Student's Name: Martha Raup Date of Report: 3/6/06
Name of Book or Source and Full Publishing Reference:
Life in a Medieval City, by Joseph and Frances Gies; Thomas Y Crowell Co, 1969; First Harper Colophon, 1981.
I. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS HISTORICAL AREA AND THIS BOOK?
I have to admit, I came to this book accidentally, but I am sure glad that I found and selected it. The big problem was finding ANY of these books! First, I found and bought Daniel Defoe's A Journal of the Plague Year, but found the writing and topic boring. Next, I found and bought Geraldine Brooks' Year of Wonders: A Novel of the Plague. The story (the 1666 plague in England), the characters, and the plot look more interesting, so I'll probably read it at another time. Danny Danziger's The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium and Regine Pernoud's Those Terrible Middle Ages: Debunking the Myths were not to be found. But, as luck would have it, I found two books by Joseph and Frances Gies, and one of them was Life in a Medieval City.
In a sense, then, I didn't really CHOOSE this historical era at all - I chose the format that I preferred, and read with interest whatever was written. Yet on reflection, the time frame was perfect for me. I am working towards a certificate in Economics, and had originally signed up for "The Economic History of Western Civilization", which was cancelled. Taking a course that focuses on the history of the Middle Ages is a perfect complement for that course. This book kind of fills-in-the-gaps between what happened between feudalism and industrialization, out of which emerged today's capitalism and globalization. The Gies' book is like a fully-developed photo of that slice in time when the Commercial Revolution was just beginning. Without the success of cities such as Troyes, our world might look and WORK very differently. So - this book allowed me to see and FEEL what life was really like in an era that matters very much to our lives today.
II. What 4 themes do you see coming out of the book? Either stated or surmised by you. Identify them and expand on them with YOUR OWN THINKING.
Life in a Medieval City tells the story of Troyes, France in the year 1250. "...Troyes was one of the biggest and certainly one of the richest cities in Europe...Its permanent population was about ten thousand..." (p.21) The economic system at the time depended heavily on trade. The trading system, in turn, depended heavily on the trade fairs that occurred on a yearly basis in 4 spots in the Champagne region of France (six times/year). Troyes was fortunate to have two of these trade events in its city - the "hot fair" in July/August, and the "cold fair" in November/December.
Much of the book focuses on the economic life of the city of Troyes, and the interplay between ordinary life, and life during the trade fairs. The main topics of the book are work life, home life, religious life, intellectual life, and political life of the city's residents. As such, this book is a perfect complement to, and fleshing out, of our textbook's Chapters 9 (The Recovery and Growth of European Society in the High Middle Ages) and 10 (The Rise of Kingdoms and the Growth of Church Power). The High Middle Ages is the period from 1000-1300, during which major transformations took place in European Civilization. Spielvogel highlights 3 major themes which the Gies book illustrates: the growth of cities, the revival of trade, and the emergence of a money economy. A fourth theme, the decline in power of the Church, and the emergence of monarchic powers, is described in Spielvogel's Chapter 10, and lightly touched on in the Gies book.
City growth, the Gies suggest, was stimulated by two major developments in the 10th and 11th centuries: the increased clearance of land, and the beginning of medieval mining (Gies, pp. 10-11). New technology (the heavy-wheeled plow pulled by the swifter horse with the new padded, rigid collar) and new systems of planting (the introduction of oats and legumes, and the transition from two to three-field crop rotation) created an agricultural revolution. The discovery of silver in the mountains of Saxony, which strengthened the wealth and warfare of Milan, and the mining of tin in Cornwall, furnished the wherewithal to enhance the growth of cities militarily and monetarily. The thirteenth century town of Troyes reaped the benefits of these changes, and reflected the results of them. The city burgers bought their independence from the landed aristocracy (Count Thibaud IV of Champagne in 1230), and did not need to challenge the clergy, for their authority had already eroded. Thus, a new power had arisen - the Third Estate of townspeople, to challenge the First Estate (the clergy), and the Second Estate (the knights and lords). Our text tells us WHAT happened and HOW, but the Gies narrative SHOWS us what resulted.
The monetarization of the economy was not an overnight occurrence, and the Gies show what life was like at a mid-point on that path. Weights and measures are being standardized (including the troy ounce), and coinage went from a unit of account to a medium of exchange. For instance, they tell us (p. 48) that housewives carry three kinds of coins - copper oboles or half-obeles, or silver pennies (the denier). Count Thibaut's face was on the coins of Troyes, and not the bishop, showing that secularization had occurred (p.18). The real innovation, though, seems to be the myriad ways of working around the lack of money and the need for money: credits, rents, "letters of carriage" (p.214), and various forms of taxations. All of these increased the wealth of the community in ways from which all profit, yet few practice, and even fewer understand. This is the emergence of commercial capitalism, and the demise of feudalism, yet of this fact few at the time are aware.
A final economic theme is the revival and institutionalization of trade: the fairs of the Champagne province were designed to take advantage of the stream of merchants, and to ENCOURAGE that stream of merchants, and they were highly successful. Cloths and grains cross over from North (primarily from Flanders and England) to South, and spices and luxuries reverse the pattern (primarily from the Byzantine and Arabic Empires, but also from the Italian city-states). The villages grew out of the wealth that emerged, and they created a wealth that carried society into an ever-expanding pursuit of economic profit as well as exchange. Society itself becomes secularized and "internationalized", just as it was becoming regionalized and nationalized. So much was in flux, and the newly-emerged merchants and artisans revitalized the cities as they aggrandized themselves. Trade was both the way this was done, and the reason it was achieved. Those cities, like Troyes that lay on the paths of trade, grew and enriched themselves and prospered.
The political theme that emerges is the transition from a society of church dominance or feudal obligations into one of secular corporations and politically-free communes or cities. Universities emerge out of the guilds, and schools break free of the monasteries. Literature speaks in the vernacular, and commoners call for new artistic and cultural "entertainments". Cathedrals are built by communities, and communes (chartered towns and cities) are run by merchants and artisans. Freedom is bought from the lords, and politics is negotiated more than enforced. What a transformation this must have been!
III. Now, pick any situation or condition that impacted you in the book, put yourself there and in it at that time, and explain how you would have felt, what you would have done.
Undoubtedly the big event was the fair. I would have LOVED to be there! I can easily imagine it, for I had the good fortune to travel to Morocco in 1998, and walk the streets of the Fez medina. I imagine that must have been like the medieval cities of Europe, for when the Gies write about the narrow streets, the merchants housed in sepearate quarters, the stink of the tanneries, and the dust of the fair gatherings - I know what it was like! Even had I lived then, rather than now, I would have been excited beyond compare - to meet people from EVERYWHERE or ANYWHERE, to come across products that made no sense until they were explained or demonstrated, to taste others' cuisines, and to see the wardrobes of Flemish and British and Byzantine and Moor - WOW! I can truly see where the Renaissance and the Reformation come from, for how can you have regimented conformity after you've lived at a crossroads of civilizations? I must say - I can't wait until my trip to Europe, and I hope I can wrangle my way to Troyes - to see second-and-third stories hanging over the street, and walls and cathedrals and synagogues that have watched centuries go by - and to FEEL what the Gies book shows.
IV. Finally, what 4 major or important (to you) pictures, ideas, conclusions remain in your mind after reading it and thinking? You must generalize. Do not talk about how good or bad the book was. Do not write a book review.
1) Power comes and goes. Who has it tomorrow, nobody knows.
2) Knowledge must be fought for. Schools, churches, and powers-that-be will always want to limit what should be free.
3) Money comes from the world going 'round; it goes to those willing to work for it, and smart enough to create it.
4) Life goes on - no matter what, no matter why, unbeknownst to most as to how; people will figure it out. It can't be controlled nor stopped. It can't be steam-rolled nor bought. But it can be fought for and found, lived, learned, and celebrated. Don't ask me why!
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