Economic Development and Urban Growth in the High Middle Ages 185They set wages and prices as far as market forces would
permit. They supervised the training of apprentices and
tried to guarantee a quality product through inspec-
tions and the use of such devices as the masterpiece, a
work whose acknowledged excellence permitted its
creator to be enrolled as a master in the guild. Because
mechanisms for social support were few, guilds often at-
tempted to provide for the welfare of widows, orphans,
and those members who could no longer work (see
document 10.3). They sponsored banquets and drink-
ing parties, and they inevitably became the vehicle
through which their members exerted political influ-
ence in the community. For the town-dwelling artisan
family, the guild was the center of social, political, and
economic life.
The Growth of Towns
The commercial revolution brought a revival of the ur-
ban life that had been largely dormant since the fall of
Rome. Trade inevitably centered on the towns. As trade
increased, towns grew into cities and some of those
cities became sovereign states. Many of the more im-
portant medieval towns, including Paris, London,
Florence, Milan, and Naples, had existed in Roman
times, but others were relatively new or had grown
from humble beginnings. Venice was founded by
refugees fleeing from the Lombard invasion. Other
communities grew up around the castles of bishops
or secular lords. Still others grew up at river crossings
or heads of navigation, or near natural harbors.
The pattern of urban growth in frontier areas was
different. Dozens of Spanish towns in New Castile and
Extremadura were built on lands captured from the
Muslims during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Laid out geometrically around a central plaza, they
were apparently modeled on the Roman colonia whose
function had been much the same. Along the Baltic
coasts, in Silesia, and eastward into Poland and the
Ukraine, German towns were founded throughout
this period, often by princely fiat, to secure newly ac-
quired regions or to protect existing borders. Because
Germany remained politically decentralized and be-
cause territories changed hands frequently owing to the
vagaries of partible inheritance, princely foundations of
this kind were common there as well. Though most
were intended to be garrisons, market towns, or
princely residences, a few were located with an eye to
commercial development.
Whatever their origins, towns soon became a mag-
net for the unemployed, the ambitious, and the mal-
content. The rapid increase in population after the
tenth century coupled with more efficient agricultural
methods tended to displace villagers whose labor was
redundant and for whom no new land was available.
These workers were “freed from the soil,” an econo-
mist’s euphemism for becoming unemployed, and
moved to the towns in the hope of finding work as la-
borers. Some succeeded. If they survived, their descen-
dants eventually became citizens and, in a few cases,
grew rich. The Medici, arguably the greatest of Renais-
sance families, were descended from humble immi-
grants who came down from the Mugello during the
thirteenth century to work as laborers in the wool
shops of Florence.
Most immigrants, however, simply died. The rapid
growth of medieval and early modern towns was almostDOCUMENT 10.3
The Guilds and Social Welfare
This excerpt is from the “customs” of the Guild of the Holy
Trinity at Lynn, England, dating from the late fourteenth cen-
tury. Customs illustrate the degree to which guilds provided for
the security and social welfare of member families.If any of the aforesaid brethren shall die in the said
town or elsewhere, as soon as the knowledge
thereof shall come to the alderman, the said alder-
man shall order solemn mass to be celebrated for
him, at which every brother of the said guild that
is in town shall make his offering; and further, the
alderman shall cause every chaplain of the said
guild, immediately on the death of any brother, to
say thirty masses for the deceased.
The aldermen and skevins [from the French
echevin—essentially the same as an alderman; in this
case both terms refer to the guild’s governing
board] of the said guild are by duty obliged to visit
four times a year all the infirm, all that are in want,
need, or poverty, and to minister to and relieve all
such out of the alms of the said guild.
If any brother shall become poor and needy,
he shall be supported in food and clothing, ac-
cording to his exigency, out of the profits of the
lands and tenements, goods and chattels of the
said guild.
The Guilds and Social Welfare. From Pennsylvania Translations
and Reprints,vol. 2. trans. Edward P. Cheyney. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1897.