Medieval European cities - education
Scientists identify two factors that contributed to their appearance. The first is the overproduction of agricultural products. The fact is that peasant farms produced so much food that they could easily feed both feudal lords and the clergy, as well as other people who did not need to work on the land.
The second factor is the high level of demand for items produced by artisans, and cities were the centers of development of crafts.
Thus, cities arose where it was convenient not only to produce handicraft products, but also to sell them. Often the formation of medieval cities in Europe took place on the ruins of Roman settlements, because the Romans built them according to strict rules. One of the most striking examples of this is the French city of Arles.
Rice. 1. Arles.
City walls also began to be erected near a river, around a sprawling feudal estate, at the intersection of trade routes, or near a well-fortified monastery.
TOP 1 article that is read along with this
- 1. Medieval village and its inhabitants
Dependence of the city on the level of production development
The 11th century, the border between the Classical and Early Middle Ages, was the time of the transformation of cities into one of the main structures of feudalism.
The early Middle Ages were characterized by the loss of importance of ancient cities in the public life of the country. The reason for this is the dominance of subsistence farming. Definition 1
Subsistence farming is a type of farming in which products and products to satisfy one’s own needs are produced within an economic unit. Nothing is sold and nothing is bought.
Trade remained in its most embryonic state and was based on the exchange of goods that could not be obtained in specific geographical conditions (for example, iron, salt). Goods that were not produced there were delivered from the countries of the East to Europe: silk fabrics, spices, etc. European artisans practically did not produce products for sale, that is, the commercial economy was not developed.
Definition 2
Commodity farming is a type of farming when products are produced not only for one’s own consumption, but for sale. There is a division of labor and specialization in the production of a specific type of product. Trade is developing to connect consumers and producers.
Finished works on a similar topic
- Course work: The emergence and growth of medieval cities 400 rub.
- Abstract The emergence and growth of medieval cities 220 rub.
- Test work: The emergence and growth of medieval cities 230 rub.
Receive completed work or specialist advice on your educational project Find out the cost
In those areas where commodity farming retained its importance, cities remained more developed and densely populated. This applies, for example, to Byzantium.
Characteristic features of a medieval city
In such a place there was always work for carpenters, weavers, bakers, jewelers, blacksmiths and other artisans. Competition contributed to the rapid development of urban crafts.
As for urban planning, usually high stone walls were complemented by a moat with water - this gave residents additional protection. At night, all the city gates were closed and opened only at sunrise, at which time the guards began collecting taxes from anyone who wanted to enter or drive in. The city had a main gate, as well as two or three more, usually located on the cardinal points. Nearby was the place of execution - the square where public executions were carried out.
Rice. 2. Public execution in the Middle Ages.
It is difficult to accurately answer the question of what parts the medieval city consisted of. But, as a rule, it was divided into quarters depending on what the people who lived there did: there were quarters of artisans, merchants, students, the poor, and merchants.
Self-government in cities
Life here was quite democratic: the council was elected by the townspeople themselves, and he, in turn, elected the mayor.
Medieval motto: “The city makes you free!” was legally embodied in practice: a person only had to live in it for one year and one day to become free, even if he had previously been in personal dependence.
Thanks to the cities, a class of people called the bourgeois appeared. The reason for the appearance of such people was the way of thinking of a city dweller, which was radically different from the peasant worldview.
Two main problems of a medieval city
The first problem was sewage, because there was no sewage system for a very long time, everything was thrown out and simply poured into the street, which became the cause of the spread of epidemics. In response, people appeared in the city who cleaned toilets and transported their contents outside the city walls.
And the second problem is fires. Since the houses were made of wood, they caught fire easily, and the density of buildings meant that entire neighborhoods could burn out because of one careless person.
Rice. 3. Fire in a medieval city.
In preparing a report on city fires, one cannot help but mention that the political struggle for a seat on the city council was often accompanied by arson. To stop them, people caught setting fires were burned alive.
Chapter XXI. The emergence and development of medieval cities in Europe
The decisive point in the transition of European countries from early feudal society to the established system of feudal relations is the 11th century. A characteristic feature of developed feudalism was the emergence and flourishing of cities as centers of craft and trade, centers of commodity production. Medieval cities had a huge impact on the economy of the village and contributed to the growth of productive forces in agriculture.The dominance of subsistence farming in the early Middle Ages
In the first centuries of the Middle Ages, subsistence farming almost reigned supreme in Europe. The peasant family itself produced agricultural products and handicrafts (tools and clothing; not only for their own needs, but also for paying rent to the feudal lord. The combination of rural labor with industrial labor is a characteristic feature of the natural economy. Only a small number of artisans (household people) who were not engaged or almost not engaged in agriculture, there were on the estates of large feudal lords.There were also very few peasant artisans who lived in the village and were specially engaged in some kind of craft along with agriculture - blacksmithing, pottery, leather, etc.
The exchange of products was very insignificant. It was reduced primarily to trade in such rare but important household items that could be obtained only in a few points (iron, tin, copper, salt, etc.), as well as luxury items that were not then produced in Europe and were imported from East (silk fabrics, expensive jewelry, well-crafted weapons, spices, etc.). This exchange was carried out mainly by traveling merchants (Byzantines, Arabs, Syrians, etc.). The production of products specifically designed for sale was almost not developed, and only a very small part of agricultural products was received in exchange for goods brought by merchants.
Of course, in the early Middle Ages there were cities that had survived from antiquity or emerged again and were either administrative centers, or fortified points (fortresses - burgs), or church centers (residences of archbishops, bishops, etc.). However, with the almost undivided dominance of the natural economy, when craft activities had not yet been separated from agricultural ones, all these cities were not and could not be the center of crafts and trade. True, in some cities of the early Middle Ages already in the 8th-9th centuries. handicraft production developed and there were markets, but this did not change the overall picture.
Creating prerequisites for the separation of crafts from agriculture
No matter how slow the development of productive forces was in the early Middle Ages, by the X-XI centuries. Important changes took place in the economic life of Europe. They were expressed in the change and development of technology and craft skills, in the differentiation of its branches. Certain crafts have improved significantly: mining, smelting and processing of metals, primarily blacksmithing and weaponry; manufacturing of fabrics, especially cloth; leather treatment; production of more advanced clay products using a potter's wheel; milling, construction, etc.
The division of crafts into new branches, the improvement of production techniques and labor skills required further specialization of the artisan. But such specialization was incompatible with the situation in which the peasant found himself, running his own farm and working simultaneously as a farmer and as an artisan. It was necessary to transform crafts from ancillary production in agriculture into an independent branch of the economy.
Another side of the process that prepared the separation of crafts from agriculture was the progress in the development of agriculture and cattle breeding. With the improvement of tools and methods of soil cultivation, especially with the widespread adoption of the iron plow, as well as two-field and three-field systems, there was a significant increase in labor productivity in agriculture. The area of cultivated land has increased; Forests were cleared and new land masses were plowed up. Internal colonization—the settlement and economic development of new areas—played a big role in this. As a result of all these changes in agriculture, the quantity and variety of agricultural products increased, the time for their production decreased, and, consequently, the surplus product appropriated by feudal landowners increased. A certain surplus over consumption began to remain in the hands of the peasant. This made it possible to exchange part of agricultural products for products of specialist artisans.
The emergence of medieval cities as centers of crafts and trade
Thus, approximately by the X-XI centuries. In Europe, all the necessary conditions appeared for the separation of crafts from agriculture. At the same time, the craft, small industrial production based on manual labor, separated from agriculture, went through a number of stages in its development.
The first of these was the production of products to order from the consumer, when the material could belong to both the consumer-customer and the artisan himself, and payment for labor was made either in kind or in money. Such a craft could exist not only in the city; it was also widespread in the countryside, being an addition to the peasant economy. However, when a craftsman worked to order, commodity production did not yet arise, because the product of labor did not appear on the market. The next stage in the development of the craft was associated with the artisan’s entry into the market. This was a new and important phenomenon in the development of feudal society.
Stonemasons at work. Stained glass. XIII century
A craftsman specially engaged in the manufacture of handicraft products could not exist if he did not turn to the market and did not receive there the agricultural products he needed in exchange for his products. But by producing products for sale on the market, the artisan became a commodity producer. Thus, the emergence of crafts, isolated from agriculture, meant the emergence of commodity production and commodity relations, the emergence of exchange between city and countryside and the emergence of opposition between them.
Craftsmen, who gradually emerged from the mass of the enslaved and feudally dependent rural population, sought to leave the village, escape from the power of their masters and settle where they could find the most favorable conditions for selling their products and running their own independent craft economy. The flight of peasants from the countryside led directly to the formation of medieval cities as centers of crafts and trade.
Peasant artisans who left and fled from the village settled in different places depending on the availability of favorable conditions for practicing their craft (possibility of selling products, proximity to sources of raw materials, relative safety, etc.). Craftsmen often chose as their place of settlement precisely those points that played the role of administrative, military and church centers in the early Middle Ages. Many of these points were fortified, which provided the artisans with the necessary security. The concentration of a significant population in these centers - feudal lords with their servants and numerous retinues, clergy, representatives of the royal and local administration, etc. - created favorable conditions for artisans to sell their products here. Craftsmen also settled near large feudal estates, estates, and castles, the inhabitants of which could become consumers of their goods. Craftsmen also settled near the walls of monasteries, where many people flocked on pilgrimage, in settlements located at the intersection of important roads, at river crossings and bridges, at river mouths, on the banks of bays, bays, convenient for ships, etc. Despite the differences in the places where they arose, all these settlements of artisans became centers of population engaged in the production of handicrafts for sale, centers of commodity production and exchange in feudal society.
Cities played a vital role in the development of the internal market under feudalism. Expanding, albeit slowly, handicraft production and trade, they drew both master's and peasant economies into commodity circulation and thereby contributed to the development of productive forces in agriculture, the emergence and development of commodity production in it, and the growth of the internal market in the country.
Population and appearance of cities
In Western Europe, medieval cities first appeared in Italy (Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Naples, Amalfi, etc.), as well as in the south of France (Marseille, Arles, Narbonne and Montpellier), since here, starting from the 9th century. the development of feudal relations led to a significant increase in productive forces and the separation of crafts from agriculture.
One of the favorable factors that contributed to the development of Italian and southern French cities was the trade relations of Italy and southern France with Byzantium and the East, where there were numerous and flourishing craft and trading centers that had survived from antiquity. Wealthy cities with developed handicraft production and lively trade activities were cities such as Constantinople, Thessalonica (Thessalonica), Alexandria, Damascus and Bakhdad. Even richer and more populous, with an extremely high level of material and spiritual culture for that time, were the cities of China - Chang'an (Xi'an), Luoyang, Chengdu, Yangzhou, Guangzhou (Canton) and the cities of India - Kanyakubja (Kanauj), Varanasi (Benares) , Ujjain, Surashtra (Surat), Tanjore, Tamralipti (Tamluk), etc. As for medieval cities in Northern France, the Netherlands, England, South-West Germany, along the Rhine and along the Danube, their emergence and development relate only to X and XI centuries.
In Eastern Europe, the oldest cities that early began to play the role of centers of craft and trade were Kyiv, Chernigov, Smolensk, Polotsk and Novgorod. Already in the X-XI centuries. Kyiv was a very significant craft and trade center and amazed its contemporaries with its splendor. He was called a rival of Constantinople. According to contemporaries, by the beginning of the 11th century. There were 8 markets in Kyiv.
Novgorod was also a big and rich holy fool at that time. As excavations by Soviet archaeologists have shown, the streets of Novgorod were paved with wooden pavements already in the 11th century. In Novgorod in the XI-XII centuries. There was also a water supply: water flowed through hollowed out wooden pipes. This was one of the earliest urban aqueducts in medieval Europe.
Cities of ancient Rus' in the X-XI centuries. already had extensive trade relations with many regions and countries of the East and West - with the Volga region, the Caucasus, Byzantium, Central Asia, Iran, Arab countries, the Mediterranean, Slavic Pomerania, Scandinavia, the Baltic states, as well as with the countries of Central and Western Europe - the Czech Republic, Moravia , Poland, Hungary and Germany. A particularly important role in international trade from the beginning of the 10th century. Novgorod played. The successes of Russian cities in the development of crafts were significant (especially in metal processing and the manufacture of weapons, in jewelry, etc.).
Cities also developed early in Slavic Pomerania along the southern shore of the Baltic Sea - Wolin, Kamen, Arkona (on the island of Rujan, modern Rügen), Stargrad, Szczecin, Gdansk, Kolobrzeg, cities of the southern Slavs on the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic Sea - Dubrovnik, Zadar, Sibenik, Split, Kotor, etc.
Prague was a significant center of crafts and trade in Europe. The famous Arab traveler geographer Ibrahim ibn Yaqub, who visited the Czech Republic in the middle of the 10th century, wrote about Prague that it “is the richest of cities in trade.”
Walls of the city of Carcassonne (France). XIII century
The main population of the cities that arose in the X-XI centuries. in Europe, were craftsmen. Peasants who fled from their masters or went to the cities on the condition of paying a quitrent to the master, becoming townspeople, gradually freed themselves from their excellent dependence on the feudal lord “From the serfs of the Middle Ages,” wrote Marx Engels, “the free population of the first cities emerged” ( K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, Works, vol. 4, ed. 2, p. 425,
). But even with the advent of medieval cities, the process of separating crafts from agriculture did not end. On the one hand, artisans, having become city dwellers, retained traces of their rural origin for a very long time. On the other hand, in the villages both the master's and the peasant farms continued for a long time to satisfy most of their needs for handicraft products with their own means. The separation of crafts from agriculture, which began to take place in Europe in the 9th-11th centuries, was still far from complete and complete.
In addition, at first the artisan was also a merchant. Only later did merchants appear in the cities - a new social stratum whose sphere of activity was no longer production, but only the exchange of goods. In contrast to the traveling merchants who existed in feudal society in the previous period and were engaged almost exclusively in foreign trade, the merchants who appeared in European cities in the 11th-12th centuries were already engaged primarily in internal trade associated with the development of local markets, i.e. exchange of goods between city and countryside. The separation of merchant activities from crafts was a new step in the social division of labor.
Medieval cities were very different in appearance from modern cities. They were usually surrounded by high walls - wooden, often stone, with towers and massive gates, as well as deep ditches for protection from attacks by feudal lords and enemy invasions. Residents of the city - artisans and merchants - carried out guard duty and formed the city's military militia. The walls surrounding the medieval city became cramped over time and did not accommodate all the city buildings. Around the walls, city suburbs gradually arose - settlements, inhabited mainly by artisans, and artisans of the same specialty usually lived on the same street. This is how streets arose - blacksmith shops, weapons shops, carpentry shops, weaving shops, etc. The suburbs, in turn, were surrounded by a new ring of walls and fortifications.
The size of European cities was very small. As a rule, cities were small and cramped and numbered only from one to three to five thousand inhabitants. Only very large cities had a population of several tens of thousands of people.
Although the bulk of the townspeople were engaged in crafts and trade, agriculture continued to play a certain role in the life of the urban population. Many city residents had their own fields, pastures and vegetable gardens outside the city walls, and partly within the city boundaries. Small livestock (goats, sheep and pigs) often grazed right in the city, and the pigs found plenty of food there, since garbage, food scraps and odds and ends were usually thrown directly into the street.
In cities, due to unsanitary conditions, epidemics often broke out, the mortality rate from which was very high. Fires often occurred, since a significant part of the city buildings were wooden and the houses were adjacent to each other. The walls prevented the city from growing in width, so the streets were made extremely narrow, and the upper floors of houses often protruded in the form of protrusions above the lower ones, and the roofs of houses located on opposite sides of the street almost touched each other. The narrow and crooked city streets were often dimly lit, some of them never reaching the rays of the sun. There was no street lighting. The central place in the city was usually the market square, not far from which the city cathedral was located.
The struggle of cities with feudal lords in the XI-XIII centuries.
Medieval cities always arose on the land of a feudal lord and therefore inevitably had to submit to the feudal lord, in whose hands all power in the city was initially concentrated. The feudal lord was interested in the emergence of a city on his land, since crafts and trade brought him additional income.
But the feudal lords' desire to extract as much income as possible inevitably led to a struggle between the city and its lord. The feudal lords resorted to direct violence, which provoked resistance from the townspeople and their struggle for liberation from feudal oppression. The political structure that the city received and the degree of its independence in relation to the feudal lord depended on the outcome of this struggle.
The peasants who fled from their lords and settled in the emerging cities brought with them from the village the customs and skills of the communal structure that existed there. The structure of the community-mark, changed in accordance with the conditions of urban development, played a very important role in the organization of city government in the Middle Ages.
The struggle between lords and townspeople, during which city self-government arose and took shape, took place in different European countries in different ways, depending on the conditions of their historical development. In Italy, for example, where cities early achieved significant economic prosperity, the townspeople achieved great independence already in the 11th-12th centuries. Many cities in Northern and Central Italy subjugated large areas around the city and became city-states. These were city republics - Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Milan, etc.
A similar situation occurred in Germany, where the so-called imperial cities starting from the 12th, and especially in the 13th century, formally subordinate to the emperor, were in fact independent city republics. They had the right to independently declare war, make peace, mint their own coins, etc. Such cities were Lubeck, Hamburg, Bremen, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Frankfurt am Main and others.
Many cities of Northern France - Amiens, Saint-Quentin, Beauvais, Laon, etc. - as a result of a stubborn and fierce struggle with their feudal lords, which often took the form of bloody armed clashes, also achieved the right of self-government and could elect a city council from among themselves and officials, starting with the head of the city council. In France and England, the head of the city council was called the mayor, and in Germany - the burgomaster. Self-governing cities (communes) had their own courts, military militia, finances and the right of self-taxation.
At the same time, they were exempted from performing the usual seigneurial duties - corvee and quitrent and from various payments. The responsibilities of city-communes in relation to the feudal lord were usually limited to only the annual payment of a certain, relatively low monetary rent and sending a small military detachment to help the lord in case of war.
In Rus' in the 11th century. With the development of cities, the importance of veche meetings increased. The townspeople, as in Western Europe, fought for urban liberties. A unique political system developed in Novgorod the Great. It was a feudal republic, but the commercial and industrial population had great political power there.
City Hall building in Münster (Germany). XIV century
The degree of independence in urban self-government achieved by cities was uneven and depended on specific historical conditions. Often cities managed to gain self-government rights by paying the lord a large sum of money. In this way, many rich cities in Southern France, Italy, etc. were liberated from the lord’s tutelage and fell into communes.
Often large cities, especially cities located on royal land, did not receive self-government rights, but enjoyed a number of privileges and liberties, including the right to have elected city government bodies, which acted, however, together with an official appointed by the king or another representative of the lord. Paris and many other cities in France had such incomplete rights of self-government, for example Orleans, Bourges, Loris, Lyon, Nantes, Chartres, and in England - Lincoln, Ipswich, Oxford, Cambridge, Gloucester. But not all cities managed to achieve this level of independence. Some cities, especially small ones, which did not have sufficiently developed crafts and trade and did not have the necessary funds and forces to fight their lords, remained entirely under the control of the lordly administration.
Thus, the results of the struggle of cities with their lords were different. However, in one respect they coincided. All townspeople managed to achieve personal liberation from serfdom. Therefore, if a serf peasant who fled to the city lived in it for a certain period of time, usually one year and one day, he also became free and not a single lord could return him to a serfdom. “City air makes you free,” said a medieval proverb.
Urban craft and its guild organization
The production basis of the medieval city was crafts. Feudalism is characterized by small-scale production both in the countryside and in the city. A craftsman, like a peasant, was a small producer who had his own tools of production, independently ran his own private farm based on personal labor, and had as his goal not making a profit, but obtaining a means of subsistence. “Existence befitting his position—and not exchange value as such, not enrichment as such...” ( K. Marx, The Process of Production of Capital in the book “Archive of Marx and Engels,” vol. II (VII), p. 111.
) was the goal of the artisan’s labor.
Glassblowing workshop. Miniature from the encyclopedia of Raban the Maurus. 9th century
A characteristic feature of medieval craft in Europe was its guild organization - the unification of artisans of a certain profession within a given city into special unions - guilds. Guilds appeared almost simultaneously with the emergence of cities. In Italy they were found already from the 10th century, in France, England, Germany and the Czech Republic - from the 11th-12th centuries, although the final registration of guilds (receipt of special charters from kings, recording of guild charters, etc.) occurred, as a rule. , Later. Craft corporations also existed in Russian cities (for example, in Novgorod).
The guilds arose as organizations of peasants who fled to the city, who needed unification to fight against the robber nobility and protection from competition. Among the reasons that determined the need for the formation of guilds, Marx and Engels also noted the need of artisans for common market premises for the sale of goods and the need to protect the common property of artisans for a certain specialty or profession. The association of artisans into special corporations (guilds) was due to the entire system of feudal relations that dominated in the Middle Ages, the entire feudal-class structure of society ( See K. Marx and F. Engels, German Ideology, Works, vol. 3, ed. 2 , pp. 23 and 50-51.
).
The model for the guild organization, as well as for the organization of city self-government, was the communal system ( See F. Engels, Mark; in the book “The Peasant War in Germany,” M. 1953, p. 121.
).
The artisans united in workshops were the direct producers. Each of them worked in his own workshop with his own tools and his own raw materials. He grew together with these means of production, as Marx put it, “like a snail with a shell” ( K. Marx, Capital, vol. I, Gospolitizdat, 1955, p. 366
). Tradition and routine were characteristic of medieval crafts, as well as of peasant farming.
There was almost no division of labor within the craft workshop. The division of labor was carried out in the form of specialization between individual workshops, which, with the development of production, led to an increase in the number of craft professions and, consequently, the number of new workshops. Although this did not change the nature of the medieval craft, it did lead to certain technical progress, improvement of labor skills, specialization of working tools, etc. The craftsman was usually helped in his work by his family. One or two apprentices and one or more apprentices worked with him. But only the master, the owner of the craft workshop, was a full member of the guild. The master, journeyman and apprentice stood at different levels of a kind of guild hierarchy. Preliminary completion of the two lower levels was mandatory for anyone who wanted to join the workshop and become a member of it. In the first period of the development of guilds, every student could become an apprentice in a few years, and an apprentice could become a master.
In most cities, belonging to a guild was a prerequisite for practicing a craft. This eliminated the possibility of competition from artisans who were not part of the workshop, which was dangerous for small producers in the conditions of a very narrow market at that time and relatively insignificant demand. The craftsmen who were part of the workshop were interested in ensuring that the products of the members of this workshop were ensured unhindered sales. In accordance with this, the workshop strictly regulated production and, through specially elected officials, ensured that each master - a member of the workshop - produced products of a certain quality. The workshop prescribed, for example, what width and color the fabric should be, how many threads should be in the warp, what tool and material should be used, etc.
Being a corporation (association) of small commodity producers, the workshop zealously ensured that the production of all its members did not exceed a certain size, so that no one entered into competition with other members of the workshop by producing more products. To this end, guild regulations strictly limited the number of journeymen and apprentices that one master could have, prohibited work at night and on holidays, limited the number of machines on which a craftsman could work, and regulated stocks of raw materials.
The craft and its organization in the medieval city were feudal in nature. “...The feudal structure of land ownership corresponded in cities to corporate property ( Corporate property was the monopoly of a workshop on a certain specialty or profession.
), feudal organization of craft" (
K. Marx and F. Engels, German Ideology, Works, vol. 3, ed. 2, p. 23.
). Such an organization of crafts was a necessary form of development of commodity production in a medieval city, because at that time it created favorable conditions for the development of productive forces. It protected artisans from excessive exploitation by feudal lords, ensured the existence of small producers in the extremely narrow market of that time, and contributed to the development of technology and the improvement of craft skills. During the heyday of the feudal mode of production, the guild system was in full accordance with the stage of development of the productive forces that was achieved at that time.
The guild organization covered all aspects of the life of a medieval artisan. The workshop was a military organization that participated in the protection of the city (guard service) and acted as a separate combat unit of the city militia in the event of war. The workshop had its own “saint,” whose day it celebrated, its own churches or chapels, being a kind of religious organization. The workshop was also an organization of mutual assistance for artisans, which provided assistance to its needy members and their families in the event of illness or death of a member of the workshop through the entrance fee to the workshop, fines and other payments.
The struggle of the guilds with the urban patriciate
The struggle of cities with feudal lords led in the overwhelming majority of cases to the transfer (to one degree or another) of city government into the hands of the citizens. But not all citizens received the right to take part in the management of city affairs. The struggle against the feudal lords was carried out by the forces of the masses, that is, primarily by the forces of artisans, and the elite of the urban population - urban homeowners, landowners, moneylenders, rich merchants - benefited from its results.
This upper, privileged layer of the urban population was a narrow, closed group of the urban rich - a hereditary urban aristocracy (in the West, this aristocracy was usually called the patriciate) that seized into its own hands all positions in city government. City administration, court and finance - all this was in the hands of the city elite and was used in the interests of wealthy citizens and to the detriment of the interests of the broad masses of the artisan population. This was especially evident in tax policy. In a number of cities in the West (Cologne, Strasbourg, Florence, Milan, London, etc.), representatives of the urban elite, having become close to the feudal nobility, together with them brutally oppressed the people - artisans and the urban poor. But, as the craft developed and the importance of the guilds grew stronger, artisans entered into a struggle with the city aristocracy for power. In almost all countries of medieval Europe, this struggle (which, as a rule, became very acute and led to armed uprisings) unfolded in the 13th-15th centuries. Its results were not the same. In some cities, primarily those where the handicraft industry was highly developed, guilds won (for example, in Cologne, Ausburg, Florence). In other cities, where the development of crafts was inferior to trade and merchants played the leading role, the guilds were defeated and the city elite emerged victorious from the struggle (this was the case in Hamburg, Lübeck, Rostock, etc.).
In the process of struggle between townspeople and feudal lords and guilds against the urban patriciate, the medieval class of burghers was formed and developed. The word burgher in the West originally meant all city dwellers (from the German word “burg” - city, hence the French medieval term “bourgeois” - bourgeois, city dweller). But the urban population was not united. On the one hand, a layer of merchants and wealthy artisans gradually formed, on the other hand, a mass of urban plebeians (plebs), which included journeymen, apprentices, day laborers, bankrupt artisans and other urban poor. In accordance with this, the word “burgher” lost its previous broad meaning and acquired a new meaning. Burghers began to be called not just townspeople, but only rich and prosperous townspeople, from whom the bourgeoisie subsequently grew.
Development of commodity-money relations
The development of commodity production in towns and villages has led to the development of industrial goods starting from the 13th century. significant, compared to the previous period, expansion of trade and market relations. No matter how slow the development of commodity-money relations in the countryside was, it increasingly undermined the subsistence economy and drew into market circulation an ever-increasing portion of agricultural products exchanged through trade for urban handicraft products. Although the village still gave the city a relatively small part of its production and largely satisfied its own needs for handicrafts, the growth of commodity production in the village was still evident. This testified to the transformation of some peasants into commodity producers and the gradual formation of the domestic market.
Fairs played a major role in domestic and foreign trade in Europe, which became widespread in France, Italy, England and other countries already in the 11th-12th centuries. At the fairs, wholesale trade was carried out in such goods as were in great demand, such as wool, leather, cloth, linen fabrics, metals and metal products, and grain. The largest fairs also played a major role in the development of foreign trade. Thus, at fairs in the French county of Champagne in the 12th-13th centuries. Merchants from various European countries met - Germany, France, Italy, England, Catalonia, the Czech Republic and Hungary. Italian merchants, especially the Venetians and Genoese, brought expensive oriental goods to the champagne fairs - silks, cotton fabrics, jewelry and other luxury items, as well as spices (pepper, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, etc.). Flemish and Florentine merchants brought well-made cloth. Merchants from Germany brought linen fabrics, merchants from the Czech Republic brought cloth, leather and metal products; merchants from England - wool, tin, lead and iron.
In the 13th century European trade was concentrated mainly in two areas. One of them was the Mediterranean, which served as a link in the trade of Western European countries with the countries of the East. Initially, the main role in this trade was played by Arab and Byzantine merchants, and from the 12th-13th centuries, especially in connection with the Crusades, primacy passed to the merchants of Genoa and Venice, as well as to the merchants of Marseille and Barcelona. Another area of European trade covered the Baltic and North Seas. Here, the cities of all countries located near these seas took part in trade: the northwestern regions of Rus' (especially Novgorod, Pskov and Polotsk), Northern Germany, Scandinavia, Denmark, France, England, etc.
The expansion of trade relations was extremely hampered by the conditions characteristic of the era of feudalism. The possessions of each lord were fenced with numerous customs outposts, where significant trade duties were levied on merchants. Duties and all kinds of levies were collected from merchants when crossing bridges, fording rivers, and when driving along a river through the possessions of a feudal lord. The feudal lords did not stop at banditry attacks on merchants and robberies of merchant caravans. Feudal orders and the dominance of subsistence farming determined a relatively insignificant volume of trade.
Nevertheless, the gradual growth of commodity-money relations and exchange created the possibility of accumulating monetary capital in the hands of individuals, primarily merchants and moneylenders. The accumulation of funds was also facilitated by money exchange operations, which were necessary in the Middle Ages due to the endless variety of monetary systems and monetary units, since money was minted not only by emperors and kings, but also by all sorts of prominent lords and bishops, as well as large cities. To exchange some money for others and to establish the value of a particular coin, there was a special profession of money changers. Money changers were engaged not only in exchange operations, but also in the transfer of money, from which credit transactions arose. Usury was usually associated with this. Exchange operations and credit operations led to the creation of special banking offices. The first such banking offices arose in the cities of Northern Italy - in Lombardy. Therefore, the word “pawnshop” in the Middle Ages became synonymous with banker and moneylender. The special lending institutions that emerged later, carrying out operations on the security of things, began to be called pawnshops.
The largest moneylender in Europe was the church. At the same time, the most complex credit and usury operations were carried out by the Roman Curia, into which enormous funds flowed from almost all European countries.
Buy children's hangers and hangers for clothes wholesale.
