WITH X-XI centuries Cities grew rapidly in Europe. Many of them gained freedom from their lords. Crafts and trade developed faster in cities. New forms of associations of artisans and merchants arose there.

Growth of the medieval city

During the era of German invasions, the population of cities declined sharply. Cities at this time had already ceased to be centers of craft and trade, but remained only fortified points, residences of bishops and secular lords.

From the X-XI centuries. In Western Europe, old cities began to revive again and new ones appeared. Why did this happen?

Firstly, with the cessation of the attacks of the Hungarians, Normans and Arabs, the life and work of the peasants became safer and therefore more productive. The peasants could feed not only themselves and the lords, but also the artisans who produced higher quality products. Craftsmen began to engage less in agriculture, and peasants began to engage in crafts. Secondly, the population of Europe was growing rapidly. Those who lacked arable land began to engage in crafts. Craftsmen settled in cities.

As a result, it happens separation of craft from Agriculture , and both industries began to develop faster than before.

The city arose on the land of the lord, and many townspeople depended on the lord and bore duties in his favor. The cities brought large incomes to the lords, so they protected them from enemies and granted them privileges. But, having grown stronger, the cities did not want to submit to the arbitrariness of the lords and began to fight for their rights. Sometimes they managed to buy back their freedom from the lords, and sometimes they managed to overthrow the power of the lords and gain self management.

Cities arose in the safest and most convenient places, often visited by merchants: near the walls of a castle or monastery, on a hill, in a bend of a river, at a crossroads, at a ford, bridge or crossing, at the mouth of a river, near a convenient sea harbor. First, ancient cities were revived. And in the X-XIII centuries. New cities are emerging throughout Europe: first in Italy, Southern France, along the Rhine, then in England and Northern France, and even later in Scandinavia, Poland, and the Czech Republic.

Castle of the Lords of Ghent

Medieval urban society

Full-fledged citizens in Germany were called burghers, in France - bourgeois. Among them stood out a narrow layer of the most influential people. Usually these were rich merchants - a kind of city nobility. They were proud of the antiquity of their family and often imitated the knights in everyday life. They consisted of city ​​Council.

The bulk of the city's population were craftsmen, merchants and traders. But Monks, knights, notaries, servants, and beggars also lived here. The peasants found in the cities personal freedom and protection from the tyranny of the lord. In those days, there was a saying: “City air makes you free.” Usually there was a rule: if the lord did not find a peasant who had fled to the city within a year and one day, then he would no longer be extradited. The cities were interested in this: after all, they grew precisely at the expense of newcomers.

Craftsmen entered into a struggle for power with the city nobility. Where it was possible to limit the power of the most influential families, city councils often became elected and arose city ​​republic. At a time when the monarchical system prevailed, it was a new form of government. However, even in this case, a narrow circle of townspeople came to power. Material from the site

Paris in the 9th-14th centuries.

Medieval houses and castle in the city of Nuremberg

On the streets of a medieval city

An ordinary medieval city was small - several thousand inhabitants. A city with a population of 10 thousand inhabitants was considered large, and 40-50 thousand or more - huge (Paris, Florence, London and some others).

Stone walls protected the city and were a symbol of its power and freedom. The center of city life was the market square. Were here or nearby Cathedral or main church, as well as the city council building - town hall

Since there was not enough space in the city, the streets were usually narrow. The houses were built on two to four floors. They did not have numbers; they were called by some signs. Often a workshop or trading shop was located on the ground floor, and the owner lived on the second floor. Many houses were made of wood, and entire neighborhoods burned out in a fire. Therefore, the construction of stone houses was encouraged.

The townspeople were noticeably different from the peasants: they knew more about the world, were more businesslike and energetic. The townspeople wanted to get rich and succeed. They were always in a hurry, they valued time - it is no coincidence that it was on the towers of cities from the 13th century. The first mechanical watches appear.

On this page there is material on the following topics:

• Medieval city 10th -11th century Nuremberg presentation

• Medieval town castle of lords

Questions about this material:

Successes in agriculture Successes in crafts Population growth. An increase in the amount of arable land due to the drainage of swamps and deforestation. An increase in iron ore mining and improved metal processing. The appearance of a large number of iron tools. The use of tools by artisans due to the need to make complex products. Widespread use of a heavy wheeled plow. Increased yield. The emergence of professional artisans The emergence of mills, which ensured rapid grinding The increase in livestock numbers due to an increase in the amount of feed The use of horses not only in military affairs, but also in agriculture after the advent of collars

The 1930s was the heyday of the European Middle Ages. In Europe, which had almost forgotten about urban life over the previous centuries, cities began to be built again. Their emergence and growth is one of the most remarkable phenomena of this period. A few examples of where and how medieval cities were most often founded.

This city on the Rhine River by the 11th century. already had a thousand-year history. First a Roman military camp. Then a large city on the borders of the empire with Germany. In the early Middle Ages its population declined and many buildings collapsed. But the fortress wall erected by the Romans reliably protected the city, which became the seat of an influential bishop. It was here, at the foot of the fortress wall, that a small market arose quite early, and then a settlement around it.

In the 10th century new fortifications were fenced and ancient city, and a new suburb. Trade ties strengthened and crafts developed. The city continued to grow rapidly. Twice more, builders erected fortress walls to ensure the safety of residents. This is the history of the emergence of one of the most famous cities of medieval Germany, Cologne.

And near Paris, the city grew up near the walls of a large monastery. People are accustomed to seeking protection from danger here. It was believed that a crime or any evil offense committed on the territory of the monastery was directed not only against a person, but also against God and was punished in heaven. Everyone thought so: monks, peasants, merchants, knights, wandering pilgrims. But how many could find shelter behind the life-saving fortifications?

In European languages, many city names have common parts - burg - fortress, hafen - harbor, chester - military camp, fort - ford, bridge - bridge. Assignment: find one example of such cities on the map of the textbook on p. 106, explain how they arose.

Medieval city Soon the majority of the population in the cities began to consist of merchants and artisans. The main activities were: food production, textiles and wood and metal processing. This is how a new layer of society appeared - townspeople or burghers.

Cities had a significant impact on the economy of medieval society and played a very important role in its socio-political and spiritual life. The 11th century - the time when cities, like all the main structures of feudalism, mainly developed in most countries of Western Europe - is the chronological boundary between the early Middle Ages (V-XI centuries) and the period of the most complete development of the feudal system (XI-XV centuries). ), medieval civilization generally.

City life in the early Middle Ages. The first centuries of the Middle Ages in Western Europe were characterized by the almost complete dominance of a subsistence economy, when the basic means of subsistence were obtained within the economic unit itself, by the efforts of its members and from its resources. Peasants, who made up the overwhelming majority of the population, produced agricultural products and handicrafts, tools and clothing for their own needs and to pay duties to the feudal lord. The ownership of the tools of labor by the worker himself, the combination of rural labor with craft, - character traits subsistence farming. Only a few specialist craftsmen lived then in a few urban settlements, as well as on the estates of large feudal lords (usually as servants). A small number of rural artisans (blacksmiths, potters, tanners) and tradesmen (salt workers, charcoal burners, hunters), along with crafts and trades, were also engaged in agriculture.

The exchange of products was insignificant; it was based primarily on the geographical division of labor: differences in natural conditions and the level of development of individual localities and regions. They traded mainly in goods mined in a few places, but important in the economy: iron, tin, copper, salt, etc., as well as luxury goods that were not then produced in Western Europe and brought from the East: silk fabrics, expensive jewelry and weapons , spices, etc. Main role This trade was played by wandering, most often foreign merchants (Greeks, Syrians, Arabs, Jews, etc.). Production of products specifically intended for sale, i.e. commodity production was almost undeveloped in most of Western Europe. The old Roman cities fell into decay, the agrarianization of the economy took place, and in the barbarian territories cities were just emerging, trade was primitive.

Of course, the beginning of the Middle Ages was by no means a “cityless” period. The late slave-owning policy in Byzantium and Western Roman cities, to varying degrees desolate and destroyed, still remained (Milan, Florence, Bologna, Naples, Amalfi, Paris, Lyon, Arles, Cologne, Mainz, Strasbourg, Trier, Augsburg, Vienna, London, York, Chester , Gloucester and many others). But for the most part they played a role either administrative centers, or fortified points (fortress-burgs), or residences of bishops, etc. Their small population was not much different from the village, many city squares and wastelands were used for arable land and pastures. Trade and crafts were designed for the townspeople themselves and did not have a noticeable impact on the surrounding villages. Most cities have survived in the most Romanized regions of Europe: the mighty Constantinople in Byzantium, trade emporia in Italy, Southern Gaul, in Visigothic and then Arab Spain. Although there are late antique cities in the 5th-7th centuries. fell into disrepair, some of them were relatively populous, specialized crafts, permanent markets continued to operate in them, and the municipal organization and workshops were preserved. Individual cities, primarily in Italy and Byzantium, were major centers of intermediary trade with the East. In most of Europe, where there were no ancient traditions, there were isolated urban centers and a few early cities; urban-type settlements were rare, sparsely populated, and had no noticeable economic significance.

Thus, on a European scale, the urban system as a general and complete system had not yet emerged in the early Middle Ages. Western Europe At that time, it lagged behind Byzantium and the East in its development, where numerous cities flourished with highly developed crafts, lively trade, and rich buildings. However, the pre- and early-urban settlements that existed at that time, including in barbarian territories, played a significant role in the feudalization processes, acting as centers of political-administrative, strategic and church organization, gradually concentrating within their walls and developing a commodity economy, becoming points of redistribution of rent and the main centers of culture.

Growth of productive forces. Separation of crafts from agriculture. Despite the fact that the city became the focus of the functions of medieval society separated from agriculture, including political and ideological ones, the basis of urban life was the economic function - the central role in the emerging and developing simple commodity economy: in small and peaceful production and exchange. Its development was based on the social division of labor: after all, gradually emerging individual branches of labor can exist only through the exchange of products of their activities.

By the 10th-11th centuries. Important changes took place in the economic life of Western Europe. The growth of productive forces, associated with the establishment of the feudal mode of production, in the early Middle Ages was most rapid in crafts. It was expressed there in the gradual change and development of technology and mainly the skills of crafts and trades, in their expansion, differentiation, and improvement. Craft activities required increasing specialization, which was no longer compatible with the work of a peasant. At the same time, the sphere of exchange improved: fairs spread, regular markets took shape, the minting and circulation of coins expanded, and means and means of communication developed.

The moment came when the separation of crafts from agriculture became inevitable: the transformation of crafts into an independent branch of production, the concentration of crafts and trade in special centers.

Another prerequisite for the separation of crafts and trade from agriculture was progress in the development of the latter. The cultivation of grain and industrial crops expanded: vegetable gardening, horticulture, viticulture, and winemaking, oil-making, and milling, closely related to agriculture, developed and improved. The number of livestock has increased and the breed has improved. The use of horses brought important improvements to horse-drawn transport and warfare, large-scale construction and soil cultivation. The increase in agricultural productivity made it possible to exchange part of its products, including those suitable as handicraft raw materials, for finished handicraft products, which relieved the peasant of the need to produce them himself. Along with the above-mentioned economic prerequisites, at the turn of the 1st and 2nd millennia, the most important social and political prerequisites for the formation of specialized crafts and medieval cities as a whole appeared. The process of feudalization was completed. The state and the church saw their strongholds and sources of income in the cities and contributed to their development in their own way. A ruling stratum emerged, whose need for luxury, weapons, and special living conditions contributed to an increase in the number of professional artisans. And the growth of state taxes and seigneurial rents, until a certain time, stimulated market relations of peasants, who increasingly had to bring to the market not only surpluses, but also part of the products necessary for their life. On the other hand, the peasants, subjected to increasing oppression, began to flee to the cities, this was a form of their resistance to feudal oppression.

In the village, opportunities for the development of commercial crafts were very limited, since the market for sales of handicraft products there was narrow, and the power of the feudal lord deprived the artisan of the independence he needed. Therefore, artisans fled from the village and settled where they found the most favorable conditions for independent work, marketing their products, and obtaining raw materials. The movement of artisans to market centers and cities was part of a general movement of rural residents there.

As a result of the separation of crafts from agriculture and the development of exchange, as a result of the flight of peasants, including those who knew any craft, in the X-XIII centuries. (and in Italy from the 9th century) cities of a new, feudal type grew rapidly throughout Western Europe. They were centers of craft and trade, differing in the composition and main occupations of the population, its social structure and political organization.

The formation of cities, therefore, not only reflected the social division of labor and social evolution of the early Middle Ages, but was also the result of them. Therefore, being organic integral part feudalization processes, the formation of the city lagged somewhat behind the formation of the state and the main structures of feudal society.

Theories of the origin of medieval cities. The question of the causes and circumstances of the emergence of medieval cities is of great interest.

Trying to answer it, scientists in the 19th and 20th centuries. Various theories have been put forward. A significant part of them is characterized by an institutional-legal approach to the problem. Most attention was paid to the origin and development of specific urban institutions, urban law, and not to the socio-economic foundations of the process. With this approach, it is impossible to explain the root causes of the origin of cities.

Historians of the 19th century was primarily concerned with the question of what form of settlement the medieval city emerged from and how the institutions of this previous form were transformed into the institutions of the city. The “romanistic” theory (Savigny, Thierry, Guizot, Renoir), which was based mainly on the material of the Romanized regions of Europe, considered medieval cities and their institutions to be a direct continuation of late ancient cities. Historians, relying mainly on material from Northern, Western, and Central Europe (primarily German and English), saw the origins of medieval cities in the phenomena of a new, feudal society, primarily legal and institutional. According to the “patrimonial” theory (Eichhorn, Nitsch), the city and its institutions developed from the feudal patrimonial estate, its administration and law. The “Mark” theory (Maurer, Gierke, Belov) put city institutions and law out of action for the free rural community-mark. The “Burtov” theory (Keitgen, Matland) saw the grain of the city in the fortress-burg and Burt law. The “market” theory (Zom, Schroeder, Schulte) derived city law from the market law that operated in places where trade was carried out.

All these theories were one-sided, each putting forward a single path or factor in the emergence of the city and considering it mainly from formal positions. Moreover, they never explained why most of the patrimonial centers, communities, castles and even market places never turned into cities.

German historian Ritschel at the end of the 19th century. tried to combine the “burt” and “market” theories, seeing in the early cities settlements of merchants around a fortified point - a burg. The Belgian historian A. Pirenne, unlike most of his predecessors, assigned a decisive role in the emergence of cities to the economic factor - intercontinental and interregional transit trade and its carrier - the merchants. According to this “trade” theory, cities in Western Europe initially arose around merchant trading posts. Pirenne also ignores the role of the separation of crafts from agriculture in the emergence of cities and does not explain the origins, patterns and specifics of the city specifically as a feudal structure. Pirenne's thesis about the purely commercial origin of the city was not accepted by many medievalists.

In modern foreign historiography, much has been done to study archaeological data, topography and plans of medieval cities (Ganshoff, Planitz, Ennen, Vercauteren, Ebel, etc.). These materials explain a lot about the prehistory and initial history of cities, which is almost not illuminated by written monuments. The question of the role of political-administrative, military, and cult factors in the formation of medieval cities is being seriously explored. All these factors and materials require, of course, taking into account the socio-economic aspects of the emergence of the city and its character as a feudal structure.

Many modern foreign historians, trying to understand the general patterns of the genesis of medieval cities, share and develop the concept of the emergence of a feudal city precisely as a consequence of the social division of labor, the development of commodity relations, and the social and political evolution of society.

In domestic medieval studies, solid research has been carried out on the history of cities in almost all countries of Western Europe. But for a long time it focused mainly on the socio-economic role of cities, with less attention to their other functions. In recent years, however, there has been a tendency to consider all the diversity of social characteristics of the medieval city, moreover, from the very origins. The city is defined as not only the most dynamic structure of medieval civilization, but also as an organic component of the entire feudal system.

The emergence of feudal cities. The specific historical paths of the emergence of cities are very diverse. Peasants and artisans leaving the villages settled in different places depending on the availability of favorable conditions for engaging in “urban affairs”, i.e. matters related to the market. Sometimes, especially in Italy and Southern France, these were administrative, military and church centers, often located on the territory of old Roman cities, which were revived to a new life - already as cities of the feudal type. The fortifications of these points provided the residents with the necessary security.

The concentration of the population in such centers, including feudal lords with their servants and retinue, clergy, representatives of the royal and local administration, created favorable conditions for artisans to sell their products. But more often, especially in Northwestern and Central Europe, artisans and traders settled near large estates, estates, castles and monasteries, the inhabitants of which purchased their goods. They settled at the intersection of important roads, at river crossings and bridges, on the shores of bays, bays, etc., convenient for ships, where traditional markets had long operated. Such “market towns,” with a significant increase in their population and the presence of favorable conditions for craft production and market activities, also turned into cities.

The growth of cities in certain regions of Western Europe occurred at different rates. First of all, in the 8th-9th centuries, feudal cities, primarily as centers of craft and trade, were formed in Italy (Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Bari, Naples, Amalfi); in the 10th century - in the south of France (Marseille, Arles, Narbonne, Montpellier, Toulouse, etc.). In these and other areas, with rich ancient traditions, crafts specialized faster than in others, and the formation of a feudal state with its reliance on cities took place.

The early emergence and growth of Italian and southern French cities was also facilitated by trade relations between these regions and the then more developed Byzantium and the countries of the East. Of course, the preservation of the remains of numerous ancient cities and fortresses there, where it was easier to find shelter, protection, traditional markets, rudiments of craft organizations and Roman municipal law, also played a certain role.

In the X-XI centuries. Feudal cities began to emerge in Northern France, the Netherlands, England and Germany along the Rhine and upper Danube. The Flemish cities of Bruges, Ypres, Ghent, Lille, Douai, Arras and others were famous for their fine cloth, which they supplied to many European countries. There were no longer many Roman settlements in these areas; most cities arose anew.

Later, in the XII-XIII centuries, feudal cities grew on the northern outskirts and in the interior regions of Trans-Rhine Germany, in the Scandinavian countries, in Ireland, Hungary, the Danube principalities, i.e. where the development of feudal relations was slower. Here, all cities grew, as a rule, from market towns, as well as regional (former tribal) centers.

The distribution of cities across Europe was uneven. There were especially many of them in Northern and Central Italy, in Flanders and Brabant, along the Rhine. But in other countries and regions, the number of cities, including small ones, was such that usually a village resident could get to any of them within one day.

Despite all the differences in place, time, and specific conditions for the emergence of a particular city, it was always the result of a social division of labor common to all of Europe. In the socio-economic sphere, it was expressed in the separation of crafts from agriculture, the development of commodity production and exchange between different spheres of the economy and different territories and settlements; in the social and political spheres proper - in the development of statehood structures with their institutions and attributes.

This process was lengthy and was not completed within the framework of feudalism. However, in the X-XI centuries. it became particularly intense and led to an important qualitative shift in the development of society.

Simple commodity economy under feudalism. Commodity relations - production for sale and exchange - concentrating in cities, began to play a huge role in the development of productive forces not only in the city itself, but also in the countryside. The essentially subsistence economy of peasants and gentlemen was gradually drawn into commodity-money relations, conditions appeared for the development of the internal market based on the further division of labor, specialization of individual regions and sectors of the economy (various types of agriculture, crafts and trades, cattle breeding).

The commodity production of the Middle Ages itself should not be identified with capitalist production or see in it the direct origins of the latter, as some prominent historians did (A. Pirenne, A. Dopsch, etc.). Unlike capitalist, simple commodity production was based on the personal labor of small, isolated direct producers - artisans, fishermen and peasants who did not exploit other people's labor on a large scale. Increasingly drawn into commodity exchange, simple commodity production, however, retained its small-scale nature and did not know expanded reproduction. It served a relatively narrow market and involved only a small part of the social product in market relations. Given this nature of production and the market, the entire commodity economy under feudalism as a whole was also simple.

Simple commodity farming arose and existed, as is known, back in ancient times. Then it adapted to the conditions of different social systems and obeyed them. In the form in which commodity economy was inherent in feudal society, it grew on its soil and depended on the conditions prevailing in it, developed along with it, and was subject to the laws of its evolution. Only at a certain stage of the feudal system, with the development of entrepreneurship, accumulation of capital, separation of small independent producers from the means of production and transformation work force into goods on a mass scale, a simple commodity economy began to develop into a capitalist economy. Until this time, it remained an integral element of the economy and social structure of feudal society, just as the medieval city was the main center of the commodity economy of this society.

Population and appearance of medieval cities. The main population of the cities were people involved in the production and circulation of goods: various traders and artisans (who themselves sold their goods), gardeners, and fishermen. Significant groups of people were engaged in the sale of services, including servicing the market: sailors, carters and porters, innkeepers and innkeepers, servants, and barbers.

The most representative part of the townspeople were professional traders from local residents and their elite are merchants. Unlike the few traveling merchants of the early Middle Ages, they were engaged in both foreign and domestic trade and constituted a special social stratum, noticeable in number and influence. The identification of merchant activity, the formation of a special layer of people engaged in it was new and important step in the social division of labor.

In large cities, especially political and administrative centers, usually lived feudal lords with their entourage (servants, military detachments), representatives of the royal and seigneurial administration - the service bureaucracy, as well as notaries, doctors, school and university teachers and other representatives of the emerging intelligentsia. In many cities, a significant part of the population was made up of black and white clergy.

The townspeople, whose ancestors usually came from the village, retained their fields, pastures, and vegetable gardens both outside and inside the city for a long time, and kept livestock. This was partly due to the insufficient marketability of agriculture at that time. Proceeds from the rural estates of the lords were often brought here, to the cities: the cities served as a place for their concentration, redistribution and marketing.

The size of medieval Western European cities was very small. Usually their population was 1 or 3-5 thousand inhabitants. Even in the XIV-XV centuries. Cities with 20-30 thousand inhabitants were considered large. Only a few of them had a population exceeding 80-100 thousand people (Constantinople, Paris, Milan, Venice, Florence, Cordoba, Seville).

Cities differed from surrounding villages in their appearance and population density. Usually they were surrounded by ditches and high stone, less often wooden, walls, with towers and massive gates, which served as protection against attacks by feudal lords and enemy invasions. The gates were closed at night, the bridges were raised, and watchmen were on duty on the walls. The townspeople themselves carried out guard duty and formed a militia.

Over time, the city walls became cramped and could not accommodate all the buildings. Around the walls surrounding the original city center (burg, city, city), suburbs gradually arose - suburbs, settlements, inhabited mainly by artisans, small traders and gardeners. Later, the suburbs, in turn, were surrounded by a ring of walls and fortifications. The central place in the city was the market square, next to which the city cathedral was usually located, and where there was self-government of the citizens, there was also the town hall (city council building). People with the same or related professions often settled in the same neighborhood.

Since the walls prevented the city from growing in width, the streets were made extremely narrow (according to the law - “no wider than the length of a spear”). The houses, often wooden, were closely adjacent to each other. The protruding upper floors and steep roofs of the houses located opposite each other almost touched. Almost no rays of the sun penetrated the narrow and crooked streets. There was no street lighting, nor, indeed, any sewage system. Garbage, leftover food and sewage were usually thrown directly into the street. Small livestock (goats, sheep, pigs) often roamed here, and chickens and geese rummaged. Due to overcrowding and unsanitary conditions, especially devastating epidemics broke out in cities, and fires often occurred.

The struggle of cities with feudal lords and the formation of city self-government. A medieval city arose on the land of a feudal lord and therefore had to obey him. The majority of the townspeople were initially unfree ministerials (servants of the lord), peasants who had long lived in this place, sometimes fleeing from their former masters or released by them on quitrent. At the same time, they often found themselves personally dependent on the lord of the city. All city power was concentrated in the hands of the latter; the city became, as it were, its collective vassal or holder. The feudal lord was interested in the emergence of cities on his land, since urban trades and trade gave him considerable income.

Former peasants brought with them to the cities customs and skills of communal organization, which had a noticeable impact on the organization of city government. Over time, however, it increasingly took on forms that corresponded to the characteristics and needs of urban life.

The desire of the feudal lords to extract as much income as possible from the city inevitably led to the communal movement: this is the common name for the struggle between cities and lords that took place throughout Western Europe in the 10th-13th centuries. At first, the townspeople fought for liberation from the most severe forms of feudal oppression, for a reduction in the lord's exactions, and for trade privileges. Then political tasks arose: gaining city self-government and rights. The outcome of this struggle determined the degree of independence of the city in relation to the lord, its economic prosperity and political system. The struggle of the cities was not carried out against the feudal system as a whole, but against specific lords, in order to ensure the existence and development of cities within the framework of this system.

Sometimes cities managed to obtain from the feudal lord certain liberties and privileges, recorded in city charters, for money; in other cases, these privileges, especially the right of self-government, were achieved as a result of prolonged, sometimes armed, struggle. Kings, emperors, and large feudal lords usually intervened in it. The communal struggle merged with other conflicts - in a given area, country, international - and was an important part of the political life of medieval Europe.

Communal movements took place in various countries differently, depending on the conditions of historical development, and led to different results. In Southern France, the townspeople achieved, mostly without bloodshed, independence already in the 9th-12th centuries. The counts of Toulouse, Marseille, Montpellier and other cities of Southern France, as well as Flanders, were not only city lords, but sovereigns of entire regions. They were interested in the prosperity of local cities, distributed municipal liberties to them, and did not interfere with relative independence. However, they did not want the communes to become too powerful and gain complete independence. This happened, for example, with Marseille, which for a century was an independent aristocratic republic. But at the end of the 13th century. After an 8-month siege, the Count of Provence, Charles of Anjou, took the city, placed his governor at its head, and began to appropriate city revenues, dispensing funds to support the city's crafts and trade that were beneficial to him.

Many cities of Northern and Central Italy - Venice, Genoa, Siena, Florence, Lucca, Bologna and others - in the 11th-12th centuries. became city-states. One of the brightest and typical pages of the communal struggle in Italy was the history of Milan - the center of crafts and trade, an important transit point on the routes to Germany. In the 11th century The power of the count there was replaced by the power of the archbishop, who ruled with the help of representatives of aristocratic and clerical circles. Throughout the XI century. the townspeople fought with the lord. She united all the city strata. Since the 50s, the urban movement has resulted in civil war against the bishop. It was intertwined with the powerful heretical movement that then swept Italy - with the speeches of the Waldenses and especially the Cathars. The rebel townspeople attacked the clergy and destroyed their houses. The sovereigns were drawn into the events. Finally, at the end of the 11th century. the city received the status of a commune. It was headed by a council of consuls made up of privileged citizens - representatives of merchant-feudal circles. The aristocratic system of the Milan Commune, of course, did not satisfy the masses of the townspeople; their struggle continued in subsequent times.

In Germany, a similar position to communes was occupied in the 12th-13th centuries. the most significant of the so-called imperial cities. Formally they were subordinate to the emperor, but in reality they were independent city republics (Lübeck, Nuremberg, Frankfurt am Main, etc.). They were governed by city councils, had the right to independently declare war, conclude peace and alliances, mint coins, etc.

Many cities of Northern France (Amiens, Saint-Quentin, Noyon, Beauvais, Soissons, etc.) and Flanders (Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, Lille, Douai, Saint-Omer, Arras, etc.) as a result of persistent, often armed struggle with their lords they became self-governing city-communes. They elected a council from among themselves, its head - the mayor and other officials, had their own court and military militia, their own finances, and set taxes themselves. Cities-communes were exempted from performing corvée, quitrent and other seigneurial duties. In return for this, they annually paid the lord a certain, relatively low cash rent, and in case of war, they sent a small military detachment to help him. Commune cities themselves often acted as a collective lord in relation to the peasants living in the territory surrounding the city.

But it didn't always work out that way. The struggle for independence of the northern French city of Lana lasted for more than 200 years. His lord (since 1106), Bishop Gaudry, a lover of war and hunting, established a particularly harsh seigneurial regime in the city, even to the point of killing the townspeople. The inhabitants of Laon managed to buy from the bishop a charter granting them certain rights (a fixed tax, the abolition of the right of the “dead hand”), paying the king for its approval. But the bishop soon found the charter unprofitable for himself and, by bribing the king, achieved its cancellation. The townspeople rebelled, plundered the courtyards of the aristocrats and the bishop's palace, and killed Gaudry himself, hiding in an empty barrel. The king, with his armed hand, restored the old order in Lahn, but in 1129 the townspeople raised a new uprising. For many years there was then a struggle for a communal charter with varying success: sometimes in favor of the city, sometimes in favor of the king. Only in 1331 did the king, with the help of many local feudal lords, achieve a final victory. Its judges and officials began to govern the city.

In general, many cities, even very significant and rich ones, could not achieve complete self-government. It was almost general rule for cities on royal land, in countries with a relatively strong central government. They enjoyed, however, a number of privileges and liberties, including the right to elect self-government bodies. However, these institutions usually operated under the control of an official of the king or another lord. This was the case in many cities in France (Paris, Orleans, Bourges, Lorris, Nantes, Chartres, etc.) and England (London, Lincoln, Oxford, Cambridge, Gloucester, etc.). Limited municipal freedoms of cities were typical for the Scandinavian countries, many cities in Germany, Hungary, and they did not exist at all in Byzantium.

Many cities, especially small ones, which did not have the necessary forces and funds to fight their lords, remained entirely under the authority of the lordly administration. This is, in particular, characteristic of cities that belonged to spiritual lords, who oppressed their citizens especially hard.

The rights and liberties received by medieval townspeople were in many ways similar to immunity privileges and were of a feudal nature. The cities themselves constituted closed corporations and placed local urban interests above all else.

One of the most important results of the struggle of cities with their lords in Western Europe was that the vast majority of city residents achieved liberation from personal dependence. In medieval Europe, the rule prevailed according to which a dependent peasant who fled to the city, having lived there for a certain period of time (according to the then usual formula - “a year and a day”), also became free. “City air makes you free,” says a medieval proverb.

The formation and growth of the urban class. In the process of the development of cities, craft and merchant corporations, the struggle of townspeople with lords and internal social conflicts in the urban environment in feudal Europe, a special medieval class of townspeople took shape.

Economically, the new class was most associated with trade and craft activities, and with property based not only on production, but also on exchange. In political and legal terms, all members of this class enjoyed a number of specific privileges and liberties (personal freedom, jurisdiction of the city court, participation in the city militia, in the formation of the municipality, etc.), constituting the status of a full citizen. Usually the urban class is identified with the concept of “burghers”.

The word “burgher” in a number of European countries originally designated all city dwellers (from the German Burg - city, from where the medieval Latin burgensis and the French term bourgeoisie, which originally also denoted townspeople, came from). In terms of its property and social status, the urban class was not united. Within it there existed the patriciate, a layer of wealthy merchants, artisans and homeowners, ordinary workers, and finally, the urban plebeians. As this stratification deepened, the term “burgher” gradually changed its meaning. Already in the XII-XIII centuries. it began to be used only to designate full-fledged citizens, which could not include representatives of the lower classes removed from city government. In the XIV-XV centuries. this term usually denoted the rich and prosperous strata of the townspeople, from which the first elements of the bourgeoisie later grew.

The population of cities occupied a special place in the socio-political life of feudal society. Often it acted as a single force in the fight against feudal lords (sometimes in alliance with the king). Later, the urban class began to play a prominent role in class-representative meetings.

Thus, without constituting a socially monolithic stratum, the inhabitants of medieval cities were constituted as a special estate or, as it was in France, an estate group. Their disunity was reinforced by the dominance of the corporate system within the cities. The predominance of local interests in each city, which were sometimes intensified by trade rivalry between cities, also prevented the citizens from acting together as a class on a national scale.

Crafts and artisans in cities. Workshops. The production basis of the medieval city was crafts and “manual” trades. A craftsman, like a peasant, was a small producer who owned the tools of production and independently ran his own farm, based primarily on personal labor.

In conditions of a narrow market and small-scale production, the purpose of the artisan’s labor could not be profit and enrichment, but only existence itself at a level corresponding to his social status. But unlike the peasant, the expert craftsman, firstly, from the very beginning was a commodity producer and ran a commodity economy. Secondly, he did not need land as a means of direct production. Therefore, urban crafts developed and improved incomparably faster than agriculture and rural, home crafts. It is also noteworthy that in the urban craft, non-economic coercion in the form of personal dependence of the worker was not necessary and quickly disappeared. Here, however, there were other types of non-economic coercion related to the guild organization of crafts and the corporate-class, essentially feudal nature of the urban system (coercion and regulation by the guilds and the city, etc.). This coercion came from the townspeople themselves.

A characteristic feature of crafts and other activities in many medieval cities of Western Europe was a corporate organization: the unification of persons of certain professions within each city into special unions - guilds, brotherhoods. Craft shops appeared almost simultaneously with the cities themselves in France, England, Germany - from the 11th century - beginning of XII century, although the final registration of the guilds (receipt of special letters from kings and other lords, drawing up and recording of guild charters) occurred, as a rule, later.

The guilds arose because urban artisans, as independent, fragmented, small commodity producers, needed a certain unification to protect their production and income from feudal lords, from the competition of “outsiders” - unorganized artisans or immigrants from the village constantly arriving in the cities, from artisans of other cities, and and from neighbors - craftsmen. Such competition was dangerous in the conditions of the then very narrow market and insignificant demand. Therefore, the main function of the workshops was to establish a monopoly on this type of craft. In Germany it was called Zunftzwang - guild coercion. In most cities, belonging to a workshop was prerequisite for practicing a craft. Another main function of the guilds was to establish control over the production and sale of handicrafts. The emergence of guilds was determined by the level of productive forces achieved at that time and the entire feudal-class structure of society. The initial model for the organization of urban crafts was partly the structure of the rural community-marks and estate workshops-magisteriums.

Each of the guild foremen was a direct worker and at the same time the owner of the means of production. He worked in his workshop, with his tools and raw materials. As a rule, the craft was passed down through generations: after all, many generations of artisans worked using the same tools and techniques as their great-grandfathers. New specialties that emerged were organized into separate workshops. In many cities, dozens, and in the largest - even hundreds of workshops gradually appeared.

A guild artisan was usually assisted in his work by his family, one or two apprentices and several apprentices. But only the master, the owner of the workshop, was a member of the workshop. And one of the important functions of the workshop was to regulate the relations of masters with apprentices and apprentices. The master, journeyman and apprentice stood at different levels of the guild hierarchy. Preliminary completion of the two lower levels was mandatory for anyone who wished to become a member of the guild. Initially, each student could eventually become a journeyman, and the journeyman could become a master.

The members of the workshop were interested in ensuring that their products received unhindered sales. Therefore, the workshop, through specially elected officials, strictly regulated production: it made sure that each master produced products of a certain type and quality. The workshop prescribed, for example, what width and color the fabric should be, how many threads should be in the base, what tools and raw materials should be used, etc. The regulation of production also served other purposes: to ensure that the production of members of the workshop remained small-scale, so that none of them ousted another master from the market by producing more products or making them cheaper. To this end, guild regulations rationed the number of journeymen and apprentices that a master could keep, prohibited work at night and on holidays, limited the number of machines and raw materials in each workshop, regulated prices for handicraft products, etc.

The guild organization of crafts in cities retained its feudal, corporate nature. Until a certain time, it created the most favorable conditions for the development of productive forces and urban commodity production. Within the framework of the guild system, it was possible to further deepen the social division of labor in the form of establishing new craft workshops, expanding the range and improving the quality of goods produced, and improving craft skills. Within the framework of the guild system, the self-awareness and self-esteem of urban craftsmen increased.

Therefore, until approximately the end of the 14th century. workshops in Western Europe played a progressive role. They protected artisans from excessive exploitation by feudal lords; in the conditions of the narrow market of that time, they ensured the existence of urban small producers, softening competition between them and protecting them from the competition of various outsiders.

The guild organization was not limited to the implementation of basic socio-economic functions, but covered all aspects of the life of a craftsman. The guilds united the townspeople to fight the feudal lords, and then the domination of the patriciate. The workshop participated in the defense of the city and acted as a separate combat unit. Each workshop had its own patron saint, sometimes also its own church or chapel, being a kind of church community. The workshop was also a mutual aid organization, providing support to needy craftsmen and their families in the event of illness or death of the breadwinner.

The guild system in Europe, however, was not universal. It has not become widespread in a number of countries and has not reached its completed form everywhere. Along with it, in many cities of Northern Europe, in the south of France, in some other countries and regions, there was a so-called free craft.

But even there there was regulation of production, protection of the monopoly of urban artisans, only these functions were carried out by city government bodies.

The struggle between the guilds and the patricians. The struggle of cities with lords in the overwhelming majority of cases led to the transfer, to one degree or another, of city government into the hands of citizens. But by that time there was already a noticeable social stratification among them. Therefore, although the fight against the lords was carried out by all the townspeople, only the top of the urban population fully took advantage of its results: homeowners, including feudal types, moneylenders and, of course, merchant-wholesalers engaged in transit trade.

This upper, privileged layer was a narrow, closed group - the hereditary urban aristocracy (patriciate), which had difficulty admitting new members into its midst. The city council, mayor (burgomaster), judicial panel (scheffen, echeven, scabini) of the city were chosen only from among the patricians and their proteges. City administration, court and finance, including taxation, construction - everything was in the hands of the city elite, used in its interests and at the expense of the interests of the broad trade and craft population of the city, not to mention the poor.

But as the craft developed and the importance of the guilds grew stronger, artisans and small traders entered into a struggle with the patriciate for power in the city. Usually they were also joined by hired workers and poor people. In the XIII-XIV centuries. This struggle, the so-called guild revolutions, unfolded in almost all countries of medieval Europe and often took on a very sharp, even armed character. In some cities where handicraft production received great development, the workshops won (Cologne, Basel, Florence, etc.). In others, where large-scale trade and merchants played the leading role, the city elite emerged victorious from the struggle (Hamburg, Lübeck, Rostock and other cities of the Hanseatic League). But even where the guilds won, city governance did not become truly democratic, since the top of the most influential guilds united after their victory with part of the patriciate and established a new oligarchic government that acted in the interests of the richest citizens (Augsburg, etc.).

The beginning of the disintegration of the guild system. In the XIV-XV centuries. The role of the workshops has changed in many ways. Their conservatism, the desire to perpetuate small-scale production, traditional techniques and tools, and to prevent technical improvements due to fear of competition turned the workshops into a brake on progress and further growth of production. As the productive forces grew and the domestic and foreign markets expanded, competition between artisans within the workshop inevitably increased. Individual artisans, contrary to guild regulations, expanded their production, and property and social inequality developed between craftsmen. The owners of large workshops began to give work to poorer craftsmen, supplying them with raw materials or semi-finished products and receiving finished products. From among the previously unified mass of small artisans and traders, a wealthy guild elite gradually emerged, exploiting the small craftsmen.

Stratification within the guild craft was also expressed in the division of guilds into stronger, richer (“senior” or “large”) and poorer (“junior”, “small”) guilds. This happened primarily in the largest cities: Florence, Perugia, London, Bristol, Paris, Basel, etc. The older workshops began to dominate the younger ones and exploit them, so that members of the junior workshops sometimes lost their economic and legal independence and actually turned into hired workers.

The position of students and journeymen, their struggle with the masters.

Over time, students and apprentices also fell into the position of the oppressed. Initially, this was due to the fact that training in medieval crafts, which took place through direct transfer of skills, remained lengthy. In different crafts this period ranged from 2 to 7 years, and in some workshops it reached 10-12 years. Under these conditions, the master could profitably and for a long time use the free labor of his already sufficiently qualified student.

Guild foremen increasingly exploited apprentices as well. And the duration of their working day was usually very long - 14-16, and sometimes 18 hours. The apprentices were judged by the guild court, i.e. again masters. The workshops controlled the life of journeymen and students, their pastime, spending, and acquaintances. In the 14th-15th centuries, when the decline and disintegration of guild crafts began in advanced countries, the exploitation of apprentices and journeymen became permanent. In the initial period of the guild system, a student, after completing an apprenticeship and becoming a journeyman, and then after working for a while for a master and saving a small amount of money, could become a master. Now, access to this status for students and apprentices is actually closed. The so-called closing of workshops began. To receive the title of master, in addition to training certificates and excellent characteristics, it was necessary to pay a large entrance fee to the workshop cash desk, perform exemplary work (“masterpiece”), arrange a rich treat for the workshop members, etc. Only close relatives of the master could freely enter the workshop. Most of the apprentices turned into “eternal” ones, i.e., in fact, into hired workers.

To protect their interests, they created special organizations - brotherhoods, companionships, which were unions of mutual assistance and struggle against masters. The apprentices put forward economic demands: higher wages, shorter working hours; they resorted to such acute forms of struggle as strikes and boycotts of the most hated masters.

Pupils and journeymen constituted the most organized and qualified part of a fairly wide range of activities in the cities of the 14th-15th centuries. layer of hired workers. It also included non-guild day laborers and workers, whose ranks were constantly replenished by peasants who had lost their land who came to the cities, as well as impoverished artisans who still retained their workshops. This layer already constituted an element of the pre-proletariat, which was fully formed later, during the period of widespread and widespread development of manufacture.

As social contradictions within the medieval city intensified, the exploited sections of the urban population began to openly oppose the city elite in power, which now in many cities included, along with the patriciate, the guild elite. This struggle also included the urban plebeians - the lowest and most powerless layer of the urban population, declassed elements deprived of certain occupations and permanent residence, who were outside the feudal class structure.

In the XIV-XV centuries. The lower strata of the urban population rebelled against the urban oligarchy and the guild elite in a number of cities in Western Europe: in Florence, Perugia, Siena, Cologne, etc. In these uprisings, which reflected the most acute social contradictions within the medieval city, hired workers played a significant role.

Thus, in the social struggle that unfolded in the medieval cities of Western Europe, three main stages can be distinguished. At first, the entire mass of townspeople fought against the feudal lords for the liberation of cities from their power. Then the guilds waged a struggle against the city patriciate. Later, the struggle of the urban lower classes unfolded against the rich urban craftsmen and merchants, the urban oligarchy.

Development of trade and credit in Western Europe. The growth of cities in Western Europe was promoted in the XI -XV centuries. significant development of domestic and foreign trade. Cities, including small ones, primarily formed the local market, where exchanges took place with the rural district.

But during the period of developed feudalism, long-distance, transit trade continued to play a larger role - if not in volume, then in the cost of products sold, in prestige in society. In the XI-XV centuries. such interregional trade in Europe was concentrated mainly around two trade “crossroads”. One of them was the Mediterranean, which served as a link in the trade of Western European countries - Spain, Southern and Central France, Italy - among themselves, as well as with Byzantium, the Black Sea region and the countries of the East. From the 12th - 13th centuries, especially in connection with the Crusades, primacy in this trade passed from the Byzantines and Arabs to the merchants of Genoa and Venice, Marseille and Barcelona. The main objects of trade here were luxury goods exported from the East, spices, alum, wine, and partly grain. Cloth and other types of fabrics, gold, silver, and weapons came from the West to the East. Among other goods, many slaves were involved in this trade. Another area of ​​European trade covered the Baltic and North Seas. The northwestern regions of Russia (especially Narva, Novgorod, Pskov and Polotsk), Poland and the Eastern Baltic - Riga, Revel (Tallinn), Danzig (Gdansk), Northern Germany, the Scandinavian countries, Flanders, Brabant and the Northern Netherlands took part in it. Northern France and England. In this area they traded mainly in goods of wider consumption: fish, salt, furs, wool and cloth, flax, hemp, wax, resin and timber (especially ship timber), and from the 15th century. - bread.

Connections between both areas of international trade were carried out along a trade route that went through the Alpine passes and then along the Rhine, where there were many large cities involved in transit exchange, as well as along the Atlantic coast of Europe. Fairs, which became widespread in France, Italy, Germany, and England already in the 11th-12th centuries, played a major role in trade, including international trade. Was carried out here wholesale goods in high demand: fabrics, leather, fur, cloth, metals and products made from them, grain, wine and oil. At fairs in the French county of Champagne, which lasted almost all year round, in the 12th-13th centuries. Merchants from many European countries met. The Venetians and Genoese brought expensive oriental goods there. Flemish and Florentine merchants brought cloth, merchants from Germany - linen fabrics, Czech merchants - cloth, leather and metal products. Wool, tin, lead and iron were delivered from England. In the XIV-XV centuries. Bruges (Flanders) became the main center of European fair trade.

The scale of the NB trade at that time should be exaggerated: it was limited by low labor productivity, the dominance of subsistence farming in the countryside, as well as the lawlessness of the feudal lords and feudal fragmentation. Duties and all kinds of levies were collected from merchants when moving from the possessions of one lord to the lands of another, when crossing bridges and even river fords, when traveling along a river that flowed in the possessions of one or another lord. The most noble knights and even kings did not hesitate to attack merchant caravans.

Nevertheless, the gradual growth of commodity-money relations created the possibility of accumulating monetary capital in the hands of individual townspeople, 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 sovereigns, but also by all prominent lords and bishops, as well as big cities.

To exchange some money for others and establish the equivalent value of a particular coin, a special profession of money changer was created. Money changers were engaged not only in exchanging coins, but also in transferring sums 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 offices arose in the cities of Northern Italy - in Lombardy. Therefore, the word “pawnbroker” in the Middle Ages became synonymous with banker and moneylender and was later preserved in the name of pawnshops.

The largest credit and usury operations were carried out by the Roman Curia, which attracted huge cash from all European countries.

City merchants. Merchant associations. Trade, along with crafts, formed the economic basis of medieval cities. For a significant part of their population, trade was the main occupation. Among professional traders, small shopkeepers and peddlers close to the craft environment predominated. The elite consisted of the merchants themselves, i.e. wealthy merchants, mainly engaged in long-distance transit and wholesale transactions, traveling to different cities and countries (hence their other name - “trading guests”), who had offices and agents there. Often it was they who became both bankers and large moneylenders. The richest and most influential merchants were from capital and port cities: Constantinople, London, Marseille, Venice, Genoa, Lubeck. In many countries, for a long time, the merchant elite consisted of foreigners.

Already at the end of the early Middle Ages, associations of merchants of one city - guilds - appeared and then widely spread. Like craft guilds, they usually brought together merchants based on professional interests, such as traveling to the same place or with the same goods, so that large cities had several guilds. Trade guilds provided their members with monopoly or privileged conditions in trade and legal protection, provided mutual assistance, and were religious and military organizations. The merchant community of each city, like the craft community, was united by family and corporate ties, and merchants from other cities also joined it. The so-called “trading houses” - family merchant companies - became common. In the Middle Ages, such a form of trade cooperation as various mutual partnerships (warehousing, companionage, commenda) also flourished. Already in the 13th century. The institution of trade consuls arose: to protect the interests and personalities of merchants, cities sent their consuls to other cities and countries. By the end of the 15th century. an exchange appeared where commercial contracts were concluded.

Merchants from different cities were sometimes also associated. The most significant such association was the famous Hansa - a trade and political union of merchants of many German and West Slavic cities, which had several branches and controlled North European trade until the beginning of the 16th century.

Merchants played a large role in public life and the life of the city. They were the ones who governed in municipalities and represented cities at national forums. They also influenced public policy, participated in feudal conquests and colonization of new lands.

The beginnings of capitalist relations in the craft environment. Progress in the development of domestic and foreign trade by the end of the XIV-XV centuries. led to the growth of commercial capital, which accumulated in the hands of the merchant elite. Merchant or merchant (as well as usurer) capital is the oldest free form of capital. He acted in the sphere of circulation, serving the exchange of goods in slaveholding, feudal, and capitalist societies. But at a certain level of development of commodity production under feudalism, in the conditions of the disintegration of medieval craft, commercial capital began to gradually penetrate into the sphere of production. This was usually expressed in the fact that the merchant bought raw materials in bulk and resold them to artisans, and then bought finished products from them for further sale. A low-income artisan found himself in a position dependent on the merchant. He was cut off from the market for raw materials and sales and was forced to continue working for a merchant-buyer, but no longer as an independent commodity producer, but as a de facto hired worker (although he often continued to work in his workshop). The penetration of trade and usurious capital into production served as one of the sources of capitalist manufacture, which arose in the depths of the decaying medieval craft. Another source of the emergence of early capitalist production in cities was the above-mentioned transformation of students and journeymen into permanent hired workers who had no prospect of becoming masters.

However, the significance of the elements of capitalist relations in the cities of the 11th-15th centuries. should not be exaggerated. Their emergence occurred only sporadically, in a few of the largest centers (mainly in Italy) and in the most developed branches of production, mainly in cloth making (less often in mining and metallurgy and some other industries). The development of these new phenomena occurred earlier and faster in those countries and in those branches of craft where there was, at that time, a wide foreign sales market, which encouraged the expansion of production and the investment of significant capital in it. But all this did not yet mean the formation of a capitalist system. It is characteristic that even in the large cities of Western Europe, a significant part of the capital accumulated in trade and usury was invested not in the expansion of industrial production, but in the acquisition of land and titles: the owners of this capital sought to become part of the ruling layer of feudal lords.

Development of commodity-money relations and changes in the socio-economic life of feudal society. Cities, as the main centers of commodity production and exchange, exerted an ever-increasing and multifaceted influence on the feudal countryside. Peasants increasingly began to turn to the city market to purchase everyday items: clothing, shoes, metal products, utensils and inexpensive jewelry, as well as to sell their household products. The involvement of the products of arable farming (bread) in trade turnover occurred incomparably slower than the products of urban artisans, and slower than the products of technical and specialized branches of agriculture (raw flax, dyes, wine, cheese, raw wool and leather, etc. ), as well as products of rural crafts and trades (especially yarn, linen homespun fabrics, coarse cloth, etc.). These types of production gradually turned into commercial sectors of the village economy. More and more local markets arose and developed, which expanded the sphere of influence of urban markets and stimulated the formation of an internal market connecting the various regions of each country with more or less strong economic relations, which was the basis of centralization.

The expanding participation of the peasant economy in market relations increased the growth of property inequality and social stratification in the countryside. Among the peasants, on the one hand, there is a wealthy elite, and on the other, numerous rural poor people, sometimes completely landless, living by some kind of craft or hired work, as farm laborers for the feudal lord or for rich peasants. Part of these poor people, who were exploited not only by feudal lords, but also by their more prosperous fellow villagers, constantly went to the cities in the hope of finding more tolerable living conditions. There she joined the urban plebeian milieu. Sometimes wealthy peasants also moved to cities, seeking to use their accumulated funds in the commercial and industrial sphere.

Not only the peasant, but also the master's economy was drawn into commodity-money relations, which led to significant changes in the relations between them, as well as in the structure of seigneurial land ownership. The most characteristic for most countries of Western Europe was the way in which the process developed rent commutation: replacement of labor and most food rents with cash payments. At the same time, the feudal lords actually transferred to the peasants all the worries not only about the production, but also about the sale of agricultural products, usually on the nearby, local market. This path of development gradually led in the XIII-XV centuries. to the liquidation of the domain and the distribution of all the land of the feudal lord for holding or rent of a semi-feudal type. The liquidation of the domain and the commutation of rent was also associated with the liberation of the bulk of the peasants from personal dependence, which ended in most countries of Western Europe in the 15th century. Rent commutation and personal liberation were, in principle, beneficial for the peasantry, which gained greater economic and personal legal independence. However, often under these conditions, the economic exploitation of peasants increased or took on burdensome forms - due to an increase in their payments to the feudal lords and an increase in various state duties.

In some areas, where a wide external market for agricultural products was developing, with which only the lords were able to communicate, development took a different path: here the feudal lords, on the contrary, expanded the domain economy, which led to an increase in the corvee of the peasants and to attempts to strengthen their personal dependence ( South-East England, Central and Eastern Germany, a number of regions of Northern Europe, etc.).

Theories of the origin of medieval cities

Trying to answer the question about the causes and circumstances of the emergence of medieval cities, scientists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Various theories have been put forward. A significant part of them is characterized by an institutional-legal approach to the problem. Most attention was paid to the origin and development of specific urban institutions, urban law, and not to the socio-economic foundations of the process. With this approach, it is impossible to explain the root causes of the origin of cities.

Historians of the 19th century was primarily concerned with the question of what form of settlement the medieval city emerged from and how the institutions of this previous form were transformed into cities. The “romanistic” theory (F. Savigny, O. Thierry, F. Guizot, F. Renoir), which was based mainly on the material of the Romanized regions of Europe, considered medieval cities and their institutions to be a direct continuation of late ancient cities. Historians, relying mainly on material from Northern, Western, and Central Europe (primarily German and English), saw the origins of medieval cities in the phenomena of a new, feudal society, primarily legal and institutional. According to the “patrimonial” theory (K. Eighhorn, K. Nitsch), the city and its institutions developed from the feudal estate, its administration and law. The “Mark” theory (G. Maurer, O. Gierke, G. von Below) put city institutions and the law out of action for the free rural community-mark. The “burgh” theory (F. Keitgen, F. Matland) saw the grain of the city in the fortress-burg and in burgh law. The “market” theory (R. Som, Schroeder, Schulte) derived city law from market law that operated in places where trade was carried out.

All these theories were one-sided, each putting forward a single path or factor in the emergence of the city and considering it mainly from formal positions. Moreover, they never explained why most of the patrimonial centers, communities, castles and even market places never turned into cities.

German historian Ritschel at the end of the 19th century. tried to combine the “burg” and “market” theories, seeing in the early cities settlements of merchants around a fortified point - a burg. The Belgian historian A. Pirenne, unlike most of his predecessors, assigned a decisive role in the emergence of cities to the economic factor - intercontinental and interregional transit trade and its carrier - the merchants. According to this “trade” theory, cities in Western Europe initially arose around merchant trading posts. Pirenne also ignores the role of the separation of crafts from agriculture in the emergence of cities, and does not explain the origins, patterns and specifics of the city specifically as a feudal structure. Pirenne's thesis about the purely commercial origin of the city was not accepted by many medievalists.

In modern foreign historiography, much has been done to study geological data, topography and plans of medieval cities (F. L. Ganshof, V. Ebel, E. Ennen). These materials explain a lot about the prehistory and initial history of cities, which is almost not illuminated by written monuments. The question of the role of political-administrative, military, and cult factors in the formation of medieval cities is being seriously explored. All these factors and materials require, of course, taking into account the socio-economic aspects of the emergence of the city and its character as a feudal culture.

Many modern foreign historians, trying to understand the general patterns of the genesis of medieval cities, share and develop the concept of the emergence of a feudal city precisely as a consequence of the social division of labor, the development of commodity relations, and the social and political evolution of society.

In domestic medieval studies, serious research has been carried out on the history of cities in almost all countries of Western Europe. But for a long time it focused mainly on the social = economic role of cities, with less attention to their other functions. Recently, all the diversity has been considered social characteristics medieval city. The city is defined as "Not only the most dynamic structure of medieval civilization, but also as an organic component of the entire feudal system" 1

The emergence of European medieval cities

The specific historical paths of the emergence of cities are very diverse. Peasants and artisans leaving the villages settled in different places depending on the availability of favorable conditions for engaging in “urban affairs”, i.e. matters related to the market. Sometimes, especially in Italy and Southern France, these were administrative, military and church centers, often located on the territory of old Roman cities that were revived to a new life - already as cities of the feudal type. The fortifications of these points provided the residents with the necessary security.

The concentration of the population in such centers, including feudal lords with their servants and retinue, clergy, representatives of the royal and local administration, created favorable conditions for artisans to sell their products. But more often, especially in Northwestern and Central Europe, artisans and traders settled near large estates, estates, castles and monasteries, the inhabitants of which purchased their goods. They settled at the intersection of important roads, at river crossings and bridges, on the shores of bays, bays, etc., convenient for ships, where traditional markets had long operated. Such “market towns,” with a significant increase in their population and the presence of favorable conditions for craft production and market activities, also turned into cities.

The growth of cities in certain regions of Western Europe occurred at different rates. First of all, in the VIII - IX centuries. feudal cities, primarily as centers of craft and trade, were formed in Italy (Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Bari, Naples, Amalfi); in the 10th century - in the south of France (Marseille, Arles, Narbonne, Montpellier, Toulouse, etc.). In these and other areas, with rich ancient traditions, crafts specialized faster than in others, and the formation of a feudal state with its reliance on cities took place.

The early emergence and growth of Italian and southern French cities was also facilitated by trade ties between these regions and the then more developed Byzantium and the countries of the East. Of course, the preservation of the remains of numerous ancient cities and fortresses there, where it was easier to find shelter, protection, traditional markets, rudiments of craft organizations and Roman municipal law, also played a certain role.

In the X - XI centuries. Feudal cities began to emerge in Northern France, the Netherlands, England and Germany - along the Rhine and the upper Danube. The Flemish cities of Bruges, Ypres, Ghent, Lille, Douai, Arras and others were famous for their fine cloth, which they supplied to many European countries. There were no longer many Roman settlements in these areas; most cities arose anew.

Later, in the XII - XII centuries, feudal cities grew on the northern outskirts and in the interior regions of Trans-Rhine Germany, in the Scandinavian countries, in Ireland, Hungary, the Danube principalities, i.e. where the development of feudal relations was slower. Here, all cities grew, as a rule, from market towns, as well as regional (former tribal) centers.

The distribution of cities across Europe was uneven. There were especially many of them in Northern and Central Italy, in Flanders and Brabant, along the Rhine.

“With all the differences in place, time, and specific conditions for the emergence of a particular city, it has always been the result of a social division of labor common to all of Europe. In the socio-economic sphere, it was expressed in the separation of crafts from agriculture, the development of commodity production and exchange between different spheres of the economy and different territories; in the political sphere - in the development of statehood structures."

City under the rule of a lord

Whatever the origin of the city, it was a feudal city. It was headed by a feudal lord, on whose land it was located, so the city had to obey the lord. The majority of the townspeople were initially unfree ministerials (servants of the lord), peasants who had long lived in this place, sometimes fleeing from their former masters, or released by them on quitrent. At the same time, they often found themselves personally dependent on the lord of the city. All city power was concentrated in the hands of the lord; the city became, as it were, his collective vassal. The feudal lord was interested in the emergence of a city on his land, since urban trades and trade gave him considerable income.

Former peasants brought with them to the cities the customs of communal organization, which had a noticeable influence on the organization of city government. Over time, it increasingly took on forms that corresponded to the characteristics and needs of city life.

In the early era, the urban population was still very poorly organized. The city still had a semi-agrarian character. Its inhabitants bore agricultural duties in favor of the lord. The city did not have any special municipal government. He is under the authority of a seigneur or seigneurial clerk, who judged the city population and collected various fines and fees from them. At the same time, the city often did not represent unity even in the sense of seigneurial government. As a feudal property, a lord could bequeath a city by inheritance in the same way as a village. He could divide it among his heirs, and could sell or mortgage it in whole or in part.1

Here is an excerpt from a document from the late 12th century. The document dates back to the time when the city of Strasbourg was under the authority of a spiritual lord - a bishop:

“1. Strasbourg was founded on the model of other cities, with such a privilege that every person, both a stranger and a local native, would always enjoy peace in it from everyone.

5. All the officials of the city are under the authority of the bishop, so that they are appointed either by himself or by those whom he appoints; the elders define the younger ones as if they were subordinate to them.

6. And the bishop should not give public office except to persons from the world of the local church.

7. The bishop invests with his power the four officials in charge of the administration of the city, namely: the Schultgeis, the Burgrave, the Mytnik and the Chief of Coin.

93. Individual townspeople are also required to serve annually a five-day corvee, with the exception of coiners... tanners... saddlemakers, four glovers, four bakers and eight shoemakers, all blacksmiths and carpenters, butchers and those who make wine barrels...

102. Among the tanners, twelve people are obliged, at the bishop’s expense, to prepare leather and skins as much as the bishop needs...

103. The duty of the blacksmiths is as follows: when the bishop goes on an imperial campaign, each blacksmith will give four horseshoes with his nails; Of these, the burgrave will give the bishop horseshoes for 24 horses, and keep the rest for himself...

105. In addition, the blacksmiths are obliged to do everything that the bishop needs in his palace, namely, doors, windows and various things that are made of iron: at the same time, they are given material and food is supplied for the entire time ...

108. Among the shoemakers, eight people are obliged to give the bishop, when he is sent to the court on a sovereign campaign, covers for candlesticks, basins and vessels...

115. Millers and fishermen are obliged to carry the bishop on water wherever he wishes...

116. Anglers are obliged to fish for ... the bishop ... annually for three days and three nights with all their gear ...

118. Carpenters are obliged to go to work every Monday for the bishop at his expense...”

As we see from this document, the security and peace of the townspeople was ensured by his lord, who “invested his power” in the city officials (i.e., he entrusted them with leading the city government). The townspeople, for their part, were obliged to bear corvée for the lord and provide him with all kinds of services. These duties were not much different from the duties of peasants. It is clear that as the city grows stronger, it begins to become more and more burdened by dependence on the lord and strives to free itself from it.

The organization of the city arose in the process of struggle with the lord, a struggle that necessitated the unification of the various elements that made up the urban population. At the same time, the class struggle in the village intensified and intensified. On this basis, from the 11th century. the desire of the feudal lords to strengthen their class dominance by strengthening the feudal organization of the state is noticeable. "The process of political fragmentation was replaced by a tendency towards the unification of small feudal units and the unification of the feudal world."

The struggle of cities against feudal lords begins from the very first steps of urban development. In this struggle, the urban structure takes shape; those disparate elements that made up the city at the beginning of its existence are organized and united. The political structure that the city receives depends on the outcome of this struggle.

The development of commodity-money relations in cities exacerbates the struggle between the city and the feudal lord, who sought to expropriate the growing urban accumulation by increasing feudal rent. The lord's demands on the city were increasing. The lord resorted to methods of direct violence against the townspeople, trying to increase the amount of his income from the city. On this basis, clashes arose between the city and the lord, which forced the townspeople to create a certain organization to gain independence for themselves, an organization that was at the same time the basis for city self-government.

Thus, the formation of cities was the result of the social division of labor and social evolution of the early Middle Ages. The emergence of cities was accompanied by the separation of crafts from agriculture, the development of commodity production and exchange, and the development of the attributes of statehood.

The medieval city arose on the land of the lord and was under his authority. The desire of the seniors to extract as much as possible more income from the city inevitably led to the communal movement.



General history[Civilization. Modern concepts. Facts, events] Dmitrieva Olga Vladimirovna

The emergence and development of cities in medieval Europe

A qualitatively new stage in the development of feudal Europe - the period of the developed Middle Ages - is primarily associated with the emergence of cities, which had a huge transformative impact on all aspects of the economic, political and cultural life of society.

In the early Middle Ages, ancient cities fell into decay, life continued to glimmer in them, but they did not play the role of former commercial and industrial centers, remaining as administrative points or simply fortified places - burgs. The preservation of the role of Roman cities can be said mainly for Southern Europe, while in the north there were few of them even in late antiquity (mostly these were fortified Roman camps). IN early Middle Ages the population was mainly concentrated in rural areas, the economy was agricultural, moreover, subsistence in nature. The farm was designed to consume everything produced within the estate and was not connected to the market. Trade ties were predominantly interregional and international and were generated by the natural specialization of various natural and geographical regions: there was an exchange of metals, minerals, salt, wines, and luxury goods brought from the East.

However, already in the 11th century. The revitalization of old urban centers and the emergence of new ones has become a noticeable phenomenon. It was based on deep economic processes, first of all, the development of agriculture. In the X–XI centuries. Agriculture reached a high level within the framework of the feudal estate: two-field farming spread, the production of grain and industrial crops increased, horticulture, viticulture, market gardening, and livestock husbandry developed. As a result, both in the domain and in the peasant economy, a surplus of agricultural products arose, which could be exchanged for handicraft products - the preconditions were created for the separation of crafts from agriculture.

The skills of rural artisans - blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, weavers, shoemakers, coopers - also improved, their specialization progressed, as a result of which they were less and less involved in agriculture, working to order for neighbors, exchanging their products, and finally trying to sell them in wider markets. scale. Such opportunities were provided at fairs that developed as a result of interregional trade, at markets that arose in places where people gathered - near the walls of fortified burgs, royal and episcopal residences, monasteries, at ferries and bridges, etc. Rural artisans began to move to such places. The outflow of the population from the countryside was also facilitated by the growth of feudal exploitation.

Secular and spiritual lords were interested in the emergence of urban settlements on their lands, since thriving craft centers provided the feudal lords with significant profits. They encouraged the flight of dependent peasants from their feudal lords to the cities, guaranteeing their freedom. Later, this right was assigned to the city corporations themselves; in the Middle Ages, the principle “city air makes you free” was formed.

The specific historical circumstances of the emergence of certain cities could be different: in the former Roman provinces, medieval settlements were revived on the foundations of ancient cities or near them (most Italian and southern French cities, London, York, Gloucester - in England; Augsburg, Strasbourg - in Germany and northern France). Lyon, Reims, Tours, and Munster gravitated toward episcopal residences. Bonn, Basel, Amiens, Ghent appeared at the markets in front of the castles; at fairs - Lille, Messina, Douai; Near seaports– Venice, Genoa, Palermo, Bristol, Portsmouth, etc. Place names often indicate the origin of a city: if its name contains elements such as “ingen”, “dorf”, “hausen” - the city grew from rural settlement; “bridge”, “trouser”, “pont”, “furt” - at a bridge, crossing or ford; “vik”, “vich” - near a sea bay or bay.

The most urbanized areas during the Middle Ages were Italy, where half the total population lived in cities, and Flanders, where two-thirds of the population were city dwellers. The population of medieval cities usually did not exceed 2–5 thousand people. In the XIV century. in England, only two cities numbered more than 10 thousand - London and York. Nevertheless, large cities with 15–30 thousand people were not uncommon (Rome, Naples, Verona, Bologna, Paris, Regensburg, etc.).

The indispensable elements thanks to which a settlement could be considered a city were fortified walls, a citadel, Cathedral, market Square. Fortified palaces and fortresses of feudal lords and monasteries could be located in cities. In the XIII–XIV centuries. self-government buildings appeared - town halls, symbols of urban freedom.

The layout of medieval cities, unlike ancient ones, was chaotic, and there was no unified urban planning concept. Cities grew in concentric circles from a center - a fortress or market square. Their streets were narrow (enough for a horseman with a spear at the ready to pass through them), were not illuminated, had no pavements for a long time, the sewerage and drainage systems were open, and sewage flowed along the streets. The houses were crowded and rose 2-3 floors; Since the land in the city was expensive, the foundations were narrow, and the upper floors grew, overhanging the lower ones. For a long time the cities retained an “agrarian appearance”: gardens and vegetable gardens were adjacent to the houses, and livestock were kept in the courtyards, which were gathered into a common herd and grazed by the city shepherd. Within the city limits there were fields and meadows, and outside its walls the townspeople had land plots and vineyards.

The urban population consisted mainly of artisans, traders and people employed in the service sector - loaders, water carriers, coal miners, butchers, bakers. A special group of them consisted of feudal lords and their entourage, representatives of the administration of spiritual and secular authorities. The city elite was represented by the patriciate - wealthy merchants engaged in international trade, noble families, landowners and developers; later it included the most prosperous guild craftsmen. The main criteria for becoming a patrician were wealth and participation in city governance.

The city was an organic creation and an integral part of the feudal economy. Arising on the land of a feudal lord, he depended on the lord and was obliged to pay, in-kind supplies and labor, like a peasant community. Highly skilled artisans gave the lord part of their products, the rest worked as corvee laborers, cleaned stables, and carried out regular duties. Cities sought to free themselves from this dependence and achieve freedom and trade and economic privileges. In the XI–XIII centuries. In Europe, the “communal movement” unfolded - the struggle of townspeople against the lords, which took very sharp forms. The ally of cities was often the royal power, which sought to weaken the position of large magnates; kings gave cities charters that recorded their liberties - tax immunities, the right to mint coins, trade privileges, etc. The result of the communal movement was the almost universal liberation of cities from lords (who, nevertheless, could remain there as residents). The highest degree of freedom was enjoyed by city-states (Venice, Genoa, Florence, Dubrovnik, etc.), which were not subordinate to any sovereign and independently determined their foreign policy who entered into wars and political unions, which had their own governing bodies, finances, law and court. Many cities received the status of communes: while maintaining collective citizenship to the supreme sovereign of the land - the king or emperor, they had a mayor, judicial system, militia, treasury. A number of cities have achieved only some of these rights. But the main achievement of the communal movement was the personal freedom of the townspeople.

After his victory, the patriciate came to power in the cities - a wealthy elite that controlled the mayor's office, the court and other elected bodies. The omnipotence of the patriciate led to the fact that the mass of the urban population stood in opposition to it, a series of uprisings in the 14th century. ended with the patriciate having to allow the top of the city guild organizations to come to power.

In most Western European cities, artisans and traders were united into professional corporations - guilds and guilds, which was dictated by general condition economy and insufficient market capacity, therefore it was necessary to limit the number of products produced in order to avoid overproduction, lower prices and the ruin of craftsmen. The workshop also resisted competition from rural artisans and foreigners. In his desire to provide all craftsmen with equal living conditions, he acted as an analogue of the peasant community. Shop statutes regulated all stages of production and sales of products, regulated work hours, the number of students, apprentices, machines in the workshop, the composition of raw materials and the quality of finished products.

Full members of the workshop were craftsmen - independent small producers who owned their own workshop and tools. The specificity of craft production was that the master made the product from start to finish, there was no division of labor within the workshop, it followed the line of deepening specialization and the emergence of new and new workshops, separated from the main ones (for example, gunsmiths emerged from the blacksmith workshop, tinsmiths, manufacturers of hardware, swords, helmets, etc.).

Mastering the craft required a long apprenticeship (7–10 years), during which the students lived with the master, without receiving pay and doing homework. After completing the course of study, they became apprentices who worked for wages. To become a master, an apprentice had to save up money for materials and make a “masterpiece” - a skillful product that was presented to the workshop for judgement. If he passed the exam, the apprentice paid for the general feast and became a full member of the workshop.

Craft corporations and unions of merchants - guilds - played a large role in the life of the city: they organized detachments of the city police, built buildings for their associations - guild halls, where their general supplies and cash register were stored, erected churches dedicated to the patron saints of the guild, and organized processions on their holidays and theatrical performances. They contributed to the unity of townspeople in the struggle for communal liberties.

Nevertheless, property and social inequality arose both within the workshops and between them. In the XIV–XV centuries. “closure of workshops” occurs: in an effort to protect themselves from competition, masters limit the access of apprentices to the workshop, turning them into “eternal apprentices”, in fact, into hired workers. Trying to fight for high wages and fair conditions of admission to the corporation, apprentices organized companion unions, prohibited by masters, and resorted to strikes. On the other hand, social tension grew in the relations between the “senior” and “junior” workshops - those who carried out preparatory operations in a number of crafts (for example, carders, fullers, wool beaters), and those who completed the process of manufacturing the product (weavers). The confrontation between the “fat” and “skinny” people in the 14th–15th centuries. led to another escalation of the intra-city struggle. The role of the city as a new phenomenon in the life of Western Europe in the classical Middle Ages was extremely high. It arose as a product of the feudal economy and was its integral part - with small manual production dominating it, corporate organizations similar to the peasant community, and subordination to feudal lords until a certain time. At the same time, he was a very dynamic element of the feudal system, the bearer of new relations. Production and exchange were concentrated in the city; it contributed to the development of domestic and foreign trade and the formation of market relations. It had a huge impact on the economy of the rural area: thanks to the presence of cities, both large feudal estates and peasant farms were drawn into commodity exchange with them, this largely determined the transition to rent in kind and money.

Politically, the city broke free from the power of the lords, and its own political culture began to form - the tradition of elections and competition. The position of European cities played an important role in the process of state centralization and strengthening of royal power. The growth of cities led to the formation of a completely new class of feudal society - the burghers, which was reflected in the balance of political forces in society during the period of formation new form state power- monarchies with class representation. In the urban environment there are new system ethical values, psychology and culture.

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