From Manor Fields to Market Towns

Lords, Serfs, Guilds and Fairs

1After the western Roman Empire fell in 476 CE, trade in western Europe shrank, roads fell apart and many towns got smaller. Raids by Vikings and other groups made travel dangerous. By about 900, many people in western Europe lived on manors: large farming estates controlled by a lord. Most of the peasants on a manor were serfs. Serfs were usually bound to the land and could not leave without the lord's permission, but unlike enslaved people, they could not be sold away from it.

2A manor worked as an exchange of duties. Serfs farmed strips of land for their own families. In return, they worked several days a week in the lord's own fields, gave him part of their harvest and paid fees to grind grain at his mill or bake bread in his oven. The lord protected the manor in times of war and ran its court. Most manors tried to produce nearly everything they needed, from bread and cloth to tools made by the village blacksmith, so little money changed hands.

3Around the year 1000, life began to change. Heavy plows that could turn thick northern soil, and a three-field system in which one field rested each year, helped farmers grow more food. Viking raids became less common, so roads and rivers grew safer. Villagers now had extra crops to sell, and markets grew near castles, bridges, harbors and crossroads. Many of these markets became towns. Townspeople often bought a charter from a lord or king, a document granting rights such as running their own courts and markets. In many places, a serf who lived in a town for a year and a day could become free. Even so, most Europeans still lived in villages and farmed.

4In the towns, merchants and craftspeople formed guilds, groups that controlled one trade in a town. A guild set prices and quality rules, and it often kept outsiders from selling in town. A young person began as an apprentice, living with a master for several years and working in exchange for training. Next came the journeyman, who was paid by the day. To become a master, a journeyman usually had to make a "masterpiece" that the guild approved. Guilds also helped members' families when someone fell sick or died.

5Trade fairs linked distant regions. The fairs in the Champagne region of France were busiest in the 1100s and 1200s. Several fairs a year, each lasting weeks, drew merchants from Italy with spices and silk brought from Asia, and merchants from Flanders with fine wool cloth. The counts who ruled Champagne protected traveling merchants and set up fair courts to settle disputes, and money changers swapped coins from many lands.