Isadore Nabi · Compilation

Some Generalities on the Feudal Mode of Production

A glossary of political economy and a survey of agriculture, urban life and trade in medieval Europe.

April 15, 2021 · Marxist Philosophy of Science

PRODUCTIVE FORCES^[1]

The totality of the means of production and of the human beings who employ them to produce material goods. The material part of the productive forces, above all the means of labor, constitutes the material and technical base of society. In our epoch, science becomes a directly productive force. The principal productive force is made up of the workers, who create the instruments of production, set them in motion, and possess experience and habits of labor. The productive forces express the relation that exists between man and the objects and forces of nature, the degree to which he masters them. In the process of producing material goods, men develop and perfect the instruments of labor, create new machines, learn to exploit natural riches, broaden their knowledge, and progressively master the laws that govern the development of society and of nature. This leads to an unceasing growth of the productive forces. Under the influence of this growth and, above all, of the perfecting of the instruments of production, the relations of production change, and the mode of production is modified as well. To a determinate level of the productive forces there correspond determinate relations of production, into which men enter in the process of production. “What distinguishes one economic epoch from another is not what is made, but how it is made, with what instruments of labor it is made. The instruments of labor are not only the barometer that indicates the development of man’s labor power, but also the index of the social conditions under which labor is carried on” (K. Marx). At a determinate stage of their development, the productive forces of society come into contradiction with the existing relations of production. In the antagonistic economic-social formations —slave, feudal and capitalist— this contradiction becomes an insoluble conflict, since the relations of production, from being a form of development of the productive forces, turn into a brake upon them, into their fetters. Social revolution is the form in which this conflict is expressed and resolved (see Law of the correspondence between the relations of production and the character of the productive forces). Capitalism, after having developed the productive forces on a gigantic scale, became an enormous obstacle to social progress.

RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION^[2]

The totality of the economic relations that are established among men, independently of their consciousness and of their will, in the process of the production, exchange, distribution and consumption of material goods. The relations of production constitute a necessary part of any mode of production. Social production can take place only when men unite in order to act in common, in order to establish an interchange of activities. The basis of the relations of production lies in the relations of property over the means of production. The character of the relations of production depends on who the owners of the means of production are, and on how the union of those means with the producers is brought about. History knows two fundamental types of property: private and social. Private property expresses relations of domination and subordination, since the owners of the means of production have the possibility of exploiting men who lack property. Along its ascending development, the relations of production based on the exploitation of labor appear under the slave, feudal and capitalist forms. Social property eliminates the relations of exploitation and gives rise to collaboration in bonds of comradeship and to mutual aid among men. Under the primitive-communal regime it existed in the form of collective gentile and tribal property. Besides the types of relations of production indicated, there exist transitional relations of production, which combine elements of the various types of economic relations during the period of transition from one economic-social formation to another. The relations of production develop in direct connection with, and in reciprocal dependence on, the productive forces of society, and act as the form of existence and development of the latter. The relations between the one and the other are determined by the law of the correspondence between the relations of production and the character of the productive forces. Within the framework of a concrete economic-social formation, the relations of production are modified under the influence of the growth of the productive forces, yet their essence remains invariable. This is owing to the interests of the ruling classes, which seek to consolidate and preserve the existing relations of property. At a determinate stage in the development of society, the relations of production sustained by private property become a brake upon the unobstructed advance of the productive forces; a conflict arises between the two, resolved by means of a social revolution that overthrows the reactionary ruling class and institutes new relations of production. The suppression of capitalist property and the establishment of socialist social property eliminate the antagonistic contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of production, and an unlimited horizon is opened to their development.

MODE OF PRODUCTION^[3]

The way of obtaining the material goods necessary to man for productive and personal consumption. The mode of production constitutes the unity of the productive forces and the relations of production. A change in the mode of production gives rise to changes in the social order, and serves as the basis for the development of the productive forces and of the relations of production, of the whole of social production. Thanks to the knowledge they acquire, to experience and to habits of labor, men produce material goods and develop the productive forces, which show the degree to which man masters nature. The level of development attained by the productive forces determines the character of the relations of production. The relations of production, or economic relations —that is, those established among men in the process of producing material goods— in their turn actively influence the productive forces, facilitating or obstructing their development. If the relations of production correspond to the level of development of the productive forces, as occurs, for example, under socialism, the latter develop without obstacles. When, on the contrary, the relations of production cease to correspond to the level of the productive forces, as is the case in contemporary capitalism, they hold back the progress of those forces, become a fetter, and it becomes necessary to replace the outworn mode of production with a new one corresponding to the higher level of the productive forces. This replacement of one mode of production by another is effected by revolutionary means. The economic foundation of social revolutions is laid bare thanks to a general economic law: the law of the correspondence between the relations of production and the character of the productive forces, discovered by Marx. Within the system of the material conditions of the life of society, the decisive role belongs to the mode of production of material goods. As the mode of production is, so in essentials will society itself be — its ideas, its theories, its conceptions and its political institutions. The replacement of an old mode of production by a new one is the inevitable result of the sharpening of the contradictions between the developing productive forces and the lagging relations of production. Such contradictions, where private property over the means of production prevails, possess an antagonistic character and manifest themselves in the class struggle. In this struggle victory is attained by the part of society bound to the more advanced and progressive mode of production. Under socialism, the contradictions in the development of the mode of production do not present an antagonistic character, and society overcomes them by consciously perfecting the relations of production, adjusting them to the level of the productive forces. From the mode of production one must distinguish the economic base of society, which is the totality of the relations of production dominant in this or that human society. The unity of the mode of production and of the ideological and political superstructure corresponding to the base of a given society constitutes an economic-social formation.

ECONOMIC-SOCIAL FORMATION^[4]

Human society at a determinate phase of its historical development, characterized by the mode of production and by the political and juridical superstructure, and by the forms of social consciousness — all of them determined by that mode of production. The concept of economic-social formation is owed to Marxism and constitutes the cornerstone of the materialist conception of history; it provides the key for explaining the course and development of the social relations among men in the process of the production, distribution and consumption of material goods. In the history of humanity five economic-social formations are known, which have succeeded one another consecutively: the primitive-communal, the slave, the feudal, the capitalist and the communist. Each economic-social formation possesses its own economic laws governing its appearance and development. At the same time, general laws operate in each formation, linking all the formations into the single process of the world history of humanity. The mode of production of material goods, the base of each concrete economic-social formation, constitutes the unity of the productive forces and the relations of production. The development of a given economic-social formation is expressed in the passage from one of its stages or phases to another and higher one (for example, from pre-monopoly capitalism to imperialism, from socialism to communism). At a determinate stage, as a consequence of the conflict between the productive forces and the relations of production, it becomes necessary to change the old mode of production for a new and more progressive one, whose establishment brings about the transformation of all the other aspects of the life of society as well. In the antagonistic economic-social formations that preceded socialism, the new mode of production was established as a result of the class struggle and of the social revolution carried out under the leadership of the advanced class. Capitalism is the last economic-social formation based on the exploitation of man by man. The socialist revolution and the construction of socialism imprint a radical change on the character of the development of society. The communist mode of production is free of antagonistic contradictions, and those that arise in its unfolding between the productive forces and the relations of production are resolved by perfecting the latter. In Soviet society, socialism —the first phase of the communist economic-social formation— has triumphed fully and definitively. The material and technical base of communism is being created, the relations of production are being perfected, and the cultural and technical level of the workers is being raised.

SOCIALLY NECESSARY LABOR TIME^[5]

The time required to produce a commodity under socially normal conditions of production. In a commodity economy based on private property, the magnitude of the socially necessary labor time for producing a product is established spontaneously in the course of competition among commodity producers. Socially necessary labor time determines the magnitude of the value of the commodity. Capitalists in whose enterprises individual labor time is less than the socially necessary time receive, in addition to the customary profit, an extraordinary surplus value. Manufacturers who produce a commodity on the basis of an individual labor time greater than the socially necessary one suffer losses and are compelled to improve the technique of production and to raise the productivity of labor. Otherwise they are ruined. It turns out, then, that under capitalism the contradiction between individual labor time and socially necessary labor time presents an irreconcilable, antagonistic character.”

THE LAW OF VALUE

The economic law of commodity production, the law of the equivalent exchange of commodities, whereby the production and exchange of commodities are carried out in accordance with the socially necessary labor invested in them. In a commodity economy based on private property, the law of value spontaneously regulates the distribution of the means of production and of labor among the different branches of the national economy. Under the regime of simple capitalist commodity production, that law operates under the sway of competitive struggle and the anarchy of production, through the mechanism of the deviation of prices from value. The law of value, “in the fortuitous and ceaselessly fluctuating proportions of exchange of their products, imposes itself always as a regulating natural law, in the way the law of gravity imposes itself when a house collapses upon one’s head” (K. Marx). The spontaneous fluctuations of prices around value oblige commodity producers to increase or reduce the production of this or that commodity, to move toward the branches in which the prices of commodities, under the influence of growing demand, are above value, and to abandon the branches in which the prices of commodities, as a consequence of falling demand, are below it. The spontaneous action of the law of value conditions the development of the productive forces and the perfecting of production. Whoever produces commodities whose individual value exceeds their social value fails, on selling them, to cover his costs and is ruined. Whoever applies new techniques and invests less labor in producing the commodity, compared with socially necessary costs, grows rich. This spurs other commodity producers to raise the yield of labor by means of new technical procedures, better organization of production and reduction of costs. In this way the law of value operates by accentuating economic inequality and competitive struggle among commodity producers, and leads to their differentiation into strata. Most of them are ruined and go to swell the ranks of the wage workers; a minority grow rich, increase the volume of production and become capitalists. Through the action of the law of value, the simple commodity economy is transformed into a capitalist commodity economy. In developed capitalist commodity production, the law of value manifests itself under the form of the average (general) rate of profit (see), of the price of production. Under imperialism, the action of the law of value becomes more complex and its destructive force intensifies as a consequence of the domination of the monopolies, of the appearance of monopoly price and of high monopoly profit. Inasmuch as commodity production exists in socialist society, the law of value operates there too.” (Borisov & Zhamin, 2009, pp. 142-143).

SIMPLE COMMODITY PRODUCTION^[6]

Production based on private property over the means of production and on the personal labor of the producers, who make articles destined for sale on the market. The most typical representatives of simple commodity production are small peasants and artisans who do not exploit the labor of others. This type of production constitutes an economic regime that has existed in various economic-social formations. By its nature, simple commodity production possesses a twofold character. Inasmuch as it is based on private property over the means of production, the small peasant or the artisan is a proprietor, and this brings him close to the capitalist. On the other hand, simple commodity production has its root in personal labor: the producer is a worker, and this brings him close to the proletariat. Simple commodity production and capitalist production differ from one another in the source from which private property over the means of production springs. In the first case, that property is based on the personal labor of the producer; in the second, it is based on the exploitation of wage workers. In a simple commodity economy only the products of human labor are commodities, whereas in the capitalist economy man’s own labor power becomes a commodity. Simple commodity production develops under the action of the law of value, a law which, through the fluctuation of commodity prices and competition in the market, spontaneously regulates the distribution of the means of production and of labor power among the different branches of production. In simple commodity production, the action of this law leads to the spontaneous development of the productive forces. The magnitude of the value of the commodity is determined by socially necessary labor. Producers who use a higher technique and organize production better produce their commodities at less than socially necessary cost. The sale of commodities, however, is effected at prices corresponding to socially necessary labor. This means that the producer obtains a surplus of money and grows rich, which induces the other producers to introduce more perfected methods of production. Simple commodity production is unstable. The spontaneous action of the law of value, the fluctuations of prices and competition cause the simple commodity economy to decompose and the producers to differentiate: some (the minority) grow rich, others (the majority) are ruined. Under determinate historical conditions —specifically, where private property over the means of production exists and labor power becomes a commodity— the process of the differentiation of the producers gives rise to the bourgeoisie and to the proletariat, engenders capitalism, and constitutes the initial basis for the birth of the capitalist mode of production. But this does not imply the absolute disappearance of simple commodity production.

THE FEUDAL MODE OF PRODUCTION^[7]

The mode of production of material goods based on feudal property over the land and on partial property over the workers —serf peasants— as well as on the exploitation of the latter by the feudal lords. Feudalism arose as a result of the decomposition of the slave regime and, in some countries, of the primitive-communal regime. In characterizing the feudal mode of production, Lenin highlights the following fundamental features: 1) the predominance of natural economy; 2) the granting of means of production and of land to the direct producer, and in particular the binding of the peasant to the land; 3) the personal dependence of the peasant on the landowner (extra-economic coercion); 4) the extraordinarily low and routine state of technique. Under the conditions of the feudal mode of production, the ruling class is that of the landowners in the person of the nobility and the clergy. Property over the land was the basis for obtaining unremunerated labor or products. The additional unremunerated labor of the direct producer (the serf peasant), or the product obtained by means of that labor and appropriated by the owners of the land through extra-economic coercion, is called feudal ground rent (see). Artisanal production and trade were concentrated in the towns and were organized in the form of craft guilds and merchant corporations. Under the feudal regime there existed two principal classes: the feudal lords and the peasants. A great role fell to the Church, which was a great feudal landowner and exercised an appreciable influence over the whole social order of feudalism. Throughout the entire feudal epoch there existed a class struggle between exploiters and exploited. This struggle was reflected, in particular, in the peasant risings: that of Wat Tyler in England (1381), the Jacquerie in France (1358), the peasant war in Germany (1524-1525), the wars led by I. Bolotnikov (1606-1607), S. Razin (1670-1671) and E. Pugachov (1773-1775) in Russia, and others. The development of the productive forces within the womb of feudalism constituted the material basis for the formation of capitalist relations and their consolidation. The process of the primitive accumulation of capital accelerated the preparation of the material conditions for the victory of capitalist relations of production. The feudal mode of production was suppressed as a result of the bourgeois revolutions, which dealt it a shattering blow. In Russia, the reform of 1861 abolished serfdom but did not eliminate important remnants of feudalism. The existence of feudal survivals in the shape of great landed property, the system of personal service, and so on, is today singularly characteristic of several countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

THE PRIMITIVE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL^[8]

The historical process that preceded the formation of large-scale capitalist production and separated the producer from the means of production. The primitive accumulation of capital is accompanied: 1) by the mass ruin of commodity producers (above all peasants) and their transformation into dispossessed individuals, juridically free, lacking means of subsistence and therefore obliged to sell their labor power to the capitalists; 2) by the accumulation of monetary wealth in the hands of particular persons, wealth necessary for setting up capitalist enterprises. “The process, therefore, that engenders capitalism can be only one: the process of the dissociation of the worker from property in the conditions of his labor, a process which on the one hand converts the social means of life and of production into capital, while on the other hand it converts the direct producers into wage workers. So-called primitive accumulation is thus nothing but the historical process of the dissociation of the producer from the means of production.” (K. Marx). In England, the process of the primitive accumulation of capital involved the violent expropriation of the peasants, whose lands were seized by the great proprietors, who turned them into sheep pastures. The peasants dispossessed of their lands were reduced to the condition of persons without property and, in the last instance, found themselves obliged to submit to capitalist slavery. The feudal government of England enacted inhuman laws against the helpless persons who, without means of subsistence, wandered throughout the country; it drove them toward capitalist enterprises and bent them to the barrack-room discipline of capitalist labor. The plunder of the colonies, state loans, the tax system and protectionist policy contributed in no small measure to the gathering of great capitals in the hands of particular persons, above all merchants. The State promulgated draconian laws against the expropriated, limited workers’ wages and established a prolonged working day. The process of the primitive accumulation of capital did not occur simultaneously in the various countries, and in each of them it presents specific features. In England, Holland and France it took place in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; in the economically backward countries it occurred even in the nineteenth century. In Russia the process extends across the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries and culminates in the peasant reform of 1861, which ruined the peasants en masse, left them landless and turned a great number of them into proletarians. But everywhere the primitive accumulation of capital involved the violent expropriation, by cruel methods, of the direct producers.

FEUDALISM, PART I^[9]

An economic-social formation, the second form of class-divided society, preceded by the slave regime and followed by capitalism, the last social formation based on the exploitation of man by man. The classics of Marxism-Leninism sometimes employ the term “serfdom” as a synonym for “feudalism”.

Compared with the productive forces of capitalism, those of feudal society appear little developed and stagnant; but in relation to those of antiquity they constitute a great step forward (the perfecting of the smelting and working of iron, the generalized use of the plow and of other iron implements, as well as of the water-driven mill). At a determinate degree of the development of feudal society, the division of labor between agriculture and the crafts is sharply accentuated, while the artisanal production of the town grows with its differentiated manual technique. Finally, at the higher degree of feudalism, manufacture arises. Before the appearance of manufacture, the feudal relations of production corresponded to the character of the productive forces, whose development they favored. The feudal relations of production could play that role above all thanks to the partial liberation of the immediate producer. Since the serf could not be killed —although he could be bought and sold— and since he possessed a holding and a family, he showed himself somewhat interested in his labor and gave evidence of a certain initiative necessary to the new productive forms. The feudal relations of production have agricultural production as their foundation, while the workers are the dispossessed. What also characterizes the feudal form of property over the means of production is that the feudal lord is the partial proprietor of the worker (economic coercion), while the workers (peasants and artisans) are proprietors of a part of the means of production, as a result of their personal labor. The relations between lords and peasants —the fundamental classes of feudal society— and their role in production derive from the feudal form of property. Under one form or another, the lords grant lands to the peasants and oblige them to work for them, appropriating a part of their labor or of their products (feudal rent or tribute). Peasants and artisans belong, in a broad sense of the word, to one and the same class of feudal society, and their relations are not antagonistic. Under feudalism, the classes and social groups constitute estates. The form of distribution of the products depends entirely on the situation of the social groups in production and on their relations. The beginnings of feudalism are characterized by the absolute predominance of natural economy. With the development of the crafts, commodity production acquires an ever greater importance both in the town and in the countryside. Although feudal commodity production prepared certain conditions for capitalist production, it must not be confused with capitalist commodity production.

The principal system of exploitation under feudalism is feudal rent, which increases as one passes from one form to the next: the corvée (unpaid labor on the lord’s land), tribute in kind and tribute in money. The corvée system proper to feudalism in the countries of Eastern Europe does not constitute a simple return to the first form, but carries within it the germs of the third: production for the market. With the appearance of manufacture (sixteenth century), there begins to manifest itself within the womb of feudal society the ever deeper contradiction between the new character of the productive forces and the feudal relations of production, which become a brake on the development of those forces. What is called primitive accumulation prepares the advent of the class of wage workers and of the class of capitalists.

Owing to the antagonistic character of its economy, the whole life of feudal society is shaken by the class struggle. Above the feudal base there rises the superstructure that corresponds to it: the State, the Church, ideology — a superstructure that zealously serves the ruling class and helps it to repress the workers’ struggle against feudal exploitation. As a rule, the feudal State passes through a series of stages: from political fragmentation (the fief is a “little State”) to absolute monarchy, by way of feudal monarchy. The predominant ideological form under feudalism is religion.

The class struggle, as it sharpens, offers the young bourgeoisie the possibility of placing itself at the head of the insurrection of the peasants and of the plebeian elements of the towns, of seizing power and destroying the feudal social relations of production. The bourgeois revolutions of the seventeenth century in England and of the eighteenth century in France secured the domination of the bourgeois class (which was at that time an advanced class) and brought the relations of production into conformity with the character of the productive forces.

At present the imperialist bourgeoisie sustains and reinforces the vestiges of feudalism, numerous in many capitalist countries. In the countries of people’s democracy (see), those survivals were liquidated by means of democratic agrarian reforms. The peoples of the colonial and dependent countries fight at once against feudalism and imperialism: every blow dealt to feudalism is a blow dealt to imperialism.

FEUDALISM, PART II^[10]

An economic-social formation established as a result of the decomposition and collapse of the slave regime or of the primitive-communal regime; it has existed in almost all countries. The principal classes of feudal society are those constituted by the feudal lords and by the peasants. The ruling and exploiting class of the lords embraced the nobility and the high clergy. Within the ruling class there existed a hierarchical division into estates, a subordination of the lesser feudal lords to those of greater power. The Church was a great feudal power. The exploited peasants lacked political and juridical rights. In the towns, the main mass of the population consisted of masters, journeymen, apprentices and unskilled workers. The basis of the relations of production dominant under feudalism was the feudal lord’s property over the means of production, in the first place over the land, and his incomplete property over the worker, which was expressed in various types of personal dependence of the peasant upon his lord. Under feudalism the productive forces could develop only on the basis of the labor of dependent peasants, who possessed their own holding and insignificant instruments of labor and felt themselves somewhat materially interested in their work. The feudal mode of production was characterized by the succession of three types of ground rent: unpaid labor on the lord’s land (corvée), rent in kind and rent in money. Ground rent constituted the specific form of exploitation in feudal society, and very often rent was not only the product of the supplementary labor of the serf peasants but also a part of the product of their necessary labor. The feudal regime is characterized by natural economy and by the low and routine level of technique. The superstructure of feudal society is distinguished by several features: the feudal State commonly appeared under the aspect of an estate or absolute monarchy; in the spiritual life of society, religious ideology prevailed. Social thought, in its fundamental lines, developed under a religious form. The whole history of feudal society is saturated with the class struggle. The peasant risings, although in most cases carried out under a religious banner, shook the feudal regime and hastened its collapse. Feudalism was succeeded by capitalism.

FEUDALISM AS THE CENTRAL AXIS OF THE MIDDLE AGES^[11]

Feudalism was the prevailing regime until the twelfth century, when the first towns of the epoch appeared.

Feudalism was the political system prevailing in Western Europe in the Middle Ages. It rests on the decentralization of power: at the summit of power stood the emperor or the king, and at the base the peasants, who were subordinated to the nobles, who occupied the intermediate position in society and exercised power with autonomy and independence.

After an age of continual wars and in a climate of insecurity and instability, the free man had no option left but to subordinate himself to the noble who dominated the lands on which he lived, and thus to establish a relation of vassalage. The vassal received a small portion of land to cultivate and support himself, and had to pay rents to the lord who possessed those lands. The lord, in exchange, offered him military protection. This reciprocal relation was of great advantage to the lord who, besides placing himself above the vassal, also exercised a socially accepted coercion.

The life of the peasants in the Middle Ages was very hard. The population lived by agriculture, and more than 90% of it was cereal cultivation. It was a very unadvanced agriculture, aimed at the most immediate provisioning: the nobility owned the land and was very averse to novelties, so that new agricultural techniques and the cultivation of new foodstuffs took a long time to come about, around the end of the eleventh century. Triennial rotation was introduced: the surface to be cultivated was divided into three and the crops were rotated. One year wheat, the next another cereal, and in the third the plot was left to rest. By alternating crops the land was not overworked and produced more and better harvests. 

The serfs worked to maintain the clergy and the nobility, since in feudal society theirs was the lowest estate. Although they were the overwhelming majority of the population in the Middle Ages, it fell to them to maintain the other estates —clergy and nobility— since these were socially considered superior. Not until there was an improvement in agriculture throughout Europe could the situation change: in the twelfth century the villages multiplied, the population grew and so did production. The first great concentrations of population arose: the origin of the towns.

Most of the Roman towns became centers of ecclesiastical administration and lay within the territorial lordship of the feudal lord. They had very little population, but from the twelfth century onward a great change took place: a larger population came in the wake of the agricultural advance, which also brought economic development. The old Roman towns or former burgs were repopulated and the medieval town appeared. In the thirteenth century some cities such as Paris and Florence reached 100,000 inhabitants.

AGRICULTURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES^[12]

In the Middle Ages agriculture underwent many changes. The nobles and the clergy were considered the most important members of feudal society. They were never the majority, however: in the Middle Ages, almost everyone was a peasant.

Not all peasants had the same rank and social condition. Many of them were free men. Among these, some were small proprietors who lived off their own lands, while others, the coloni, rented from the feudal lord a small plot of land called a mansus.

Other peasants, by contrast, were regarded as little short of slaves: the serfs. The serfs were the only ones who worked to maintain the clergy and the nobility and who paid taxes.

Thanks to an improvement in the climate and to a series of technological advances, agriculture prospered toward the end of the eleventh century. The population then grew and the villages multiplied.

An agrarian economy

From the beginning of the Middle Ages, commercial and urban life had stagnated considerably. For that reason the land became almost the only source of wealth: more than 90 per cent of the feudal population lived above all by the cultivation of cereals. Agriculture, however, was very little developed, since the nobility, which owned the land, was averse to novelties and spent its money on weapons and luxury objects instead of devoting it to the introduction of new agricultural techniques or to the improvement of those that already existed. This situation began to change at the end of the eleventh century.

The serfs

Many peasants in the Middle Ages were serfs. The serfs were descended, for the most part, from the former slaves.

Serfdom was hereditary: a serf belonged by birth to the patrimony of his lord and could never leave his fief. They were treated as a thing, and their master disposed of their body, their labor and their goods.

For this reason the lord who had serfs could sell them or give them away and, if he considered it necessary, punish them. These punishments were cruel: they were whipped, branded with hot iron or had their ears cut off, among other torments.

Some serfs performed domestic work: the ministerial serfs. These were generally maintained in their master’s dwelling or on one of his farms.

Other serfs, by contrast, cultivated the lord’s lands: the serfs of the glebe. These lands were called servile mansi. The serfs of the glebe had their own house, subsisted on the product of their own labor and, when necessary, could sell whatever was left over from their harvest. Their maintenance therefore did not depend directly on their master.

The free peasants

Free men, or Franks, were classified into coloni and villeins. The coloni rented a plot of land from the lord: the free mansi. These mansi were inherited from generation to generation by means of a contract.

The villeins, by contrast, were small proprietors who lived in villages off the fruit of their own lands, outside the reach of any lord. The lands they worked were called allods. In many places in Europe —for example, in Italy and in some parts of France— the villeins were the majority.

Obligations of the serfs

The feudal lords had the obligation to defend the persons who lived off their lands and to give them refuge in times of war.

In exchange they received from them an annual rent in money, in agricultural products or in animals, the cens; a contribution if they married; and part of their inheritance. Among these obligations the following were also included:

– To work for a determinate number of days on the lord’s own lands: the corvée.

– To pay a due called a banality for the use of the castle’s monopolies: the mill, the wine press, the oven and the bridges, among other things.

– To contribute an unspecified sum of money whenever the lord required it: the taille.

Taxes

The taille

Of all the obligations contracted with the feudal lord, the most hated was the taille. The taille began as a duty of every subordinate to aid his lord. At first it was an exceptional gift to which the lord had recourse only in an emergency. In time, the taille came to be demanded by the feudal lords with ever greater frequency. The problem with this tax was that the sum of money to be handed over was not fixed by any law. This made the taille a wholly unjust burden, dependent on the lord’s will. For that reason many members of the Church opposed it, and the taille was the cause of bloody peasant revolts.

The banalities and the ban

The authority of the feudal lord was reinforced by his possession of the power, or ban, that had earlier belonged to the king. Thanks to the ban, the lord’s power within his domains was almost total. Among the burdens imposed on the peasants, the most characteristic were those that derived from this power: the banalities.

The banalities were monopolies that the feudal lords arrogated to themselves to the detriment of the cultivators. Sometimes they reserved to themselves the sale of wine or of beer; at others they assumed the exclusive right to provide the bull needed for the reproduction of the herds. More frequently, they obliged the peasants to grind their grain in the lord’s mill, to bake their bread in his oven and to press their grapes in his press.

Living conditions

The living conditions of the peasants were very diverse. During feudalism, the proportion of serfs to free men varied greatly according to the century and the region. Moreover, within these two categories there were many differences, both in the laws that governed them and in the degree of prosperity.

Despite these differences, the majority of peasants lived in a situation of poverty, exploitation and dependence. The longing of many serfs to obtain their freedom, and the repeated efforts of the free peasantry to obtain some benefit, were the cause of frequent revolts.

A very simple life

The life of the peasants was very rustic. Almost everything they needed they made themselves: their houses, their clothes, their utensils and their furniture, among other things.

A peasant family’s hut generally consisted of a single room with a table, a few benches and some straw mattresses. The windows were closed with boards or cloth, since glass was scarce and expensive. Animals also slept in the huts, separated from the people by a wooden partition.

The peasant family

The extended peasant family to which a peasant belonged was made up of his relatives in the male and female line and their spouses. All of them were bound together by their relations with the head of the group: the father (or, failing him, the mother) of the oldest branch of the family. This kinship group was often recognized as holding a peasant tenancy, which could not be rescinded so long as the group existed. Such a family, sharing the same “cauldron, fire and bed”, working the same undivided fields, and rooted in the identical stretch of land for generations, constituted a social unit of great cohesion.

Man and disease

Hunger was the great enemy of the medieval peasants. This was due, on the one hand, to the fact that a large part of their harvest fell into the hands of the feudal lord and, on the other, to the fact that the harvests were not abundant and that there was no capacity to store them.

For this reason the peasants were usually very poorly fed: the peasant diet was based on bread, pulses, wine and beer. Meat was reserved for the great feasts alone, and fish was eaten very rarely.

Owing to poor nutrition, the peasants were easy prey to epidemics such as smallpox and measles. Since in that age there were not many physicians or medicines, the sick died readily and people died very young.

Leisure and festivals

The only moments when the peasants forgot their hardships were the times of festival. The principal festivals were religious, and among them Christmas and Easter stood out, dates on which beautiful processions were held.

The carnivals were also very important. On those dates people put on costumes, sang and danced. Festivals were also held to celebrate the harvest and the slaughter of livestock.

Sometimes travelling performers arrived in the village who recited poems and put on games, juggling and animal acts.

Agricultural expansion

Toward the end of the eleventh century, agricultural production began to rise. This phenomenon was due in large part to a warming of the climate and to a lower humidity that favored agricultural activity.

In addition, a series of important technological advances in the work of the fields took place, which contributed to an increase in yields. In the thirteenth century, the process of agricultural expansion reached its high point.

New techniques

The technical advances sought to increase the harvests in regions that lacked virgin land. There were three principal innovations made in that epoch:

• The use of the wheeled plow in place of the Roman plow, which had no wheels. The fundamental difference between the two instruments lay in the share, which allowed the wheeled plow not only to open furrows but also to turn the earth over. This operation was made easier by the use of the moldboard, which aerated the ground better.
• The substitution of the horse for the ox in plowing the fields. Although the horse was more expensive and sometimes incapable of working on difficult terrain such as mountainous regions, this animal plowed more quickly and aired the soil better.
• The introduction of triennial rotation, which consisted in alternating different crops in each of the three plots into which a field of cultivation was divided: in the first year wheat was sown; in the second year, another cereal or a legume; and in the third year the field was left to rest.

By alternating the crops, the soils were not exhausted. This system replaced biennial rotation, which consisted in interposing the rest of a field between two years of harvest.

Smithies and tools

A very special innovation at the end of the eleventh century was the spread of smithies in the villages: this allowed the villagers to forge their own implements without depending on the feudal lord’s workshops. Its repercussion on agricultural technique was nevertheless very limited. Iron implements remained very expensive. Only the richest could therefore acquire them and, in general, work continued to be done with wooden tools. Behind the plow, for example, men broke up the clods with wooden mallets.

More people and new lands

With the increase in agricultural production, nutrition improved and famines and diseases diminished. The population then grew.

The growth of the population made it necessary to seek new agricultural lands. The great movements of land clearance then began. Many trees were felled and, in this way, wooded territories were put to agricultural use.

Land was also gained by draining marshes or areas near the sea and by building networks of drainage canals, whose maintenance required constant attention. The clearances changed the landscapes of Western Europe.

As a consequence of the development of agriculture, there were also surpluses in the countryside. In this way, trade was revitalized.

Likewise, the clearances brought about the founding of new villages, to which peasants came from distant lands.

Cultivating new ground

When the population grew, it became necessary to cultivate new ground. From the eleventh to the thirteenth century, the conquest of new lands was one of the most important phenomena in European history. Fire, felling and the plow pushed the forests back until they were sometimes reduced to scattered patches that had to be defended against the cultivators, since there was a risk of running out of timber. Land was also won from the marshes and coastal areas. Many of these conquests were the work of isolated peasants. To these peasant undertakings were added the clearances directed by the feudal lords, both lay and religious, who settled woodcutters and clearers within their domains.

URBAN LIFE IN THE MIDDLE AGES^[13]

Urban life in the Middle Ages in Europe was practically non-existent. Most of the Roman towns were reduced to mere centers of ecclesiastical administration and became part of the territorial lordship of a feudal lord, lay or religious. Very few people lived in them.

From the twelfth century onward, however, this situation changed. As a consequence of demographic growth, of economic development and of the merchants’ need to settle in a fixed place, the towns recovered their importance.

The old Roman towns or former burgs were then repopulated, and beside them new burgs appeared: out of the fusion between the old and the new burgs the medieval town was born. The inhabitants of the medieval towns were called burghers.

This great urban development reached its highest splendor in the thirteenth century, when some cities —Paris, Milan, Venice and Florence, for example— reached 100,000 inhabitants.

The birth of the towns: urban life in the Middle Ages

The different stimuli

“Towns born of the commercial awakening, but also of the agricultural progress of the West, which was beginning to feed the urban centers better in victuals and in men. There is no other recourse than to attribute the birth and progress of the medieval towns to a complex set of stimuli and, in particular, to diverse social groups (…) The most heavily urbanized regions of the medieval West (…) are regions upon which great commercial routes converge: northern Italy (…); northern Germany and Flanders (…). But those regions are at the same time the ones that possess the richest plains, the ones that enjoy the surest advances of triennial rotation, the ones that make the most extensive use of the plow and the draft horse.”

J. Le Goff, La civilización del Occidente medieval

The urban population

Medieval towns were for the most part small: few exceeded 10,000 inhabitants and not many had more than 5,000. In the smaller towns the agricultural production of the surrounding area was concentrated and then distributed. The larger towns covered a greater territory: they served several small ones, or a whole country. Thus, for example, London, with 40,000 inhabitants by the thirteenth century, was the principal point of confluence for English products and the distributor of the imports that arrived in England from other countries.

The medieval town

With the commercial revival, the towns became a center of attraction for many people of different social and economic condition.

An attractive place

The medieval towns attracted an enormous number of merchants who settled in them and who, in time, came to dominate them. Most of the towns were situated near a river, the sea or an important road. This fact turned them into commercial centers.

The towns also became centers of attraction for peasants seeking better opportunities. Some serfs arrived in them fleeing from the feudal lords. Free peasants came drawn by the growing artisanal and commercial activity.

These peasants thereby became artisans. They came to be the labor force of an industry intended, on the one hand, to satisfy the needs of an ever larger urban population and, on the other, to generate articles that could be traded abroad.

Finally, in some cases —for example, in many towns of southern France and in most Italian cities— the feudal lords abandoned their castles to reside in the towns, likewise devoting themselves to trade.

The towns then became centers of consumption, of artisanal production and, at the same time, of redistribution.

A distinctive appearance

Although each medieval town had features of its own, most of them shared certain characteristics.

They were walled enclosures, which secured their peace. Since the old burgs also had walls, it was very common for towns to have two walls: the old and the new. Their gates were closed at night and opened again in the morning.

Inside, the houses almost always had three floors: the first, built of stone, served as workshop and shop; the second and third, by contrast, were used as dwelling and were of wood. The use of this material in dwellings caused frequent fires in the towns.

Among the urban buildings, the churches, the episcopal palace and, later, the communal palace stood out, the last being the administrative seat of the town. In the center of the town, or near one of its gates, there was usually the market square, where commercial activity took place.

The streets were narrow and therefore dark. There were no sewerage systems, so that towns tended to smell foul. People drew their water from wells and canals.

With the passage of time the towns lost their walls, the quarters specialized according to the trade of their inhabitants, and they began to grow in a disorderly way.

Industry and merchants

The revival of the crafts

The attraction that the medieval towns exercised over the peasants released from the countryside, from the twelfth century onward, a certain quantity of labor power that worked in urban industry. In the Middle Ages industry had no great machinery and its production was limited — that is, it was of an artisanal kind. The workers were therefore called artisans. The medieval artisans of the twelfth century returned to the old forgotten techniques and learned at the same time from the artisans of Islam and of Byzantium. Unlike Western Europe, these regions had a highly developed industry throughout the whole of the Middle Ages.

A migratory phenomenon

“The principal role of the town in the Late Middle Ages consisted in the attraction it exercised on the outside world. The force of this attraction varied in direct proportion to the importance of the town. The horizon of the great cities was international, that of the small ones simply regional. But it is important to note that the zone of attraction of the great majority of medieval towns was limited to the surrounding territory (…) C. E. Perrin, studying the town of Metz in the thirteenth century, calculates that most of the immigrants who arrived there came from distances of less than 40 km; P. Wolff observed a similar phenomenon in Toulouse.”

J. Le Goff, La civilización del Occidente medieval

The merchants in the towns

The economic power of the merchants was closely bound to the development of the towns, which were their centers of business. In the thirteenth century, the towns were dominated by them.

The great merchants, whom the nobles sometimes joined, occupied the posts of government and constituted an urban patriciate, which controlled municipal life and met no violent opposition until the crisis of the fourteenth century.

This patriciate also monopolized the economic direction of the towns.

Burghers and bourgeoisie

The leading role in the development of the towns fell to their inhabitants: the burghers. Under this name there came to be designated all those persons whose wealth was based on money and not on land.

Growing rich through money and not devoting themselves to rural activities distinguished the burghers from the peasants and from the feudal nobility. They therefore formed a new social class: the bourgeoisie.

The appearance of the bourgeoisie broke the rigid scheme of the feudal society of estates. Most of the burghers belonged to none of the estates. They were merchants and artisans specialized in various trades: bakers, blacksmiths and carpenters, among other occupations.

Urban and bourgeois liberties

Some towns took in the feudal lords. In those cases the nobility invested its wealth in trade, devoted itself personally to business and monopolized the political offices of the town. In this way the nobility became bourgeoisified.

In other towns, by contrast, the plebeian merchants seized power and, in doing so, sought to free themselves from the control that the nobility exercised over them. Their towns lay on the lands of some feudal lord. To resolve this problem, some merchants chose to ally themselves with the nobles by marrying them or by buying their titles of nobility. In those cases it was the burghers who became ennobled.

Generally, however, the burghers freed themselves from feudal domination by undertaking risings and hiring mercenaries who forced the nobility to renounce its rights.

In other cases they had recourse to the support of the kings, who had an interest in subduing the nobility.

In exchange for financial support, the towns received from the monarchs charters of liberties that placed them directly under royal authority —removing them from the control of the lords—, authorized them to administer justice themselves and granted personal freedom to their inhabitants.

They also obtained from the monarchs the right to govern themselves, which made possible the formation of communal governments that received various names: town council, lordship or commune. The privileges granted to the towns weakened the feudal schemes.

The Church did not look kindly on the rapid rise of the bourgeoisie. Their occupations, directed toward accumulating easy money, were considered by the clergy to be symptoms of avarice. They therefore came to form part of a list of dishonorable trades. On the other hand, the interest that some merchants charged on their loans was branded usury.

With time, however, the Church became more tolerant of the burghers, who were very religious, and agreed that they were necessary to society.

The crisis of the feudal order

With trade and the slow change from a rural to an urban society, social relations were transformed and the feudal system entered into crisis. As the economy became every day more oriented toward money, land began to lose the value it had held within the feudal regime. A new notion of wealth then arose: commercial wealth, which consisted of money or of marketable products assessable in money.

Since the feudal class was very conservative, most of it remained on the margins of this economic development. On the other hand, the liberties granted to the towns also eroded the feudal system.

Life in the town

Medieval towns were very active. Contrary to what happened in the countryside, the division of tasks characterized urban economic life, and cultural life recovered its importance.

Work and the guilds

The inhabitants of the town specialized in a trade and bought in the market what they did not produce. The artisans of a single trade and the merchants grouped themselves into guilds.

The guilds fixed the procedures of manufacture, the rules of work, the hours of labor and the wages. They also guaranteed skill in the trade: the rank of journeyman was reached after an apprenticeship of ten years at the very least in a master’s workshop.

In this way products were alike in quality and in price. No one could practice a trade unless he belonged to the corresponding guild. The guilds were very powerful and frequently clashed violently over control of the town.

Social differences

At first there was equality in the town: urban society contrasted with feudal hierarchy. In time the differences between rich and poor grew sharper and the concept of citizenship was born: to be a citizen and obtain the urban advantages one had to have the resources to pay a special tax to the commune and to own a house in the town.

Citizens were the most prosperous: those who devoted themselves to the textile industry, the most important in the Middle Ages, and the dealers in cloth and luxury objects. At the lowest level were the marginalized workers, who had no access to citizenship and were excluded from the guilds.

Cultural life

Since urban activities required new kinds of knowledge —keeping account books, writing letters or drawing up inventories, for example— the burghers founded the first lay schools. Intellectual activity thus ceased to be the exclusive preserve of the clergy.

The first universities were also founded, which introduced into the ancient system of teaching the study of law and of theology and other disciplines such as medicine.

A new spirituality

From the religious point of view, the contrast between rich and poor gave rise to a need for reform. In this way there arose in the thirteenth century the mendicant orders: Franciscans and Dominicans.

Both adopted a morality based on austerity and settled in the towns, engaging with their problems. Their principal occupations were preaching and teaching.

More work and new aspirations

The rules of work

“No one may be a weaver of wool unless he has first bought the trade from the King (…) each one may have in his dwelling two looms (…) and each son of a master weaver may have two in his father’s house so long as he is unmarried and if he knows how to work with his hands. Each master may have in his house one apprentice, no more (…) and no one shall begin work before sunrise, on pain of a fine of twelve deniers for the master and six for the journeyman. Journeymen must cease work as soon as the first stroke of vespers has sounded, but they must put their things in order after those vespers.”

E. Boileau

Saint Francis of Assisi

The members of the Franciscan order obeyed the preaching of Saint Francis, son of a rich Italian merchant of the town of Assisi, who in 1206 had abandoned his family, renouncing all his goods. Saint Francis, who led a life of poverty and begged for his daily sustenance, soon had many followers. For this reason, in 1210 Pope Innocent III approved his rule, which required living in accordance with the principle of evangelical poverty. In this way the Franciscan order was born, which devoted itself entirely to the spiritual conquest of men. In 1228, two years after his death, Francis of Assisi was canonized by Pope Gregory IX.

TRADE IN THE MIDDLE AGES^[14]

From the twelfth century onward, profound changes took place in Europe, in trade in the Middle Ages: the rural, closed economy proper to the feudal age was gradually transformed into an open, commercial economy.

Industry, markets and money then recovered their importance. This commercial revival, which reached its height in the thirteenth century, was due fundamentally to the following causes:

• The increase in agricultural production, since it generated a surplus of products that had to be sold outside their own area.
• Peace in Europe, which offered security on the roads and at sea after several centuries of conflict.
• Population growth, owing to the decline of wars and the improvement of nutritional conditions, which created the need to satisfy the requirements of ever more people.
• The Crusades, which opened new commercial routes by sea and by land and revitalized trade between East and West.

The population and its needs

Demographic growth

Despite the scarce sources we have for calculating the size of the population in the Middle Ages, it is known —from approximations based fundamentally on the extent of cultivation— that from the twelfth century onward there was a great demographic increase in Europe. Historians hold that by the year 1100 the European population was around 48 million inhabitants; by 1200 it had risen to 61 million and in 1300 it exceeded 73 million. This demographic increase, which demanded greater economic development, at the same time made a larger supply of labor available.

Three basic needs

The commercial and industrial activity of the Middle Ages was directed principally to satisfying the basic needs of the population: food, clothing and housing. The food industry was the one that developed most, despite the fact that most producers worked on a small scale and that almost all this trade in the Middle Ages was carried on over the short distance between countryside and town. There were always, however, certain foodstuffs that could be obtained only from more distant places, and some areas —Flanders and Norway, for example— were obliged to import even their essential foods from far away. Among the foodstuffs most traded were cereals, dairy products, salt and beer.

A new figure: the merchant

As trade in the Middle Ages grew stronger, there was formed in Europe a class of professional traders, or merchants, who by their profession relegated agrarian activity to a secondary role. These merchants created a mentality of their own, a very particular one.

Most of the merchants were of rural origin: people who had been forced to leave the countryside by population growth and the lack of land, and who opted for a wandering and hazardous way of life. Out of this mass of uprooted men and adventurers the first traders were formed.

The first traders covered only short distances to sell their products, since the roads were bad and bandits frequently attacked them. Moreover, every time they crossed a fief, the feudal lord obliged them to pay a toll or confiscated their goods.

These traders sold their products retail. Their wares were principally articles of prime necessity such as salt, beer, honey, wool and cereals.

At the end of the twelfth century, by contrast, the merchants became itinerant. They moved with their wares from place to place and sold their products at fairs held on established dates and in established places. They were therefore called dusty feet.

The dusty feet used pack animals —horses in particular— to transport their wares. Another vehicle much used by these first traders was the four-wheeled cart, drawn by horses or by oxen.

To compensate for the difficulties, the dangers and the cost of the journey, the dusty feet sold not only goods of prime necessity but also luxury products such as perfumes, spices and dyes, which left them a wide margin of profit. They also used the river and sea routes.

From the fourteenth century onward the merchants became sedentary, since the growing volume of their wares made it difficult to move them from fair to fair. They then began to settle in particular towns and to sell wholesale.

Local trade

The first kind of trade in the Middle Ages that acquired importance was local trade, that is, the trade carried on from the countryside to the town. Through this trade, free peasants and feudal lords sold their surpluses to the town: agrarian products, timber, leather and wool chiefly.

Then, with the earnings obtained from their sales, they bought in the towns more elaborate goods that they did not have in the countryside — cloth and tools, for example.

Local trade never disappeared. It was long-distance or international trade, however, that characterized the economic revival of the Middle Ages.

The merchants and the countryside

A new social class

From the beginning of the twelfth century, overpopulation, hunger and wars had cast adrift a considerable number of wandering individuals, deprived of everything, who came to swell the already existing multitude of beggars and pilgrims. Some of them then took up small businesses (…) They tried a new fortune that had nothing in common with the traditional activities. One may therefore suppose that these merchants created a mentality of their own, a very particular one. These people, who made a clean sweep of their former ties, threw themselves into adventure (…) seeking above all a rapid enrichment. The chroniclers of the age speak of upstarts, of men without faith and without law, without scruples, who by their customs and manners differ from other men.

J. Heers, Historia de la Edad Media

From the countryside to the town

Most medieval towns of the twelfth century were small centers where the inhabitants of the surrounding countryside offered a surplus of their production in exchange for objects made in the town —shoes, for example— or for articles that reached it from other regions. The towns gathered the surplus of their own area and passed it on to other regions and, at the same time, received part of the surplus of other regions and distributed it within their territory. To concentrate these movements of buying and selling, the towns organized fairs held once a week.

International trade and its centers

The revival of trade in the Middle Ages made itself felt throughout Europe, but there were two great focal points where it was concentrated: northern Italy and Flanders. Both were very populous areas devoted to the manufacture of textiles, metal objects and ceramics.

Italy

Italy benefited from international trade, since it stood at the center of an ancient Roman road network and in the middle of the Mediterranean. For this reason, and as a consequence of the Crusades, its cities controlled trade with the East. The ports that benefited most were Venice, Genoa and Pisa.

Across the Mediterranean, Italy sold to the East products of its own and articles brought from northern Europe. From the East, Italian traders carried spices, silks and perfumes to Europe.

Flanders

Another commercial area that enjoyed a strategic position was Flanders, which lay facing the North Sea and into which several European rivers flowed, such as the Rhine and the Meuse.

The region of Flanders belonged to an important commercial league, the Hanseatic League, which German merchants had organized with the cities of Hamburg, Lübeck, Rostock and Stettin at its head. This league monopolized the exports of northern Europe, from Novgorod in present-day Russia as far as London.

In this way the Hanseatic League consolidated an important traffic in wheat, timber and furs which, in Flanders, was gathered in the town of Bruges, its principal port of storage and redistribution.

Flanders exported the products of these regions to the rest of Europe in exchange for articles from central and southern Europe and objects from the East. It also exported its own textiles.

Routes and transport

For long-distance trade, medieval traders had three routes at their disposal: land, river and sea. Although land transport made it possible to reach inland areas without rivers, it was always the most expensive and the most arduous, since the roads were bad and unsafe and a great number of tolls had to be paid.

For safety, merchants preferred river transport. The most important river networks were those of the Po, the Rhône, the lattice of rivers of the Flanders area, the Rhine and the Danube. The river route, however, was also subject to tolls.

The cheapest means of transport was by sea, and it was therefore the preferred one, despite the risks of shipwreck and piracy, the small capacity of the vessels and the slowness of the voyage. Moreover, a single ship could carry the cargoes of several traders at once.

Commercial organizations in the trade of the Middle Ages

The Hanseatic League

In the northern seas, German merchants organized a network of trading houses that bought and sold products from England to Russia. This commercial network formed a corporation, the Hanseatic League, whose seat was at Lübeck. The league came to include 200 towns. Hanseatic vessels carried a great variety of articles: honey and furs from Russia, fish from Scandinavia and wool from England, among other products.

The fairs

Commercial activity established itself throughout Europe in the course of the thirteenth century. Within an atmosphere of economic plenty, the fairs attained great importance: great markets situated in the zones of contact between Mediterranean and Nordic trade, to which merchants came from all parts of Europe.

The fairs were not permanent markets, since they were held only at certain periods of the year. Each one lasted several days. To these commercial gatherings there also came puppeteers and minstrels, who added a festive character to the occasion.

Of all the fairs held in the Middle Ages, the ones that attained the greatest renown were the fairs of Champagne, which were set up on the French plain of that name, halfway between Venice and Bruges. The fairs of Champagne were therefore meeting places between Flemish and Italian traders.

Other instruments of trade in the Middle Ages

Parallel to the development of long-distance trade, a monetary development took place through which minting and monetary circulation increased.

The first coins that acquired an international value and that were therefore current in several countries were struck at the end of the twelfth century in Venice: the silver matapans. Afterwards France, Flanders and England also minted international silver coins.

The minting of gold, by contrast, was proper to the thirteenth century. From then on, most European countries adopted monetary bimetallism: the use of silver and gold coins.

To speed up commercial transactions the first banks were formed and bankers appeared, who specialized in recognizing the different coins, their weight and their equivalences.

In time, the bankers became lenders who charged interest on the loans they made, agreed to safeguard savings, opened account books and carried out monetary transfers for their clients.

Since travelling with large sums of money was as inconvenient as it was dangerous, most trade began to be carried on in the form of credit transactions.

Bills of exchange were also used: an agreement between a lender and his debtor in which the money lent could be returned some time later, in a place different from that of the loan and in a currency different from the one lent.

In this way an Italian merchant who wished to buy textiles in Flanders, for example, could ask for a bill of exchange in that region, buy what he needed and, some time later, pay for it in Italy. Bills of exchange were used not only by traders but also by other travellers, for the same purpose as modern traveller’s cheques.

Fairs and banks

The fairs of Champagne

Although fairs were held in every European country, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries all of them were eclipsed by the fairs of Champagne: six fairs held throughout the year — once in the village of Lagny, another at Bar-sur-Aube, twice at Provins and three times at Troyes. These fairs stood out above all the others because the counts of Champagne protected them, exempting from tolls the traders who attended. They also stood out for their geographical situation, which made them the principal meeting place of the merchants. In that age, therefore, the most important destination of any trader was the fairs of Champagne. The fairs declined in the fourteenth century, when the traders became sedentary.

The appearance of the banks

At first the merchants carried their money with them. In time, commercial operations became difficult on account of the diversity of currencies and values in existence. In order to effect exchanges of money and to speed up transactions, the first money-changers appeared, who placed a bench (banco) in front of their shop, on which they set out the different coins. Another instrument important to their activity was the scale: the weight of the coins made it possible to establish the quantity of precious metal they contained and thereby to fix their value. Very soon the money-changers received people’s savings and invested them in lucrative undertakings and in loans. In this way the banks were born.

REFERENCES

Notes

Compiled from the Diccionario de Economía Política of Borisov and Zhamin, the Diccionario Filosófico of Rosental and Iudin, and from Luján and Historia Universal.

Translated from the Spanish · Original version