Week 7 Lecture Notes: Late Medieval Cities and the Origins of the European Renaissance

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Introduction to Late Medieval Cities

This week's focus shifts from a broad survey of cities to an in-depth exploration of the late medieval city, particularly those associated with the origins of the Florentine or European Renaissance.
The late medieval city represents the peak or flowering of medieval urban life, giving rise to the cultural revival known as the Renaissance.
The course previously began with a focus on European cities, examining their configuration in colonial settler contexts.
The European experience in the late medieval urban context is significant for establishing a new mode of urban life and the origins of modernity.

Emergence of New Identities and Social Structures

A new kind of identity and social existence emerged in European cities during the late medieval period.
This emergence led to new ways of thinking about social life, social associations, the status of religion, city government, and citizenship.
These changes shaped the way cities functioned and how societies and cultures adapted to new urban realities, leading to what is historically described as the early modern period from 1500 onwards.

Revival of Trade and its Impact on City Life

The revival of trade in the 10th and 11th centuries brought diverse goods and commodities from long distances into Europe, rejuvenating city life.
Venice is the prominent example of commercial emphasis in these new cities.
Mark Girouard suggests that virtually all medieval cities grew up around a market or a fair, often located outside a castle or abbey for protection, or by a river or harbor for transportation.

Internal Implications of Trade for Medieval City Life

The lecture focuses on the internal implications of long-distance trade for medieval city life, including the transformation of cities and the emergence of new elements of city organization and form.
Historians emphasize the importance of increasing demand for goods and a wealthier society capable of purchasing those goods as a basis for urban revival in Western Europe.
Improved agriculture, better crop yields, rural technology, and a warmer climate contributed to population growth and the ability to engage in consumer commodity-based cultures.

Development of Centers and Industries

The development of particular centers as hubs in specific industries, such as textiles in Flanders (Bruges, Ghent, Ypres), spurred population growth and economic concentration.
These cities were centers of long-distance trade and merchant activity, as well as manufacturing cloth and woolen textiles for export.
The close link between clothing and medieval cities is reflected in the etymology of words like "jeans" (from Genoa) and "denim" (from the French town of Denim).
These urban centers developed into bustling, business-like centers of wealth creation and activity, connected in networks.

Population Estimates of Major Cities

Estimated that about 24 large cities enclosed an area between 306 hectares, each with a population somewhere between 200,000.
Before about 1350, Milan and Venice may have had about 100,000 residents, while Naples and Florence had over 50,000.
In Flanders and Brabant, Ghent had about 56,000 residents in the mid-14th century, Bruges had about 35,000, and Louvain, Brussels, and Ypres had between 60,000 each.
In Spain, Barcelona, Cordoba, Seville, and Granada may have had something like 35,000 and more, but elsewhere in Western Europe, Paris had about 80,000 people, London had about 35,000 to 40,000 people, and Cologne were the only large towns.
In the German area, Cologne and Lubeck probably led Strasbourg, Nunberg, Augsburg, Vienna and Prague, and Danzig may have had about 20,000.

Urban Culture and Networks

The cities of Northern Italy, Flanders, and the Hanseatic League around the Baltic Sea formed dynamic urban cultures in the Western European context.
The Hanseatic League was a confederation of independent city states based on the common interests of trading houses.
Arnold Toynbee suggests that the Western world appeared to be becoming a galaxy of city states rather than a mosaic of nation states.

Political Autonomy and Self-Government

Medieval cities existed as sovereign entities, centers of merchant interest, and autonomous independent city states.
Self-government was powerful in this context, as cities sought to emancipate from feudal relationships.
Urban revolts against the taxation of local feudal lords and bishops were common, with citizens swearing oaths of loyalty to each other and their commune.
Cities often sought permission or license from distant authorities to achieve self-government and autonomy.

Royal Charters and City States

The granting of a royal or imperial charter to a city, exempting it from feudal obligations, marked a key moment in gaining autonomy.
Many cities have royal charters dating back to this period, acknowledging their administrative autonomy.
Some cities, like the Republic of Venice, were powerful enough to act independently of any local monarchy and became territorial empires.
Most cities recognized the symbolic authority of a king or Holy Roman Emperor but sought to govern their own affairs and protect their autonomy.

Factionalism in Northern Italy

The Holy Roman Emperor's struggle with the papacy led to rivalry between families in Italian cities, divided into imperial (Ghibellines) and papal (Guelphs) factions.
Ghibelline families had strong feudal and agricultural interests, while Guelph families were invested in the commercial life of the cities.
Factionalism resulted in constant warfare and conflict between cities and families.
The Capulets and Montagues in Romeo and Juliet are referenced as a continuation of this medieval pattern of factionalism.

Urban Form and Liberty

Cities stood out physically and demonstrated emancipation from feudal obligations by establishing a new way of life for citizens.
RHC Davis writes that self-governing cities became islands of liberty, with travelers entering their gates passing from ordinary jurisdiction to that of the commune.
Towns had privileges of a feudal lord, controlling their own territory, holding courts, and having a town hall (Palazzo Communale).
A medieval German statement emblazoned over city gates proclaimed that "town air makes a person free," as residents could participate in city life and gain citizenship after a year and a day.

Ypres and the Towns of Flanders

Ypres and other industrial towns in Flanders prospered with the revival of trade, managed by local aristocrats and city officials.
These towns produced woolen textiles from raw wool brought from England, which were spun, dyed, and woven into cloth.
The Cloth Hall in Ypres is a neo-Gothic masterpiece that served as a center for cloth trade.

Bruges: A Center of Trade and Manufacturing

Bruges was founded by the feudal counts of Flanders at a crossing point on the River Rey, growing from a modest settlement into a major seaport.
The city secured independence from the counts via an imperial charter, establishing a town council, magistrates, and laws.
A natural harbor led to the construction of canals, linking the city to the harbor and creating a fortified port town.
Bruges became a market hub for the regional cloth industry, establishing trading relationships with German cities and wool-producing towns in England.

Infrastructure and Glamour of Bruges

Bruges had a population reaching 100,000, with massive building works and a network of canals.
The city featured the first crane in any European city, used for unloading goods from the canal.
Bruges was a booming center of cloth market, merchant activity, and manufacturing.
The city was considered one of the marvel cities of the era, with spectacular buildings and a highly enterprise-oriented, cosmopolitan population.
Bruges was an epicenter of the Northern Renaissance and Flemish art, with the Flemish School of Painters pioneering oil painting.
A Spanish nobleman described Bruges as having fine houses, beautiful churches, monasteries, excellent inns, extravagant food, and luxury.
The city's expenditure was reinvested in public works, including fortifications and canal construction.

The Bourse of Bruges

Bruges developed a Bourse, a financial district dedicated to banking, credit, and financial dealings.
The Van der Bourse family ran the Terbourse Inn, which became associated with financial transactions, giving rise to the name for financial districts.

Hanseatic League

The Hanseatic League consisted of trading cities on the north rivers and coasts of Germany, dominating trade in the Baltic Sea and the North Sea.
Towns like Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck, Rostock, and Danzig controlled harbors and shipping movements, profiting from the revival and expansion of regional trade.
The Hanseatic League dominated regional trade in goods like corn, pickled fish, salt, wool, timber, and minerals, establishing depots in places like Bruges and London.

Cologne: A Hanseatic Town

Cologne, founded by the Romans on the banks of the Rhine, became a Hanseatic town with river-based trade connections through Central Europe.
The city had an important ecclesiastical role, with the archbishop of Cologne holding high authority and the city becoming a pilgrimage destination.
Cologne was designated as a free imperial city, with its citizens expanding the city and maintaining its autonomy.
The city retained its own military and governed its own affairs with a sense of autonomy.

Cities Emerging on Different Models

Not all cities began as centers of trade; some developed as a result of university life, such as Oxford, Cambridge, Bologna, and Paris.
Bologna and Paris prospered as cities generated by economic and political activity, with universities adding to their prominence.
Universities grew from communities of scholars attracted to cathedral schools, receiving royal charters that exempted them from feudal dues and obligations.

Bastilles or Garrison Towns

Bastilles or garrison towns were military forts developed for domestic monarchy to police the provinces of the kingdom, such as English castles and towns built throughout Wales under Edward I.
The French context referred to these as bastides, which were erected during wartime for civil domination and represented colonizing efforts. Bastides were established by the Teutonic Knights to control conquered Slavic peoples.

Features of Medieval Cities

People were trying to get into town, not out of it, seeking to escape feudalism and find conditions for production and exchange of goods and services.
Most cities were physically small, with the exception of those that grew to become national capitals. Characteristically, they were footpath cities where everyone walked around or rode a horse.
Urban and social life was intimate and personal, with families often driven by vendettas and party feuds that could spill over into conflict. This led to political volatility.
Order and control was traditionally imposed by strong families and institutional vested interests like the church, as well as trade guilds.

Regulation of Commerce and the Physical World

Thomas McKeezy notes that trade was rigorously regulated by the town's governing corporation and the trade guilds. This was administered under rigid rules of conduct and competition, under the influence of the Church.
In regards to the new energetic world of commerce and municipal government, the walls were a definitive aspect of medieval cities. They symbolized the city's extent, had gates to regulate traffic, allowed for the imposition of tolls and taxes. Expansion of the walls was costly, which led to conservation of space.

Fauxbourgs: The City Outside the City Walls

The development of service centers around the edge of the city walls (fauxbourgs) stimulated the expansion of cities and was a source for taxation. Gates were a central piece of infrastructure that dictated traffic flow in cities.
Lewis Mumford emphasized that the town gate was a meeting of two worlds, where traffic would deposit their loads, where storehouses, inns, and taverns would congregate, where the adjoining streets would boast artisans and merchant shops, and thus a hub for commercial activity would begin. When this would happen, the city would extend the walls to meet these hubs and create more avenues for revenue.
Howard Salmon remarks that these hubs grew naturally to serve a traffic-regulated marketplace where business happened outside the bounds of jurisdiction. This led to expansion both in trade and economic opportunity, and eventually revenue as those hub activities scaled into a thriving settlement

Internal Starfish Pattern

Most medieval cities develop in a starfish pattern because market roads originate from the gates and lead into a single point, where the most relevant and influential people wished to be located. Proximity to the market was desirable. To be in a building that was in the perimeter of the gate, but away from the roads, was the poorest location. The most successful building was to be on the periphery of roads and central to the markets. Most often these areas were underdeveloped or relegated to slums.
Physical spaces in these cities become highly contested. But marketplaces in turn influence commerce from the community.

Civic Identity

Religious scholars were highly divided on this, with scholars such as the author of Martyr of the City expressing concern and trepidation of the moral and ethical standards in these burgeoning metropolitan centers. Others promoted the benefits and advantages of increased wealth and prosperity
Civic identities are rooted from a complex web of municipal institutions and authorities. This leads to legal codes that would emerge from these new practices. From that emerged civic autonomy that then took on life as a political entity within the context of the city. The moral implications were immense.

Public Policy Development

Municipal codes dictated economic and social conduct for its members. EP Thompson, a noted Marxist Historian, calls this a "moral economy". These codes dictated standards, obligations, and expectations.

City Leaders

In order to keep social orders in play, magistrates and public officials were implemented to mediate affairs in urban spaces. This can be compared to a 21st century nation state in that authority came under the rule of a leader. The rule implemented could dictate the operation of trade, taxation, welfare, and maintenance of the civil orders.

Guilds

Guilds existed since Roman times. Membership regulated wages, working hours, and prices. Each guild had a specialty to address a niche, such as bakers, butchers, millers, miners, and a number of other specialized occupations. Members in these guilds had to follow tradition code rules.

Civil Volatility

To avoid civil unrest, goods imported from other towns had regulation from city leadership, particularly wardens and administrators near gates. A balance of power was sought. Many officials wanted to keep the peace, but some would leverage influence for their own gain. Conflicts might arise between merchants and bishops, government officials and members. This is usually maintained by a civil authority or local leader, although most also maintained a militia, a group made to engage in physical force when warranted.

New Challenges

A complex, intimate, immediate and personal life was emerging in cities and municipalities. People yearned to become a part of that. This forced officials to draw boundaries around who could move into specific areas, to avoid resource straining. A vast majority of new residents in cities had impoverished backgrounds, leading to increased crime. In addition, sanitary conditions were abysmal and public health was low. This affected demographic numbers, which caused mass mortality due to disease and famine. This would happen until social codes and municipal practices were in place to address issues pertaining to those areas.

Financial Renaissance

Arabic calculation allowed not just the calculation of accurate accounting, but a new process that would influence how commercial exchanges were performed. The Arabic numeral system (1, 2,3, etc.) replaced the existing Roman one. Banking interests rose when credit was tolerated among the city, leading to vastly wealthy families such as the Medici family. Financials facilitated in creating a capitalist world in the region. This would inspire a market for credit, managed and regulated by private individuals.

City Time

Municipal obligations shifted by keeping track of time. This forced city officials to establish measures for time. Cities installed bell towers measured by the hour. Deadlines became common. Capitalism rose when time required a rigid standard for people to follow. This led to more accountability which in turn made cities more efficient.