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Ch. 14 Sec. 3

The Growth of Towns

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The Rights of Townspeople

As towns grew, townspeople no longer fit into the manorial system

They were makers & traders of goods, not farmers

Manor lords, however still controlled the towns

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Some towns gained the right to self-gov’t peacefully; others resorted to violence

In time, European townspeople gained four basic rights: freedom, exemption, town justice, & commercial privileges

First, anyone who lived in a town for a year & a day became free, including serfs

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Second, townspeople were exempt from having to work on the manor

Third, towns had their own courtsFourth, townspeople could sell

goods freely in the town market & charge outside traders a fee

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GuildsEach town had a merchant guild, an

association of merchants & workers created to protect their rights to trade & to help out members & their families

In time, skilled workers formed craft guilds, which set standards for working conditions

Each guild had members from a single craft such as weaving

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The guilds took care of ill members & controlled the training of boys & men in their craft

First, a boy served as an apprentice – his parents paid a master worker to house, feed, clothe, & train the boy for several years

Then he became a journeymen, a skilled worker who was paid wages by a master

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If the journeyman made a masterpiece – a piece of work worthy of a master – then he became a guild member & opened his own shop

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Medieval TownsIn time, guild members became the

middle class – a class of skilled workers between the upper class of nobles & lower class of poor & unskilled workers

The middle class favored kings over nobles bcuz kings provided stable gov’ts that protected trade, business, & property

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Towns offered serfs a chance to improve their lives; they could learn a craft or become traders & move into the middle class

Some serfs escaped their manors; others were pushed off as farming methods changed

Serfs who stayed on the manors sold their crops at town markets & paid their lords w/ $ rather than labor

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The Black Death

Most cities had fewer than 2,000 people

Since cities had little land, houses were built several stories high; each story extended out beyond the one below it

At their tops, houses almost touched over the street

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Cities were exciting places, but they were also dark, unsafe, dirty, & unhealthy; waste was dumped into open gutters, & disease spread quickly

Beginning in 1347, a terrible plague called the Black Death swept throughout Europe

It spread along trade routes, entering ports on trading ships

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Black rats on the ships carried the disease; it spread to people by bites from fleas on the rats

Entire villages and towns were wiped out

By some estimates, 25 million people died in Europe w/in four years – about one-third of the pop.

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The Black Death shook people’s faith, & the church lost power; the upper class also lost power

Workers, now in short supply, demanded higher wages; in some countries peasants started uprisings