Medieval Town
Medieval towns. Early towns in Europe were only small settlements outside the walls of a castle or a church. As towns grew larger, walls were built around them. Soldiers on the walls kept a lookout for attacking armies. The towns became crowded because the walls limited the amount of land available. Houses stood crowded together. The people had to build upward because land was expensive. Many buildings were five or six stories high.
Streets were narrow, crooked, dark, and filthy. Until about 1200, they were not paved. The people threw all their garbage and rubbish into the streets, and disease spread quickly. During the 1200's, people in some towns began to pave their streets with rough cobblestones. They also took some steps toward increasing sanitation.
A citizen who went out at night took his servants along for protection against robbers. The servants carried lanterns and torches because no town had street lighting. The wide use of lamps, torches, and candles made fire one of the great dangers for a medieval town. Wealthy citizens had stone and brick houses, but most houses were made of wood. A large fire was likely to wipe out a whole town. The city of Rouen, in France, burned to the ground six times between 1200 and 1225.
After the merchants and craftworkers settled in the towns, they set up organizations called guilds. A guild protected its members against unfair business practices, established prices and wages, and settled disputes between workers and employers.
Guilds played an important part in town government. When the first guilds were organized, the towns had few laws to protect merchants or craftworkers. Most laws were made and enforced by the lord who owned the land on which a town stood. As the townspeople gained power, they demanded the right to govern themselves. Often, a guild forced a lord to grant the people a charter that gave them certain rights of self-government. Guilds led the townspeople's fight for self-government, and so members of guilds often ran the new town governments.
Use Google Sketchup to create a medieval village. Your village should contain the following: