What was the difference between a feudal estate and a medieval city. §3. Medieval city. and Western Europe

Chapter 7

Developed Middle Ages XI-XV centuries.

The transition from the early feudal period to the period of developed feudalism was due to the emergence and growth of cities, which quickly became centers of crafts and exchange, as well as the widespread development of commodity production. These were qualitatively new phenomena in feudal society, which had a significant impact on its economy, political system and spiritual life. Therefore, the XI century is the time when in most countries Western Europe Basically, cities have already developed, it is a chronological boundary between the early Middle Ages (V-XI centuries) and the period of the most complete development of feudalism (XI-XV centuries).

The dominance of subsistence farming in the period early medieval

The first centuries of the Middle Ages in Western Europe were characterized by the almost undivided dominance of subsistence farming. The peasant family itself produced all agricultural products and handicrafts, tools and clothing, not only for their own needs, but also to pay the dues to the feudal lord. The combination of rural labor with handicrafts is a characteristic feature of subsistence farming. Only a small number of specialist artisans, usually as householders, lived on the estates of large feudal lords. A few rural artisans - blacksmiths, potters, leather workers - along with the craft were also engaged in agriculture.

The exchange of products was very small. They traded mainly goods mined in a few places, but important in the economy: iron, tin, copper, salt, etc., as well as luxury goods that were not then produced in Europe and brought from the East: silk fabrics, expensive jewelry, well crafted weapons, spices, etc. The main role in this trade was played by itinerant, most often foreign merchants (Byzantines, Arabs, Syrians, Jews, etc.). The production of agricultural products and handicrafts specially designed for sale, i.e., commodity production, was hardly developed in most of Western Europe. The old Roman cities fell into decay, the agrarianization of the economy took place.

During the early Middle Ages, urban-type settlements were preserved mainly on the site of deserted and dilapidated Roman cities (Milan, Florence, Bologna, Naples, Amalfi, Paris, Lyon, Arles, Cologne, Mainz, Strasbourg, Trier, Augsburg, Vienna, London, York, Chester , Gloucester, etc.) But for the most part they were either administrative centers, or fortified points (fortresses - “burghs”), or church centers (residences of archbishops, bishops, etc.). But the cities had not yet become the center of crafts and trade during this period. Their small population usually differed little from the inhabitants of the villages. In many cities, squares and wastelands were used for arable land and pastures. The few craftsmen and merchants who lived in the early medieval city served mainly only its inhabitants, without having a noticeable impact on the surrounding villages. Most of the urban-type settlements survived in the most Romanized areas of Europe: in Italy, Southern Gaul, Visigothic and then Arab Spain, and also in Byzantium. Although in these areas of the city in the V-VI centuries. fell into decay, some of them were still relatively crowded, they continued to have a specialized craft, permanent markets. Individual cities, especially in Italy and Byzantium, were major centers of intermediary trade with the East. But even in these areas, the cities did not have a decisive influence on the genesis of feudalism. On the greater part of the European continent, however, urban-type settlements were rare, sparsely populated, and had no noticeable economic significance.

In general, Western Europe lagged behind the East and even Byzantium in its development, where numerous cities flourished with highly developed handicraft production and lively trade.

The growth of productive forces. Separation of craft from agriculture

By the X-XI centuries. in the economic life of Western Europe there were important changes. The growth of productive forces, which took place in connection with the establishment of the feudal mode of production, in the early Middle Ages proceeded most rapidly in the craft and was expressed in the gradual change and development of the technology and skills of handicraft work, the expansion and differentiation of social production. Significantly improved certain types of craft: smelting and processing of metals - primarily blacksmithing and weapons; dressing of fabrics - linen and cloth; skin treatment; production of more advanced clay products using a potter's wheel; mill and construction business. Crafts also developed: mining of metals, salt, logging, fish, furs, sea animals. The production of handicraft products has increasingly become a special area labor activity, different from agricultural, which required further specialization of the artisan, no longer compatible with the labor of the peasant.

The moment has come when the transformation of handicraft into an independent branch of production has become inevitable.

Another prerequisite for the separation of handicrafts from agriculture was the progress in the development of the latter. With the improvement of tools and methods of tillage, especially with the ubiquity of the iron plow with a team of several pairs of oxen, as well as two-field and three-field, labor productivity grew in agriculture, increased areas of cultivated land, to a greater extent through internal colonization and economic development of new lands. The sowing of grain and industrial crops expanded: flax, hemp, woad (a plant from which a substance for dyeing fabrics was extracted), oilseeds, etc.; horticulture, horticulture, viticulture and such trades closely related to agriculture as winemaking and butter-making developed and improved. The number and breed of livestock has increased and improved, in particular horses, which are increasingly being used not only in military affairs, but also as a means of transport; in some areas, horses began to be used instead of oxen in agriculture, which significantly accelerated the process of tillage.

As a result of all these changes in agriculture, yields have increased, the time for the production of agricultural products has decreased, and, consequently, the quantity of the latter has increased. Despite the growth of feudal rent, a certain surplus of products began to remain in the hands of the peasant over what was produced for consumption needs. This made it possible to exchange part of the agricultural products for the products of craftsmen-specialists, which freed the peasant from the need to produce all handicraft products on his farm.

In addition to the above economic prerequisites, at the turn of the 1st and 2nd millennia, the most important social prerequisites for the formation of medieval cities were created; the process of feudalization ended, which immediately revealed the deep class contradictions of the new system. On the one hand, a ruling class stood out, whose need for luxury contributed to an increase in the layer of professional artisans. On the other hand, the peasantry, subjected to ever greater oppression, increasingly began to flee to the cities. Fugitive peasants formed the basis of the population of the first cities.

Separation of the city from the countryside

Thus, by the X-XI centuries. all appeared in Europe the necessary conditions to separate handicrafts from agriculture. In the process of separation from agriculture, handicraft - small-scale industrial production based on manual labor - went through a number of stages in its development. At first, the craft acted mainly in the form of the production of products by order of the consumer, sometimes from his material, and first of all - in the village as an integral part of the subsistence economy, and then in the cities. At the same time, commodity production was still in its infancy, because the product of labor did not appear on the market.

The next stage in the development of the craft is mainly characterized by the work of the craftsman not for a specific customer, but for the market, without which the craftsman could no longer exist in this case. The craftsman becomes a commodity producer. Thus, the emergence of handicrafts, separate from agriculture, meant the emergence of commodity production and commodity relations, the emergence of exchange between town and country. “With the division of production into two large main industries, agriculture and handicraft,” F. Engels wrote, “production arises directly for exchange, commodity production, and with it trade ...”, Exchange between individual producers becomes a vital necessity for society.

But in the countryside, where the market for the sale of handicrafts was narrow, and the power of the feudal lord deprived the producer of the independence he needed, the possibilities for the development of commercial crafts were very limited. Therefore, artisans fled the village and settled where they found the most favorable conditions for conducting an independent economy, marketing their products, and obtaining the necessary raw materials. The resettlement of artisans to market centers and cities was part of the general movement of rural residents there.

The flight of peasants, including those who knew any craft, from the countryside was at that time one of the expressions of their resistance to feudal oppression.

In the X-XIII centuries. (in Italy since the 9th century) everywhere in Western Europe cities of a new, feudal type, which stood out from the rural district in terms of population composition, its main occupations and social structure, rapidly grew.

Thus, as a result of the separation of craft from agriculture, medieval cities arose. Their appearance marked a new stage in the history of feudalism.

Bourgeois theories of the origin of medieval cities and their criticism

The question of the causes of the emergence of medieval cities is of great interest. Bourgeois scientists, trying to answer it, put forward in the 19th and 20th centuries. various theories. Most of these theories are characterized by a formal legal approach to the problem. The greatest attention is paid to the origin and development of specific urban institutions, urban law, and not to the socio-economic conditions that led to the emergence of medieval cities. Therefore, the bourgeois historical science cannot explain the root causes of their origin.

Bourgeois scholars were mainly concerned with the question of what form of settlement the medieval city originated from and how did the institutions of this previous form transform into the institutions of the medieval city? The "romanistic" theory (Savigny, Thierry, Guizot, Renoir), which was based mainly on the material of the Romanized regions of Europe, considered medieval cities and their institutions a direct continuation of the cities of the late Roman Empire. Historians, who relied mainly on the material of Northwestern and Central Europe (primarily German and English), saw the origins of medieval cities in the legal phenomena of the new, feudal society. According to the "patrimonial" theory (Eichhorn, Nitsch), the city developed from the feudal estate, and city institutions - from the patrimonial administration and patrimonial law. The "Markov" theory (Maurer, Girke, later G. von Below) put the city institutions and the law out of action of the free rural community-mark. Representatives of the "burg" theory (Keitgen, Matland) believed that the fortress ("burg") and burg law were the grain from which the city was created. The "market" theory (R. Zohm, Schroeder, Schulte) derived city law from the "market law" that was in force in places where trade was carried out.

In addition to their formal legal orientation, all these theories suffered from extreme one-sidedness, putting forward one, supposedly the only way emergence of cities. In addition, they did not explain why most of the estates, communities, castles, and even market places did not turn into cities.

German historian Ritschel late XIX in. tried to combine the "burg" and "market" theories, seeing in the cities settlements of merchants around a fortified point ("burg"), ignoring the handicraft basis of the origin of medieval cities. A concept close to this theory was developed by the Belgian historian A. Pirenne, who, however, unlike most of his predecessors, assigned the decisive role in the emergence of cities to the economic factor - intercontinental and interregional transit trade and its carrier - the merchant class. However, this "commercial" theory, according to which cities in Western Europe initially arose around "merchant trading posts", ignored the role of the separation of crafts from agriculture in the emergence of cities. Therefore, A. Pirenne also could not scientifically explain the origins and specifics of the feudal city. This theory is now being criticized by many foreign medievalists (R. Butrush, E. Dupont, F. Vercauteren, D. Luzzatto, C. Cipolla, and others), who refute A. Pirenne's thesis about the purely commercial origin of cities.

In modern bourgeois historiography great importance attached to archaeological data, topography and plans of medieval cities (F. Hanshof, Planitz, E. Ennen, F. Verkoteren and others). But these data, without considering the socio-economic conditions that gave rise to the city, do not answer the question of the causes of the emergence of the medieval city and its character. In some cases, these data are incorrectly used to revive the theory of the Roman continuity of medieval cities, which rejects the connection of their emergence with the laws of the evolution of feudal society. Bourgeois science, although it has accumulated a large amount of factual material on the history of cities, due to its idealistic methodology, was not able to develop a scientific understanding of the city of that era as a center of craft and trade, and the process of its emergence - as a result of the development of the social division of labor - the separation of craft from agriculture. economy.

The emergence of cities - centers of crafts and trade

The specific historical paths of the emergence of cities are very diverse. The peasant artisans who left and fled the villages settled in different places depending on the availability of favorable conditions for crafts. Sometimes, especially in Italy and Southern France, these were the administrative, military and ecclesiastical centers of the early Middle Ages, often located in old Roman cities. Now these old cities were reborn to a new life, but already as cities of a different, feudal type. Many of these points were fortified, which provided the artisans with the necessary security.

The concentration of a significant population in these centers - feudal lords with their servants and numerous retinues, clergy, representatives of the royal and local administration, etc. - created favorable conditions for the sale of their products to artisans. But more often, especially in Northwestern and Central Europe, artisans settled near large feudal estates, estates, estates, castles, near the walls of monasteries, the inhabitants of which, as well as pilgrims and pilgrims who visited monasteries, could be consumers of their goods. Artisans settled in settlements lying at the intersection of important roads, at river crossings and bridges, at river mouths, on the banks of bays, bays, etc., convenient for parking ships, which have long been places of traditional markets. Such “market places” (in some countries they were called “ports”), with a significant concentration of population and handicraft production there, also turned into cities.

The growth of cities in different areas of Western Europe occurred at different rates. First of all - in the IX century. - cities as centers of crafts and trade appeared in Italy (Venice, Genoa, Pisa, Florence, Bari, Naples, Amalfi); in the X century. - in the south of France (Marseille, Arles, Narbonne, Montpellier, Toulouse, etc.). In these areas, which already knew a developed class society (the Roman Empire), earlier than in others, the growth of productive forces based on the development of feudal relations led to the separation of handicrafts from agriculture, as well as to an intensification of the class struggle in the countryside and mass flight of serfs.

One of the factors that contributed early emergence and the growth of Italian and southern French cities, there were trade relations between Italy and southern France with Byzantium and the more developed countries of the East at that time. Finally, a certain role was played here by the preservation of the remains of numerous Roman cities and fortresses, where fugitive peasants could find shelter, protection, traditional markets, and the rudiments of Roman municipal law more easily than in uninhabited places.

In the X-XI centuries. cities began to appear in northern France, in the Netherlands, in England and in Germany - along the Rhine and along the upper Danube. The Flanders cities - Bruges, Ypres, Ghent, Lille, Douai, Arras, etc. - were famous for the production of fine cloth, which they supplied to many European countries. In these areas, only a few cities arose on the sites of the old (Roman), most were founded anew. Later - in the XII-XIII centuries - feudal cities began to grow on the northern outskirts and in the interior regions of Zareinskaya Germany, in: the Scandinavian countries, as well as in Ireland, Hungary and the Danube principalities, i.e., where the development of feudal relations took place more slowly. Here all the cities were neoplasms, growing, as a rule, from "market places" and "ports".

The network of cities in Western and Central Europe was uneven. It reached a special density in Northern and Central Italy, as well as in Flanders and Brabant. But in other countries and regions, the number of cities, including small towns, was such that a peasant could get to any of them within one day.

Despite the difference in place, time and specific conditions for the emergence of a particular city, it has always been the result of a common for the whole medieval Europe economic process - the social division of labor between handicraft and agriculture and the development on this basis of commodity production and exchange.

This process was of a lengthy nature and was not completed within the framework of the feudal social formation. However, in the X-XIII centuries. it proceeded especially intensively and led to an important qualitative shift in the development of feudal society.

Simple commodity economy under feudalism

Commodity production and the exchange associated with it, concentrated in the cities, began to play an enormous role in the development of the productive forces not only in the cities themselves, but also in the countryside. The subsistence economy of direct producers - the peasants - was gradually drawn into commodity relations, conditions were created for the development of the domestic market on the basis of further social division of labor and specialization. certain areas and sectors of the economy (agriculture, cattle breeding, mining, various types of handicrafts).

Commodity production of the Middle Ages should not be identified with capitalist production or seen as the direct sources of the latter, as many bourgeois historians (A. Pirenne, A. Dopsch and many others) do. It was a simple (non-capitalist) commodity production and economy based on the own labor of small isolated commodity producers - artisans and peasants, who were increasingly involved in commodity exchange, but did not exploit on a large scale the labor of others. Such production, in contrast to capitalist production, was of a petty nature, involved only a small part of the social product in market relations, served a relatively narrow market and did not know expanded reproduction.

Simple commodity production arose and existed long before capitalism and before feudalism, adapting to the conditions of various social formations and obeying them. In the form in which it was inherent in feudal society, commodity production grew on its soil and depended on the conditions prevailing in it, developed along with it, obeying the general laws of its evolution. Only at a certain stage in the existence of feudal society, under the conditions of the separation of small independent producers from the means of production and the transformation of labor power into commodities on a mass scale, did simple commodity production begin to develop into capitalist production. Until that time, it remained an organic and inalienable element of the economy and social structure of feudal society, just like a medieval city - the main center of commodity production and exchange in feudal society.

Population and appearance of medieval cities

The main population of the cities was made up of people employed in the sphere of production and circulation of goods: artisans of various specialties, at first they were also small traders. Significant groups of people were employed in the service sector: sailors of merchant ships, carters and porters, innkeepers, barbers, innkeepers.

The townspeople, whose ancestors usually came from the village, kept their fields, pastures and gardens both outside and inside the city for a long time, kept cattle. This was partly due to the insufficient marketability of agriculture in the 11th-13th centuries.

Gradually, professional merchants appeared in the cities - merchants from local residents. It was a new social stratum, the sphere of activity of which was only the exchange of goods. Unlike the wandering merchants of the early Middle Ages, they were mainly engaged in domestic trade, exchanging goods between the city and the countryside. The separation of merchant activity from handicraft activity was a new step in the social division of labor. In large cities, especially in political and administrative centers, feudal lords often lived with their entourage (servants, military detachments), representatives of the royal and senior administration, as well as the clergy. Already in the XII-XIII centuries. in big cities a significant part of the population were poor people who lived by odd jobs (day laborers, temporary hired workers), as well as begging and theft.

The sizes of Western European medieval cities were very small. Usually their population was estimated at 1 or 3-5 thousand inhabitants. Even in the XIV-XV centuries. cities with 20-30 thousand inhabitants were considered large. Only a few cities had a population exceeding 80-100 thousand people (Paris, Milan, Venice, Florence, Cordoba, Seville).

Medieval cities differed from the surrounding villages in their own way. appearance and the degree of concentration of the population. They were usually surrounded by high stone, sometimes wooden walls with towers and massive gates, as well as deep moats to protect against attacks by feudal lords and enemy invasion. Craftsmen and merchants carried out guard duty and made up the city military militia. The city gates were closed at night. The walls that surrounded the medieval city became cramped over time and could not accommodate all the city buildings. Around the walls that formed the original center of the city (burg, sieve), urban suburbs gradually arose - settlements, settlements, inhabited mainly by artisans. Craftsmen of the same profession usually lived on the same street. The suburbs, in turn, were surrounded by a new ring of walls and fortifications. The central place in the city was the market square, not far from which the city cathedral was located, and in cities where there was self-government of the townspeople, there was also the city hall (city council).

Outside the city walls, and sometimes within their borders, lay fields, pastures, vegetable gardens that belonged to the townspeople. Small livestock (goats, sheep and pigs) often grazed right in the city. The walls prevented the city from growing in breadth, so the streets became extremely narrow, the houses (often wooden) closely adjoined each other, their upper floors often protruded in the form of ledges above the lower ones, and the roofs of the houses located on opposite sides of the street almost touched each other. . The rays of the sun often did not penetrate into the narrow and crooked city streets. There was no street lighting. Garbage, leftover food and sewage were usually thrown directly into the street. Due to the unsanitary condition in the cities, epidemics broke out, there were devastating fires.

The struggle of cities with feudal lords and the folding of urban self-government

Medieval cities arose on the land of the feudal lord and therefore inevitably had to obey him. Most of the townspeople at first were peasants who had lived in this place for a long time, who fled from their former masters or were released by them for quitrent. Often at first they found themselves in personal dependence on the new master - the seigneur of the city. All power in the city was initially concentrated in the hands of the lord. The feudal lord was interested in the emergence of cities on his land, since urban crafts and trade brought him additional income.

Former peasants who settled in the emerging cities brought with them from the countryside the customs and skills of the communal structure that existed there, which had a noticeable influence on the organization of urban self-government in the Middle Ages. Over time, however, it increasingly took on forms that corresponded to the characteristics and needs of the urban society itself.

The desire of the feudal lords to extract as much income from the city as possible inevitably led to the struggle between cities and lords, which took place throughout Western Europe in the 10th-13th centuries. The townspeople fought first for liberation from the most severe forms of feudal oppression, for a reduction in the lord's requisitions, and for trade privileges. Later, it developed into a political struggle for city self-government, which in the literature is usually called the “communal movement”. The outcome of this struggle determined the degree of independence of the city in relation to the feudal lord, its economic prosperity and political system. However, the struggle of cities with seniors was not against the feudal system as a whole, but to ensure the existence and development of cities within the framework of this system.

Sometimes cities managed to get certain liberties and privileges from the feudal lord for money, fixed in city charters; in other cases, these privileges, especially the rights of self-government, were achieved as a result of a long, sometimes armed struggle.

Communal movements proceeded in different countries of Europe in different ways, depending on the conditions of their historical development and led to different results. In Northern and Central Italy, as well as in Southern France, where in the IX-XII centuries. there was no strong central authority, the townspeople achieved independence already in these centuries. Many cities of Northern and Central Italy - Venice, Genoa, Florence, Siena, Lucca, Ravenna, Bologna, Milan, etc. - already at that time became city-states. In fact, the Slavic city of Dubrovnik on the Dalmatian coast of the Adriatic was an independent city republic, although nominally it recognized the supreme power first of Byzantium, then of Venice, and from the end of the 14th century. - Hungary.

A similar position in Germany was occupied in the XII-XIII centuries. the most significant of the so-called imperial cities are the "free cities". Formally, they were subordinate to the emperor, but in reality they were independent city republics (Lübeck, Hamburg, Bremen, Nuremberg, Augsburg, Frankfurt am Main, etc.). They were governed by the city council headed by the burgomaster, had the right to independently declare war, conclude peace, mint coins, etc.

Many cities of northern France - Amiens, Saint-Quentin, Noy-on, Beauvais, Soissons, Laon, etc., as well as Flanders - Ghent, Bruges, Ypres, Lille, Douai, Saint-Omer, Arras - as a result of stubborn, often armed struggle with their feudal lords became self-governing commune cities. They could choose from among themselves the city council, its head - the mayor - and other city officials, they had their own city court and city military militia, their own finances and the right to self-taxation. Communal cities were exempted from performing corvée and dues in favor of the seignior and from other seigniorial payments. In return for all these duties and payments, the townspeople annually paid the lord a certain, relatively low cash rent, and in case of war they sent a small military detachment to help him. Communal cities themselves often acted as a collective lord in relation to the peasants who lived in the territory surrounding the city. On the other hand, in relation to their lord, the cities that retained a certain dependence on him were formally in the position of his collective vassal.

But some even very significant and rich cities, especially those standing on royal land, in countries with a relatively strong central government could not achieve full self-government. They enjoyed a number of privileges and liberties, including the right to have their own elected bodies of city self-government. But these bodies acted in conjunction with an official appointed by the king or other lord (for example, Paris, Orleans, Bourges, Lorris, Nantes, Chartres and many others - in France; London, Lincoln, Ipswich, Oxford, Cambridge, Gloucester, Norwich, York - in England). This form of urban self-government was also characteristic of Ireland, the Scandinavian countries, many cities in Germany and Hungary. The privileges and liberties received by medieval cities were in many respects similar to immunity privileges and were of a feudal nature. These cities themselves were closed corporations that for a long time put local city interests above all else.

Many, especially small, cities that did not have the necessary forces and funds to fight their lords, remained entirely under the control of the lord administration. This, in particular, is characteristic of cities that belonged to spiritual lords, who oppressed their citizens especially hard.

With all the differences in the results of the struggle of cities with their lords, they coincided in one thing. All citizens achieved personal liberation from serfdom. In medieval Europe, a rule was established according to which a serf who fled to the city, after living there for a certain period (in Germany and England, usually one year and one day), also became free. "City air makes you free" - said a medieval proverb.

City craft. Workshops

The production basis of the medieval city was craft. The craftsman, like the peasant, was a small producer who owned the tools of production and ran his own private economy based on personal labor. "An existence worthy of his position - and not exchange value as such, not enrichment as such ..." was the goal of the artisan's work. But unlike the peasant, the specialist-artisan, firstly, from the very beginning was a commodity producer, led a commodity economy; secondly, he did not need land as a means of production, therefore, in urban craft, non-economic coercion in the form of personal dependence of the direct producer on the feudal lord was not necessary and quickly disappeared in the process of city growth. Here, however, other types of non-economic coercion took place, connected with the guild organization of the craft and the corporate-estate, basically feudal, nature of the urban system (guild coercion, guild and trade regulation, etc.). But this coercion did not come from the feudal lord, but from the townspeople themselves.

characteristic feature Medieval craft in Western Europe was its guild organization - the association of artisans of a certain profession within a given city into special unions - workshops, craft guilds. Workshops appeared almost simultaneously with the cities themselves: in Italy - already from the 10th century, in France, England and Germany - from the 11th - early 12th centuries, although the final design of the workshops (obtaining special charters from kings and other lords, compiling and recording shop charters) occurred, as a rule, later.

The guilds arose as organizations of independent small commodity producers - urban artisans who needed to be united to fight against the feudal lords and to protect their production and income from competition from the villagers who constantly arrived in the city. Among the reasons that necessitated the formation of workshops, Marx and Engels also noted the need for artisans in common market premises for the sale of goods and the need to protect the common property of artisans; The main function of the workshops is to establish control over the production and sale of handicrafts. The unification of artisans into workshops was due to the level of development of productive forces achieved at that time and the entire feudal-class structure of society. The model for the guild organization was partly also the structure of the rural commune-brand.

Artisans united in guilds were direct producers and owners of the means of production. Each of them worked in his own separate workshop, with his own tools and raw materials. He "merged with his means of production", in the words of Marx, "as closely as a snail with a shell"". The craft, as a rule, was inherited. Many generations of artisans worked with the same tools and in the same ways as their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. Inside the craft workshop, there was almost no division of labor. It was carried out by allocating new craft specialties, which took shape in the form of separate workshops, the number of which increased with the growth of the division of labor. In many cities, there were dozens of workshops, and in the largest - even hundreds .

The craftsman was usually assisted in his work by his family. One or two apprentices and one or more apprentices often worked with him. But only the master, the owner of the craft workshop, was a member of the guild. One of the important functions of the workshop was to regulate the relationship of masters with apprentices and apprentices. Master, apprentice and apprentice stood at different levels of the shop hierarchy. The preliminary passage of the two lower steps was obligatory for anyone who wished to join the guild and become its member. In the first period of the development of workshops, each student could become an apprentice in a few years, and an apprentice - a master. In most cities, belonging to a guild was a prerequisite for practicing a craft, that is, a guild monopoly was established for this type of craft. In Germany, it was called Zunftzwang - guild coercion. This eliminated the possibility of competition from artisans who were not part of the workshop, which, in the conditions of a very narrow market at that time and relatively insignificant demand, was dangerous for many manufacturers.

The members of each workshop were interested in ensuring that their products were sold without hindrance. Therefore, the workshop strictly regulated production and, through specially elected shop officials, ensured that each master member of the workshop produced products of a certain type and quality. The workshop prescribed, for example, what width and color the fabric should be, how many threads should be in the warp, what tools and materials should be used, etc. The regulation of production also served other purposes: being an association of independent small commodity producers, the workshop zealously followed so that the production of all its members retains a small character, so that none of them would force other craftsmen out of the market by releasing more products. To this end, shop charters strictly limited the number of apprentices and apprentices that one master could have, forbade work at night and during holidays, limited the number of machines on which an artisan could work, regulated stocks of raw materials, prices for handicrafts, etc.

The guild organization of crafts in the cities was one of the manifestations of their feudal nature: "... the feudal structure of land ownership in the cities corresponded to corporate ownership, the feudal organization of crafts." This organization was created medieval society the most favorable conditions for the development of productive forces, commodity production in cities up to a certain time. Within the framework of guild production, it was possible to further develop and deepen the social division of labor in the form of the allocation of more and more new craft workshops. The guild system contributed to the expansion of the range and improvement of the quality of manufactured goods. During this first period of their existence, the guilds contributed to a gradual, albeit slow, improvement in handicraft tools and handicraft skills.

Therefore, approximately until the end of the XIV - beginning of the XV century. the guilds in Western Europe played a progressive role. They protected the artisans from excessive exploitation by the feudal lords, with the extremely narrow market of that time, they ensured the existence of urban small-scale producers, softening the competition between them and protecting them from the competition of the rural artisans who arrived in the cities.

Thus, during the heyday of the feudal mode of production, as K. Marx noted, “privileges, the establishment of workshops and corporations, the entire regime of medieval regulation were social relations that only corresponded to the acquired productive forces and the pre-existing social system from which these institutions emerged.”

The guild organization was not limited to the implementation of its most important socio-economic functions, but covered all aspects of the life of an urban artisan. The guilds played an important role in uniting the townspeople to fight against the feudal lords, and then against the rule of the patriciate. The workshop was a military organization that participated in the protection of the city and acted as a separate combat unit in case of war. The workshop had its own “saint”, whose day it celebrated, its churches or chapels, being a kind of religious organization. The guild was also an artisans' mutual aid organization that provided assistance to its needy members and their families in case of illness or death of a guild member.

The guild system in medieval Europe was still not universal. In a number of countries it was relatively uncommon and did not reach its final form everywhere. Along with it, in some countries there was a so-called "free craft" (for example, in the south of France and in some other areas). But even in those cities where "free craft" dominated, there was a regulation of production and protection of the monopoly of urban artisans, carried out by local governments.

The struggle of the shops with the urban patriciate

The struggle of the cities with the feudal lords led in the overwhelming majority of cases to the transfer, to one degree or another, of urban administration into the hands of the townspeople. But in the cities by this time there was already a noticeable social stratification. Therefore, although the struggle against the feudal lords was carried out by the forces of all the townspeople, it was usually the top of the urban population that used its results - homeowners, landowners, including those of the feudal type, usurers, rich wholesale merchants engaged in transit trade.

This upper, privileged stratum was a narrow, closed group - the hereditary urban aristocracy (patriciate), which hardly allowed new members into its environment. The city council, the head of the city, as well as the city judicial board (scheffens, eshevens, scabins) were selected only from among the persons belonging to the patriciate. All City Administration, the court and finances, including taxation, were in the hands of the urban elite, were used in their interests and to the detriment of the interests of the broad masses of the trade and craft population of the city.

But as the craft developed and the importance of the workshops grew, artisans, small traders, and the urban poor began to fight with the urban patriciate for power in the city. In the XIII-XV centuries. this struggle unfolded in almost all countries of medieval Europe and often took on a very acute character, up to armed uprisings. In some cities, where handicraft production was greatly developed, the guilds won (for example, in Cologne, Augsburg, and Florence). In others, where trade on a large scale and the merchants played the leading role, the urban elite emerged victorious from the struggle (this was the case, for example, in Hamburg, Lübeck, Rostock and other cities of the Hanseatic League). But even where the guilds won, the management of the city did not become truly democratic, since the wealthy top of the most influential guilds united after their victory with part of the patriciate and established a new oligarchic administration that acted in the interests of the wealthiest citizens.

The beginning of the decomposition of the guild system

In the XIV-XV centuries. the role of workshops has changed in many ways. Their conservatism and routine, the desire to preserve and perpetuate small-scale production, traditional methods and tools, to prevent technical improvements out of fear of competition turned the workshops into a brake on technical progress and further growth in production.

However, with the growth of productive forces and the expansion of the domestic and foreign markets, competition between individual artisans within the workshop grew more and more. Individual artisans, contrary to the guild charters, expanded their production, property and social inequality developed in the guilds. The owners of larger workshops began to practice handing over work to poorer craftsmen, supplying them with raw materials or semi-finished products and receiving finished products. From among the previously unified mass of small artisans and merchants, a wealthy guild elite gradually emerged, exploiting small craftsmen - direct producers.

The stratification within the guild craft found expression in the division of the guilds into more prosperous and wealthy ("senior" or "large" guilds) and poorer ("junior" or "small" guilds). Such a division took place, first of all, in the largest cities: in Florence, Perugia, London, Bristol, Paris, Basel, etc. The "older", economically stronger workshops established their dominance over the "younger ones", exposing them to exploitation. This sometimes led to the loss of economic independence by the members of the junior guilds and their actual position turning into hired workers.

The position of apprentices and apprentices; their fight with the masters

Over time, apprentices and apprentices also fell into the position of the exploited. This was due to the fact that the medieval craft, based on manual labor, required a very long time to learn. In different crafts and workshops, this period ranged from 2 to 7 years, and in some workshops it reached 10-12 years. Under such conditions, the master could use the free labor of his already sufficiently qualified student with great profit for a very long time.

The guild masters also exploited the apprentices. The duration of their working day was usually very long - 14-16, and sometimes 18 hours. The apprentices were judged by the guild court, in which the masters again sat. The workshops controlled the life of apprentices and students, their pastime, spending, acquaintances. In the XIV-XV centuries, when the decline and decay of the guild craft began, the exploitation of apprentices and apprentices noticeably intensified and, most importantly, acquired a virtually permanent character. In the initial period of the existence of the guild system, an apprentice, having passed the apprenticeship and becoming an apprentice, and then having worked for a master for some time and having accumulated a small amount of money, could expect to become a master. Now the access to the position of the master was actually closed to students and apprentices. In an effort to defend their privileges in the face of growing competition, the masters began to put up all sorts of obstacles for them on this path.

The so-called closure of workshops began, the title of master became practically accessible to apprentices and apprentices only if they were close relatives of the masters. Others, in order to receive the title of master, had to pay a very large entry fee to the cash desk of the workshop, perform an exemplary work - a "masterpiece" - from expensive material, arrange an expensive treat for members of the workshop, etc. Apprentices thus turned into "eternal apprentices ”, i.e. in fact, hired workers.

To protect their interests, they create special organizations - "brotherhoods", "companions", which are mutual aid unions and organizations to fight the guild masters. In the struggle against them, apprentices put forward economic demands, seek higher wages and a shorter working day. To achieve their goal, they resort to such acute forms of class struggle as strikes and boycotts against the most hated masters.

Apprentices and apprentices were the most organized and advanced part of a fairly wide in the cities of the XIV-XV centuries. layer of employees. It also included non-shop day laborers, various kinds of unorganized workers, whose ranks were constantly replenished by peasants who came to the cities who had lost their land, as well as impoverished members of the shops - small artisans. The latter, becoming dependent on the rich masters, differed from apprentices only in that they worked at home. Not being a working class in the modern sense of the word, this stratum was already an element of the pre-proletariat, fully formed later, during the period of widespread and widespread development of manufacture.

With the development and aggravation of social contradictions within the medieval city, the exploited sections of the urban population began to openly oppose the urban elite that was in power, which now in many cities included, along with the patriciate, the guild aristocracy. This struggle also included the lowest, disenfranchised stratum of the urban population: people deprived of certain occupations and permanent residence, declassed elements who were outside the feudal-estate structure - they constituted the urban plebeian.

In the XIV-XV centuries. the lower strata of the urban population raise uprisings against the urban oligarchy and the guild elite in a number of cities in Western Europe - in Florence, Perugia, Siena, Cologne, etc. In these uprisings, which were the most acute manifestations of social contradictions within the medieval city, hired workers workers.

Thus, in the social struggle that unfolded in the medieval cities of Western Europe, three main stages can be distinguished. At first, the entire mass of the townspeople fought against the feudal lords for the liberation of the cities from their power. Then the guilds waged a struggle with the urban patriciate. Later, the struggle of the urban plebeians against the rich craftsmen and merchants who exploited and oppressed them, as well as against the urban oligarchy, unfolded.

The formation and growth of the urban class

In the process of urban development, the growth of handicraft and merchant corporations, the struggle of citizens against feudal lords and internal social conflicts in their midst in feudal Europe, a special medieval class of townspeople developed.

In economic terms, the new estate was connected to some extent with handicraft and trading activities, with property, in contrast to other types of property under feudalism, "based only on labor and exchange." In political and legal terms, all members of this estate enjoyed a number of specific privileges and liberties (personal freedom, jurisdiction of the city court, participation in the city militia), which constituted the status of a full-fledged citizen. Initially, the urban estate was identified with the concept of "burghers", when the word "burgher" in a number of European countries denoted all urban residents (from the German "burg" - the city from which the medieval Latin "bur-gensis" came from, and from the French term "burgeoisie", coming from the Middle Ages and at first meaning "citizen"). In terms of their property and social status, the urban estate of the Middle Ages was not unified. Inside it existed, on the one hand, the urban patriciate, on the other, a layer of wealthy merchants and artisans, and, finally, the urban plebeians. As this stratification developed in the cities, the term "burgher" gradually changed its meaning. Already in the XII-XIII centuries. it began to be used only to designate "full-fledged", the most prosperous citizens, among whom representatives of the plebeians, eliminated from city government, could not fall. In the XIV - XV centuries. this term usually denoted only the rich and prosperous trade and craft strata of the city, from which the first elements of the bourgeoisie later grew.

The population of cities occupied a special place in the socio-political life of feudal society. Often it acted as a single force in the fight against the feudal lords (sometimes in alliance with the king). Later, the urban estate began to play a prominent role in estate-representative assemblies.

Thus, the inhabitants of medieval cities did not constitute a single class or socially monolithic stratum, but were constituted as an estate. Their disunity was reinforced by the dominance of the corporate system within the cities. The predominance of local interests in each city, which were sometimes intensified by trade rivalry between cities, also prevented their joint actions as estates on a countrywide scale.

Development of trade and credit in Western Europe

The growth of cities in Western Europe contributed in the XI-XV centuries. significant development of domestic and foreign trade. Cities, including small ones, primarily formed the local market, where exchanges with the rural district were carried out, the foundations were laid for the formation of a single internal market.

But during the period of developed feudalism, long-distance, transit trade continued to play a larger role in terms of the volume and value of products sold, carried out mainly by merchants not connected with production.

In the XIII-XV centuries. such inter-regional trade in Europe was concentrated mainly in two areas. One of them was the Mediterranean, which served as a link in the trade of Western European countries - Spain, South and Central France, Italy - among themselves, as well as with Byzantium and the countries of the East. From the 12th-13th centuries, especially in connection with the Crusades, the primacy in this trade passed from the Byzantines and Arabs to the merchants of Genoa and Venice, Marseilles and Barcelona. The main objects of trade here were luxury items exported from the East, spices, and, to some extent, wine; In addition to other goods, slaves were also exported to the East.

Another area of ​​European trade covered the Baltic and North Sea. The northwestern regions of Russia (especially Novgorod, Pskov and Polotsk), the Baltic states (Riga), Northern Germany, the Scandinavian countries, Flanders, Brabant and the Northern Netherlands, Northern France and England took part in it. In this area, consumer goods were traded: mainly fish, salt, furs, wool, cloth, flax, hemp, wax, resin, timber (especially ship timber), and from the 15th century. - bread.

The connections between these two areas of international trade were carried out along the trade route, which went through the Alpine passes, and then along the Rhine, where there were many large cities involved in this transit trade. An important role in trade, including international trade, was played by fairs, which became widespread in France, Italy, Germany, and England already in the 11th-12th centuries. Wholesale trade in high-demand goods was carried out here: wool, leather, cloth, linen fabrics, metals and products from them, grain. At fairs in the French county of Champagne in the XII-XIII centuries, which lasted almost all year round met merchants from many European countries. Venetians and Genoese delivered expensive oriental goods there. Flemish merchants and merchants from Florence brought well-dressed cloth, merchants from Germany - linen, Czech merchants - cloth, leather and metal products, wool, tin, lead and iron were delivered from England. In the XIV-XV centuries. Bruges (Flanders) became the main center of European fair trade.

The scale of the then trade should not be exaggerated: it was hampered by the dominance of subsistence farming in the countryside, as well as by the lawlessness of the feudal lords and feudal fragmentation. Duties and all kinds of fees were collected from merchants when moving from the possessions of one lord to the lands of another, when crossing bridges and even river fords, when traveling along a river that flowed in the possessions of one or another lord.

The noblest knights and even kings did not stop before robber attacks on merchant caravans. Nevertheless, the gradual growth of commodity-money relations and exchange made it possible to accumulate monetary capital in the hands of individuals - primarily merchants and usurers. The accumulation of funds was also facilitated by money exchange operations, which were necessary in the Middle Ages due to the endless variety of monetary systems and monetary units, since money was minted not only by emperors and kings, but also by all more or less prominent lords and bishops, as well as large cities.

To exchange one money for another and establish the value of a particular coin, a special profession of changers emerged. Money changers were engaged not only in exchange transactions, but also in money transfers, from which credit transactions arose. Usury was usually associated with this. Exchange transactions and credit transactions led to the creation of special banking offices. The first such banking offices arose in the cities of Northern Italy - in Lombardy. Therefore, the word "Lombard" in the Middle Ages became synonymous with a banker and usurer and was later preserved in the name of pawnshops.

The largest usurer in the Middle Ages was the Catholic Church. The largest credit and usury operations were carried out by the Roman Curia, into which huge sums of money flowed from all European countries.

The beginnings of capitalist exploitation in urban handicraft production

Successes in the development of domestic and foreign trade to end of XIV-XV centuries contributed to the accumulation in the hands of the merchant elite of the cities of significant funds and the formation of commercial capital. Merchant's or merchant's (as well as usurer's) capital is older than the capitalist mode of production and represents the oldest free form of capital. Op operates in the sphere of circulation, serving the exchange of goods both in the slaveholding, and in the feudal, and in capitalist societies. But at a certain level of development of commodity production under feudalism, under the conditions of the beginning disintegration of guild craft, commercial capital began to gradually penetrate into the sphere of production. Usually this was expressed in the fact that the merchant bought raw materials in bulk and resold them to artisans, and then bought finished products from them for further sale. As a result, a low-income artisan fell into a position dependent on the merchant, and he had no choice but to continue working for the merchant-buyer, but not as an independent commodity producer, but as a de facto hired worker (although sometimes he continued to work as before in his workshop). This penetration into the production of commercial and usurious capital served as one of the sources of capitalist manufactory, which was emerging during the period of decomposition of medieval handicraft production.

Another germ of capitalist production in the cities was the above-mentioned transformation of a mass of apprentices and apprentices into permanent wage-workers with no prospect of becoming masters. However, the emergence of elements of capitalist relations in cities in the XIV-XV centuries. it should not be exaggerated: it occurred only sporadically, in a few of the largest centers (mainly in Italy) and in the most developed branches of production, mainly in the cloth industry. The development of these new phenomena took place earlier and faster in those countries and those branches of crafts where there was a wide external market, which prompted the expansion of production, its improvement, and the investment of new, significant capital in it. It did not yet mean the existence of an established capitalist structure. It is characteristic that even in the large cities of Western Europe, including in Italy, a significant part of the capital accumulated in trade and usury was invested not in the expansion of industrial production, but in the acquisition of land; the owners of these capitals sought in this way to become part of the ruling class of feudal lords.

The development of commodity-money relations and changes in the socio-economic life of feudal society

The cities, as the main centers of commodity production and exchange, exerted an ever-increasing and many-sided influence on the feudal countryside. In it, consumer goods made by urban artisans began to find more and more sales: shoes, clothing, metal products, etc. There was an increase, albeit slowly, in the involvement of agricultural products in the trade turnover - bread, wine, wool, livestock, etc. the exchange involved also products of rural crafts and crafts (especially homespun coarse cloth, linen, wooden products, etc.). Their production more and more turned into ancillary commodity branches of the rural economy. All this led to the emergence and development a large number local markets, which later formed the basis for the formation of a wider internal market, linking various regions of the country with more or less strong economic relations. The growing involvement of the peasant economy in market relations intensified the growth of property inequality and social stratification among the peasantry. From the mass of peasants, on the one hand, the prosperous peasant elite stands out, and on the other hand, numerous rural poor, sometimes completely landless, living in some kind of craft or work for hire as laborers with the feudal lord or rich peasants. Some of these poor peasants, who were exploited not only by the feudal lords, but also by their more prosperous fellow villagers, constantly went to the cities in the hope of finding more tolerable conditions. There they poured into the masses of the urban plebeians. Sometimes prosperous peasants also moved to the cities, striving to use the funds accumulated in the countryside in the commercial and industrial sphere.

Commodity-money relations involved not only the peasant but also the master's domain economy, which led to significant changes in the relationship between them. The most typical and characteristic for most countries of Western Europe - Italy, France, West Germany and partly England - was the path in which in the XII-XV centuries. the process of rent commutation developed - the replacement of labor and product rent with cash payments. The feudal lords, therefore, shifted to the peasants all the concerns for the production and marketing of agricultural products in the market, usually near, local. This path of development gradually led in the 13th-15th centuries. to the liquidation of the domain and the distribution of all the land of the feudal lord to the peasants in holdings or for rent of a semi-feudal type. With the liquidation of the domain and the commutation of rent, the liberation of the bulk of the peasants from personal dependence was also connected, which was completed in most countries of Western Europe in the 15th century. However, despite some advantages of such development for the peasantry as a whole, its economic exploitation often increased; the commutation of rent and the personal emancipation of the peasants were often paid for by a significant increase in their payments to the feudal lords.

In some areas where a wide external market for agricultural products was developing, with which only the feudal lords could connect (Southeast England, Central and East Germany), development went the other way: here the feudal lords, on the contrary, expanded the domain economy, which led to an increase in the corvée of the peasants and attempts to strengthen oh personal dependence.

The consequence of the general intensification of the exploitation of the peasants under these different paths of development was an increase in the resistance of the peasants to feudal oppression and an intensification of the class struggle in all spheres of the life of feudal society. In the XIV-XV centuries. in a number of countries, the largest peasant uprisings in the history of the Western European Middle Ages are taking place, affecting the entire socio-economic and political development these countries. By the beginning of the 15th century, not without the influence of these large peasant movements, in the countries of Western Europe, the first, more progressive path of agrarian evolution triumphed. The consequence of this was the decline, the crisis of the classical patrimonial system and the complete shift of the center of agricultural production and its links with the market from the economy of the feudal lord to the small peasant economy, which became more and more marketable.

The crisis of the patrimonial economy, however, did not mean a general crisis of the feudal system. On the contrary, it expressed its generally successful adaptation to the changed economic conditions, when the relatively high level of commodity-money relations began to undermine the subsistence economy. Such a restructuring of the agrarian economy of the feudal society was associated with a number of temporary difficulties, especially for the economy of the feudal lords - a lack of labor (including holders), the desolation of part of the arable land, a drop in the profitability of many feudal estates.

However, one cannot agree with those foreign historians who saw in these phenomena a general “agrarian crisis” (V. Abel), “economic depression” (M. Postan) or even a “crisis of feudalism” (R. Hilton), considering the main reason for these “ crises "the demographic factor is the population decline after the plague epidemic that swept across Europe in the middle of the 14th century. Firstly, the listed phenomena of "decline" were not universal: they were not in the Netherlands, in the countries of the Iberian Peninsula; in a number of other regions of Europe they were weakly expressed. Secondly, these phenomena coexisted with noticeable success in many countries of peasant economy and urban production, especially in the 15th century. As for the "lost" rural population, then it began several decades before the epidemic of the mid-14th century. and during the fifteenth century. mostly replenished. The theory of "crises" put forward by bourgeois scientists cannot be recognized as sound, since it gives a very superficial explanation. economic development Western Europe in the XIV-XV centuries, ignores the social foundations of the feudal system and general patterns its development.

The real crisis of feudalism as a social phenomenon, even in the most advanced countries of Europe, came much later (in the 16th or even 17th centuries). The changes that took place in the feudal countryside of Western Europe in the 14th-15th centuries represented a further stage in the evolution of the feudal system under the conditions of the increased role of the commodity economy.

Cities and their trade and handicraft populations were everywhere large, although very different in different countries ah, the influence both on the agrarian system and the position of the peasants and feudal lords, and on the development of the feudal state (see chapters on the history of individual countries in the 11th-15th centuries). The role of cities and the urban class was also great in the development of medieval culture, the progress of which in the XII-XV centuries. they helped a lot.

Early European feudalism did without cities and urban economy. Cities arose in the 11th century. and begin to grow rapidly. First of all, the cities built by the Romans come to life: London, Paris, Marseille, Cologne, Genoa, Venice, Naples. Future Cologne by the beginning of the 11th century. was a significant space surrounded by Roman fortifications. Next to these walls, on the banks of the Rhine, a tiny artisan settlement appeared. Then, in a short time, the city grew to a size three times the size of the former Roman city, and was surrounded by new walls.
The reason for the emergence and rapid growth of cities was the separation of handicrafts from agriculture. On the one hand, the development of the craft followed the path of its specialization. Previously, the village blacksmith was a jack-of-all-trades: he shod horses, made sickles, knives and even weapons for the feudal lord's squad. He had enough work in the feud. But now there are gunsmiths who won't shoe horses, armor makers who can't make swords. And these "narrow specialists" no longer have enough work in the feud. They need a market.
On the other hand, the demand of feudal lords for luxury goods is growing. That is why “narrow specialists” appear in the craft, because the feudal lord is no longer satisfied with the rough products of home artisans. He no longer wants to walk in homespun linen and sheepskin coats, he needed fine woolen fabrics, and their production could not be established in every feud.
And now the craftsman, who has become unnecessary to the feudal lord, in order to improve in his business and produce those products for which demand has increased, leaves the village and settles in a place where many people flock, where he can find many buyers and customers for his products - at the intersection of roads, under the walls of a large monastery, where many pilgrims flock. This is where the city begins to grow.
The serfs flee to the cities. Then there was a proverb: “City air makes free”: according to the laws,
occupied everywhere (the main direction of development is curious that despite feo-feudalism in agriculture, far fragmentation, in Western Europe there was a growth of horses and customs were almost all-commodity production. de are the same), the peasant
it was enough to live in the city for one year and one day - and he became free.
Under the conditions of feudalism, when the market was still narrow, the craftsman did not immediately find a sufficient number of buyers in the city. Therefore, at first, the townspeople continued to engage in agriculture, had gardens and fields. Inside Paris back in the XIII-XV centuries. there were not only vegetable gardens, but also arable fields, and they said about the city of Mainz that it was partly inhabited, partly sown.
Epidemics of cholera and plague often raged in cities. But cities gave freedom, and people aspired to come here.
True, at first the city was under the rule of the feudal lord on whose land he grew up. Sometimes the feudal lords even tried to “organize” cities on their own land, so that later they could impose high taxes on them: after all, the townspeople were richer than the peasants, and the city brought much more income than a village with fields occupying the same area. Sometimes the feudal lord tried to manage in the city, as in his fiefdom.
But in the same XI century. everywhere begins the struggle of cities for their independence from the feudal lords. In this struggle, as a rule, the cities won. The fortress walls of the city were not inferior to the walls of the feudal castle, and the close-knit freedom-loving citizens themselves prepared weapons, including those for the feudal lords. In addition, the cities often acted in alliance with the royal power: the kings sought to weaken the power of large feudal lords.
Cities sought independence, became city-communes, city-states. Such a city was ruled by an elected magistrate, concluded agreements with other states, waged wars, minted its own coin, i.e. really acted as an independent state. Such city-states were Genoa, Venice and Florence in Italy, many cities in France and Germany.
But back to the craft. Western European craft - guild. The workshop was a corporation of artisans of a certain specialty (bakers, shoemakers, weavers). Such associations were necessary to protect artisans from outside competition, to achieve equality among artisans, to protect its members from the rest of the world.
As already mentioned, in the Middle Ages, a person on his own, without anyone's protection, was outlawed. In the city, he could exist
act only as a member of some corporation that cm w protected. Even the beggars had their own corporation. Hollow social order a medieval town is sometimes referred to as a corporate town. And the workshops could protect their members. Each workshop was at the same time a fighting detachment. He had his banner, his workshop building, where meetings and solemn acts were held. At the head was an elected master.
The workshop was not a production association. Each master, a member of the guild, had his own workshop (usually in his own house), where he worked with several apprentices and apprentices.
As already mentioned, one of the tasks of the guild device was to achieve equality between the masters. So that there would be no competition, so that all craftsmen were provided with work and everyone had an “existence worthy of his position,” shop charters strictly regulated production, limiting its size. The number of apprentices and apprentices that one master could keep was limited. Each master could acquire only a limited amount of raw materials. If he exceeded the norm, he had to transfer the excess to his comrades in the shop. The price of products was also determined by the charter.
The fact is that the sales market was still narrow, and therefore, if one master could produce and sell more products, then the other could be without buyers, i.e. out of employment. Therefore, shop charters also regulated production techniques. After all, if someone invents a technical improvement, he will gain an advantage over other members of the workshop. Therefore, all technical innovations were prohibited, and the workshops began to slow down technical progress. This was the first drawback of the workshop device.
There was another. We noted that one of the tasks of the workshop was to protect its members from outside competition. Therefore, every person who wanted to engage in a craft was obliged to join the workshop. And for this, he had to first work as an apprentice for one of the masters for several years, then for several more years he worked as an apprentice for pay. Only after that he could be accepted as a master. But for this he had to make a masterpiece - an excellent product, i.e. pass the exam for the title of master; arrange a feast for members of the workshop; present a certain amount of money, which was considered sufficient to organize their business. Over time, the obstacles to frightening the masters increased: the period of apprenticeship lengthened, and the amount of money required to join the workshop became more and more. “Closed” workshops appear, which no longer accept new members. Only the master's son, after the death of his father, could take it
place. There are "eternal apprentices" who no longer have any hope of becoming masters. In essence, they were just workers who worked for wages. And even in their struggle for higher wages, they used the working form of strikes. As we can see, the principle of equality in the workshops by no means extended to apprentices.
In some cases, guild craft developed into capitalist production. For example, in Florence in the XIV century. the members of the cloth guild were not artisans, but merchants who bought wool and sold cloth. In the workshop, which belonged to such a merchant-master, several dozen hired workers - "chompies" worked, who washed and combed the wool. The cleaned wool then went to the spinners from the village women, then the yarn passed to the weavers, and the finished fabric to the dyers. All of them worked in their homes, receiving payment from the clothiers, and they were not part of the workshop, like the “chompies”. So, in the XIV century. in Florence, the first capitalist manufactories in Europe arose. But this was an exception, because all shop principles were violated.

The evolution of feudal landownership is a picture extended over time of the emergence of new forms of holding land. To the earliest, which arose back in the 7th century. include such a form of land ownership as a precarium. True, the medieval precarium has nothing in common with the institution of Roman law of the same name. In fact, it was a fictitious transaction but the change of the title owner of the land. The owner entered into a contract of sale with the nearest monastery, which sells his land to him. The price of the deal was purely symbolic. The monastery immediately ceded the newly purchased land to the former owner, but on the basis of a lifetime and inheritable lease, also for an extremely symbolic price. The expression "symbolic price" must be taken literally. For example, the abbot of the monastery was shown a gold coin, or coins were shaken over his ear in a purse, or they were allowed to sniff a fried capon, etc. The sight, the ringing and the smell were the price paid. Moreover, both sides were satisfied - the Monastery that it acquired a new servant, the owner - that it acquired a patron. In those harsh conditions, it was the monasteries that remained islands of worldly prosperity and peace.

Over time, several types of precaria began to be distinguished. So, precaria data was the distribution of church lands to holders for a certain period of five years, but with the right to prolong. Actually, precaria oblata - receiving from the owner of the land with its return to him back, but with a significant increment of the church.

Beneficiary is the second type of feudal landownership in time of its occurrence. Its origin dates back to the 8th century. From the name of this institution (from the Latin beneficium - “good deed”, “mercy”) it is clear that it was a property given for temporary use as a token of payment for the service rendered. Since this service was mainly military, they distinguished first of all the beneficium militaris, which was rewarded to soldiers. Historically, beneficiaries arise from the widespread distribution of estates by the Carolingians to soldiers who were intended for horse service. This is how the knightly cavalry was created. The inconvenience of beneficiation, first of all, for vassals, was its urgency. According to the principle of nullum officio sine beneficium, the benefice was taken as soon as the service for which it was given ceased. Therefore, the vassals strove by hook or by crook to turn the beneficiaries at least into a lifetime possession, which eventually succeeds. So there is a feud.

The feud (flax) is already not only a lifetime, but also an inheritable possession: “When Conrad went to Rome, the vassals who were in his service asked him to deign to transfer the feud to his grandchildren by son by promulgation of a special law ...” ( LF. I. 1 § 2). Ownership of the feud continued even when the vassal no longer carried immediate military service, it was enough for him to pay only shield money for this. Termination of possession of the fief could take place only in the case of consolidatio (see above).

A special kind of feudal landownership was a chinsh or a census (from Latin census - a property qualification, a tax paid by a census officer). According to its rank, it was one of the lowest types of land tenure. Chinshevik continued to be personally free, since the burden lay not on him personally, but on his plot. The master could drive a chinshevik off the ground only in strictly defined cases and subject to a number of formalities: SLandrecht. II. 59 § 1. Bracton, describing the "glebae ascripticii", says of them: "They enjoy the privilege of not being removed from the land so long as they are able to pay the payments they owe, no matter in whose hands the royal estate may fall")