THE FUNCTIONING OF THE ECONOMY IN MEDIEVAL CITIES: ELEVENTH TO FOURTEENTH CENTURIES

Abstract

In this chapter, we make a brief historiographical analysis of the economic character of the main medieval cities of Western Europe between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. Were these "new" urban agglomerations the result of the expansion of the old towns, the continuity of the old episcopal cities, or the result of the expansion and intensification of the commercial relations developed by the new "class" of rich men, the merchants? We will seek to understand in what aspects these "new" urban agglomerations differed from the old cities of the West, especially in the economic and social fields. In the end, we will highlight the transformations in the productive and commercial base that occurred in the final phase of the Middle Ages and the main changes they caused in the mentalities of the people of this period, especially about the way of thinking about their social and economic relations.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.56238/sevened2025.001-050