Page 245 - Western Civilization A Brief History, Volume I To 1715 9th - Jackson J. Spielvogel

to the fairs of Champagne and exchanged them for the cloth and swords of northern Italy and the silks, sugar, and spices of the East (see the box on p. 208).
0 300 600Kilometers
of the castle also offered protec- tion. As the settlement prospered and expanded outward, new walls were built to protect it.
Most towns were closely tied to their surrounding territories because they were dependent on the countryside for their food supplies. In addition, they were often part of the territory belong- ing to a lord and were subject to his jurisdiction. Although lords wanted to treat towns and towns- people as they would their vassals and serfs, cities had totally differ- ent needs and a different per- spective. Townspeople needed mobility to trade. Consequently,
0 150
300 Miles
Bergen
NORWAY
As trade increased, both gold
and silver came to be in demand
at fairs and trading markets of
all kinds. Slowly, a money econ-
omy began to emerge. New trad-
ing companies as well as banking
firms were set up to manage the
exchange and sale of goods. New
techniques, including double-
entry bookkeeping, commercial
contracts, and insurance, also
appeared to facilitate the expan-
sion of businesses. All of these
new practices were part of a commercial revolution based on the growth of commercial capitalism, an economic system in which commerce and industry are controlled by private owners who invest in trade and goods in order to make profits.
The Growth of Cities
The revival of trade led to a revival of cities. Merchants needed places where they could live and build ware- houses to store their goods. Towns had greatly declined in the early Middle Ages, especially in Europe north of the Alps. Old Roman cities continued to exist but had dwindled in size and population. With the revival of trade, merchants began to settle in these old cities, fol- lowed by craftworkers or artisans, people who had developed skills on manors or elsewhere and now per- ceived the opportunity to ply their trade producing objects that could be sold by the merchants. In the course of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the old Roman cities came alive with new residents.
FOUNDING OF NEW CITIES AND TOWNS Beginning in the late tenth century, many new cities and towns were founded, particularly in northern Europe. Usually, a group of merchants established a settlement near some fortified stronghold, such as a castle or monastery. The English borough or burgh and the German Burg, still evi- dent in the names of many cities such as Edinburgh and Hamburg, originally meant a fortress or walled enclosure. Castles were particularly favored because they were usu- ally located along major routes of transportation or at the intersection of two important trade routes; the lords
SWEDEN
Lübeck
Trade routes
Edinburgh
North Sea
Hamburg Bruges
Ghent
ENGLAND London
Paris
Flanders as a Trade Center
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the merchants and artisans of these boroughs and burghs, who came to be called burghers or bourgeoisie, constituted a revolutionary group who needed their own unique laws to meet their requirements. Since the townspeople were profiting from the growth of trade and sale of their products, they were willing to pay for the right to make their own laws and govern themselves. In many instances, lords and kings saw the potential for vast new sources of revenues and were willing to grant (or sell) to the townspeople the liberties they were be- ginning to demand.
By 1100, burghers were obtaining charters of liber- ties from their territorial lords that granted them the privileges they wanted, including the right to bequeath goods and sell property, freedom from any military obligation to the lord, written urban law that guaran- teed them their freedom, and the right to become a free person after residing a year and a day in the town. The last provision made it possible for a runaway serf who could avoid capture to become a free person in a city. Almost all new urban communities gained these elementary liberties, but some towns went further and obtained the right to govern themselves by choosing their own officials and administering their own courts of law.
CITY GOVERNMENTS Over time, medieval cities devel- oped their own governments for running the affairs of the community. Citizens (males who had been born in the city or who had lived there for some time) elected members of a city council that ran the affairs of the city and also served as judges and magistrates. The electoral process was carefully engineered to ensure
The New World of Trade and Cities 207