Medieval Urbanization Sample

Z just launched a new series on medieval towns and urbanization.

And we just talked about the process of urbanization and all that entails for about an hour and a half on the members feed.

And so I thought I'd give you a small, about 15-minute sample of that full hour and a half discussion.

Let's go back to the charters because this is important.

Because while they are only documents, they tell us a lot about what's going on.

And then the documents do define what urban life is going forward because once the rules are in place, you do have to mostly play by them.

Right.

So charters really start going out for towns and boroughs or usually

there's a town or a city and it's established into a borough with a charter.

So it starts with Henry I.

He establishes the exchequer.

that oversees taxes and it leads to the administration of cities that falls under this.

And so they become written down.

These charters are collected for the first time.

So

we do see towns being created out of whole cloth, but most of the time we're just seeing our first official peek into what's already going on.

Right.

And the difference between a town and a borough is this official legal status, so whether or not they were given a charter.

Towns are about size and function.

They're clearly urban living.

It's a big part of what's going on.

The borough has this extra legal definition and protection, usually extra rights, because it's been officially recognized as a borough.

And usually the boroughs were often county towns, so they're like the county market area and the administrative center of an area, or some of these other things that were hanging on potentially all the way since Rome, they're just big enough that they have had power and the king or another figure just basically affirms in a charter that they exist and they will retain their rights.

Thank you very much.

So let's go through a couple examples.

So Stafford, that's a county town from prior to the conquest.

It was an administrative center for the area since at least the 9th century, but possibly earlier, very likely earlier at some level.

Right.

And in 1086, it's listed in the Doomsday Book as a city, a borough, and a town.

Because all of those are things you can be and they don't exclude each other.

It's a city because it's fortified.

There's a fortification.

There's a wall around it or around part of it.

So that makes it a city.

It's a town because of that function.

It's a certain level of urbanization.

And then the borough, because it's now a charter.

Yeah, it's officially recognized.

It doesn't have a charter yet, but

it's officially recognized.

And the legal status of a borough, it's a privilege.

It's not a liability.

And Burgesses were the borough citizens, like officially a citizen of the town.

Is everybody who lives in the borough a Burgess, or is that a council of highly placed members of the town?

It's most of the citizens.

Including the women?

Yes.

Okay.

Though there were part of what you get in that charter is often the right to self-governance, but usually the self-governing were not actually the women.

So it's a bit of both.

But yes, if you were

your average woman living in a city, you were a burgess.

And

you weren't granted the same right as like the males per se, but you were granted certain rights.

And the way you lived was very different because your legal status was different.

These were were freemen, almost all of them.

And the point is, is that if you're a citizen of a town or a borough, you're living a different legal life.

Yeah.

You're not tied to the land like a serf is.

Exactly.

And so the borough privileges that are used that are standard, there's like a standard package and then like a bonus package that were typical.

Standard package, like one of the most important things about what was happening in these towns is that the right to burgage tenure.

So do you know what that is?

I do not.

You cannot overstate how important this system was to what it was to live and be an urban citizen or a town citizen and the kind of economic and legal life you lived.

Basically, it's a rent system, but you retain way more rights than a renter does today.

So these places were already having row homes and townhome areas.

A lot of the times you can look in these old towns that those long plots that you have are the original borough tenure areas.

And so if you're a normal citizen, you pay a flat fee per year to own one.

You can pass it down to your heirs.

You can alter it for your own purposes.

It's pretty much yours.

You've just got to pay sometimes like 16 pence a year to have it.

That changes.

This is the key point of how cities, towns, boroughs made money for lords.

And we'll get to that.

Okay.

So it's complicated.

The answer is complicated and can change.

Okay.

But the point is, is that you play, as a citizen, you pay a flat fee for that thing.

You can pass it on.

So it's essentially property tax.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's property tax.

And if you build yours up a ton, you have a, like often people who are craftspeople would have the store in front.

They lived in the back.

Maybe they kept some animals in their yard in the back.

You don't have to pay more.

Like it doesn't.

You can build up a successful life.

pass it on to your heirs for a flat fee.

Even if the value of your home increases?

Yep.

God, that sounds nice.

Right.

Basically, if you're lucky enough to live in a town, a city,

you have a level of security and freedom.

So you're not wandering not knowing where you live.

At the same time, you're not bound in the same way to a specific lord.

Your taxes are what goes to that lord.

That's cool.

Usually, the borough, one of the privileges of becoming a borough is that you have an official right to hold a market or fair.

So the charter for Portsmouth in 1194, so Richard I was about to go on,

he was like heading out to the Crusade and he grants a charter to like Portsmouth like on his way out.

It's like a,

you guys are great by.

And

one of the things that he gives them is like the right to hold a market every Thursday.

Like that's that that cannot be impinged upon basically.

What's likely is he wasn't like, I'm giving you this right.

What's likely is that that is something they were already doing.

And what his affirmation is probably just about not letting anyone get in the way of that.

It would be one of those things that

if the president came through and was like, heads up, we're going to war, but this farmer's market is great and you can hold it every Saturday from now on.

Yeah.

It's pretty much like that.

Part of it is because these fairs and markets, especially if they're official, meant there was now a standardized way and often they don't write it down in the charters, which is kind of interesting, which is why it's like a sign that these things were already being done and this is is just the last level of formalization.

Taxes were being taken from all these markets.

Right.

Money was changing hands, someone was getting cut.

Who got that cut, again, is complicated.

We'll get there in a minute.

But are they still doing that system where you had to actually pay the tax just to get into the market?

In some cases, yet.

Another key privilege that you would get, and these are written down sometimes in extreme detail.

I'll actually pull out a charter here in a minute, is the right to be tried in borough court by borough administrators.

Oh, so this means you are not subject to the whims of a lord

by your peers,

essentially, or at least, you know, the fancy men of the town, which are still going to be much closer to your peers

than some random lord who hates you and wants your stuff.

Right.

It's said it's going to be your neighbors who hate you and want your stuff.

And even often, if there was a dispute between a lord and a burghess, they're both going to the court to fight it out.

Can you imagine the level of freedom and power you had in contrast to

people people who are peasants and serfs.

That's awesome.

And this is one of those things where I meant like a woman can be a burghesse.

So they are written in as, and this is one of those key things for them that counts is if you transgress in a borough and you are a female burghesse, you get to be tried still at this borough administration.

So you're clearly a citizen, even if you're not necessarily an official part of the committee.

Although, and this is one of those things where it gets gets complicated and messy, where

if a woman was a particularly powerful craftsperson, became rich, her husband died, she will inherit things.

They often do end up on these committees, actually.

So, okay.

So

as far as outcomes go with a jury by your fancy neighbors, essentially, instead of by a lord, were the outcomes more equitable?

Like, this is on my mind because Rufus is the worst and he's going to discover that he can chop people's balls off.

So like spoilers.

Sorry, but it's a thing.

So

are we seeing, obviously he's particularly tyrannical, but are we seeing overall

the outcomes are more lenient and justice facing?

Or is it like...

You almost always want to be tried in a borough court.

Okay.

Yeah.

Let's see.

I've got here, this is a little later, so it's for Newcastle upon Tyne in the time of Henry I.

Okay.

So let's just go through this like by line by line

and

we can discuss like what's actually going on.

So let's see.

Okay.

The burghesses may distrain foreigners within their market and without, and within their houses and without, and within their borough and without.

And they may do this without the permission of the reeve, unless the courts are being held within the borough, or unless they are in the field on army service, or are doing castle guard.

But a burghess may not distrain on another burghes without the permission of a reeve.

So this is an impressive right, actually.

To distrain means to hold a person or their property until a debt is settled.

So if someone comes in.

So it's a lien.

Essentially, but you can't do it.

It's saying, and you can hold it on someone who's not from your town, but you can't do it if there's already court happening because like what are you doing right you can't do it if you're uh basically holding a position of authority like you can't be a guard and then go running around as the castle guard being like where's my money because that gets out of control fast and you can't do it to another citizen if there's another citizen

then the reeve needs to get involved okay so fascinating you don't have to ask the reeve permission if someone comes to your town buys some cloth does not fully pay you you can be like i'm holding your damn horse until you pay up.

And you don't have to ask anyone's permission to like settle that for you.

Interesting.

That makes a certain amount of logical sense, especially for a market town.

You would need a way to handle people.

Like if you're a craftsman and you get hired to create a certain number of pots, then you make all the pots.

You've put all this work and effort into it.

And then the person is like, yeah, I don't really feel like the pots anymore.

Yeah, you'd want a way to slap a lien on them and be like, these are are your pots.

And you don't have to wait for a king's administrator or a lord to care.

You can just act.

Here's another one: if a burgh shall be sued in respect of any plaint, he shall not plead outside the borough except for defect of court, nor need he answer except at a stated time and place unless he has already made a foolish answer, or unless the case concerns matters pertaining to the crown.

Okay, so uh, plaint.

So if there's a complaint against you.

Okay, just say complaint.

There's a level of formalization that has not happened yet.

But this is that whole, you retain certain freedoms.

People can't call you to account at any old time.

You have certain rights

if there's a legal dispute for it to stay within the borough.

Right.

People can't yank you out, except for the king.

King can do that.

Yeah.

Here's another really important one.

If anyone has held land in burgage for a year and a day, justly and without challenge, he need not answer any claimant unless the claimant is outside the kingdom of England or unless he be a boy not having the power of pleading.

So this is sometimes how you become a citizen is, and it's kind of like squatter's right, but for your own ass.

Okay, so that is, because, yeah, it sounded like adverse possession, where it's like, you need to hold this land open and notoriously for a certain period of time.

Essentially, yes.

With the exception of we don't want to have an international incident in here, or if you're 12,

no.

Okay.

So, yes, sometimes that's how, like, basically, if you're in good stead with your rent, someone can't just yank your house because someone, like, they owned it two generations back.

You know, and then here's another one who that's even more important because this is part of how these cities and towns remain places of

relatively free free and relatively powerful to the rest of like citizenry.

If a villain come to reside in the borough and shall remain as a burghesse in the borough for a year and a day, he shall thereafter always remain there unless there is a previous agreement between him and his lord for him to remain there for a certain time.

So this is one of those ways that people freed themselves from lordship in in rural areas, is they would move to a town and if no one hauled them back and if the lord wasn't like, No, you, I said go there under my instructions for two years and do this work for me, then you were now free and a and a citizen, and you were, you got the rights of being a burgess at that point.

Man, that year and a day would be nerve-wracking.

I mean, in some cases, it's because there was no work, no one wanted them, it didn't always have to be adverse.

Yeah, okay, but you know, if you'd lived somewhere for three years,

no one could come back and say, actually, I want you to come back because your mom was my serf.

Right.

And the town had to give you rights.

So it wasn't, it couldn't be a nativist thing where only people who had been in this town for four generations were allowed to have the rights of the burghesse.

Okay, and two more, just so we can demonstrate the sort of rights around being in legal trouble that these guys got on top of that was far and above and beyond what other people got.

Okay.

If a burghesse sues anyone concerning anything, he cannot force the burghes to trial by battle, But the burghese must defend himself by his oath, except in a charge of treason, when the burghesse must defend himself by battle.

Nor shall a burghese offer battle against a villain unless he has first quitted his burghage.

So it's kind of sweet and it goes both ways here, where they're free from being forced into trial by battle, but also you can't demand trial by battle on a poor villain.

That's fair.

Which seems fair.

But you're free from these sort of like more onerous, pardon the term, medieval trials.

You're sat there, you're like, dude, I'm a goldsmith, and some knight is like, we're doing trial by combat.

Like,

that would suck.

So, when you, you know, these phrases of urbane living, this is partly what they've become more civilizing areas because there are these restraints, frankly, on the aristocracy.

We're not doing justice by punching.

Yeah.

And so, in some ways, these were slightly safer, at least in our legal terms, areas to live.

Right.

One last one.

If a woman incur a forfeiture concerning bread or ale, none shall concern himself with it except the reeve.

If she offend twice, she shall be punished by the forfeiture.

If she offend thrice, justice shall take its course.

Okay.

Is there a big problem with bread and ale theft?

Bread and ale making were some of the big ways that women were making money, often on top of a craft that her family was in charge of.

So there were people who just made, were bakers all the time.

But yeah, that's how you end up with like Brewster as a last name.

Exactly.

But there are also people who would like make extra, and so that was like a little extra income that was always coming on.

So women, if they were getting into legal trouble around, you know, money changing hands and debts happening, it was probably over these minor like bread and beer sales.

Gotcha.

And this, in this case, it seems to be limits upon the men of the town forcing, like, she's allowed to go through legal processes rather than just being strong-armed by men in the town who want debts paid or perhaps owe a debt.

So this is what I mean by women are definitely Burkes's.

They definitely get rights that are for them.

In this case, women as women, which is interesting.

Medieval life sucks, but this is definitely the better way to live in a medieval world.

I would feel much safer,

truly.

That said, and we'll get into this in that other one, the sort of last part of this little urbanization series, the death rate was higher.

That makes sense.

I would guess disease is a big problem.

That's a huge, that's the one, essentially.

So, you know, a bit of this, bit of that.

You were free and full of disease.

There's also some other hilarious deaths that come out of just living in really much closer quarters, but we'll get to that.

I don't want to spoil it.

But this is just to say, when we talk about medieval urban life, this legal thing is not a passing small matter.

Town dwellers, especially borough dwellers, are a legal status unto themselves and they live, they start to live different lives because of it and then it becomes a very different live as that keeps going.

So I talked about like you have the basic rights privilege and then you have kind of like the bonus rights privilege package.

The self-governance thing is one of those bonus rights and you can see in that one, in the Newcastle on Tyne, they had some of it.

In other cities, you get much more of it.

Can you draft your own laws?

In some cases, yeah.

They can be pretty robust.

And the bigger the city, the more likely you are to have those.

So there's clearly, again, this appears to be that the towns are powerful, the kings are conceding, the local lords are conceding

that these places are powerful enough and they don't really want to challenge them.

They're often just acknowledging their rights, so they don't get too mad.

Is that because they rely so much on the revenue that the towns are generating?

Or is that because they don't want to end up in a situation where their daughters can only have two dolls instead of 30 because of bad trade tactics?

We'll get to that in a minute.

Apparently, there are a lot of people with 30 dolls, I'm learning from the news lately.

It's a fascinating discussion, and we are getting there.

Okay.

I will say the other like special rights package that some people sometimes got, some towns sometimes got, is the right to not pay taxes in other boroughs.

So if you're a wool merchant in London.

All right, I hope you enjoyed that.

And that was just a small part of what is going to be a three-part series.

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Thanks for listening.