Life in a Medieval City

by Frances Gies

  Life in a Medieval City

  Joseph and Frances Gies

  To

  Jane Sturman Gies

  and

  Frances Gibson Carney

  Nos ignoremus quid sit matura senectus,

  scire aevi meritum, non numerare decet.

  Contents

  Illustrations

  Maps

  Prologue

  1. Troyes: 1250

  2. A Burgher’s Home

  3. A Medieval Housewife

  4. Childbirth and Children

  5. Weddings and Funerals

  6. Small Business

  7. Big Business

  8. The Doctor

  9. The Church

  10. The Cathedral

  11. School and Scholars

  12. Books and Authors

  13. The New Theater

  14. Disasters

  15. Town Government

  16. The Champagne Fair

  After 1250

  Genealogy of the Counts of Champagne

  Bibliography

  Searchable Terms

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Medieval city gate. Among the finest surviving is that of the Porte St.-Jean at Provins, one of the four Champagne Fair towns. The two towers are connected on three levels: under the roadway, above the entry, and on top of the wall. (French Government Tourist Office)

  Illustrations

  Medieval city gate

  Town wall of Provins

  Cat’s Alley, Troyes

  Romanesque house at Cluny

  Thirteenth-century house at Cluny

  Thirteenth-century wooden casket

  A thirteenth-century banquet

  A thirteenth-century house in Provins

  Dice players

  Medieval shop front

  Sculptors at work

  Merchant furriers

  A cartwright and cooper

  An apothecary at work

  Enamel eucharistic dove and censer

  Reliquary chest

  Statue of the Virgin

  Cathedral of St.-Pierre, Troyes

  A typical flying buttress

  Medieval machinery

  “Music,” portal sculpture

  Thirteenth-century book cover

  Illuminated page, Book of Hours

  Siege of a city

  Money changers

  Maps

  Main routes to the Champagne Fairs

  Map of Troyes

  Prologue

  The western European city, with all its implications for the future, was born in the Middle Ages. By 1250 it was alive and flourishing, not only on the ancient Mediterranean coast but in northwest Europe. The narrative that follows is an attempt to depict life at the midpoint of the thirteenth century in one of the newly revived cities: Troyes, capital of the rich county of Champagne, seat of a bishop, and, above all, site of two of the famous Fairs of Champagne.

  Back in the days when Julius Caesar camped in Gaul and bivouacked in Britain, there were few places in northwest Europe that could be called cities. Lutetia (Paris) was sufficiently important for Caesar’s Commentaries to record its destruction by fire. But in most of the region political organization was too undeveloped, commerce too scanty, and religion too primitive to permit the creation of communities larger than villages. Vast areas remained wilderness.

  The Roman legions built roads, provided a market for local farm produce, and offered shelter to traders in their fortified camps. One place they fortified was a hamlet at the confluence of the Seine and an important military road, the Via Agrippa. Marcus Aurelius built a tower there, and later emperors, notably Aurelian, employed it as a base. Along with other camp towns, “Tricasses” took on the appearance of a permanent settlement as garrisoned soldiers married local girls, raised families, and stayed on after their discharges to farm outside the walls or perform craftsmen’s jobs inside. Graduating from army base to administrative center, the town acquired masonry walls and attracted new inhabitants: tax collectors, bureaucrats, army purveyors, and skilled and unskilled laborers, including prisoners of war brought back from the wilds of Germany and Friesland. Troyes hardly rivaled the opulent cities of Southern Europe or even Paris, which by the third century boasted three baths, a theater, and a racetrack. Troyes may have had one bath, which would have made it the equal in amenity of most of the other northern towns.

  The Christian Church furnished a powerful new impetus to the development of many backwoods towns in the north, although the first apostles were not always appreciated by the pagan civil and religious authorities. At Troyes, as elsewhere, a number of martyrs were created by governors and emperors who held with the faith of their fathers. But once the Church had made a believer out of the Emperor Constantine, it had clear sailing. In the fourth and fifth centuries bishoprics sprang up all over the map. The natural place for a bishop to establish himself was in a Roman administrative center, usually a former legionary camp. The new clerical establishments required the services of a secular population of farmers and craftsmen. A new word described these episcopal towns—cité (city)—a derivation of the Latin civitas that usually took on the meaning of a populated place inside walls.

  As the power of the Roman Empire faltered, local Roman officials lost their authority, creating a vacuum that was filled by Christian bishops. By the middle of the fifth century the prestige of the bishop of Troyes was such that when the Huns appeared in the neighborhood everyone turned to him for protection.

  The town had just been sacked once by the Vandals, and Attila’s Huns were reputed to be even less amicable. Bishop Lupus first sent a deacon and seven clerks to propitiate the enemy, but an unlucky accident caused the mission to miscarry. The clerics’ white vestments made Attila’s horse rear. Concluding that his visitors were magicians, the Hun chieftain had them slain on the spot, one young clerk escaping to tell the tale. Attila then went off to fight the Romans, Goths, Burgundians, and Franks, who momentarily stopped fighting among themselves to take him on. Beaten, though not badly, Attila returned eastward, with Troyes directly in his path. It was an ominous moment, and once more everyone turned to Bishop Lupus. This time Lupus negotiated in person, and he scored a surprising success. Attila spared Troyes, and, taking the bishop with him as far as the Rhine, sent him home laden with honors. For this diplomatic feat Lupus was first denounced as a collaborator and exiled, but later, on sober second thought, restored to his see, to be eventually canonized as St.-Loup.

  By the end of the fifth century the western half of the Roman Empire had slid into chaos. Nearly all the cities, old and new, large and small, declined catastrophically. People borrowed stones and bricks from public monuments to patch up their houses and strengthen walls against hordes of unwelcome immigrants. Commerce, already slowed down by a long-drawn-out, deeply rooted agricultural crisis, was nearly brought to a halt by the turmoil of the great migrations, or invasions, from the north and east. Towns like Troyes remained stunted, half military, half rural. Apart from crude ecclesiastical buildings—bishop’s palace, basilica-cathedral, the abbey and a couple of priories—the walls of Troyes enclosed only a few score hovels. Most of the town’s forty-acre area was given over to vineyards, vegetable gardens, and pasturage.

  Yet the marauding barbarians did contribute something to the growth of such settlements. After pillaging a Roman province, they set up a headquarters that generally metamorphosed into a petty capital. Reims, north of Troyes, became the capital of the Franks, and Troyes a Frankish sub-capital of Champagne. The Franks’ chief, Clovis, hardly less truculent a fellow than Attila, was more completely vanquished by St.-Rémi, bishop of Reims, than Attila had been by St.-Loup
of Troyes. As St.-Rémi eloquently narrated the story of Jesus’ martyrdom, Clovis exclaimed, “If only I’d been there at the head of my valiant Franks!” Clovis received baptism, and all his valiant Franks promptly did likewise.

  In the sixth and seventh centuries a new ecclesiastical source of cities appeared—the Benedictine monastery. The institution spread rapidly, establishing itself sometimes in towns, sometimes in open country, and immediately attracting craftsmen, farmers, and traders. In the Bavarian forest appeared “Monks’ Town”—Munich. In Flanders a Benedictine abbey built at the point where the river Aa becomes navigable formed the nucleus of the future manufacturing city of Saint-Omer.

  On the Mediterranean littoral many of the old Roman cities did business in the Dark Ages much as they had done under the Empire. Marseilles, Toulon, Arles, Avignon, and other Provençal ports continued active commerce with the eastern Mediterranean. They imported papyrus and spices, for which the Benedictine monasteries helped provide a market. As a return cargo, the Provençal ships often carried slaves.

  This state of affairs came to an end in the seventh century. The electrifying military successes of the followers of Mohammed in the Near East and North Africa were accompanied by a major dislocation of Mediterranean trade. Modern scholars have modified Henri Pirenne’s thesis on the causal connection between Mohammed and the Dark Ages, pointing out other influences at work. But it is fact that as Moslem fleets appeared in the western and central Mediterranean, the old Roman-Christian trading cities were thrown on the defensive and were frequently raided and pillaged. Genoa, once a busy port, declined to a fishing village. New cities, flying the banner of the Prophet, blossomed along the shores of North Africa—Cairo, Mahdia, Tunis. Ancient Greek and Roman ports took on new life under the conqueror’s administration. In the harbor of Alexandria, guarded by the lighthouse that had been a wonder of the world for a thousand years, new shipyards furnished the vessels for Moslem commerce and piracy, the products of which, in turn, made Alexandria’s markets the largest in the Mediterranean. One Christian—if not exactly European—port was even busier: Constantinople, capital of the eastern Roman Empire, strategically seated astride major trade routes from east, west, north and south. But except for Greek Constantinople the Moslem merchants and raiders virtually took over the maritime world. In the eighth century their advance enveloped Spain and the Balearic Islands, and even a piece of Provence, from which foothold they raided all the ancient cities of the Rhône valley. One party roamed far enough north to sack Troyes.

  Sacking was something to which citizens of an early medieval city had to be resigned. Not only pagan invaders, but Christian lords, and even bishops, did their share—Troyes was sacked by the bishop of Auxerre. But the champion raiders, who appeared in the late ninth century, were the Vikings.

  By the time they reached Troyes these red-bearded roughnecks from the far north had taken apart nearly every other town on the map—Paris, London, Utrecht, Rouen, Bordeaux, Seville, York, Nottingham, Orléans, Tours, Poitiers; the list is an atlas of ninth-century western Europe. In Champagne the invaders were led by a local freebooter named Hasting, who was noted for his prodigious strength. Reversing the custom by which Vikings sometimes settled in southern Europe, Hasting had traveled to Scandinavia and lived as a Northman, returning to lead his adopted countrymen on devastating forays into Normandy, Picardy, Champagne, and the Loire valley.

  Troyes was plundered at least twice, perhaps three times. Here, as elsewhere, repeated aggression bred resistance. Bishop Anségise played the role of King Alfred and Count Odo, rallying the local knights and peasants, joining forces with other nearby bishops and lords, and fighting heroically in the pitched battle in which the Vikings were routed. The renegade Hasting, who had carved out a handsome fief for himself, bought peace by ceding Chartres to one of the coalition of his foes, the count of Vermandois,1 who thereby acquired the basis of a powerful dynasty.

  Paradoxically, the Vikings sometimes contributed to the development of cities. Often their plunder came to more than they could carry home, and they sold the surplus. A town strong enough to resist attack might thereby profit from the misfortune of its less prepared neighbors. The Vikings even founded cities. Where the looting was good, they built base camps to use as depots for trading. One such was Dublin. And they gave a helpful stimulus to York by making it their headquarters, though the original inhabitants may not have appreciated the favor.

  This aspect of Viking activity notwithstanding, the ninth century was the nadir of city life. Besides the Vikings, the Moslems were still on the prowl, cleaning out St.-Peter’s Church outside Rome in 846. Toward the end of this century of calamity the Hungarians—named for an affinity in appearance and manners with the unforgettable Huns—went on a rampage through Germany, northern Italy, and eastern France.

  After vast losses of life and property while makeshift solutions were tried—hiding, bargaining, fighting—Europe hit on the answer to invasion: wall-building. Existing towns built walls and prospered by offering security. The lords of the countryside built walls to strengthen their crude castles, thereby enhancing their own importance. Monasteries built walls. Sometimes walls built to protect castle or monastery had the unexpected effect of attracting coopers, blacksmiths, trappers, and peddlers, and so becoming the nuclei of new towns.

  Town wall. The twelfth-century rampart of Provins is punctuated by alternating round and square towers, some sixty feet high. (Touring-Club de France)

  A few places even built their walls before they were attacked. The citizens of Saint-Omer dug a wide, deep moat, filled it with water, and erected a rampart with the excavated material, topping it with pointed stakes. Inside was a second, stronger fortification. The Vikings were repelled in 891 and did not venture a second attack. Invigorated by success, the Saint-Omer burghers turned their monastery-village into a real town, with three principal streets. Much the same thing happened at other towns in this low-lying, vulnerable corner of Europe. Arras, Ghent, Bruges, Lille, Tournai, Courtrai, all began to emerge from obscurity. More was going on than defense against raiders. Some towns, notably Ypres, grew up without benefit of any lord, bishop, or fort. They were simply well situated for the manufacture of wool cloth.

  The new walls built from scratch in the tenth century were nearly all of the earthwork-palisade variety, like the walls of Saint-Omer. Adequately manned, they sufficed against enemies armed only with the hand-missile weapons of the Vikings. The old Roman cities, like Troyes, had let their masonry ramparts fall into disrepair and so had come to grief in the violent ninth century. By the middle of the tenth, Troyes had repaired its walls, which served the city well, not against the Vikings, but against its former defender, Bishop Anségise himself. Battling his rival, the count of Vermandois, Anségise borrowed a Saxon army from Emperor Otto the Great and besieged Troyes until another doughty prelate, the archbishop of Sens, relieved the city. Otto interceded for Anségise and got him restored to his see, where he lived peacefully until his death ten years later, but never again did a bishop of Troyes try to contest the primacy of the secular counts. Six hundred years after inheriting authority from the Roman governors, the bishops had to take a back seat.

  The newly fortified towns were usually called “bourgs” or “burhs” (later, boroughs) in the Germanic dialects that were evolving into new languages. People who dwelt in the bourgs were known as bourgeois, or burghers, or burgesses. By the middle of the tenth century town-fortresses dotted western and northern Europe as far as the newly fortified bishopric of Hamburg, at the mouth of the Elbe, and Danzig, at the mouth of the Vistula. They were not worthy of comparison with the populous and wealthy centers of Islam—Baghdad, Nishapur, Alexandria, Granada, Cordova—where rich merchants patronized poets and architects. The cities of Europe were full of cattle barns and pigsties, with hovels and workshops clustered around church, castle, and bishop’s palace. But growth was unmistakable. By the tenth century the crumbling Roman villas outside the walls of Troyes we
re interspersed with abbeys and houses.

  It was certainly a beginning, and in Italy there was a little more than a beginning. Certain towns, nonexistent or insignificant in Roman times, were suddenly emerging. Venice appeared on the mud flats of the Adige at the head of the Adriatic, and Amalfi, south of Naples, thrust up into the space between the Sorrentine cliffs and the sea. The fact that their locations were inhospitable was no coincidence. A set of immigrants called the Lombards, somewhere between the Franks and the Huns in coarseness of manners, had taken over the Italian interior. The Lombards were strictly landlubbers, so the ideal place for a merchant was a sheltered bit of coastline easy to get at from the water, hard to get at from the land. By the late tenth century Venetian and Amalfitan sails were part of the seascape in the Golden Horn of Constantinople. And though it was considered scandalous, not to mention dangerous, to do business directly with the Moslems, a number of Venetian, Amalfitan, and other Italian businessmen found the necessary hardihood.

  Over a lengthy interval in the tenth and eleventh centuries two major developments stimulated city growth. One was land clearance, in which the new Cluniac and Cistercian monastic establishments took a leading role. Behind land clearance lay a number of improvements in agricultural technology that taken as a whole amounted to a revolution. The heavy wheeled plow, capable of breaking up the rich, deep north European bottomlands, came into wide use. At first drawn by the slow-gaited ox, the plow was eventually harnessed, with the aid of the new padded but rigid collar, to the swifter horse. This change was in turn related to changes in crops and crop rotation, as oats and legumes were introduced and in many areas the more productive three-field system supplanted the old Roman two-field method.