|
|
|
|
||
|
|
The Medieval World: Towns |
|
|
Note: The "Medieval World" pages were originally written for a friend of mine who was (and still is)
writing a fantasy novel, to provide some background information on how pre-industrial societies actually work. The
text remains unchanged from the original document.
The most important question that must be asked about a town is why does it exist? In this agricultural society, only a small minority of the population live in towns. Even towards the end of the middle ages, the largest towns generally only had a few tens of thousands of inhabitants, and most only had a few thousand. There are two basic economic reasons why a town can exist. The first is that it services the needs of a rural hinterland. The local peasant farmers take their surplus produce to the town to sell, as they can find more potential buyers, and thus be more certain of getting a sale than if they just tried to sell to their neighbours. Some of the money they make will be used to buy foodstuffs that they are short of themselves, but much of it will go towards buying goods from the local artisans. The latter supply farming implements, cooking pots, and any other items that the peasants cannot readily make themselves. The artisans in turn will use the money they make in this way to pay for food, lodgings, and so on. The food will be brought from merchants and small local traders who buy up agricultural produce from the farmers, and sell it on to the townspeople. Thus, the main economic activity is that of artisans and merchants who trade with the rural population. It is generally small-scale and local, but those who are involved in it are nevertheless living in a comparatively modern money economy, in which you don't live by growing things yourself, but rather by earning money to buy things. They in turn will support a service sector, such as inn-keepers and shoe-makers, who service the needs of the urban population. The second sort of town is that which depends on long-distance trade for its survival. In English history, these have mostly tended to be ports on the major rivers or cross-channel trade routes, but it could just as easily be a town on a caravan route across the desert. The dominant activity here is that of merchants buying and selling goods from distant places, which could either be overseas or distant parts of the same country. It may well also provide a market for local goods, but this will be of lesser importance to its economy. Long-distance trade will obviously support a large service sector, due to the regular influxes of sailors, camel-drivers, or whoever it is that brings in the goods, and the greater levels of wealth that can be made from it. It will also support specialised industries such as ship-building, that provide for the particular requirements of long distance travel. However, trade may well fluctuate seasonally. Depending on the local climate, and the available level of transport technology, trade across the sea (or indeed desert) may be restricted or even impossible during some parts of the year. At these times, the population will shrink. Itinerant labourers, prostitutes, beggars, minstrels, and so on, will move elsewhere, and only return when the trade picks up again. The ones who stay for the slack period will be those artisans and traders who can get enough business from the local market, and those, such as inn-keepers or shipwrights, whose activities depend on fixed buildings or equipment that cannot easily be moved. Finally, it is worth noting that the king or other ruler may seek to restrict overseas trade to a few particular ports, to ensure that it can be controlled and hence taxed. The aim is usually just to maximise customs revenues, although in a situation in which a country is divided up into small rival kingdoms, the king who controls a major port may seek to control the flow of foreign goods - especially luxury goods - to neighbouring kingdoms in order to enhance his own power, wealth, and status. However, The effect is also to make those few ports through which trade is channelled particularly large and wealthy. |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|||
|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
Last Updated: 1 Oct 07 |  |
|
|||
 |
|
|
|
|
|||
