Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Western SIV Early Modern Europe Overview
Speaker 1: Number one, Life in fourteen fifty. Today, we're going to
Speaker 1: start our Early Modern Europe Overview by setting a baseline.
Speaker 1: It is hard to see what changes between fourteen fifty
Speaker 1: and sixteen fifty occur if we do not really know
Speaker 1: where things stand in fourteen fifty. The last time I
Speaker 1: did anything like this was a look at high medieval
Speaker 1: urban life, which was a long time ago, and I'm
Speaker 1: not confident anyone remembers that now. Once we finished with
Speaker 1: today's program, I'm going to do a short series of
Speaker 1: shows that examine changes in society, culture, politics, economics, and technology.
Speaker 1: That should set us up nicely to begin what will be,
Speaker 1: for me, the longest story arc I have ever attempted,
Speaker 1: the Thirty Years War. I want to start by looking
Speaker 1: at how business and business was intertwined with travel circa
Speaker 1: fourteen fifty. Now, look, before I even do that, I
Speaker 1: should note that there was no such thing as a
Speaker 1: uniform quote unquote Europe in fourteen fifty. France and England
Speaker 1: are still in the one hundred Years War, though it
Speaker 1: only is about three years to go. Italy is a patchwork.
Speaker 1: The Reconquista still rages in Spain. Heck, for a little
Speaker 1: while at least, Constantinople is still a thing. So I'll
Speaker 1: draw distinctions where possible, but please understand that I'm going
Speaker 1: to paint with a broad brush here, and so I'm
Speaker 1: sure a lot of things that I'm going to say
Speaker 1: historians would argue wouldn't hold up to close scrutiny. Good thing,
Speaker 1: then I'm not a historian. So with that being said,
Speaker 1: Business and travel urban merchants in Italy, Germany and the
Speaker 1: Low Countries and the Low Countries I've used this phrase
Speaker 1: before today, that's Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. People of
Speaker 1: these areas developed new business techniques, including various forms of contracts,
Speaker 1: some of them temporary partnerships and some more permanent arrangements
Speaker 1: in Italian which were called compagnie. That's obviously the root
Speaker 1: of the English word company. Compagnie in Italian literally means
Speaker 1: bread together, i e. Sharing of bread. These trading companies
Speaker 1: Circle fourteen fifty sponsored land and sea expeditions in search
Speaker 1: of better routes, sources of supply, and of course new markets.
Speaker 1: Merchants from Florence, Venice, Genoa and other northern Italian cities
Speaker 1: established merchant colonies or at the very least set up
Speaker 1: permanent agents in far off locations. During the fourteenth century,
Speaker 1: merchants from Venice, Genoa, Barcelona, and other southern European cities
Speaker 1: developed permanent trading centers in most of the ports of
Speaker 1: the Middle East and many in North Africa. Genoese merchants
Speaker 1: dominated in the Aegean and Black Sea, meeting caravans carrying
Speaker 1: goods from India, Central Asia, and China. As we know,
Speaker 1: these caravans also brought the Black Death, which came to
Speaker 1: Europe from Asia in thirteen forty seven. Venetian merchants paid
Speaker 1: more attention to Asian spices in the Red Sea up
Speaker 1: to Cairo, which in the mid fifteenth century was the
Speaker 1: capital of the Mamlouk Empire. In near Eastern cities, so
Speaker 1: in what today we would call Turkey, Egypt, and the
Speaker 1: Middle East, European merchants lived separately from the rest of
Speaker 1: the community. Now, don't get me wrong, these weren't ghettos
Speaker 1: or the precursors to ghettos. Merchants lived in their own enclaves,
Speaker 1: but lived a higher standard of living than most of
Speaker 1: the rest of the population. Here, local rulers granted these
Speaker 1: foreign merchants special rights and privileges. The same could be
Speaker 1: said of Northern Europe. In northern European cities from Holland
Speaker 1: to Poland, different communities joined together to create Europe's first
Speaker 1: ever commercial league, the Hanseatic League. The Hanseatic League controlled
Speaker 1: a large swath of Northern trade, from the fur trade
Speaker 1: with Moscow, the fish trade with Norway and Sweden, and
Speaker 1: the wool trade in Flanders. But by the fourteen fifties,
Speaker 1: driven by the fall of Constantinople, the European trade market
Speaker 1: was decisively changing. It was, in a word, turning west.
Speaker 1: The Portuguese made direct contact with the Mali Empire in
Speaker 1: West Africa, opening up the potential for trade in gold
Speaker 1: and slaves. This is where African slavery as a concept
Speaker 1: in Europe and the Americas really begins. Portugal then encouraged
Speaker 1: colonization in the islands of the Atlantic, which later provided
Speaker 1: a springboard for further exploration into Africa and west toward
Speaker 1: the Americas. They built docks and shipyards and places like
Speaker 1: the Azores, the Madeira Islands, Verde Islands, and the Canaries.
Speaker 1: While economic motives inspired merchants to travel and escaping creditors
Speaker 1: or legal authorities, maybe spurred sailors and pedlars. Religious motives
Speaker 1: drew others to the sea routes of Europe. From ancient times,
Speaker 1: many of the world's religions encouraged pilgrimages to holy sites.
Speaker 1: Chinese Buddhists went to India. Japanese Buddhist sech later went
Speaker 1: to China. Now, of course, Christian pilgrims traveled well, and
Speaker 1: another group of travelers worth pointing out here is, of course,
Speaker 1: the pilgrims. Christian pilgrims traveled to Canterbury in England, Mario
Speaker 1: Wolf in Austria, Chechwara in Poland, and some ventured to
Speaker 1: the international pilgrimage sites of Jerusalem, Rome Constantinople which kept
Speaker 1: its name, or Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain, because
Speaker 1: making a pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the duties
Speaker 1: of a believer in Islam. Even by the year twelve hundred,
Speaker 1: there was a steady pilgrimage traffic in the western Indian
Speaker 1: Ocean local shrines to holy believers, also through Muslims, inns,
Speaker 1: hostels and shops were established along major routes, supplying these
Speaker 1: pilgrims with shelter, food, and even souvenirs. And this is
Speaker 1: one area where women as well as men made these journeys.
Speaker 1: There wasn't such a thing as leisure travel or vacation
Speaker 1: as we think of it. For ninety nine point nine
Speaker 1: percent of the population. Royals went on progress and the
Speaker 1: nobility would retire to country estates. Nobody went on like
Speaker 1: vacation to Paris, for example, But as I mentioned, people
Speaker 1: did travel a lot out of religious conviction. Even after
Speaker 1: the fall of Constantinople, European pilgrims still traveled to see
Speaker 1: saint relics and holy shrines, and in particular the Santiago
Speaker 1: de Compostele, as I mentioned in Spain, became an extremely
Speaker 1: popular destination. Christian communities in Asia and Africa were separated
Speaker 1: from European Christians by the spread of Islam, which first
Speaker 1: motivated an accompanied Arab conquests in the Middle East, North Africa,
Speaker 1: and the Iberian Peninsula, and then later continued to expand
Speaker 1: in sub Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia. Muslim
Speaker 1: legal scholars, Sufi mystics, and other religious leaders helped to
Speaker 1: spread and solidify Muslim teachings both within and beyond territories
Speaker 1: in which the rulers were Muslims. Effective missionaries in both
Speaker 1: Christianity and Islam often absorbed and modified indigenous traditions and
Speaker 1: customs as they moved, so that place is sacred to
Speaker 1: specific gods became identified instead now with saints or apostles
Speaker 1: in Christianity, and sometimes local gods could become the men
Speaker 1: off stations of Allah in Islam. By fourteen fifty. There
Speaker 1: were therefore wide variations in rituals, practices, institutions, and even
Speaker 1: doctrine in both religions, some sanctioned by authorities, others not.
Speaker 1: Travelers from one part of Christendom or one part of
Speaker 1: Dar al Islam the land of Islam to another frequently
Speaker 1: commented on just how strange and perhaps unacceptable they found
Speaker 1: the practices of their co religionists as they moved. Now, look,
Speaker 1: the vast majority of Europeans didn't travel very far from
Speaker 1: their home villages, most for their entire lives, but some
Speaker 1: were going great distances, and by the fourteen fifties those
Speaker 1: distances were rapidly expanding. Not that new routes of travel
Speaker 1: were always a one way street. Mind you, routes could
Speaker 1: close or disappear. The Viking colony on Eland had all
Speaker 1: but died out by fourteen fifty. The Ottoman conquest in
Speaker 1: Greece had cut off many routes of travel to the East,
Speaker 1: but the key difference was by the fourteen fifties, Europeans
Speaker 1: responded to these setbacks by finding new routes. While it's
Speaker 1: unlikely that most Europeans would have noticed it at the time,
Speaker 1: fourteen fifty marks the beginning of a much greater European
Speaker 1: interaction with the rest of the world. Now, in terms
Speaker 1: of society, if we examined Europe as a whole in
Speaker 1: fourteen fifty, the nobility is still by far the most
Speaker 1: powerful group, though to be fair, the term nobility is
Speaker 1: becoming a bit misleading now because the nobility varied a lot,
Speaker 1: from kings, princes all the way down to petty lords. Now, traditionally,
Speaker 1: Europe had been throughout all of the Middle Ages what
Speaker 1: is called tripartite. That means is that there were three
Speaker 1: social groups, those who fought nobles, those who prayed clergy,
Speaker 1: and those who worked everyone else. Of Course, the key
Speaker 1: problem with this is that the traditional conception of society
Speaker 1: overlooked the people who lived in the towns and cities.
Speaker 1: By fourteen fifty that numbered perhaps one quarter of the
Speaker 1: population in the Low countries, one fifth of Italy, one
Speaker 1: sixth of Spain and Portugal. Towns began to grow in
Speaker 1: Europe during the eleventh century around a couple of key cores,
Speaker 1: military camps, crossroads of trade, cathedral, seaports. Those sorts of
Speaker 1: things Gradually they won from whatever sovereign they happened to
Speaker 1: have legal and political rights, often codified in a town charter.
Speaker 1: They developed institutions of self government, regulated trade and production,
Speaker 1: attracted migrants from the countryside. These were the communities that
Speaker 1: were often hard hit by first and subsequent outbreaks of
Speaker 1: the Bubonic plague, though a few, like Nuremberg in Germany,
Speaker 1: developed strict rules of quarantine that managed to keep the
Speaker 1: plague outside the walls. Even by fourteen fifty, the tripartype
Speaker 1: model for Europe was out of date. Still, society remained
Speaker 1: divided by group or social order. That much was still true.
Speaker 1: It is crucial to note, however, that while money might
Speaker 1: overlap with status, that wasn't a given. Those in the
Speaker 1: first order, the nobility, were more likely to be wealthier
Speaker 1: than the third, but that wasn't always the case. If
Speaker 1: it wasn't the case, then why in the world would
Speaker 1: merchants constantly be buying titles of nobility, increasingly an excellent
Speaker 1: source of revenue for kings. James the First, as we know,
Speaker 1: sold titles of nobility like they were going out of style,
Speaker 1: indicating that oftentimes the merchants of the quote unquote third
Speaker 1: social order were actually wealthier than some nobility. And then,
Speaker 1: of course there was gender. Certainly most Europeans believed that
Speaker 1: men were superior to women, but to what extent well
Speaker 1: factored in here were not as sure, or at least
Speaker 1: not everyone agreed back then. Was a wealthy noble woman
Speaker 1: superior to a peasant man, yes, but was she superior
Speaker 1: to a lesser male noble Opinions on that were divided
Speaker 1: poverty less in the divisions between men and women, creating
Speaker 1: a sort of quote unquote equality of misery, never a
Speaker 1: good thing to have. Many women recognized a level of
Speaker 1: liberation if they were widowed and they chose to remain unmarried. Politically,
Speaker 1: European boundaries continued to be in a state of flux.
Speaker 1: In fourteen fifty. Other than a few rivers, there were
Speaker 1: not firm boundaries in the way that we think of
Speaker 1: them today. Rather, I think it's best if we think
Speaker 1: of the lines on the maps that we all see
Speaker 1: as sort of blurred lines and regions. France was less
Speaker 1: of a united kingdom than a patchwork of allied lesser states,
Speaker 1: for example, and honestly it will remain so until the
Speaker 1: eve of the Revolution. For most people in Europe, cultural
Speaker 1: and intellectual life in fourteen fifty was still very closely
Speaker 1: ranked to religion. Oh this is slowly starting to change. Monasteries,
Speaker 1: convins and cathedral schools had always been the main avenues
Speaker 1: to basic literacy since the tenth century for all but
Speaker 1: the elite, who could afford to hire private tutors. By
Speaker 1: the twelfth century, wealthy businessmen in a few cities had
Speaker 1: established small schools to teach reading and arithmetic, but even
Speaker 1: these used religious texts as their basic reading material. Beginning
Speaker 1: in the twelfth century, some of these cathedral or municipal
Speaker 1: schools developed into universities, teaching advanced subjects in law, medicine, theology,
Speaker 1: and philosophy. Of course, they were taught only to older
Speaker 1: male students and This is along with a more general
Speaker 1: curriculum what we would call the liberal arts to younger
Speaker 1: boys and men. Students at these universities, even those not
Speaker 1: studying theology or planning on a church career, were considered
Speaker 1: to be clergy in terms of legal jurisdiction and tax issues.
Speaker 1: The technical term is that they were in the quote
Speaker 1: unquote minor orders, though their regular participation in riots and
Speaker 1: drunken brawls might make us reconsider just how clerical this
Speaker 1: group was. Universities shaped the cultural and economic life of
Speaker 1: the cities in which they were located. The number of
Speaker 1: universities increased slowly from the twelfth century onward. In the
Speaker 1: year thirteen hundred, there were fifteen to twenty universities in Europe.
Speaker 1: By fifteen hundred there were over fifty university education and
Speaker 1: the preparatory study necessary to enter those universities was all
Speaker 1: conducted in Latin. Now, what that meant was that scholars
Speaker 1: from Portugal to Poland could communicate with one another in
Speaker 1: a lingua franca. Students could travel from one university to
Speaker 1: another easily, and they freated did. Learning Latin served as
Speaker 1: kind of a male puberty right for urban boys with
Speaker 1: an ion careers that required university study. It often bonded
Speaker 1: this group together and set it aside from the rest
Speaker 1: of the population. Scholars corresponded with one another and published
Speaker 1: in Latin until the eighteenth century, and university classes in
Speaker 1: many subjects continued to be taught in Latin right up
Speaker 1: to the nineteenth though Latin dominated scholarly discourse. Beginning in
Speaker 1: the fourteenth century, writers in some parts of Europe began
Speaker 1: to use local dialects rather than Latin for poems and stories,
Speaker 1: and these local dialects slowly developed into the vernacular literary
Speaker 1: languages of Italian, French, English, and others. This new type
Speaker 1: of literature was the result of increasing levels of vern
Speaker 1: literacy in the cities of Europe. Alongside schools teaching boys Latin,
Speaker 1: small schools, often very little more than a room or
Speaker 1: maybe even just a corner of someone's house, had begun
Speaker 1: to teach boys and a couple girls basic reading, writing,
Speaker 1: and basic mathematics. Vernacular languages slowly replaced Latin in official
Speaker 1: and business records, providing employment for folks in notary positions,
Speaker 1: secretarial positions, and clerks. This process started to broaden the
Speaker 1: circle of literate individuals within one area, but it also
Speaker 1: separated those in one area more sharply than those elsewhere.
Speaker 1: In the twelfth century, everyone in Europe spoke a local dialect,
Speaker 1: often referred to as the mother tongue, and very very
Speaker 1: few spoke, read, and wrote Latin. By the mid fifteenth century,
Speaker 1: this was still true, but in addition, some people now spoke, read,
Speaker 1: and wrote dialects that were becoming to be regarded as
Speaker 1: French or Italian. Those whose mother tongue was a dialect
Speaker 1: that did not become a literary language, let's say, people
Speaker 1: in Wales, for example, had to learn a language that
Speaker 1: varied extremely from their own, almost to the extent that
Speaker 1: perhaps Latin did. This was perhaps the period when vernacular
Speaker 1: literatures were taking off for the first time. This is
Speaker 1: the age of Dante and Chaucer. It was also the
Speaker 1: age of humanism, which was a totally new approach to
Speaker 1: education that began in northern Italian cities and rapidly spread outward.
Speaker 1: Humanism was a lot like the classical concept of rhetoric.
Speaker 1: It was supposed to prepare you for a life in
Speaker 1: business or at court. Humanism stressed things like the art
Speaker 1: of persuasion, public speaking, and effect writing. Crucially, to humanists,
Speaker 1: education was never about private edification. It wasn't about cloistering
Speaker 1: yourself up in some monastery and searching for truth. You
Speaker 1: were supposed to be in public, and ideally, this education
Speaker 1: you were getting, you were supposed to use it for
Speaker 1: the public good. Humanism is one aspect of the Renaissance,
Speaker 1: the self conscious cultural movement begun by Italian intellectuals, artists,
Speaker 1: and writers that emphasized a definitive break with the medieval past.
Speaker 1: They didn't reject Christian teachings or separation from the Church. Instead,
Speaker 1: Renaissance thinkers artists put greater emphasis on the secular and
Speaker 1: material world. A new attitude toward artists, writers, composers, and
Speaker 1: other creators of culture started to develop which emphasized their
Speaker 1: creative genius. Certain type of art, particularly painting, sculpture, and architecture,
Speaker 1: began to be viewed as the product of an individual
Speaker 1: rather than as a collective workshop. And now we're seeing
Speaker 1: the idea of art, rather than just simply a craft
Speaker 1: or a product, coming into the vernacular for the first time.
Speaker 1: Humanist education and Renaissance art are extremely important if we
Speaker 1: look at them backwards in hindsight, It's important to remember, though,
Speaker 1: that these changes in art and literature, and the way
Speaker 1: of thinking about one space in the world, all these
Speaker 1: had very very little impact on ordinary, day to day people.
Speaker 1: For most people, their cultural world remained one transmitted orally
Speaker 1: and visually through stories that were told in the evenings
Speaker 1: sermons preached by wandering friars. These oral and visual images
Speaker 1: continued to teach them to look forward to a pair
Speaker 1: paradise in heaven, rather to seek fame in this world.
Speaker 1: Paradise where food would be plentiful, work would be short,
Speaker 1: an illness unknown. In other words, a very different world
Speaker 1: than the one that they knew. It's worth pointing out
Speaker 1: that religiously, Europe was Roman Catholic in fourteen fifty, apart
Speaker 1: from the East, which was Orthodox. That was about to change,
Speaker 1: of course, we know that, But in fourteen fifty the
Speaker 1: church remained dogmatic and hierarchical. It also suffered from a
Speaker 1: myriad of problems which I have documented previously in this podcast,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going to go over again in great
Speaker 1: detail right now. Religion was never simply a matter of institutions. However,
Speaker 1: it was also about beliefs, rituals, and practices. It's almost
Speaker 1: impossible for us to know the beliefs of ordinary Christians,
Speaker 1: because their religious ideas make it into the historical record,
Speaker 1: generally only when they come into conflict with the institutional
Speaker 1: church during trials for heresy. Beliefs were expressed through rituals
Speaker 1: and actions, however, and there is much historical evidence regarding these.
Speaker 1: We know that people participated in processions dedicated to the
Speaker 1: Virgin Mary or a specific saint to ask for a
Speaker 1: good harvest or prosperity in their city. They asked the
Speaker 1: assistance of saints to get through childbirth, healed disease, protect
Speaker 1: them while traveling. They paid church taxes, and they often
Speaker 1: made voluntary donations for the building and maintenance of churches
Speaker 1: and cathedrals. At least once a year, sometimes more regularly,
Speaker 1: people confess their sins to the village priest, who then
Speaker 1: set forth certain actions, such as praying or fasting, as
Speaker 1: penance for those sins. By the fifteenth century, every single
Speaker 1: major life transition was marked by religious rituals, especially for Christians.
Speaker 1: There was baptism shortly after birth, preferably by a priest,
Speaker 1: but in an emergency situation by a midwife. On baptized
Speaker 1: babies couldn't enter heaven, so baptism was sometimes carried out
Speaker 1: even on dead children, even though technically theologically this wasn't acceptable.
Speaker 1: Though a church wedding wasn't required, most weddings in Europe
Speaker 1: were conducted by a priest, who often then went on
Speaker 1: to bless the marital bed. Women who had given birth
Speaker 1: went through the ritual that was called churching six days
Speaker 1: after childbirth, in which they thanked God for their safe
Speaker 1: delivery and then we're welcome back to the congregation. Of course,
Speaker 1: there were rituals for dying as well. Not only were
Speaker 1: individual life events marked by religious ceremonies, but the calendar
Speaker 1: was one hundred percent driven by religious festivals and days.
Speaker 1: The life of Christ was reenacted in an annual cycle
Speaker 1: of special Holy days, with days also dedicated to the
Speaker 1: Virgin Mary and a myriad of saints. All of these
Speaker 1: intersected intentionally with the agricultural cycle of planting and harvesting.
Speaker 1: By fourteen fifty, as many as fifty days out of
Speaker 1: the year were marked off as special Holy days in
Speaker 1: addition to every single Sunday, meaning there were over one
Speaker 1: hundred and two official holidays throughout the year. Interestingly, enough.
Speaker 1: Weekly attendance at church service wasn't always the norm, though
Speaker 1: The Church constantly entreated people to confess their sins to
Speaker 1: a priest at least once a year, though honestly many didn't.
Speaker 1: Now economically, Europe was in a far better position in
Speaker 1: fourteen fifty than had been in say, the previous three
Speaker 1: hundred years. The Italians, for the moment, continued to be
Speaker 1: the dominant players in the European economy. Florentine cloth was
Speaker 1: the finest in all of Europe and was exported throughout
Speaker 1: the continent. Cloth production in places like England and Ghent
Speaker 1: started to take off in the fifteenth century. Making cloth
Speaker 1: was one of the first types of production in Europe
Speaker 1: to be organized along what we would call capitalist lines,
Speaker 1: in which the raw materials, finished product, and sometimes tools
Speaker 1: needed for production were owned by someone other than the
Speaker 1: person who was doing the actual work. Cloth merchants, called drapers,
Speaker 1: purchased raw wool, hired workers for all stages of production,
Speaker 1: and then sold the finished product. Some stages of production
Speaker 1: might be carried out in the draper's home or in
Speaker 1: buildings they owned, but more often than not production was
Speaker 1: actually done in the houses of the people that they hired.
Speaker 1: Drapers in many towns, sometimes in combination with merchants of
Speaker 1: other types of products, joined together to form guilds that
Speaker 1: prohibited non members from trading in their towns. Mining was
Speaker 1: also a capitalist enterprise. Silver mines in Germany and Bohemia,
Speaker 1: lead and tin mines in western England, copper mines in
Speaker 1: Spain and Sweden, iron mines in England, Poland and eastern France,
Speaker 1: and salt mines throughout the Alps all provided opportunity for
Speaker 1: investment and for wage employment for workers. This investment paid
Speaker 1: for deeper tunnels, more machinery, more complex smelting processes, all
Speaker 1: of which increased the volume and the quality of the
Speaker 1: metals that Europeans were producing by fourteen fifty, and these
Speaker 1: metals were essential to the new techniques of warfare, which
Speaker 1: required much larger quantities of metal for armor, cannon balls,
Speaker 1: and shot for arquibosis. Most goods were not produced by
Speaker 1: wage workers hired by investors, however, but through craft guilds.
Speaker 1: Craft guilds had first developed in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Speaker 1: Craft guilds were organized around the production or sale of
Speaker 1: a particular product. They could regulate the hours that could
Speaker 1: be worked, the number of workers in a shop, the
Speaker 1: amount of raw materials any shop could maintain, and of course,
Speaker 1: the quality of standards required in finished products. These were
Speaker 1: set and down in written ordinances stipulating rules. Guilds were
Speaker 1: led by master craftsmen, adult heads of household who became
Speaker 1: members through producing a product judge acceptable called masterpiece, and
Speaker 1: often paying a fee. Each craftsman led his own shop,
Speaker 1: which was located within his household, unless his type of
Speaker 1: work required that he'd be at a specific location this
Speaker 1: is morally just building sites. He could hire an apprentice
Speaker 1: or two. The number was often set by guild regulations.
Speaker 1: Boys of around ten and whose parents then might sign
Speaker 1: an apprenticeship contract. These boys learned the trade while they worked.
Speaker 1: Once the apprenticeship was finished the duration, also being set
Speaker 1: by guild regulations, became journeymen and either continued to work
Speaker 1: in the same shop or traveled around working for various masters.
Speaker 1: Some years later, they could have the opportunity to settle down,
Speaker 1: make their own masterpiece, get married, open their own shop.
Speaker 1: Guilds created norms of masculinity that were very different from nobles.
Speaker 1: The ideal guild man was a stable provider for his home.
Speaker 1: He wasn't a warrior off fighting. Though women, especially the wives, daughters,
Speaker 1: and servants of guild masters, worked in guild shops, they
Speaker 1: didn't generally go through a formal training program. And I'm
Speaker 1: sure this won't surprise you, but they didn't have any
Speaker 1: voice in the running of the shop. Now, if the
Speaker 1: master died, the widow of a master might continue to
Speaker 1: operate the shop for a period of time after her
Speaker 1: husband's death, making her a very attractive marriage partner. Larger
Speaker 1: cities in Europe could have quite literally hundreds of different guilds,
Speaker 1: each of which which developed its own strong sense of
Speaker 1: work identity, and sometimes these groups had distinctive clothing. Guilds
Speaker 1: also had a non economic function. They could have special
Speaker 1: altars dedicated to patron saints, they could establish funds for
Speaker 1: orphans of masters, or they could carry a casket in
Speaker 1: a funeral. Though merchants, crafts, and guilds dominated the economic
Speaker 1: life of cities, most of the people who lived in
Speaker 1: cities weren't members of them. They made their living producing
Speaker 1: goods and performing services that weren't regulated by guilds. They
Speaker 1: could carry goods from place to place gather and selling firewood.
Speaker 1: They could work as servants. They could wash clothes, they
Speaker 1: could repair houses, brewing beer, which was not a guild
Speaker 1: at this point, but it could care for the sick.
Speaker 1: The growth of the cities of Western Europe was made
Speaker 1: possible by economic and political developments in the countryside. Labor
Speaker 1: obligations had begun to be replaced by cash rents in
Speaker 1: many parts of Western Europe in the thirteenth century. Attempts
Speaker 1: by landlords to reverse this trend after the Black Death
Speaker 1: hadn't worked at all, though some labor services like fixing
Speaker 1: roads or transporting goods to market and remained. Peasants in
Speaker 1: many areas now raised crops for themselves and for the market.
Speaker 1: They did not raise them for their lord as they
Speaker 1: had and say, the year twelve hundred, a similar process
Speaker 1: had started to occur in Eastern Europe. But as I'll
Speaker 1: talk about later, and as I mentioned a little bit
Speaker 1: in the Ivan the Terrible Episodes, by the fourteenth and
Speaker 1: especially fifteenth centuries, that trend in Eastern Europe is actually
Speaker 1: starting to go in reverse. Now. In terms of society
Speaker 1: in general, most European diets were nothing to write home about.
Speaker 1: In fourteen fifty Grain was the primary European staple eaten
Speaker 1: as bread or drunk as beer. Thus, grain growing remained
Speaker 1: the centerpiece of European economics. Interestingly, give us our day,
Speaker 1: our daily bread was the only portion of the Lord's prayer,
Speaker 1: the most important in all of Europe that referred to
Speaker 1: material goods. By the fifteenth century, specialized agricultural production had
Speaker 1: also developed in certain areas, some of which became dependent
Speaker 1: on imported grain. Southern Spain, Sicily and Greece produced olives.
Speaker 1: Southern France and Central Italy produced wine, Northern Italy silk.
Speaker 1: Northern France and Germany flax for linen. The residents of
Speaker 1: coastal areas from Lithuania to Norway and from Pultugal to
Speaker 1: Crete caught fish which they dried or salted for long
Speaker 1: distance trade. The trade in food stuffs gradually became an
Speaker 1: increasingly important segment of long distance trade, particularly when Western
Speaker 1: European merchants hooked up with Eastern European landlords to export
Speaker 1: their grain that the serfs had produced to the West. Now,
Speaker 1: increasingly shipments of these food stuffs and the growth of
Speaker 1: specialized economies were becoming dependent on sea transport and this
Speaker 1: just I can't stress this enough. This just wasn't a
Speaker 1: thing in the Middle Ages. Large scale sea transportation was
Speaker 1: something that was just beyond the pale of medieval Europe.
Speaker 1: There wasn't the infrastructure, there wasn't the technology, and there
Speaker 1: just wasn't the stability to establish these sea transport lanes
Speaker 1: in the first place. This was probably the biggest area
Speaker 1: of technological advancement in the fifteenth century. It was certainly
Speaker 1: most relevant to our story. In the fifteenth century, Europeans
Speaker 1: added a stern post rudder, which had originally been a
Speaker 1: Chinese invention, and they added two types of sales, a
Speaker 1: square one for speed and power, and a triangular or
Speaker 1: Latin sale for crosswinds. This was the same time when
Speaker 1: Europeans adopted the magnetic compass an astrolab so they could
Speaker 1: chart their course effectively. Thanks to these innovations, ocean trade
Speaker 1: became more profitable, efficient, and reliable. When it wasn't, Europeans
Speaker 1: started to adopt a form of maritime insurance so that
Speaker 1: trade might be guaranteed and encouraged. If you looked at
Speaker 1: a European ship in fourteen fifty, you would have noticed
Speaker 1: another difference compared to one, in say, fourteen hundred cannons.
Speaker 1: Gunpowder was in the process of revolutionizing the European battlefield,
Speaker 1: a process that will continue to play out throughout our story.
Speaker 1: As gunpowder grew in importance, Europeans began to perfect the
Speaker 1: methods of its production, increasing the demand for raw materials necessary,
Speaker 1: namely black powder and saltpeter. This in turn increased trade.
Speaker 1: But of course, the biggest innovation of the fourteenth century
Speaker 1: had been movable type. The printing press and movable type
Speaker 1: allowed Europeans to transmit knowledge in a way previously unimaginable. Critically,
Speaker 1: it broke the stranglehold the church and university system held
Speaker 1: over the acquisition of information. Knowledge became practical and useful.
Speaker 1: Suddenly Aristotle didn't look so perfect. Maybe he wasn't right
Speaker 1: after all. Maybe Europe and Asia weren't surrounded by a
Speaker 1: massive ocean all right. So that sets our base line
Speaker 1: at fourteen fifty. Next week, I'm going to look closely
Speaker 1: at society and examine societal change between fourteen fifty and
Speaker 1: sixteen fifty. If you've enjoyed the show, the best way
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