Life in a Medieval City

by Frances Gies

As the power of the Roman Empire faltered, local Roman officials lost their authority, creating a vacuum that was filled by Christian bishops.

In the sixth and seventh centuries a new ecclesiastical source of cities appeared—the Benedictine monastery. The institution spread rapidly, establishing itself sometimes in towns, sometimes in open country, and immediately attracting craftsmen, farmers, and traders. In the Bavarian forest appeared “Monks’ Town”—Munich.

Sacking was something to which citizens of an early medieval city had to be resigned. Not only pagan invaders, but Christian lords, and even bishops, did their share—Troyes was sacked by the bishop of Auxerre. But the champion raiders, who appeared in the late ninth century, were the Vikings.

After vast losses of life and property while makeshift solutions were tried—hiding, bargaining, fighting—Europe hit on the answer to invasion: wall-building. Existing towns built walls and prospered by offering security. The lords of the countryside built walls to strengthen their crude castles, thereby enhancing their own importance. Monasteries built walls. Sometimes walls built to protect castle or monastery had the unexpected effect of attracting coopers, blacksmiths, trappers, and peddlers, and so becoming the nuclei of new towns.

The newly fortified towns were usually called “bourgs” or “burhs” (later, boroughs) in the Germanic dialects that were evolving into new languages. People who dwelt in the bourgs were known as bourgeois, or burghers, or burgesses.

By the end of the twelfth century urbanization with all its problems had arrived in the cities of Flanders, not to mention Cologne and Hamburg, London and Paris, Provins and Troyes.

A cardinal2 accused the communes of abetting heresy, of declaring war on the clergy, and of encouraging skepticism. An abbot2 wrote bitterly: “Commune! New and detestable name! By it people are freed from all bondage in return for a simple annual tax payment; they are not condemned for infraction of the laws except to a legally determined fine, and they no longer submit to the other charges levied on serfs.”

Louis VII and other progressive rulers founded “new cities”—with such names as Villeneuve, Villanova, Neustadt—and accorded them charters of freedom to attract settlers.