Medieval Towns and Trade Networks in Europe and Africa

Episode 10 Medieval Towns and Trade Networks

The Middle Ages Around the World

Dr Joyce E Salisbury

Film Review

Europe

In the West prior to the year 1000, towns were purely administrative in nature, home to the local bishop or political officials. In the 11th century commercial towns with escaped serfs sprang up everywhere. This  changed in the 11th century with commercial towns springing up all over Europe. In contrast, the East had a long history of urban life.

Under European law, a feudal serf who left his master’s land automatically became a freeman if he remained away a year and a day. Western merchants who founded towns began by seeking a charter to protect freemen from being forced to return to work for their masters. The charter also granted town leaders the right to establish a system of taxation and, in some cases, their own law courts (under common law). They could even free free themselves from royal law in some cases by making regular payments to the local lord. The Count of Champagne (in France) figured out another way lords could profit from nearby town, namely by organizing regional fairs and collecting sales tax from stall holders.

Under the charter, it was taken for granted the rich residents (ie merchants) would appoint officials to run the town. Along with local artisans and merchants, they also organized craft and commercial guilds to set terms and conditions for the services and commodities they provided. Because women, usually widows who inherited their husbands’ businesses, outnumbered men in most towns, they also belonged to guilds.

Children of both sexes served as apprentices in shops and workshops under a guild master. On reaching adulthood they became journeymen and eventually masters and guild members. It was the responsibility of the guilds to set out the town plan, with each guild concentrated in specific neighborhoods according to craft.

Forbidden to own land in the Middle Ages, Jews invested their wealth in money lending and banking. This worked out well for Christian clients forbidden by the Catholic church to charge interest. Henry III and some bishops issued protection charters for wealthy Jewish residents. In the the 13th century, starting with Edward I in 1290, most European monarchs expelled their Jews.

Beginning in 1082, the Italian city-states of Venice, Pisa and Genoa won their freedom from the Byzantine empire and became the primary Mediterranean trading ports – importing silks and spices from Baghdad and ivory and gold from North Africa.

By the end of the 11th century, a northern trade network centered on the Baltic and North Sea, the Hanseatic League, first formed to protect merchant ships from pirates. Extending Britain to Novgorod, the League’s their most lucrative product was salted cod from Scandinavia.* They also exported amber, fur, lumber, wool and whale oil.

Africa

Urban life also flourished in 12th century West Africa. Beginning in the 9th-10th century, Berbers had spread Islam and Muslim trade networks south into the Sahara, giving rise to multiple medieval towns. Founded in 1235,

In the 13th and 14th century, agriculture flourished in the Mali, whose capitol Timbuktu straddled the Sahel and Savanna regions of Africa. This allowed them to produce grains, cola nuts and giant snails (in the Savanna) and sheep and goats in the (Sahel). Timbuktu also became a major center for the global salt and gold trade (which was mined and smelted in Mali), as well as a major center for Islamic scholarship.

The Mali emperor Mansa Musa (1312-1337) became world famous when he took a massive retinue of courtiers, servant, poets, scholars and elephants east to Mecca (performing the Hajj) in 1334. the Mali empire survived through the end of Middle Ages, when climatic warming caused population and agriculture to shift from the Sahel to the grassy savanna south of the Sahara.

Bantu speakers of Swahili also established major trade routes south of Aksum (see Urban Life After the Fall of Rome) between 1200-1500. Establishing major trade routes across the India Ocean, they became expert boat builders and fishermen, importing Chinese porcelain, Indian pepper, and Southeast Asian Mangoes. They also established plantations of bananas, originally native to Southeast Asia.

*Codfish has no fat, which means unlike oily warm water fish it can absorb enough salt to prevent it from spoiling.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/13172786/13172807

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