towns, students from far and wide, who
formed an often-unruly faction tending to
disturbances and disorder. With chaotic,
unplanned street systems, Renaissance cit-
ies were choked with foot and vehicle traf-
fic, and many city-dwellers lived in
crowded, unsafe, and unsanitary homes,
built high above the street. In the Middle
Ages, these conditions had forced many
outside and into the street during the day,
making the medieval town a scene of pub-
lic spectacle and entertainment. In the Re-
naissance, public life and entertainment
began moving indoors, and took the form
of musical concerts, plays, dances, gam-
bling houses, and other diversions.
While medieval nobles and princes had
ruled feudal towns independently of mon-
archs, many Renaissance cities had elected
assemblies and councils that governed
their affairs. The larger city-states in Italy,
such as Milan, Florence, and Venice, also
had authority over a surrounding region,
including smaller cities and towns. These
cities established separate authorities to
deal with public health, sanitation, fire pre-
vention, public hospitals and charity
wards, policing, tax collection, and defense.
An important trend in the Renaissance was
the loss of autonomy by provinces and
their capitals—the old medieval patchwork
of small principalities—as national mon-
archies consolidated their power in capital
cities, such as Paris, Madrid, and London.
The local princes who had held sway in
their autonomous and fortified cities lost
both power and importance, while the ar-
tisan and merchant classes gained prestige
with the establishment of guilds, mutual
protection societies, and increase in trade.
Religious, social, political, and profes-
sional clubs knit the urban population to-
gether. Confraternities were secular asso-
ciations meant to carry out the works of
the church. Political groups formed to con-
tend for power; guilds worked for the in-
terests of artisans, merchants, and artists.
Academies brought together noble patrons,
scholars, and students, for the exchange of
ideas. All of these groups had their bylaws
and elected leaders, and carried out a vital
function for ordinary individuals, who
were powerless to effect change or further
their interests on their own.
The Protestant Reformation—the re-
bellion against the Catholic Church initi-
ated by Martin Luther—had a drastic ef-
fect on Renaissance urban life. The
Reformation divided many towns along
religious lines. Protestants reduced the role
of the church in civic life, ended any civic
authority of the clergy, ended monastic
life, and made worship more a private and
personal affair. Catholic regions kept their
sense of religious brotherhood, public fes-
tivals and holidays, and the regular assem-
bly of Mass. To enforce Catholic ortho-
doxy, the church established inquisitions
in many regions to root out heretics and
apostates, enforcing a uniform religious
faith with the use of prisons, torture, and
public executions.
The cities were nodes of exchange, in a
system of trade that was expanding rap-
idly with the improvement of communi-
cation and transportation. Certain cities
had industrial specialties, such as textile
making in the Low Countries, ironwork-
ing in the Rhine valley, and banking in
northern Italy. Port cities were centers of
maritime industries: shipbuilding, ware-
housing, sail making, rope making, and
provisioning armaments. In some cities
professions were performed within certain
nationalities and ethnic groups; through-
out Europe the Jews were limited in the
professions they could follow, often herdedcities