wax, timber, pitch, tar, iron, and all the other products
of the northern world. Organized into hansas, or mer-
chant leagues, they prospered greatly throughout the
High Middle Ages.
Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, and the other Flemish cities
concentrated primarily on the manufacture of cloth.
Their position near the mouths of the Meuse and
Rhine made them natural ports that connected the Eu-
ropean interior with England, Scandinavia, and north-
ern Spain. Some of them also rivaled the Hanse in the
salt trade, which was vital because salt was the primary
means of preserving food. By the end of the thirteenth
century, the Low Countries had become a highly ur-
banized center of wealth that rivaled Italy in commer-
cial importance. Other, smaller, centers of trade and
manufacturing developed along the main trade routes
or wherever a local product achieved some level of
renown.
Manufacturing in the Middle Ages did not nor-
mally employ elaborate machinery or the techniques of
mass production and cannot, therefore, be described as
truly industrial, though some of the larger wool shops
in Italy or Flanders employed as many as 150 workers.
Goods were produced by artisans who, after the tenth
century, were typically organized into guilds or associa-
tions that attempted to regulate price and quality in a
particular trade. Because they included not only jour-
neymen but also the masters who owned the shops and
the apprentices who would one day be admitted to full
membership, guilds combined a variety of functions.
184 Chapter 10
A
A
A
A
S
S S
S
S
S
S
S
S
S
Constantinople
Lisbon
Córdoba
Toledo
Valencia
Barcelona
Bordeaux
Genoa
Lyons Milan
Florence
Venice
Rome
Naples
Paris
Bruges
Ghent
Hamburg
Lübeck
Leipzig
Frankfurt
Nuremberg
Augsburg
Danzig
Cracow
Vienna
Novgorod
Kiev
Astrakhan
Trebizond
Tabriz
Mosul
Baghdad
Damascus
Alexandria
Tripoli
Tunis
Edinburgh
Winchester London
Dublin
Stockholm
Bergen
Budapest
Belgrade
Dnie
perR.
Balearic
IslandsSardinia
Sicily
Crete Cyprus
Atlantic
Ocean
North
Sea
Black Sea
Red
Sea
Pe
rsi
an
Gu
lf
Mediterranean Sea
Ca
sp
ia
n
Se
a
Ni
le
R.
Vistu
la
R.
Corsica
Danu
be
R.
Ba
ltic
Sea
Volga
R.
0 300 600 Miles
0 300 600 900 Kilometers
Area of cloth production
Area of linen production
Area of silk production
Trade routes
S
A
Salt
Alum
Wine
Gold
Silver
Other metals
MAP 10.1
Medieval Trade Routes