The economic regulation of the merchant guilds and craft guilds
together might be compared to what we should have under the joint
regulation of the economic life of our cities by the chambers
of commerce and the labor unions of skilled workmen.
The merchant guilds were the first to appear, in the late 11th
and 12th centuries. They were composed of all merchants and traders
within the town, including at first the artisans, who in earlier
medieval times were also traders. As industry in the larger towns
began o specialize in various crafts, the earlier merchant guild
split up into many craft guilds, each composed of all the citizens
engaged in the same trade. The earlier merchant guilds disappeared
except in towns too small for special craft organizations.
Both types of guilds sought recognition as privileged, self-governing
associations. They sought special immunity from outside interference
and they achieved it with varying degrees of success.
The chief purpose of both types of guilds were to preserve their
monopoly of the town market against any outsider, to maintain
equality among their members by restraining the initiative of
the more enterprising; to guarantee the consumer wares of good
and uniform quality; and to establish a system of industrial education.
Before the monopolies were well organized, membership was not
exclusive on the contrary, it was important to get as many members
as possible. The merchant guild's monopoly of trade within the
town was protected by exemption from all tolls and customs. Foreign
merchants and natives not members of the guild were at a disadvantage
in that they had to pay these fees allowed, to sell only to members
of the guild, and forbidden to buy certain commodities at all.
No foreigner was permitted to practice a trade in a town without
becoming a member of his craft guild. The idea of the closed shop
is thus no modern invention.
The attempts of the guilds to maintain equality among their members
by guaranteeing equal opportunities to buy and sell in the local
market took this form of regulations concerning technical processes,
hours of labor, wages, number of workmen to be employed, prices
and trade practices of all sorts. Every effort was made to nip
the capitalist spirit in the bud. One regulation common in the
merchant guilds guaranteed to every member the right to participate
in any purchase made by any other guildsmen; that is, it was considered
unfair for any one member to derive advantage from a particular
bargain.
Attempts to corner the market were vigorously opposed and punished.
The employment of improved methods of manufacture, due to new
inventions or to the use of water power, was frowned upon unless
all producers shared alike in the benefits. No one might employ
his workmen longer than another, nor pay higher wages. The number
of men employed was regulated in order to keep the production
of all guild shops approximately equal. All members must charge
the same piece for the same goods.
What might happen to a merchant who cut prices is illustrated
by the complaint of an English herring merchant that "because
he sold his merchandize at a less price than other merchants of
the town of Yaxley...they assaulted him, beat him and ill-treated
him and left him there for dead, so that he despaired of his life."
No man could try to get another's customers or entice his workmen
away. Advertising of many kinds was forbidden. This kind of close
supervision of trade and industry, which today is called planned
economy and is branded as communism, was obviously designed to
benefit not so much the consumers as the producers organized in
the guilds.
On the other hand, medieval manuscripts are full of evidence of
a need for supervision in the general public's interest. Many
of the spurriers of London, we learn,
"are wandering about all day, without working at their trade, and then, when they have become drunk and frantic, they take to their work, to the annoyance of the sick and all their neighborhood, as well by reason of the broils that arise between them and the strange folks who are dwelling among them. And then they blow up their fires so vigorously that their forges begin all at once to blaze, to the great peril of themselves and tall the neighborhood around. And then, too, all the neighbors are much in dread of the sparks which so vigorously issue forth in all directions from the mouths of the chimneys in their forges."
The Church found much to complain about. St. Antonio of Florence
speaks of sailors,
"risking their lives, sharing immense labors, commonly the worst of men and the most blasphemous, praying only when the storms are upon them, promising repentance in a fear that is wholly servile, and when the danger is passed...returning to their vomit, troubling neither about God nor holy things."
Painters drew still hotter fire. They painted
"pictures that provoked to lust, not because of their exquisite beauty, but because of the direct suggestion of evil shown in their arrangement of nude figures;....pictures that were heretical, such as 'the monstrous representation of the Holy Trinity as a man with three heads;' or 'the Annunciation in which the child Jesus is shown descending into the Virgin's womb, as though He had not been formed of the substance of her virginal body;' or 'Jesus as a child learning His letters from a book, for He was never taught of men;' or 'midwives sitting near the manger for the Mother who remained a virgin'; or ...'the foolish introduction of comic elements into the pictures of the Saints, a monkey, or a dog in pursuit of hares, or such like, especially by illuminators.'"
St. Antonio rebuked painters also for
"their working on feast days, or their overcharging, or 'most of all the use of bad paints which lose their color, and the habit artists have of never completing what they have begun.'"
It became apparent that if the guilds were to be protected in
their monopoly of the market they must not only fix fair prices
but guarantee the quality of their goods and prevent all kinds
of dishonest dealing. The inspection by guild wardens of the whole
process of manufacture was one of their most important functions.
The miller, the baker and the brewer in particular were notorious
for their fraudulent practices. Chaucer's miller, whose nose was
decorated with a wart tufted with hair "red as the bristles
of an old sow's ears...could seal corn and full thrice charge
his fees."
A London baker
"did skillfully and artfully cause a certain hole to be made upon a table....and when his neighbors and others, who were wont to bake their bread at his oven came with their dough...he used to put their dough upon the said table and over the hole...one of his household...was seated beneath the hole, and carefully opening it, piecemeal and bit by bit craftily withdrew some of the dough."
So much for the guilds and their monopolistic practices. What
about commerce and trade on a broader scale?
Trade had never wholly died out even during the chaotic 9th and
10th centuries. Jews and Syrians continued to carry on commerce
with western Europe. Muslim conquests caused some disruption and
re-direction of routes in the 8th century, but the Moslems were
themselves traders and soon were exchanging goods with their Christian
neighbors. The Vikings were also traders as well as pirates and
plunderers. They followed the rivers of Russia to Byzantium to
establish trade relations there in the 9th century. And their
explorations to the west took them as far as "Vinland"
by 1000. Regional trade in Western Europe did continue for such
article as wine, wood, fish, dairy products, and grain. Throughout
the early medieval period Venice had maintained her sea route
through the Adriatic Sea to the industrial centers of the eastern
Empire, including great Byzantium itself.
The enterprise of the Jews, in particular, is illustrated in this
passage from a Muslim commentator of the 9th century:
"These merchants speak Arabic, Persian, Roman, Frankish, Spanish and Slavonic. They travel from the East to the West and from the West to the East and by land as well as by sea. They bring from the West eunuchs, slave girls, boys, brocade, beaver skins, marten furs and other varieties of fur and swords...Sometimes the Jewish merchants, embarking in the country of the Franks on the Western Sea, sail toward Antioch. From there they proceed by land to al-Jabiya, where they arrive after three days' journey. There they take a boat on the Euphrates and they reach Baghdad, from where they go down the Tigris to al-Ubullah. From al-Ubullah they sail for, successively, Oman, Sind, Hind, and China...."
Yet during the centuries of inroads from the outer regions into
"civilized" Europe there undoubtedly had been a serious
decline in the volume of trade and a breakup of the single trading
area that had centered on the Mediterranean in Roman times and
included in its farthest outposts China and the British Isles.
The problem of the flight of gold from the West because of an
unfavorable balance of trade with the East and the conquest of
gold-bearing areas by the Muslims had been solved by substituting
silver. Charlemagne and other 8th and 9th century kings had adopted
better minting policies, reserving the privilege of minting to
themselves or persons they had licensed.
By the year 1000 commercial recovery was well under way. by 1100
Venice, Genoa, and other Italian mercantile cities may have rivaled
in wealth the greatest commercial centers of the ancient world.
In the north, recovery was slower. Yet, even there, when society
had become more peaceful after the subsidence of attacks from
Northmen and Magyars, small urban centers began to emerge under
the protection of kings, nobles and bishops.
Part of the stimulus came from the production of agricultural
surplus and the population increase of the period. The main factor,
however, was the revival of long-distance trade and the restoration
of contacts between north and south, eat and west. Muslim importation
of slaves, metal goods, timber, furs, and other northern commodities
by the 10th century had reversed the drainage of gold and begun
to restore a more normal balance of trade.
In the 11th century Venice won new trade concessions from the
eastern Empire as the price of her help against attacks of Norman
adventurers in Southern Italy. Genoa and Pisa began attacks on
Muslim strongholds in Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, and northern
Africa. By 1052 they had captured the Muslim base at Palermo.
The Crusades stimulated the commercial enterprise of north Italian
cities by creating a pilgrim passenger trade to the East and by
enabling them to establish ports on the coast of Syria and Palestine.
Venice dominated the eastern Mediterranean routes, but Genoa and
Pisa put up strong competition. The ancient Mediterranean ports
of Marseilles and Narbonne, on what is now the French coast, began
to recover. In the 13th century Louis IX (1226-1270) built a fortified
port in the salt marshes west of Marseilles to provide a base
for the departure of his crusading fleets. In the same century,
the commercial movement spread westward to Catatonia in northern
Spain.
Trade routes followed old Roman roads and convenient waterways.
But the traveling merchants of this period sought more than passes
through mountains, fords across streams, and navigable channels.
They also wanted comfortable inns, busy markets, safe and well-kept
roads and bridges, low tolls, speedy justice in disputes, and
strong protection from thieves and robbers.
Access to the north sea was limited. Merchants sailed from northern
Italy to Marseilles and Narbonne and then traveled overland to
Atlantic coast ports because they were unable to use the sea route
through he Strait of Gibraltar. Impenetrable Gibraltar was held
by the Muslims, who allowed no one else through. Not until 1277
did the Genoese break through the Muslim guard on Gibraltar and
open up an all-sea route to the north.
In the high medieval period the Low Countries were the northern
pole of an axis of trade of which northern Italy was the southern
pole. The counts of Flanders and the dukes of Brabant offered
order, peace, and protection for commerce in their domains. Towns
like Bruges, near the North Sea coast, Ghent, and later, Antwerp,
on the Scheldt River began to complement the Italian cities as
centers of trade and industry. They distributed woolen textiles,
and they drew trade from he Baltic Sea, from Scandinavia, and
from Britain, as well as from southern Europe.
From the Baltic region came furs, hemp, flax, honey and beeswax,
timber, and pitch. From Britain the main products were wool and
hides. From Italy came fine textiles, steel, glassware, spices,
dyes and other luxury products of the eastern Mediterranean and
beyond. In Germany the 13th century was a time of commercial growth.
Merchants from Bremen, Hamburg, Lübeck, and Stettin established
trading ports further to the east at Riga, Reval, and distant
Novgorod in Russia and plied their commerce between them and ports
in Britain and Flanders.
Neither towns nor merchants fitted readily into the pattern
of feudal society. Merchants were more mobile than peasants. They
probably traveled no more than did the top and bottom levels of
the feudal class, that is, the kings and great nobles, the mercenary
soldiers and the knights in pursuit of their livelihood. But unlike
the feudal nobles, they needed "outside" protection
for their goods and security for their residences and warehouses.
In the law courts they needed swifter and more flexible procedures
for collecting debts and getting compensation for breaches of
contract. These peculiarities led to the recognition that townspeople
were a new and different category of people from peasants, although
in the early states of town development town dwellers were often
referred to as "villains" and owed labor services to
lords.
In southern Europe towns emerged out oft he surrounding country-side
as reconstructions of the city-states of the ancient world. Urban
centers drew the feudal nobility from the environs and absorbed
them into the town population. Nobles joined the ranks of the
merchants and built their town palaces with gains from trade.
Peasants, too, were drawn to the cities until city governments
restricted their immigration by denying rights of citizenship
except to those who had lived in the town for periods as long
as 25 years.
In northwestern Europe towns grew up under the protection of kings,
great nobles, bishops, and monasteries. Here there were two general
types-organic towns, which grew out of other settlements, villages,
or merchant colonies outside castle walls, and planted towns.
These planted towns were newly founded by kings and lords for
military and commercial purposes. Merchant constituencies offered
many advantages to lords in need of money in a time of rising
prices and expanding horizons.
Tolls could be collected for sales in markets or fairs and for
passage along the roads and bridges leading to the commercial
centers. Taxes could be levied on the residents, and fees for
justice brought in needed revenue. Enlightened self-interest or
desperate emergency suggested the advantage of conveying to the
townspeople the right to mange their own affairs in return for
a compounding of the money exactions. Town "freedoms"
were conferred by charter. Townsmen paid large sums for these
documents. In the case of planted towns, freedoms were offered
to attract settlers either from the countryside or from other
towns. Richard the Lion-hearted and his brother John of England
made extensive grants of charters to meet the cost of their wars.
John's son and grandson built fortress towns in frontier regions
to maintain their power against the Welsh or the French kings.
On the continent the French kings also made extensive grants of
town charters and founded new towns. The great period of "planting"
towns both in England and France was the 13th century. Most towns
in England by 1200 held royal charters. However, on the continent
developments were more complex and stormier. The earlier towns,
many of them founded by bishops and monasteries, had to fight
for the rights so readily granted to new communities. "Communes,"
or associations of townsmen, were formed, and members took oaths
to support each other in the struggle for emancipation from the
lords.
A 12th century abbot tells of the violence at Laon where a revolt
broke out against the bishop and nobles in 1115. During the absence
of the bishop, the inhabitants were offered the opportunity to
form a commune by paying a sum to cover the customary services
and dues. The bishop, on his return, was displeased with the arrangement,
and friction developed between him and the townsmen.
On the Friday of Easter week the citizens entered the bishop's
palace "with swords, battle axes, bows and hatchets, and
carrying clubs and spears." The nobles rallied to the bishop's
side; many were killed in the fight against the invaders. Others
fled in disguise. The bishop himself took refuge in a wine cask
but was ultimately discovered and brutally killed. He was dismembered
and thrown into a corner in front of his chaplain's house. One
man, seeing his ring, cut off his ring finger to get it. And so,
the abbot states, "because he had wrongly and in vain taken
up another sword, by the sword he perished."
By negotiation or by violence town dwellers all over Europe ultimately
won recognition of their special needs. They achieved this by
acting in community with one another as citizens, not by individual
negotiation or action. In town charters five privileges were basic:
Fairs and markets, that is, periodical gatherings for the exchange
of goods, were held under the auspices of lords or of the towns
themselves. Fairs were held at special seasons and attracted buyers
and sellers from all over Europe. The Champagne fairs at Troyes,
Provins, and Lagny-sur-Marne were famous in the 12th century.
There Genoese and Venetian merchants met Flemings and Germans
and exchanged spices and fine textiles for raw woo, furs and other
northern products. Great lords bought horses and armor; their
ladies fine cloth for dresses.
Internally, the towns developed great complexity in social structure
and government. Venice, for example, in the 12th and 13th centuries
came under the control of a small hereditary commercial oligarchy.
This oligarchy constituted its Great Council and elected the doge
(the chief magistrate). Florence was briefly a "guild democracy,"
in which the power rested in the leaders of the guilds. London
and Lincoln in England had a mayor and council type of government.
In general, the wealthier merchants dominated town governments.
Their main objective was to protect their monopoly of the town
market. By the 14th century craft guilds had replaced them in
the towns life and government. But it was still the wealthier
members of the wealthier guilds who had the power. Florence had
73 guilds of craftsmen in 1316; cloth manufacturers, furriers,
butchers, tanners, money changers, proprietors of bath rooms,
sewer cleaners and garbage removers, teachers of grammar, arithmetic,
reading and writing, etc.
A craft guild not only regulated prices, wages, quality of produce,
conditions of work, and other economic aspects of the craft, it
also performed social and religious functions. Craft guilds maintained
alms houses and cared for widows and orphans and other victims
of misfortune. Craft guilds were ruled by the "master craftsmen,
men who, having qualified by producing a "masterpiece,"
had their own shops. Journeymen worked in the masters' shops by
the day. To learn the craft, apprentices were contracted to masters
as children. They received bed and board and training but were
not paid until they became journeymen.
Medieval towns and cities were not large by modern standards.
Florence reputedly had 100,000 inhabitants in 1340. London in
the same period had only 30,000 to 40,000 people. Cologne, the
largest city in Germany, had 30,000. Most towns and cities were
considerably smaller. They were noisy and dirty. Street vendors
called their wares, cart wheelers ground over cobblestones, horses'
hooves clopped or rang on the stone. Church bells marked the passage
of the hours or the passing of a man. Filth, bad smells, and fires
were constant hazards. Houses were built of combustible materials,
open lamps and candles were used, and water was hard to command
in the right spot. Rapid growth meant overcrowding, and overcrowding
aggravated problems and dangers.
Florence did have public baths, sewers, and garbage collectors.
However, in many towns garbage was thrown in the gutter along
with human excrement and urine. Plumbing was primitive or non-existent.
Butchers slaughtered animals within the city limits. Without the
means of refrigeration, fish and meat became stinking and putrid.
Houses, to save space, were sometimes built out over the streets.
Thus they cut off light and air for passers-by and even endangered
horsemen's heads.
The most important contribution of the medieval townsmen or bourgeois
to civilization was to re-introduce the civic spirit of classical
times. In the communes that won liberties from kings, bishops
and nobles, in the guilds that exercised privileges and protected
their members, and in the town corporations through which they
governed themselves, they learned the effectiveness of dealing
with problems by acting together.