Town Life In The Early Middle Ages

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Town life was very uncommon on in the Early Middle Ages, particularly because what started this period, the fall of the Roman Empire in the west, also ended the very thing that made town life possible, trades. Since the fall in the west took great toll on trade with the east, town life began to decline until most people in the Early Middle Ages were no longer gathered in towns but in small communities across the countryside. There is many growth of this time period and more opportunities they offered to peasants, women as well the Jews.
Around 1000 CE, which marked the end of Early Middle Ages and the beginning of High Middle Ages, the population of Europe expanded rapidly as the result of the advancements in agriculture. The warming of climate …show more content…
This marked the beginning of the revival of town life after centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire. In the High Middle Ages, towns were the centers where goods were made, shipped, and stores. The groups of merchants and bankers were quickly gaining wealth and becoming the middle class. In fact, the majorities of town dwellers were free peasants or escaped surfs who were looked down upon by everyone. Nevertheless, there were places for them in towns and cities, where they can perform paid labors and be more free from the controls of the aristocratic system, which gave the noblemen – the lords and monasteries – many rights to impose unreasonable laws upon peasants and serfs, thereby exploiting their labors while making them pay rents and fees in order to use the …show more content…
There were few qualities of living in medieval towns that women enjoyed with the rest of the town dwellers. “women in particular benefited from the additional of legumes to their diet because the iron in these food” (245) While deaths from childbirth were still common around the time, women who survived those events were able to live longer because of better nutrients and women outnumbering men during this time period.
“… in part because urban women out- numbered men, they participated in the guilds, and families arranged to cement bonds of loyalty and control of commerce” (248). In medieval towns where businessmen were the largest population, most craftworks and family business were controlled by the men of the family, women can also “windows in particular ran businesses and took their husband’s places in the trade organization” (248) and built stable incomes from there. So even though women in medieval towns of the High Middle Ages did not see significant improvement in their rights and social statuses compare to
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