In the early Middle Ages, ancient cities fell into decay. They no longer played the role of the former commercial and industrial centers, they remained only as administrative centers or simply fortified places - burgs. However, already in the 11th century, there was a revival of the old urban centers and the new ones that arose. This was due primarily to economic reasons.

1. The development of agriculture, which led to the emergence of an excess of agricultural products that could be exchanged for handicrafts - the prerequisites were created for the separation of handicrafts from agriculture.

2. Improving the skills of rural artisans, expanding their specialization, as a result of which they had a reduced need to engage in agriculture, working on order for neighbors

3. The emergence of fairs at the residences of kings, monasteries, crossings at bridges, etc. Rural artisans began to move to crowded places. The outflow of the population from the countryside was also facilitated by the feudal exploitation of the peasants.

4. Rural and spiritual feudal lords were interested in the emergence of urban populations on their lands, because flourishing craft centers gave the lords a big profit. They encouraged the flight of dependent peasants to the cities, guaranteeing their freedom, and at that time the principle was formed: city air makes free.

The city was an organic product and an integral part of the feudal economy of Europe, arising on the land of the feudal lord, he depended on him and was obliged to pay money, supplies in kind, various labor, just like in the peasant community. City artisans gave the seigneur part of their products, the rest of the townspeople cleaned the stables, carried out a living duty, etc. Therefore, the cities sought to free themselves from this dependence, to achieve freedom and trade and economic privileges. In the 11th-13th centuries, a "communal movement" unfolded in Europe - the struggle of the townspeople against the lords. The ally of the cities often turned out to be royal power, which sought to weaken the position of large feudal lords. The kings gave cities charters that fixed their liberties - tax immunities, the right to mint coins, trade privileges, etc.

The result of the communal movement was the almost universal liberation of cities from seniors, they remained there as residents. The highest degree of freedom was enjoyed by the city-states in Italy, Venice, and others, which were not subject to any sovereign, independently determined their foreign policy, and had their own governing bodies, finances, law, and courts. Many cities received the status of communes: while maintaining collective citizenship to the supreme sovereign of the earth - the king or emperor - they had their own mayor, judiciary, military militia, treasury, but the personal freedom of citizens became the main gain of the communal movement.

In most cities of Western Europe, artisans and merchants were united in professional corporations - workshops and guilds, which played a big role in the life of the city: they organized city police detachments, built buildings for their associations, churches dedicated to the patrons of the workshop, organized processions and theatrical performances on their holidays . They contributed to the rallying of the townspeople in the struggle for communal liberties. Thus, the cities in the Middle Ages escaped from the power of the lords, they began to form their own political culture - the tradition of election and competitiveness. The positions of European cities played an important role in the process of state centralization and the strengthening of royal power. The growth of cities led to the formation of a completely new class of feudal society - the burghers - which was reflected in the balance of political forces in society during the formation of a new form of state power - a monarchy with estate representation.

According to their origin, Western European medieval cities are divided into two types: some of them trace their history from ancient times, from ancient cities and settlements (for example, Cologne, Vienna, Augsburg, Paris, London, York), others arose relatively late - already in the era middle ages. Former ancient cities in the early Middle Ages are experiencing a period of decline, but still remain, as a rule, the administrative centers of a small district, the residences of bishops and secular rulers; trade relations continue to be maintained through them, primarily in the Mediterranean region. In the 8th-10th centuries. in connection with the revival of trade in the north of Europe, proto-urban settlements appeared in the Baltic (Hedeby in Schleswig, Birka in Sweden, the Slavic Wolin, etc.).

However, the period of mass emergence and growth of medieval cities falls on the 10th-11th centuries. The cities that had an ancient basis were formed first of all in Northern and Central Italy, in Southern France, as well as along the Rhine. But very quickly, the whole of Europe north of the Alps was covered with a network of cities and towns.

New cities arose near castles and fortresses, at the intersections of trade routes, at river crossings. Their appearance became possible thanks to the rise of agriculture: the peasants were able to feed large groups of the population not directly employed in the agricultural sector. In addition, economic specialization led to an ever more intensive separation of handicrafts from agriculture. The population of cities grew due to the influx of villagers who were attracted by the opportunity to obtain personal freedom in the city and enjoy the privileges that the townspeople had. Most of those who came to the city were involved in handicraft production, but many did not completely abandon agricultural occupations. The townspeople had plots of arable land, vineyards and even pastures. The composition of the population was very diverse: artisans, merchants, usurers, representatives of the clergy, secular lords, hired soldiers, schoolchildren, officials, artists, artists and musicians, vagabonds, beggars. This diversity is due to the fact that the city itself played many important roles in the social life of feudal Europe. It was the center of crafts and trade, culture and religious life. The organs of state power were concentrated here and the residences of the powerful were built.

At first, the townspeople had to pay many dues to the lord of the city, obey his court, be personally dependent on him, sometimes even work on corvee. The lords often patronized the cities, as they received considerable benefits from them, but the payment for this patronage eventually began to seem too burdensome for the strengthened and wealthy citizens. A wave of clashes, sometimes armed, between townspeople and seniors swept across Europe. As a result of the so-called communal movement, many Western European cities received the right to self-government and personal freedom for their citizens. In Northern and Central Italy, the largest cities - Venice, Genoa, Milan, Florence, Pisa, Siena, Bologna - achieved complete independence and subjugated large territories outside the city walls. There, the peasants had to work for the city republics in the same way as before for the lords. The large cities of Germany also enjoyed great independence, although they, as a rule, recognized in words the authority of the emperor or duke, count or bishop. German cities often formed alliances for political or commercial purposes. The most famous of them was the union of North German merchant cities - Hansa. The Hansa flourished in the 14th century, when it controlled all trade in the Baltic and the North Sea.

In a free city, power most often belonged to an elected council - a magistrate, all seats in which were divided between patricians - members of the richest families of landowners and merchants. The townspeople united in partnerships: merchants - in guilds, artisans - in workshops. The workshops monitored the quality of products, protected their members from competition. Not only work, but the whole life of an artisan was connected with the workshop. The workshops organized holidays and feasts for their members, they helped "their" poor, orphans and the elderly, and, if necessary, put up military detachments.

In the center of a typical Western European city, there was usually a market square, and on it or not far from it stood the buildings of the city magistrate (town hall) and the main city church (in episcopal cities - the cathedral). The city was surrounded by walls, and it was believed that inside their ring (and sometimes also outside at a distance of 1 mile from the wall) a special city law operates - here they are judged according to their own laws, different from those adopted in the district. Powerful walls, majestic cathedrals, rich monasteries, magnificent town halls not only reflected the wealth of the inhabitants of the city, but also testified to the ever-increasing skill of medieval artists and builders.

The life of members of the urban community (in Germany they were called burghers, in France - bourgeois, in Italy - popolans) differed sharply from the life of peasants and feudal lords. The burghers, as a rule, were small free proprietors, they were famous for their prudence, business ingenuity. Rationalism, which was gaining ground in the cities, contributed to a critical view of the world, free-thinking, and sometimes doubting church dogmas. Therefore, the urban environment from the very beginning became favorable for the dissemination of heretical ideas. City schools, and then universities, deprived the church of the exclusive right to train educated people. Merchants went on distant wanderings, opened up ways to unknown countries, to foreign peoples, with whom they established trade exchanges. The further, the more cities turned into a powerful force that contributed to the growth of intensive commodity relations in society, a rationalistic understanding of the world and the place of man in it.

The liberation from the power of seniors (not all cities managed to achieve it) did not eliminate the ground for intra-city conflicts. In the 14-15 centuries. in the cities of Europe, the so-called guild revolutions took place, when craft guilds came into conflict with the patriciate. In the 14-16 centuries. the urban lower classes - apprentices, hired workers, the poor - rebelled against the power of the guild elite. The plebeian movements became one of the most important components of the Reformation and the early bourgeois revolutions of the 16th and 17th centuries. (See the Dutch bourgeois revolution of the 16th century, the English bourgeois revolution of the 17th century).

The first sprouts of early capitalist relations in cities appeared as early as the 14th and 15th centuries. in Italy; in the 15th-16th centuries. - in Germany, the Netherlands, England and some other regions of trans-alpine Europe. Manufactories appeared there, a permanent stratum of hired workers arose, and large banking houses began to take shape (see Capitalism). Now petty shop regulation is increasingly beginning to hinder capitalist entrepreneurship. The organizers of manufactories in England, the Netherlands, South Germany were forced to transfer their activities to the countryside or to small towns, where the guild rules were not so strong. By the end of the Middle Ages, in the era of the crisis of European feudalism, friction began to occur in the cities between the emerging bourgeoisie and the traditional burghers, as a result of which the latter was increasingly pushed aside from sources of wealth and power.

The role of cities in the development of the state is also significant. Even during the period of the communal movement in a number of countries (primarily in France), an alliance between the cities and the royal power began to take shape, which played an important role in strengthening royal power. Later, when class-representative monarchies arose in Europe, the cities not only found themselves widely represented in medieval parliaments, but with their money they significantly contributed to the strengthening of the central government. The gradually strengthening monarchy in England and France subjugates the cities and abolishes many of their privileges and rights. In Germany, the attack on the liberties of the cities was actively led by the princes. The Italian city-states evolved towards tyrannical forms of government.

Medieval cities made a decisive contribution to the formation of a new European culture of the Renaissance and Reformation, new economic relations. In the cities, the first sprouts of democratic institutions of power (election, representation) have grown stronger, a new type of human personality has been formed here, filled with self-esteem and confident in its creative powers.

The emergence of medieval cities as centers of crafts and trade Thus, around the X-XI centuries. in Europe, all the necessary conditions appeared for the separation of crafts from agriculture. At the same time, the handicraft, which separated from agriculture - small-scale industrial production based on manual labor, went through a number of stages in its development. The first of these was the production of products by order of the consumer, when the material could belong to both the consumer-customer and the craftsman himself, and labor was paid either in kind or in money. Such a craft could exist not only in the city, it had a significant distribution in the countryside, being an addition to the peasant economy. However, when an artisan worked to order, commodity production did not yet arise, because the product of labor did not appear on the market. The next stage in the development of the craft was associated with the entry of the artisan into the market. This was a new and important phenomenon in the development of feudal society. An artisan who was specially engaged in the manufacture of handicrafts could not exist if he did not turn to the market and did not receive there, in exchange for his products, the agricultural products he needed. But by producing products for sale on the market, the artisan became a commodity producer. Thus, the emergence of a handicraft, separate from agriculture, meant the emergence of commodity production and commodity relations, the emergence of exchange between town and country and the emergence of opposition between them. Artisans, who gradually emerged from the mass of the enslaved and feudally dependent rural population, sought to leave the countryside, escape from the power of their masters and settle where they could find the most favorable conditions for selling their products, for conducting their own independent handicraft economy. The flight of peasants from the countryside led directly to the formation of medieval cities as centers of crafts and trade. The peasant artisans who left and fled the village settled in different places depending on the availability of favorable conditions for crafts (the possibility of selling products, proximity to sources of raw materials, relative safety, etc.). Craftsmen often chose as the place of their settlement precisely those points that played the role of administrative, military and church centers in the early Middle Ages. Many of these points were fortified, which provided the artisans with the necessary security. The concentration of a significant population in these centers - feudal lords with their servants and numerous retinue, clergy, representatives of the royal and local administration, etc. etc. - created favorable conditions for the sale of their products by artisans here. Artisans also settled near large feudal estates, estates, castles, the inhabitants of which could be consumers of their goods. Craftsmen also settled near the walls of monasteries, where many people flocked on pilgrimage, in settlements located at the intersection of important roads, at river crossings and bridges, at river mouths, on the banks of bays, bays, etc. convenient for parking ships, etc. the difference in the places where they arose, all these settlements of artisans became the centers of the population center, engaged in the production of handicrafts for sale, centers of commodity production and exchange in feudal society. Cities played an important role in the development of the internal market under feudalism. By expanding, albeit slowly, handicraft production and trade, they drew both the master and peasant economy into commodity circulation and thereby contributed to the development of productive forces in agriculture, the emergence and development of commodity production in it, and the growth of the domestic market in the country.

Population and appearance of cities.

In Western Europe, medieval cities first appeared in Italy (Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Naples, Amalfi, etc.), as well as in the south of France (Marseille, Arles, Narbonne and Montpellier), since here, starting from the 9th century. the development of feudal relations led to a significant increase in productive forces and the separation of handicrafts from agriculture. One of the favorable factors that contributed to the development of Italian and southern French cities was the trade relations of Italy and Southern France with Byzantium and the East, where there were numerous and flourishing craft and trade centers that have survived from antiquity. Rich cities with developed handicraft production and lively trading activities were such cities as Constantinople, Thessalonica (Thessalonica), Alexandria, Damascus and Bahdad. Even richer and more populous, with an extremely high level of material and spiritual culture for that time, were the cities of China - Chang'an (Xi'an), Luoyang, Chengdu, Yangzhou, Guangzhou (Canton) and the cities of India - Kanyakubja (Kanauj), Varanasi (Benares) , Ujain, Surashtra (Surat), Tanjore, Tamralipti (Tamluk), etc. As for the medieval cities in northern France, the Netherlands, England, southwestern Germany, along the Rhine and along the Danube, their emergence and development relate only to X and XI centuries. In Eastern Europe, the most ancient cities that began to play the role of craft and trade centers early were Kyiv, Chernigov, Smolensk, Polotsk and Novgorod. Already in the X-XI centuries. Kyiv was a very significant craft and trade center and amazed contemporaries with its magnificence. He was called a rival of Constantinople. According to contemporaries, by the beginning of the XI century. There were 8 markets in Kyiv. Novgorod was also a big and rich fool at that time. As excavations by Soviet archaeologists have shown, the streets of Novgorod were paved with wooden pavements as early as the 11th century. In Novgorod in the XI-XII centuries. there was also a water pipe: water flowed through hollowed-out wooden pipes. It was one of the earliest urban aqueducts in medieval Europe. Cities of ancient Russia in the X-XI centuries. already had extensive trade relations with many regions and countries of the East and West - with the Volga region, the Caucasus, Byzantium, Central Asia, Iran, the Arab countries, the Mediterranean, Slavic Pomerania, Scandinavia, the Baltic states, as well as with the countries of Central and Western Europe - the Czech Republic, Moravia , Poland, Hungary and Germany. Particularly important role in international trade since the beginning of the X century. Novgorod played. Significant were the successes of Russian cities in the development of handicrafts (especially in the processing of metals and the manufacture of weapons, in jewelry, etc.). ). Cities developed early in the Slavic Pomerania along the southern coast of the Baltic Sea - Wolin, Kamen, Arkona (on the island of Ruyan, modern Rügen), Stargrad, Szczecin, Gdansk, Kolobrzeg, cities of the southern Slavs on the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic Sea - Dubrovnik, Zadar, Sibenik, Split, Kotor, etc. Prague was a significant center of crafts and trade in Europe. The well-known Arab traveler, geographer Ibrahim ibn Yakub, who visited the Czech Republic in the middle of the 10th century, wrote about Prague that it "is the richest city in trade." The main population of cities that arose in the X-XI centuries. in Europe, were artisans. The peasants, who fled from their masters or went to the cities on the terms of paying the lord of quitrent, becoming townspeople, gradually freed themselves from the excellent dependence of the feudal lord “From the serfs of the Middle Ages,” Marx Engels wrote, “the free population of the first cities came out” (K. Manifesto of the Communist Party, Works, vol. 4, ed. 2, p. 425,). But even with the advent of medieval cities, the process of separating crafts from agriculture did not end. On the one hand, artisans, having become townspeople, retained traces of their rural origin for a very long time. On the other hand, in the countryside both the master's and the peasant economy continued for a long time to satisfy most of their needs for handicrafts with their own means. The separation of handicrafts from agriculture, which began to be carried out in Europe in the 9th-11th centuries, was far from being complete and complete. In addition, the artisan at first was at the same time a merchant. Only later did merchants appear in the cities - a new social stratum, whose sphere of activity was no longer production, but only the exchange of goods. Unlike the itinerant merchants who existed in the feudal society in the previous period and were engaged almost exclusively in foreign trade, the merchants who appeared in European cities in the 11th-12th centuries were already mainly engaged in domestic trade associated with the development of local markets, i.e. with exchange of goods between town and country. The separation of merchant activity from handicraft activity was a new step in the social division of labor. Medieval cities were very different in appearance from modern cities. They were usually surrounded by high walls - wooden, often stone, with towers and massive gates, as well as deep ditches to protect against attacks by feudal lords and enemy invasion. The inhabitants of the city - artisans and merchants carried out guard duty and made up the city military militia. The walls that surrounded the medieval city became cramped over time and could not accommodate all the city buildings. Urban suburbs gradually arose around the walls - settlements inhabited mainly by artisans, and artisans of the same specialty usually lived on the same street. This is how streets arose - blacksmith's, weapons, carpentry, weaving, etc. The suburbs, in turn, were surrounded by a new ring of walls and fortifications. European cities were very small. As a rule, cities were small and cramped, with only one to three to five thousand inhabitants. Only very large cities had a population of several tens of thousands of people. Although the bulk of the townspeople were engaged in crafts and trade, agriculture continued to play a certain role in the life of the urban population. Many residents of the city had their fields, pastures and gardens outside the city walls, and partly within the city. Small livestock (goats, sheep and pigs) often grazed right in the city, and the pigs found plenty of food for themselves there, since garbage, leftover food and infrequencies were usually thrown directly into the street. In cities, due to unsanitary conditions, epidemics often broke out, the death rate from which was very high. Fires often occurred, as a significant part of the city buildings were wooden and the houses adjoined each other. The walls prevented the city from growing in breadth, so the streets became extremely narrow, and the upper floors of houses often protruded in the form of ledges above the lower ones, and the roofs of houses located on opposite sides of the street almost touched each other. The narrow and crooked streets of the city were often dim, some of them never penetrated the rays of the sun. There was no street lighting. The central place in the city was usually the market square, not far from which the city's cathedral was located.

The countries in which medieval cities began to form the earliest were Italy and France, the reason for this was the fact that it was here that feudal relations first began to emerge. It was this that served to separate agriculture from handicrafts, which contributed to increased productivity, and hence the growth of trade.

Prerequisites for the emergence of medieval cities

Trade relations were the advantage that contributed not only to the emergence, but also to the prosperity of medieval cities. Therefore, cities with access to the sea - Venice, Naples, Marseille, Montpalier very soon became the leading centers of trade in medieval Europe.

Prague was the largest center of the craft. It was here that the workshops of the most skilled jewelers and blacksmiths were concentrated. Therefore, it is natural that the population of cities was represented mainly by artisans and peasants who managed to pay off feudal obligations.

In cities where there was no opportunity to engage in navigation, artisans themselves acted as merchants. Over time, a new class of society appeared - merchants, who were not direct producers of goods, but only intermediaries in trade. This was the reason for the emergence of the first markets in cities.

Appearance of cities

Medieval cities were fundamentally different from the cities of the New and even more so the Newest Age. In the construction of cities, the traditions of antiquity are still preserved. They were surrounded by stone or wooden walls and deep ditches, which were supposed to protect the population from a possible invasion of enemies.

The inhabitants of the city united in the people's militia and took turns serving as guards. Medieval cities were not large, as a rule, they accommodated themselves from five to twenty thousand inhabitants. Since the population of the cities was mostly represented by people from the countryside, the residents were not particularly worried about the cleanliness in the city and threw garbage directly into the streets.

As a result, terrible unsanitary conditions reigned in the cities, it gave rise to masses of infectious diseases. The houses of the inhabitants were wooden, they were located on narrow and crooked streets and often came into contact with each other. The city center was represented by a market square. Cathedrals were built nearby.

Rise of medieval cities

The heyday of medieval cities is primarily associated with the introduction of various innovations into production that increased labor productivity. Artisans began to unite in workshops. In light industry, private forms of ownership appear for the first time. Market relations go beyond the boundaries of the city and the state.

The increase in the flow of funds contributes to the transformation of the city: cathedrals are being created that amaze with their architecture, the appearance of streets and residential areas is significantly improved. Significant changes also affected cultural life in the Middle Ages: the first theaters, exhibitions were opened, various festivals and competitions were organized.

In the X-XI centuries. there is a revival of old and the emergence of new urban centers. This was predetermined by important economic processes, primarily the development of agriculture. During this period, the two-field system spread, the production of grain and industrial crops increased, horticulture, viticulture, horticulture, and animal husbandry developed. Peasants began to exchange surplus agricultural products for handicrafts. Thus, the prerequisites for the separation of craft from agriculture arose.

Venice. Engraving. 15th century

At the same time, rural artisans improved their skills - potters, blacksmiths, carpenters, weavers, coopers, shoemakers. Skillful craftsmen, they were engaged in agriculture less and less time, doing work to order, exchanging their own products, trying to find ways to sell it. That is why artisans were looking for places where they could both sell their products and purchase the raw materials necessary for work. It was from the rural artisans that the original population of medieval cities consisted, where the craft acquired independent development. Both merchants and runaway peasants settled in the cities.

New cities arose on the ruins of ancient settlements or on their outskirts, near castles and fortresses, monasteries and episcopal residences, at crossroads, near passes, river crossings and bridges, on banks convenient for mooring ships. Cities grew rapidly, but very unevenly. First they appeared in Italy (Venice, Genoa, Naples, Florence) and France (Arles, Marseille, Toulouse). Gradually, cities began to emerge in England (Cambridge, Oxford), Germany (Waldorf, Mühlhausen, Tübingen), the Netherlands (Arras, Bruges, Ghent). And later, in the XII-XIII centuries, cities appeared in the Scandinavian countries, Ireland, Hungary, on the territory of the Danubian principalities.

Most cities were in Italy and Flanders. Many urban settlements arose along the banks of the Rhine and Danube.

Therefore, at the end of the XV century. in all Western European countries there were many cities in which an active commodity exchange was carried out.

9th century From the "Flanders Chronicle" on the origin of the city of Bruges material from the site

Count of Flanders Baudouin Iron Hand built a fortified namok with a drawbridge. Subsequently, to meet the needs of its inhabitants, merchants or sellers of valuables, shopkeepers, owners of inns began to converge on the bridge in front of the castle gates to feed and give shelter to those who conducted business in the presence of the owner, who also often visited there; they began to build houses and equip hotels, where they settled those who could not live inside the castle. There was a custom to say: "Let's go to the bridge." This settlement grew so much that it soon turned into a big city, which is still popularly called the “bridge”, because in the local dialect Bruges means “bridge”.

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