
by the municipal government (especially for lesser offenses)
by the bishop (for matters relating to the church)
