An Introduction to the History of Western Europe

by James Harvey Robinson

Many of the towns had, as a visible sign of their freedom, a belfry, a high building with a watchtower, where a guard was kept day and night in order that the bell might be rung in case of approaching danger. It contained an assembly hall, where the commune held its meetings, and a prison. In the fourteenth century the wonderful townhalls began to be erected, which, with the exception of the cathedrals and other churches, are usually the most remarkable buildings which the traveler sees to-day in the old commercial cities of Europe.

Craft guilds.

The tradesmen in the mediæval towns were at once artisans and merchants; they not only made, but offered for sale, the articles which they produced in their shops. In addition to the original guild of merchants which helped the towns to gain and preserve their privileges, many new corporations of tradesmen grew up, the so-called craft guilds. The oldest statutes of a guild in Paris are those of the candle makers, which go back to 1061. The number of trades differed greatly in different towns, but the guilds all had the same object,—to prevent every one from practicing a trade who had not been duly admitted to the corporation.

The guild system.

A young man had to spend several years in learning his trade. He lived in the house of a master workman, but received no remuneration. He then became a "journeyman" and could earn wages, although he could still work only for master workmen and not directly for the public. A simple trade might be learned in three years, but to become a goldsmith one must be an apprentice for ten years. The number of apprentices that a master workman might employ was strictly limited, in order that the journeymen might not become too numerous. The way in which each trade was to be practiced was carefully regulated, as well as the time that should be spent in work each day. The system of guilds discouraged enterprise but maintained a uniform efficiency everywhere. Had it not been for these unions, the defenseless, isolated workmen, serfs as they had formerly been, would have found it impossible to secure freedom and municipal independence from the feudal lords who had formerly been their masters.

Practical disappearance of commerce in the early Middle Ages.

94. The chief reason for the growth of the towns and their increasing prosperity was a great development of trade throughout western Europe. Commerce had pretty much disappeared with the decline of the Roman roads and the general disorganization produced by the barbarian invasions. There was no one in the Middle Ages to mend the ancient Roman roads. The great network of highways from Persia to Britain fell apart when independent nobles or poor local communities took the place of a world empire. All trade languished, for there was little demand for those articles of luxury which the Roman communities in the North had been accustomed to obtain from the South. There was little money and scarcely any notion of luxury, for the nobility lived a simple life in their dreary and rudely furnished castles.

Italian cities trade with the Orient.