The emergence of medieval towns


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 Bipolis spread, the production of grain and industrial crops increased, gardening, viticulture, gardening, livestock breeding developed. Surpluses of agricultural production peasants have started to exchange for products of handicraftsmen. So there were prerequisites for the separation of craft from agriculture.

At the same time, their craftsmanship was perfected also by rural artisans – potters, blacksmiths, carpenters, weavers, coopers, shoemakers. Skilled craftsmen, they were less and less engaged in agriculture, doing custom work, exchanging their own products, trying to find ways to implement it. Because the craftspeople were looking for places where they could sell their products and purchase the raw materials necessary for work. It was from rural artisans that

the original population of the medieval towns was composed, where the craft acquired independent development. In the cities, merchants and fleeing peasants settled.

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 and France. Gradually, cities began to appear on the territory of England, Germany, the Netherlands. And later, in the XII-XIII centuries, cities appeared in the Scandinavian countries, Ireland, Hungary, on the territory of the Danube principalities.

Most of the cities were in Italy and Flanders. A lot of urban settlements appeared along the banks of the Rhine and the Danube.

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

IX century. From the “Flanders Chronicle” about the origin of the city of Bruges

The

Count of Flanders, Baudouin the Iron Hand, built a fortified wet with a lifting bridge. Subsequently, to satisfy the needs of its residents, merchants or sellers of valuables, shopkeepers, innkeepers began to converge in front of the castle gates to feed and give shelter to those who conducted business affairs in the presence of the owner, who also often visited there; began to build houses and equip hotels, where they settled those who could not live inside the castle. There was a custom to say: “We go to the bridge.” This settlement has grown so much that it soon turned into a big city, which people still call the “bridge”, because in the local dialect Brugge means “bridge”.


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The emergence of medieval towns