A Short History of the Middle Ages Fourth Edition

Cities and Merchants

These clerics were, in part, reacting to new developments in the secular realm: the

growing importance of urban institutions and professions. Though much of Europe

was rural, there were important exceptions. Italy was one place where urban life,

though dramatically reduced in size and population, persisted. In Italy, the power

structure still reflected, if feebly, the political organization of ancient Rome. Whereas

in northern France great lords built their castles in the countryside, in Italy they often

constructed their family seats within the walls of cities. From these perches the

nobles, both lay and religious, dominated the contado, the rural area around the city.

In Italy, most peasants were renters, paying cash to urban landowners. Peasants

depended on city markets to sell their surplus goods; their customers included

bishops, nobles, and middle-class shopkeepers, artisans, and merchants. At Milan, for

example, the merchants were prosperous enough to own houses in both the city

center and the contado.

Rome, although exceptional in size, was in some ways a typical Italian city. Large

and powerful families built their castles within its walls and controlled the churches

and monasteries in the vicinity. The population depended on local producers for their

food, and merchants brought their wares to sell within its walls. Yet Rome was

special apart from its size: it was the “see”—the seat—of the pope, the most

important bishop in the West. The papacy did not control the church, but it had great

prestige, and powerful families at Rome fought to place one of their sons at its head.

Outside Italy cities were less prevalent. Yet even so we can see the rise of a new

mercantile class. This was true less in the heartland of the old Carolingian Empire

than on its fringes. In the north, England, northern Germany, Denmark, and the Low

Countries bathed in a sea of silver coins; commercial centers such as Haithabu (see

above, p. 102) reached their grandest extent in the mid-tenth century. Here

merchants bought and sold slaves, honey, furs, wax, and pirates’ plunder. Haithabu

was a city of wood, but a very rich one indeed.

In the south of Europe, beyond the Pyrenees, Catalonia was equally

commercialized, but in a different way. It imitated the Islamic world of al-Andalus

(which was, in effect, in its backyard). The counts of Barcelona minted gold coins

just like those at Córdoba. The villagers around Barcelona soon got used to selling

their wares for money, and some of them became prosperous. They married into the

aristocracy, moved to Barcelona to become city leaders, and lent money to ransom

prisoners of the many wars waged to their south.