Life in a Medieval City

by Frances Gies

  The new cities played a considerable role in the agricultural revolution. The old manorial workshops tended to be usurped by better, more efficient forges, smithies, mills, and workshops in the towns. The peasants of northwest Europe harvested their crops with iron-bladed sickles and scythes and plowed them with iron plowshares and coulters that would have been the envy of prosperous Roman farmers. The increased food supply was both a cause and an effect of unmistakable population growth.

  The second major influence on urban development was the beginning of medieval mining. The Romans and Greeks had dug mines, but the technique had to be reinvented when silver was discovered in the mountains of Saxony. Saxon miners carried their know-how abroad, mining iron in the Carpathians and Balkans, and teaching the men of Cornwall how to mine their native tin. Saxon silver flowed in especial abundance to Milan, which outgrew old walls built by the Emperor Maximilian. Milan boasted a hundred towers in the tenth century. Its prosperity had derived originally from its fertile countryside and the road and river network of which it was the hub. But during the tenth and eleventh centuries it became the chief workshop of Europe. Its smiths and armorers turned out swords, helmets, and chain mail for the knights of Italy, Provence, Germany, and even more distant lands, while its mint struck over twenty thousand silver pennies a year.

  Improved agriculture and more money brought a boom in business outside Italy also. In Flanders, Ghent burst through the ancient walls of the Vieux Bourg, which had enclosed only twenty-five acres. The new merchants’ and weavers’ quarter, the Portus, more than tripled the town’s size.

  In many places the growth of towns involved a special symbiosis with the neighboring countryside. In regions that were well suited to a particular form of agriculture, such as wine growing, cities both marketed the local product and procured imports. At the same time twelfth-century towns continued to take over the old manorial functions. In Troyes eleven mills were established between 1157 and 1191. The wheels in city streams began to provide the power not only for milling grain but for oil presses, working hammers and the forges that manufactured iron for farm implements.

  Inside city walls there was less room for orchards, vineyards, and gardens. Towns were losing some of their rural look. Wealthy merchants built large houses. Luxury shops, goldsmiths, and silversmiths appeared side by side with the basic crafts. Horse and donkey traffic made the narrow streets as foul as they were congested. The more closely houses and shops were crowded together, the greater the danger of fire. The water supply was limited. In many towns servants and housewives had to stand in line at the wells with their buckets and jars. By the end of the twelfth century urbanization with all its problems had arrived in the cities of Flanders, not to mention Cologne and Hamburg, London and Paris, Provins and Troyes.

  The last two were the scene of a significant new development. In Roman times certain dates and seasons had been set aside for markets and fairs. Throughout the following centuries, even when trade had dwindled to a trickle, the idea had stayed alive; in fact, the less buying and selling there was, the more important it became to have fixed times and places for merchants to meet customers.

  But merchants also had to meet merchants. This was not an important problem in the Dark Ages, but when the manufacture of woolen cloth in western Europe began to find an outlet in the Mediterranean, via the Italian cities, and when, reciprocally, Mediterranean luxury products began to sell in western Europe, a pressing need arose for a wholesale market. Venetian and Genoese merchants carried spices over the Alps by pack train to trade for Flemish woolen cloth. In the latter half of the eleventh century the Flemings took to meeting them partway. They did not, however, meet them halfway, which would have been in Burgundy. Instead the rendezvous was in Champagne, nearer Flanders than Italy. The reason for this probably lies in the realm of politics.

  The adventures of the embattled Bishop Anségise left Troyes in the hands of the counts of Vermandois, who ran out of direct heirs in the eleventh century. A combative cousin named Count Eudes seized Troyes, announced that he was henceforth the count of Champagne, and dared anybody to contradict him. After a turbulent career, Count Eudes died as he had lived, by the sword, or perhaps by the battle ax—his widow had to identify his body by a birthmark. Eudes’ two sons divided up his domain and started a war with the king of France, after which one son died and the other, Thibaut the Trickster, duly tricked his nephew out of his share of the inheritance.

  Thibaut the Trickster did something else—he gave organization and impetus to the trade fairs that were attracting foreign merchants to Troyes and some of his other towns. His sons, Hugo of Troyes and Etienne, and his grandson, Thibaut II, continued to encourage them. The twelfth century brought boom times, and the Champagne Fairs became the permanent year-round commodity market and money exchange for western Europe. They were so successful that Thibaut II won the sobriquet “Great,” along with a reputation for hospitality and charity. An admiring chronicler hailed him as “father of orphans, advocate of widows, eye of the blind, foot of the lame.” Approved for his philanthropy, Thibaut the Great was respected even more for his wealth, the source of which was easy to identify. A surviving letter of Thibaut attests the value he attached to the fairs. A rude young baron whose father was a vassal of the king of France waylaid a party of moneychangers from Vézelay on their way to Champagne. Thibaut wrote a strong protest to Suger, the minister of Louis VII: “This insult cannot go unpunished, because it tends toward nothing less than the destruction of my fairs.”

  Eventually, discussion of the problem led to a remarkable treaty by which the kings of France pledged themselves to take under their protection all merchants passing through royal territory on the roads to and from the Champagne Fairs.

  Diplomatic relations between count and king were not uniformly cordial. Thibaut the Great had a misunderstanding with Louis VII and a royal army invaded Champagne. The countryside suffered, but Troyes closed the gates of its well-maintained ancient walls and waited till St.-Bernard mediated peace.

  Troyes’ walls were in good shape, but they were too confining. By the middle of the twelfth century new districts had to be protected. Two large abbeys to the east and south had attracted settlements, but the main thrust of the town’s growth was toward the west and southwest, the quarters of St.-Rémi and St.-Jean, two new churches after which the two fairs held in Troyes each year were named. This large district, twice the size of the ancient cité, was thinly populated for half the year, but during July and August (the Fair of St.-Jean) and again during November and December (the Fair of St.-Rémi) it was bursting with men, wagons, animals, and merchandise.

  Apart from its seasonal fluctuations of population, Troyes in the twelfth century was much like a score of other growing cities of western Europe. All had strong walls. All had abbeys and monasteries, as well as many churches—most of timber, a few of stone with timber roofs. A feature of many cities, including Troyes, was the palace of a secular prince. There were still empty spaces in these municipalities—swampy land along a river, or an unexploited meadow. Most cities ranged in area from a hundred acres to half a square mile, in population from two or three thousand to between ten and twenty thousand. Some, like Troyes, had excavated canals or canalized rivers. Many had built timber bridges on stone piers, and in London a stone-arch bridge had actually been constructed. London Bridge fell short of Roman quality in design and workmanship, but its nineteen arches, mounted on massive piers of varying sizes, and loaded with shops and houses, formed a monument that tourists admired for the next six hundred years. The houses on the roadways of bridges did nothing to improve traffic conditions but they were in great demand because of their unusual access to both water supply and sewage disposal.

  But despite their advances the western cities continued to lag behind those of Italy. Twelfth-century Venice, Genoa, Pisa, and the other Italian maritime towns were sending out fleets of oared galleys that hauled the priceless spices of the Indies across the eastern Medi
terranean; they were planting colonies on the shores of the Black Sea, fighting and bartering with the Moslems of Egypt and North Africa, giving powerful support to the Crusaders and taking valuable privileges in return, attacking the “Saracens” in their own backyards, and wresting from them islands and ports. Plunder helped build many of the truculent towers that sprouted in the Italian cities, from which wealthy and quarrelsome burghers defended themselves against their neighbors. In Pisa plunder contributed to the construction of a large tower designed to house the bells of a new cathedral; unfortunately this edifice did not settle properly. Venice crowned its Basilica of St. Mark with a huge dome, and built many other churches and public buildings. One public work of no aesthetic value had enormous practical significance. The Arsenal of Venice comprised eight acres of waterfront filled with lumberyards, docks, shipyards, workshops, and warehouses, where twenty-four war galleys could be built or repaired at one time.

  While Venice wielded a naval power that kings envied, inland Milan put on a convincing demonstration of a city’s ground-force prowess. At the head of a “Lombard League,” the Milanese had the effrontery to face up to their lord, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and to give his German army a good beating at the Battle of Legnano, assuring their city’s freedom. By that date (1176) Venice, once a dependency of Greek Constantinople, was as sovereign as pope or emperor. For all intents and purposes, so was Genoa, so was Pisa, so were Florence, Piacenza, Siena, and many other Italian cities. Dominated by wealthy merchants, and frequently embroiled in civil strife ranging from family feuding to class warfare, the Italian cities launched a movement that the cities of the northwest sought to follow.

  The essence of the new movement was the “commune,” a sworn association of all the businessmen of a town. In Italy, where the nobility lived in towns, many nobles had gone into business, and some of them helped found communes. But the commune, even in Italy, was a burgher organization; in northwest Europe nobles, along with the clergy, were specifically excluded. Cloth merchants, hay merchants, helmet makers, wine sellers—all the merchants and craftsmen of a town—joined together to defend their rights against their secular and ecclesiastical lords. Enlightened princes like Thibaut the Great and Louis VII favored communes as beneficial to town development and therefore to princely revenues. A tithe from a busy merchant was better than every possession of a starving serf. Nevertheless, the communes came in for considerable disapproval, mostly from clerical critics who saw in them a threat to the social order—which indeed they were. A cardinal2 accused the communes of abetting heresy, of declaring war on the clergy, and of encouraging skepticism. An abbot2 wrote bitterly: “Commune! New and detestable name! By it people are freed from all bondage in return for a simple annual tax payment; they are not condemned for infraction of the laws except to a legally determined fine, and they no longer submit to the other charges levied on serfs.”

  Mere settlement in a town automatically provided escape from such feudal duties as bringing in the lord’s harvest, repairing his castle, presenting him with sheep’s dung. By the annual tax payment to which the abbot alluded, town people won freedom from a variety of other payments.

  Bishops, living cheek-by-jowl with burghers, and seeing these once-servile fellows growing saucy, often had materialistic as well as ideological reasons for disapproving. At Reims the king of France recognized the commune formed by the burghers living inside the old Roman cité. Burghers living outside the cité, on the bishop’s land, also joined. The bishop objected strenuously because he wanted to keep collecting feudal dues. Eventually he had to yield, in return for an annual money payment from his burghers. Bishops and abbots did not scruple any more than secular lords to employ dungeon and rack in their quarrels with their subjects, and they usually could count on the support of the Pope. In strong language Innocent II commanded the king of France to suppress “the guilty association of the people of Reims, which they call a commune.” Innocent III excommunicated the burghers of Saint-Omer for their conflict with the local abbey.

  In Troyes conflict between burgher and church did not develop, probably because by the twelfth century the counts of Champagne had completely eroded the bishop’s authority, as the history of the local coinage attests. In Carolingian times the bishop of Troyes had minted coins. In the early twelfth century the monogram of Count Thibaut—TEBO—appeared on one face of the coins of Troyes, the bishop’s inscription in the name of St. Peter (BEATUS PETRUS) on the other. On the coins of the later twelfth century the name of Thibaut’s successor, Henry the Generous, appeared alone.

  Pope and bishops notwithstanding, the commune swept western Europe. Even villages formed communes, buying their collective freedoms from old feudal charges. Usually the freedoms they received were written down in “charters,” which were carefully guarded. Louis VII and other progressive rulers founded “new cities”—with such names as Villeneuve, Villanova, Neustadt—and accorded them charters of freedom to attract settlers. The charter of the town of Lorris, in the Loire Valley, became a model for a hundred other towns of France, while that of Breteuil, in Normandy, became the model for many in England. In Flanders, as early as the eleventh century, towns copied the charter of Saint-Omer. “Charter” joined “commune” as a fighting word to reactionaries.

  Interestingly, Troyes and its sister Champagne Fair cities were late in getting charters. This was because of, rather than in spite of, the progressive views of the counts of Champagne. The counts’ zeal in protecting and promoting the fairs undercut much of the need for a commune. The businessmen of Troyes enjoyed advantages beyond those that other towns obtained by charter. Nevertheless, in 1230, Troyes received a charter, which was afterward accorded to several other Champagne towns that did not already possess their own.

  The sovereign who granted Troyes its charter was Thibaut IV, whose talent as a poet won him the dashing sobriquet of Thibaut le Chansonnier (“Songwriter”). Even before he inherited the kingdom of Navarre (after which he signed himself Thibaut, king of Navarre and Champagne), his territories were extensive, though held from seven different lords—the king of France, the emperor of Germany, the archbishops of Sens and Reims, the bishops of Paris and Langres, and the duke of Burgundy. For administrative purposes, the complex territory of Champagne was divided into twenty-seven castellanies, each of which included several barons and a number of knights who owed military service—altogether more than two thousand. (There were also a few hundred knights in Champagne who owed military service to somebody else.)

  Throughout the territory Thibaut profited from high justice—the fines and forfeits for major crimes not involving clergy—and a number of imposts, varying from place to place, such as the monopoly of flour mills and baking ovens or fees from noble widows seeking permission to remarry. But far more important were his revenues from the towns, especially Troyes and Provins. Some years after Thibaut’s death in 1253 a catalogue of the count’s properties and prerogatives was drawn up by committees of citizens (prud’ hommes) from the towns: the Extenta terre comitatus Campanie et Brie. A few citations from the section on Troyes give an illuminating insight into the nature of the count’s revenues:

  The Count has the market of St.-Jean…estimated to be worth 1,000 pounds (livres), besides the fiefs of the holders of the market, worth 13 pounds.

  He also has the markets of St.-Rémi, called the Cold Fair…estimated to be worth 700 pounds…

  The Count also has the house of the German merchants in the Rue de Pons…worth 400 pounds a year, deducting expenses…

  The Count also has the stalls of the butchers in the Rue du Temple and the Rue Moyenne…paid half on the day of St.-Rémi, and half on the day of the Purfication of the Blessed Virgin. The Count also has jurisdiction in cases arising in regard to the stalls of the butchers.

  He also has the hall of the cordwainers…

  The Count and Nicolas of Bar-le-Duc have undivided shares in a house back of the dwelling of the provost, which contains 18 room
s, large and small…rented for 125 shillings, of which half goes to the said Nicolas…

  The Count and the said Nicolas have undivided shares in seventeen stalls for sale of bread and fish…now rented for 18 pounds and 18 shillings.

  He has the halls of Châlons…worth 25 s. in St.-Jean and 25 s. in St.-Rémi…

  The fact that Thibaut the Songwriter was chronically in debt and at one point even had to mortgage Troyes merely underlines a truth about princes: the more money they have, the more they spend. Whatever his foibles, Thibaut carried on his family’s tradition of supporting the fairs. During his reign revenues achieved record heights.

  While the Hot Fair (St.-Jean) or the Cold Fair (St.-Rémi) was on, Troyes was one of the biggest and certainly one of the richest cities in Europe. In the off-seasons its population decreased, but remained at a very respectable level. Its permanent population3 was about ten thousand, a figure exceeded by only a handful of cities in northern Europe: Paris with (about) 50,000; Ghent, 40,000; London, Lille, and Rouen, 25,000. Among many northern European cities of about Troyes’ size were Saint-Omer, Strasbourg, Cologne, and York. In populous southern Europe the largest cities were Venice, 100,000; Genoa and Milan, 50,000 to 100,000; Bologna and Palermo, 50,000; Florence, Naples, Marseille, and Toulouse, 25,000. Barcelona, Seville, Montpellier, and many Italian cities were about the size of Troyes.

  To pursue demography a little further, it should be noted that the population of western Europe in the mid-thirteenth century was only about sixty million. The pattern of distribution was radically different from that of later times. France, including royal domain and feudal principalities, but excluding eastern areas that became French later on, accounted for more than a third of the total, probably some twenty-two million. Germany, which included much of modern France and Poland, had perhaps twelve million people. Italy had about ten million, Spain and Portugal seven million. The Low Countries supported about four million, as did England and Wales; Ireland had less than a million, Scotland and Switzerland no more than half a million each.