Growth of Towns 14-3

The High Middle Ages

Section 3: The Growth of Towns

In this section you will learn about the growth of towns during the Middle Ages.

• You will discover what rights townspeople gained.

• You will find out how merchant and craft guilds contributed to their communities.

• Finally, you will discover how the growth of cities helped lead to the decline of serfdom.

Focus Questions

1. What rights did townspeople gain?

2. If you were a young person in the Middle Ages who wanted work, how might a guild help you?

3. What role did towns and cities begin to play in the lives of serfs?

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Vocabulary

merchant guild: Association of merchants and workers created to protect their rights to trade and to help out members and their families

craft guilds: Associations of skilled workers that set standards for working conditions

apprentice: One who learns a skill under a master

journeyman: Skilled worker who was paid wages by a master

middle class: Class of skilled workers between the upper class and the poor and unskilled workers

Black Death: Terrible plague that swept through Europe beginning in 1347

Inflation: An increase in prices

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Section 3 Summary

As towns grew, townspeople no longer fit into the manorial system. They were makers and traders of goods, not farmers. Manor lords, however, still controlled the towns. Some towns gained the right to self-government peacefully. Others resorted to violence.

What class do you think these two men were part of? What evidence is here, or can you tell by what is not here?

In time, European townspeople gained four basic rights: freedom, exemption, town justice, and commercial privileges. First, anyone who lived in a town for a year and a day became free, including serfs. Second, townspeople were exempt from having to work on the manor. Third, towns had their own courts. Fourth, townspeople could sell goods freely in the town market and charge outside traders a fee. Each town had a merchant guild, an association of merchants and workers created to protect their rights to trade and to help out members and their families.

Can you tell us the position of each person in this picture? How?

In time, skilled worked formed craft guilds, which set standards for working conditions. Each guild had members from a single craft, such as weaving. The guilds took care of ill members and controlled the training of boys and men in their craft. First, a boy served as an apprentice. His parents paid a master worker to house, feed, clothe, and train the boy for several years. Then he became a journeyman, a skilled worker who was paid wages by a master. If the journeyman made a masterpiece—a piece of work worthy of a master—then he became a guild member and opened his own shop.

Rembrandt– Syndics of the Drapers' Guild

In time, guild members became the middle class. This was the class of skilled workers between the upper class of nobles and the lower class of poor and unskilled workers.

The middle class favored kings over nobles. Kings provided stable governments that protected trade, business, and property. Towns offered serfs a chance to improve their lives. They could learn a craft or become traders and move into the middle class.

How does this picture and the one below relate to the theme of change? Is the change social, economic and/or political?

Some serfs escaped their manors; others were pushed off as farming methods changed. Serfs who stayed on the manors sold their crops at town markets and paid their lords with money rather than labor. Most cities had fewer than 2,000 people.

Since cities had little land, houses were built several stories high. Each story extended out beyond the one below it. At their tops, houses almost touched over the street. Cities were exciting places, but they were also dark, unsafe, dirty, and unhealthy. Waste was dumped into open gutters, and disease spread quickly.

Where the trade routes over land, by sea or both?

Big Idea - 9.6b - Networks of exchange facilitated the spread of disease, which affected social, cultural, economic, and demographic development.

Beginning in 1347, a terrible plague called the Black Death swept throughout Europe. It spread along trade routes, entering ports on trading ships. Black rats on the ships carried the disease. It spread to people by bites from fleas on the rats. Entire villages and towns were wiped out. By some estimates, 25 million people died in Europe within four years—about one-third of the population.

The Black Death shook people’s faith, and the church lost power. The upper class also lost power. Workers, now in short supply, demanded higher wages. The demand for higher wages led to an increase in prices, this is called inflation. In some countries, peasants started uprising.

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Focus Questions

1. What rights did townspeople gain?

• Townspeople gained the four basic rights of freedom, exemption from manor work, town justice, and commercial privileges.

2. If you were a young person in the Middle Ages who wanted work, how might a guild help you?

3. What role did towns and cities begin to play in the lives of serfs?

• Towns and cities offered serfs a chance to improve their lives. They could learn a craft or become traders and move into the middle class. Also, serfs who stayed on the manors sold their crops at town markets and paid their lords with money rather than labor.