Online Document Assignment 10

LIFE IN MEDIEVAL TOWNS

Merchant and Craft Guilds

Townspeople made up a small minority of the medieval population. Most people lived in rural villages. Towns were, nonetheless, the most dynamic component of the medieval economy. As towns grew in number and size, they came to function as economic engines of production and exchange, serving as both important markets for agricultural products and components of increasingly robust regional and international trade networks. Towns were defined by the manufacture, purchase, and sale of goods, and as such, the practices and institutions that governed production and exchange shaped the lives of almost every town dweller. Powerful merchant and craft guilds set wages and prices, controlled access to economic opportunity, decided what goods could or could not be produced, and regulated production methods and standards. To this sweeping economic power was added considerable political clout, as the same individuals who sat at the top of the guild hierarchy occupied the highest positions in town governance.

The concentration of economic and political power in the hands of a few could, and did, produce conflict within urban communities. Journeymen were not always content to live by the rules set by their masters, and the urban poor did not always accept their fate in quiet resignation. It would be a mistake, however, to see medieval urban economic institutions as nothing more than mechanisms for preserving inequality. Guilds bound individuals together in long-lasting communities, offering financial support during hard times, sponsoring religious and civic organizations and activities, and providing a sense of identity and belonging to their members. Moreover, the rules and regulations they devised often reflected deeply held values. Guild control over wages and prices helped maintain the economic status quo, but also expressed the medieval belief that it was inherently unfair for wages and prices to rise and fall with supply and demand. Guild regulation of production methods and standards could stifle innovation, but it also speaks to the pride craftsmen and craftswomen took in their work. As you examine these documents and images, consider what light they shed on the complexities of urban economic life. What do they reveal about the goals, values, and experiences that united medieval urban communities? What do they reveal about the tensions and divisions that sometimes threatened to tear them apart?

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