What Was City Life Like in the Middle Ages?

A lot of medieval cities were similar to ours today in that they had governing bodies, educational structures, bankers, lawyers, hospitals, merchants, and an exchange of goods and services, as well as some extraordinary cathedrals that are still standing today. Though the medievals themselves were unsure about the advantages of their cities. The English chronicler and monk Richard Devis wrote about London in the 1190s and said, quote, Whatever evil or malicious thing that can be found in any part of the world, you will find it in that one city. So what was life like for these medieval metropolitans? Let's travel back in time and find out. Welcome to Medieval Madness. At the beginning of the middle ages, about 90% of Europeans lived in the countryside in religious communities or on feudal land. But by the time we reached the high middle ages in the 11th century, that number had fallen as more business opportunities opened up and trade overseas expanded. Then more people decided to migrate to the towns and cities in search of a better way of life. Many villages had grown up outside of manors, castles or monasteries and along trade routes. Over time, these villages later became towns and cities that were enclosed within a protective wall, interspersed with towers that would have arrow slits for defence. Access to a medieval city was usually controlled through gates, inside the walls it would be crowded with streets and buildings, usually with a central cathedral. Safety Most people in the cities were either born free or were a peasant who had escaped from a manor in the countryside. Peasants or serfs who lived on a piece of land were required to work for the lord of the manor. In return for this, they had the right to cultivate that plot of land for their provisions, but they also had to work on their lord's fields. Serfs could not leave the land that they were bound to and were only allowed to marry with their lord's permission. It's no surprise then that many serfs ran away to the cities whenever they got the chance. As cities grew, the authorities encouraged people to relocate by offering any peasant the opportunity to become a freeman. If they left their rural community and resided within the city for a year and a day without being claimed by their lord, they could gain their freedom. However the last thing that someone who was essentially a runaway slave would want to do as they entered the city walls was to announce themselves and record their name and the date. Otherwise your lord could send his steward or bailiff looking for you and easily find out that you were somewhere within the city. But the cities needed workers to function properly, so the powers that be organised many hush hush under the table lists of people who were waiting for their year and a day of freedom. Some bailiffs and stewards were even accepting bribes from the city authorities to encourage serfs to leave their farms and migrate to the cities. Crowded Today, in 2023, our idea of a city is somewhere like Delhi in India with a population of over 16 million people, or New York with over 19 million. Medieval cities were tiny in comparison. In Europe there were about 15-20 cities that housed about 25,000 people. In Spain, the cities on the quarter of a million resident list included Valencia and Barcelona. In Germany, Cologne and Nuremberg. And in France, Bordeaux and Toulouse, among others. In England, by 1300, York and Bristol were the second largest cities, but only housed around 10-12,000 people each. In comparison, the capital London had grown to accommodate between 80-100,000, although figures took a huge dip in the middle of the century when the first wave of the Black Death pandemic hit. In 1339, King Edward III called London the mirror and exemplar of the whole realm. In about 1100 though, London shared the same number of citizens of around 40,000 inhabitants as its trading cities of Bruges and Ghent, which were just across the English Channel. This was not a coincidence as the three cities had a close trading relationship. Raw wool was manufactured in the rural areas of England before being transported to London. Then it would be loaded and shipped down the Thames River and across the Channel to the textile cities of Bruges and Ghent, where it would be processed and made into clothing. Some of that clothing would be shipped out across Europe and some would find its way back to England. So it makes sense that the three cities were roughly the same size. Stinky Most medieval cities might now be home to great opportunities and wealth, but they were also rife with squalor. They were noisy, crowded places with a hodgepodge of narrow streets stuffed full of houses. Some had yards where pigs and other animals were kept. They were smelly, packed full and a breeding ground for disease. Even though the scientific discovery of bacteria was still centuries away, the medievals soon came to understand that waste was filthy and certainly not pleasant to be around, especially in cities on a warm summer's day. This prompted stricter criteria for the disposal of waste water. But from 1371 in London, there was no more throwing it out of bedroom windows onto the people passing below. Yes, it could be disposed of in the central drainage channels that ran down most of the streets, but get caught chucking it out rather than walking downstairs with it and you would be fined two shillings. Following the understandable paranoia of disease after the Black Death, householders in London and York were officially held liable for keeping the area outside of their own front door clean. In Coventry, any man that did not clean the pavement outside of his home with a broom and a bucket on a Saturday was fined 12 pence. That was okay for the size streets, but what about the busy thoroughfares, jam-packed with people and horses and all of the rubbish that they created? In 1372, London came up with the idea of organising its first refuse collection. Publicly funded by using the money raised from the fines on dodgy brewers, 24 horses and 12 carts were purchased to start a waste management scheme. Weekly rubbish collections also occurred in York and Norwich, whilst in Coventry the cart came by on a Saturday, probably to align with the enforced cleaning day. Rubbish was to be kept inside the home until the carts arrived. Demand had grown so much that by the early 16th century, collections in London had increased to three times a week. Despite these measures, there was no way to regulate the behaviour of the hundreds of visitors that came into the towns and cities every day with their dogs, pigs, horses and poultry. Their litter let an adequate amount of work for the many scavengers and muck-crackers who had to collect their detritus from the filth-ridden streets and take the feces, soil and debris by boat or cart and deposit it outside of the city walls. Violent The murder rate rose unrelentingly towards the end of the 14th century. Murder along with theft and assault became a serious problem for the medieval city dweller. Curfews were used to try and keep citizens safe from strangers and a bell would be rung to allow people to hurry back to their homes before the city gates were closed and locked. But sometimes the dangers were a lot closer to home and came from a citizen's own neighbours. Many residents became quite protective over the state of their cities and arguments would often break out, some becoming quite heated and violent. In London in 1322, the son of a goldsmith called William relieved himself into a pot and then threw the urine onto the shoes of a passerby. A row erupted and Philip de Assendone, who tried to intervene, was killed by a wound that was penetrating to the brain, just for trying to make the peace. An eel seller from Hampton named Roger Styward also met a sticky end. He was caught on Cordwainer Street in London, fly-tipping eel skins in front of two shops. One of the shopkeepers chased him into a nearby churchyard and gave him such a brutal beating that Roger was only able to manage to lurch a few steps to Cheapside before he dropped dead. Simon de Warfield continued to throw his rubbish into the street despite several warnings. He called his alderman rude names after being arrested in 1343. Similarly, Beatrice Langbourne called her alderman a broken-down old yokel when she was charged with the same offence 30 years later. William Emery, a poulterer known for littering the London streets with heron, horse and goose dung, really got on his neighbour's nerves when he threw out, quote, Horse piss that had stood under his horse a month or six weeks so that no man could pass. Perhaps it could be called poetic justice then when Johan Tolley fell to his death in 1326 whilst urinating out of his window into the street. The authorities at London in 1414 were so set on cleaning up their filthy streets that they even offered a reward for snitching on waste-dumping neighbours. Anyone willing to grass on a litterer was given two shillings and four pence as payment and an extra twelve pence out of the culprit's four shillings fine. That little incentive would have been worth about £100 today and probably resulted in turning many fed-up Londoners into stool pigeons. BUSINESS AND CULTURE Although only a small minority of people made up the population of medieval cities, they benefited well from the spending power of those countryside dwellers who travelled in to take advantage of the goods on offer. But they also brought in goods to sell to merchants such as butchers, millers and furriers. Without this flow of fresh goods such as meat and milk, neither manufacturer nor retailer would have been able to make a living. The hierarchy of cities was different from that in rural areas. At the top of the social scale were the landlords, who usually held important governmental positions, followed by the merchants and lawyers. Then came the artisans and traders, with the unskilled workers and labourers at the bottom of the pile. Just as today, medieval cities had a mixture of residential and commercial buildings. Many craftsmen lived with their family upstairs above the workshops. In medieval cities today we can see the legacy of their occupation with street names such as Pie Corner, Beef Lane, Apothecary Street and Fisher Row. Guilds were established for skilled artisans which meant special privileges such as workman's compensation, the right to trade at the market and limiting the number of specific trades within a city. Parish churches and other religious houses were important in cities during an age when the Catholic church dominated all aspects of medieval life. Probably the most impressive part of a medieval city was its cathedral. Some were hundreds of years in the making. York Minster, although founded in 627, wasn't finished until 1472, and while Cologne Cathedral was begun in 1248, it was the middle of the 16th century before work was fully completed. These buildings fuelled their city's economies by employing stonemasons, glaziers, engineers, architects and a multitude of craftsmen down through the centuries. Richard de Vies saw London as a den of iniquity, full of dangerous temptations with its taverns, gambling dens and brothels. And there can be no doubt that most cities in the middle ages were similar in that they were dirty, overcrowded, expensive and full of disease. But not long after de Vies maligned London, the cleric William Fitzstephen praised the city as quote, a place of thrilling spectacles, admirable devotion and exciting pastimes including skating and football. Just like our cities of today, for the medievals, they were essential hubs for spiritual, economic, political and cultural activities. Thank you for watching this episode of Medieval Madness, please subscribe if you haven't and I'll see you next week for another video. Cheers!