# Towns and Commerce, Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries

History II · Medieval History · https://tryals.app/learn/history-ii/towns-and-commerce-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries

## The Machinery of Growth

Between 1000 and 1300 Europe's population probably doubled. This Growth rested on agricultural improvements:

- The **heavy plough** turned wet, heavy clay soils.
- **Three-field rotation** left only a third fallow, raising cultivated land to **67 per cent** (67).
- The **horse collar** allowed faster draught work without choking horses.
- **Watermills** multiplied rapidly across the countryside.

Surplus food sustained new **towns**. Towns bought charters to gain legal rights and market privileges. A serf who stayed unclaimed in a chartered town for a year and a day became free.

## Commerce and Finance

Long-distance trade linked Flemish cloth with Italian merchants. The **fairs of Champagne** ran a rotating annual cycle in four towns:

| Town | Fairs a year |
|---|---|
| Lagny | 1 |
| Bar-sur-Aube | 1 |
| Provins | 2 |
| Troyes | 2 |

The **commercial revolution** introduced flexible business instruments:

- The **commenda**: an investor backed a travelling merchant and split the profit.
- The **bill of exchange**: transferred money between cities and currencies, bypassing rules on **usury**.
- **Double-entry bookkeeping**: tracked complex accounts reliably.
- The return of **gold coinage** to the West: Florence minted gold in 1252, and Venice followed in 1284.

> **Common pitfall:** The ban on usury did not end credit. It merely shaped its legal form.

## Practice questions

10 of this lesson's 15 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app.

### 1. Which agricultural changes contributed to the population growth of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries?

A. The introduction of the potato as a field crop
B. A heavy plough able to turn wet clay soils
C. Three-field rotation, raising the cultivated share and adding a spring sowing
D. The horse collar, allowing horses to be used for traction

**Answer:** B. A heavy plough able to turn wet clay soils; C. Three-field rotation, raising the cultivated share and adding a spring sowing; D. The horse collar, allowing horses to be used for traction

**Why:** The three real changes compound: a plough that opens northern soils, a rotation that cuts fallow from a half to a third, and faster traction. None is individually dramatic and together they lift output enough to feed a population that roughly doubles, which is the precondition for towns of any size.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/towns-and-commerce-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/which-agricultural-changes-contributed-to-the-population-growth-of

### 2. Under three-field rotation, what percentage of the arable is under crop in a given year, to the nearest whole number?

**Answer:** 67 (within ±1)

**Why:** **67 per cent**, against 50 under a two-field system, an increase of a third in the cultivated area from a change in scheduling alone. The second benefit is less obvious and may matter more: a spring sowing spreads ploughing and harvest labour across the year instead of concentrating it.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/towns-and-commerce-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/under-three-field-rotation-what-percentage-of-the-arable-is-under

### 3. A serf who lived unclaimed in a chartered town for a year and a day became free under a widely held custom. Why was that rule so damaging to rural lordship?

A. It immediately dissolved the unfree legal status of all remaining peasants across the manorial estate
B. It legally forced manorial lords to convert every labour obligation into cash wages to stop flight
C. It granted chartered boroughs the authority to seize agricultural estates that harboured runaways
D. It made every nearby town a standing route out of dependence, and lords could not police it cheaply

**Answer:** D. It made every nearby town a standing route out of dependence, and lords could not police it cheaply

**Why:** Enforcement was the problem. Recovering a runaway required identifying him inside a jurisdiction with its own court, its own interest in keeping newcomers, and no obligation to help. The rule did not free many people in absolute terms, but it set a floor: a lord who pressed too hard risked losing the tenant entirely.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/towns-and-commerce-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/a-serf-who-lived-unclaimed-in-a-chartered-town-for-a-year-and-a-day

### 4. The commercial revolution created instruments that accommodated the Church's ban on usury rather than abolishing credit. How did the bill of exchange achieve this in practice?

A. By moving funds across currencies to disguise the charge for credit
B. By relying entirely on maritime trade where profit sharing was legal
C. By securing municipal charters that formally suspended canon law rules
D. By replacing credit arrangements with physical transfers of gold coin

**Answer:** A. By moving funds across currencies to disguise the charge for credit

**Why:** Bills of exchange converted lending into a currency exchange transaction, concealing interest within exchange rates. The ban did not halt credit or require special charters; instead, it prompted merchants to devise legal fictions that decoupled profit from direct interest.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/towns-and-commerce-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/the-commercial-revolution-created-instruments-that-accommodated-the

### 5. The medieval prohibition on usury effectively prevented lending at interest in western Europe.

**Answer:** False

**Why:** **False.** Credit was pervasive. The prohibition shaped its form, interest was buried in exchange rates, in partnership shares, in rent charges and in penalties for late repayment, rather than suppressing it. The doctrine changed the vocabulary of lending far more than it changed its volume.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/towns-and-commerce-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/the-medieval-prohibition-on-usury-effectively-prevented-lending-at

### 6. Complete the account of the contracts that carried long-distance trade.

**Answer:** In a **commenda** an investor supplied the capital and a travelling partner supplied the labour and the risk. A **bill** of exchange let a debt be settled in another city and another currency, moving value without moving **coin**. Italian cities adopted double-entry **bookkeeping** by the fourteenth century, which makes an error in the accounts detectable.

**Why:** Each instrument solves a distinct problem, separating capital from risk, moving value safely, and detecting error at scale. Together they are what makes a firm possible: a merchant in Florence can be a partner in a voyage he never sees and know, from the books, whether it paid.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/towns-and-commerce-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/complete-the-account-of-the-contracts-that-carried-long-distance

### 7. Arrange the steps by which agricultural change supported urban growth.

**Answer:**

1. Heavier ploughs and better traction open new and wetter soils
2. Three-field rotation raises the share of land under crop each year
3. Food output rises faster than the labour needed to produce it
4. Population not required on the land concentrates in towns
5. Towns purchase charters granting markets, courts and tolls

**Why:** The last step is the one that is easy to skip. A town’s liberties were usually bought or negotiated, not granted out of goodwill: a lord sold rights for cash he needed, and the community could pay because the surplus at step three had made it rich enough to.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/towns-and-commerce-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/arrange-the-steps-by-which-agricultural-change-supported-urban-growth

### 8. Sort each item by whether it is best described as a TECHNIQUE or as an INSTITUTION.

**Answer:**

- Technique: The horse collar, Double-entry bookkeeping, Watermills for grinding and fulling
- Institution: A town charter granting a market and a court, The guild regulating a trade’s entry and standards, The commune as a sworn association of townsmen

**Why:** The medieval commercial expansion is usually taught as institutional and the agricultural one as technical, and both halves of that are half wrong. Bookkeeping and the mill are techniques inside a commercial world; the charter and the commune are institutions that made the agricultural surplus mobile.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/towns-and-commerce-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/sort-each-item-by-whether-it-is-best-described-as-a-technique-or-as

### 9. Genoa and Florence began striking gold coin again in 1252, and Venice from 1284, after centuries in which the West minted silver only. What does the return of gold coinage indicate?

A. Papal authorities had lifted old canonical bans restricting the minting of high-value bullion
B. Central European silver mines were depleted, forcing Italian merchant cities to use gold bullion
C. Transactions grew so large that silver was too bulky, with gold inflows sufficient for coinage
D. Collapsing Byzantine trade cut off the foreign gold coin supply Western markets had relied upon

**Answer:** C. Transactions grew so large that silver was too bulky, with gold inflows sufficient for coinage

**Why:** Both halves are needed. Big transactions make silver unwieldy, a substantial payment is a cartload, and the trade with North Africa and the Levant was bringing gold in. Silver production was in fact expanding at the time, so exhaustion is the wrong explanation; the change reflects the scale trade had reached.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/towns-and-commerce-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/genoa-and-florence-began-striking-gold-coin-again-in-1252-and-venice

### 10. Estimates of European population growth between 1000 and 1300 vary widely, and no figure for the period is secure.

**Answer:** True

**Why:** **True**, and it is worth saying plainly. The sources are fragmentary and regionally uneven, and reconstructions differ by tens of millions. Historians are confident about the direction and the rough order of magnitude, something like a doubling, and not about any particular figure.

Page: https://tryals.app/practice/history-ii/towns-and-commerce-eleventh-to-thirteenth-centuries/estimates-of-european-population-growth-between-1000-and-1300-vary