Chapter 10, Section 1

Introduction:  Pious workers who dragged the first stones to build the Chartres Cathedral never saw the Cathedral finished because it normally took between 40 to 60 years to build a cathedral, and in the 1100s, few Europeans lived beyond the age of 50.  In 1180, the Cathedral was finished, by 14 years later, the roof of the great cathedral burst into flames. Amazingly, the people of Chartres got together and built an even more magnificent cathedral in just 25 years which still stands today.  The cathedral is a symbol of an era. The period between 1000 and 1300 is referred to as the Age of Faith. It was an age when hundreds of towering cathedrals were built throughout Europe. Church leaders exerted enormous political and economic influence in Europe, but it wasn’t faith alone that built cathedrals. This age was also a time of increasing material prosperity.  The High Middle Ages were a time of vigorous growth for European civilization.

Farming improved and trade revived:  In the years between 1000 and 1300, dramatic changes were occurring at every level of European society. At the top, new royal families were coming to power. In addition, church leaders were reforming and strengthening the Church. Nobles were creating a glittering society with mock battles and poetry contests. Perhaps the most important changes had begun much earlier at the lowest level of society – the peasant who worked on the land.

New ways of farming increased food:  Europe’s revival would have been impossible without better ways of farming, which provide food.  One of the first great improvements in farming came in Charlemagne’s time, which was a new and heavier plow that cut deep into the dirt and turned it over. Very gradually, this plow replaced the earlier, lightweight plow that only scratched the top of the ground. With this new plow, crops were planted in the rich soil which brought about better harvests.  Using horsepower: Oxen used to be used for plowing and pulling wagons because they could live on poor food, but they moved slowly. On the other hand, horses could plow twice as fast, but they needed better food. The main problem was the harness that farmers used in the Early Middle Ages. The harnesses went around the necks of the horses and nearly strangled them. Eventually, sometime before 900, a new harness was adopted that went around the horse’s chest, allowing the horse to breathe better. Because of that, horses gradually replaced oxen.  Because horses could plow more land in a day, many farmers cleared new fields from the forests. All around England, France, and Germany, great forests that had covered the land began to fall. Along the marshy coastlands of present-day Belgium, peasants built huge seawalls to drain yet more new land. These new fields supplied enough grain to feed a growing population.  The three-field system: At the same time, villagers began to organize their land differently. In the Early Middle Ages, a 600-acre piece of land was divided in half – one half to be planted, the other to be fallow (unplanted). Then, it would alternate after harvests. Around 800, some villages decided to divide the field into three parts – 200 acres for winter crops such as wheat or rye, 200 acres for barley, peas, oats, and beans to be planted in the spring, and the rest 200 for fallow land. Because of this, there was an immediate rise in food, but like other farming changes, it took about 3 or 4 centuries for this to be in wide use,. Towns grew larger and richer:  More food meant more people. Scholars estimate a 40 percent increase in population from 1000 to 1150 in Western Europe, from around 30 million to 42 million.  As the population increased, people left the country side to settle in towns. However, these towns were primitive compared to those such as Constantinople and Baghdad. Paris, the largest city, had no more than 30,000 people by the year 1200. A typical town in medieval Europe had only about 1,500 to 2,500 people.  Nevertheless, these small communities became a powerful force for change. Townspeople didn’t fit into these traditional classes: nobles (those who fought), priests (those who prayed), and peasants (those who worked on land). A whole new social class called the middle class formed. A walled town was known as a burgh, and the town’s people who lived there were called burghers. In France, burgh dwellers became known collectively as a bourgeoisie.  Many of Europe’s Jews lived in growing towns, but they were forbidden from holding land, and therefore, they were never a part of the feudal system. They were also barred from many businesses, and so they often did work that Christians could not or would not do. Since they were literate, they sometimes worked as business managers for large landholders. The Church forbade Christians to lend money at interest, but many people needed to borrow money. As a result, Jews became money lenders. From there, it was a short step to all types of banking. When trade began to revive in the later Middle Ages, Jews often participated in long-distance trade. Jewish communities in different cities had the links necessary to arrange credit and transfers of money.  By the High Middle Ages, trade was the very lifeblood of the new towns. Trade and towns grew together. Neither could thrive without the other.

Fairs were centers of trade:  Chartres is a good example of a medieval town. As with any cathedral town, many residents had ties to the Church, including monks, priests, and nuns. Others worked for the Church, administering its lands and money. People from the countryside came to town to celebrate religious festivals. Travelers came to the city as pilgrims to honor the holy relics [items that were believed to have belonged to Jesus or one of the Christian saints] at the cathedral.  Artisans, including shoemakers, wheelwrights, and candle makers, appeared in the town to meet the needs of all those groups of people. At first, these people did not have permanent shops, but they brought their goods to gatherings called fairs.  The Local Fair: Peasants from nearby manors traveled to Chartres on weekly fair days, hauling wagonloads of grain and other crops and animals. Business might take place anywhere near the cathedral. Cloth was the most common item held for sale, but other foodstuffs – fish, meat, bacon, salt, honey, oil, butter, cheese, fruit, and wine – were sold as well. Customers could also find leather, fur, iron, steel, dyes, knives, sickles, and ropes. Such local fairs met all the needs of daily life in small communities. No longer was everything produced in a self-sufficient manor. This was a revolutionary change in the economic life of Europe.  The Great Fairs: Four times a year – during religious festivals when most pilgrims would come to town- Chartres would hold a great fair. People from far and wide came to these fairs, and they could buy the wares of local artisans as well as visit the stalls set up by merchants from as far away as England or Italy. At great fairs, townsfolk and peasants could enjoy a myriad of foods and objects from various countries and regions far away. For amusement, people thronged around a pair of jugglers, a strumming minstrel, an acrobat, or an animal trainer with a dancing bear.

Guilds controlled crafts and trade:  In medieval towns, even if there were a dozen shoemakers, they only made shoes in the same way and sold them at the same price because competition was forbidden by the rules of the shoemakers’ guild [an association of people who worked at the same occupation].  The first guilds were formed by merchants. In their hometowns, they built guild halls where they met to make rules and arrange the details of their businesses. Members of the merchant guild controlled all the trade in their town.  As towns grew, skilled artisans started another kind of guild, the craft guild. Shoemakers, tailors, grocers, wine makers, and other met in their own guild halls. In most crafts, both husbands and wives worked at the family trade. In some guilds, especially cloth making, women were in the majority.  Guilds enforced standards of quality. Bakers, for example, were required to bake loaves of bread of a standard size and weight. If a baker cheated a buyer by making a loaf too small, he would be punished. Guilds also fixed the price of everything their members sold. The Church demanded that the price be just based on the cost of labor and materials plus a reasonable profit. To make a large profit was thought to be sinful.  Paying dues to one’s guild was a form of insurance. If a guild member died, funeral expenses were provided by the guild plus money to help the deceased person’s family.  Guilds were open to any new masters of the crafts. Parents paid fees to masters to take their children as apprentices. An apprentice would live in the shop of the master, and worked for no pay except for room and board. The apprentice would train for 3 to 12 years, and then would go on to work for wages as a journeyman in the craft. In the final step, the journeyman would make the item he was learning to make that qualified as a “mater piece.” If the guild thought that the person was truly a master at the craft based on guild standards, he was welcomed into the guild as a master.

Town dwellers won new liberties:  Even a proud master artisan may have once been a serf. It was common for serfs to run away to towns, and they were thought to be free if they lived in the town for a year and a day. At first, feudal lords treated the upstart burghers with contempt. They taxed them heavily and nobles charged fees for everything. As time went by, burghers worked together to free themselves from the lord or bishop on whose land the town stood. Sometimes they fought for their independence against armies of knights. The greatest weapon the burghers had, however, was cash. In exchange for a bag of coins, many lords grudgingly granted towns written charters. Such charters listed the towns’ special privileges and tax exemptions. In effect, a town charter bearing the lord’s seal was a declaration of independence from the feudal system.