A fourth order? Towns, guilds and cathedral-towns

Detail

Why towns came back after the 11th century

• Population grew fast. Europe held roughly 42 million people in 1000, 62 million in 1200, and 73 million in 1300.
• By the 13th century, average life expectancy was 10 years longer than in the eighth century.

• Women and girls lived shorter lives than men. Reason given: men ate better.

• Old Roman towns had emptied out. After Rome fell, people left the towns. Trade shrank. Town life nearly stopped.

• Farming improved, so towns could return. From the 11th century, farms produced more than the farmers needed.
• Peasants had a surplus (extra grain, extra goods left over after eating and paying dues).

• A surplus is useless unless you can sell it. So peasants needed selling centres.

• Periodic fairs and marketing centres grew into towns. These places slowly gained the parts that make a town:

• a square (open market place),
• a church,
• shops of merchants,

• an office for the governing body of the town.

• Other towns did not begin as markets at all. They grew around castles, bishops' estates and large churches — places that already had people, money and protection.

'Town air makes free' — a new kind of person

• Townspeople did not owe labour service to a lord. They paid the lord a tax instead of services. This is the key break from the manor.
• The one year and one day rule: a serf (an unfree peasant tied to the lord's land) who ran away and stayed hidden in a town for one year and one day became a free person.

• This is the meaning of the saying 'Town air makes free'.

• Who lived in towns:

• free peasants,
• escaped serfs,
• shopkeepers and merchants,

• later on, bankers and lawyers — new skilled jobs that the manor had no place for.

• The 'fourth order' idea: the classic model of society had three orders — those who pray, those who fight, those who work the land. Big towns of about 30,000 people held a group that fitted none of the three. So they can be called a 'fourth order'.

Guilds — the town's craft associations

• A guild was the association of all the people doing one craft in a town (for example all the weavers, or all the shoemakers).
• Each guild controlled three things for its craft: quality, price, and sale.
• Every town had a guild-hall: a building used for ceremonies and for meetings of the heads of all the guilds.
• Guilds flourished in Europe between the 11th and the 16th centuries and shaped the economic and social order of the period. [2]
• Guilds became possible only with the appearance and growth of towns in the 10th and 11th centuries. [2]
• There were broadly two kinds: [2]
• merchant guilds — most of the merchants of a town, and

• craft guilds — the artisans of one trade, such as weavers, masons or blacksmiths.

• Guilds were usually authorised by the local government, but some got their charter from the king (a charter is a written grant of rights). Through charter powers they set trade monopolies, quality standards and stable prices, and pressed the town government to act in their favour. [2]

Trade — inside Europe and beyond

• From the 11th century, new trade routes opened to West Asia.
• Scandinavians traded furs and hunting-hawks for cloth.
• English traders sold tin.
• Venice and Genoa: their entrepreneurs (business people who take risks to make profit) traded with Muslim states and with Byzantium from the 12th century.
• The crusades strengthened these Mediterranean links.
• Inside Europe, trade moved through fairs and through port cities on the Baltic Sea and North Sea.
• Result: town merchants grew rich enough to rival the nobility. Money power began to stand beside land power.

Cathedral-towns

• From the twelfth century, in France, rich merchants gave money to build cathedrals (very large churches). These cathedrals belonged to monasteries.
• Whole communities joined in. People gave labour, materials or money.
• They were built of stone and took many years to finish.
• Once built, a cathedral pulled people in. Settlements grew around it and pilgrims came to visit. Such places are called cathedral-towns.
• Abbot Suger (1081–1151) of St Denis wrote about enlarging his church and about its stained glass (coloured glass pictures set in windows).
• Suger was born near Paris in 1081 and died 13 January 1151. He advised kings Louis VI and Louis VII, and was elected abbot of Saint-Denis in 1122. [3]
• His rebuilding of Saint-Denis used pointed arches, ribbed vaults and stained glass, because he believed light had a spiritual quality. This work is treated as the start of the Gothic style, dated between 1137 and 1144. [3][4]
• The east end of Saint-Denis was rebuilt about 1135–44; the ambulatory (the walkway curving behind the altar) and its chapels belong to this phase. The church was completed in 1144. [4]
• The narrative window (a window telling a story in pictures) was first used on a large scale at Saint-Denis between 1140 and 1144. [4]
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art has published a full study of the abbey in Suger's time, titled The Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis in the Time of Abbot Suger (1122–1151). [5]

Prelims Hooks

• Europe's population: 42 million (1000) → 62 million (1200) → 73 million (1300).
• A serf hidden in a town for one year and one day became free — 'Town air makes free'.
• Townspeople paid the lord a tax instead of labour services.
• Towns of about 30,000 people are described as a possible 'fourth order'.
• Guild-hall = building for ceremonies and for meetings of the heads of the guilds; guilds controlled quality, price and sale.
• Guilds flourished in Europe between the 11th and 16th centuries; two kinds — merchant guilds and craft guilds. [2]
• Scandinavians traded furs and hunting-hawks for cloth; English traders sold tin.
• Venice and Genoa traded with Muslim states and Byzantium from the 12th century.
• Abbot Suger: 1081–1151, abbot of Saint-Denis from 1122; the abbey church was completed in 1144. [3][4]
• Gothic style is dated to the rebuilding of Saint-Denis, 1137–1144. [4]

Mains Points

• The three-order model broke down from below. Merchants, bankers, lawyers and craftsmen did not pray, fight, or farm a lord's land. The rise of a town population of this kind shows that a social theory built for a farming world could not describe the new economy.
• Freedom came from economics, not from kindness. Lords accepted cash tax in place of labour because coin was more useful to them. The 'one year and one day' rule and paid dues together loosened serfdom without any law abolishing it.
• Towns and trade were linked in one chain: more food surplus → markets and fairs → permanent towns → guilds to control craft output → long-distance trade through Venice, Genoa and the Baltic/North Sea ports → merchants rich enough to rival the nobility. This is the standard chain a GS-I answer on the decline of feudalism should use.
• Religion, money and town growth reinforced each other. Merchant wealth paid for cathedrals; cathedrals drew pilgrims and settlers; that traffic created more trade. Saint-Denis under Suger (1122–1151, church completed 1144) is the model case where new wealth produced a new architectural style. [3][4]