town under Roman rule, must have become a mere heap of rubbish, for
when it was rebuilt in later times no attempt was made to follow the
lines of the old streets, and new streets were laid out over the
ruins of former houses. When a town was not actually destroyed it
ceased to live; the inhabitants had to take to agriculture to support
themselves, and the town shrank to a mere village, which could not be
distinguished from the manors about it. Of more than 500 modern French
cities scarcely 80 can be traced back to the Roman period, and all of
these lost their identity as towns and became simple villages in the
intervening time.
=44. Rise of towns after 1000; conditions determining their
location.=—We read of towns in Europe before the year 1000 but they
scarcely deserve the name; they were rather the germs from which towns
were later to spring. Considerable numbers of people would collect
in the place where some great feudal lord spent most of his time, or
where a monastery had been founded; garrisons would be established
at places suitable for military operations. We must regard such
groups, however, as supported by taxation rather than by the trade of
individuals, from which most urban groups arise. Trade of this kind
became, however, so considerable after the year 1000 that real towns
grew up in constantly increasing numbers. Their position was determined
by two important conditions of existence, political protection and the
chance for profitable trade. People found the former by nestling under
the walls of some castle or monastery; the many French towns which
bear the name of some saint show how much the protection of the church
was prized. The latter object was generally attained by founding the
town at some break in a line of transportation, where goods had to be
transshipped and where merchants would naturally congregate to rest and
exchange their wares (cf. Ox-ford, Cam-bridge, etc.). We find the most
considerable towns, therefore, along the seacoast and rivers, and at
breaks or intersections of the land routes.
=45. Development of manufacturing in the towns.=—The rise of the towns
brought with it, as has been suggested, a new era in manufactures. In
the ordinary village it did not pay men to specialize in the production
of wares, as the market was so small. A shoemaker, for instance,
could not make a living by selling 50 or 100 pairs of shoes a year.
If we think, however, of a village growing into a town surrounded by
a considerable country population, we see that the market has widened
into an area of size sufficient to support a number of specialists.
Manufacturing became a _profession_ to which men devoted most of their
time. A man could learn his trade much more thoroughly, and could
afford to make the tools which would enable him to exercise it most
efficiently. The result was an increase in production which enabled the
people on a given area to live far more comfortably than they had done
before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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