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Theories and Methods Senior Thesis Project Proposal The Rise of Towns in Medieval Europe For this project I will address the issues that confronted townspeople in feudal society as they began to emerge from the feudal system and became self-governing towns. To accomplish this I will need to examine feudal society, how it was formed, how it was structured, and the different roles of people within it. An understanding of feudal society will help explain why the new towns that began to emerge did not fit within its boundaries and begin to answer the question "What makes a town?" Is it the walls surrounding it, the lord ruling it, the merchants living within it, the buildings that make up its physical structure, a town council, or a charter? Is it a combination of all or any of these things or is it none of them? How did people respond to this new idea? Did class affect response? What made these new towns emerging out of feudalism different from towns that had existed before? What kind of people went against the social order? What forces in nature could have influenced social change? How were the new towns governed? Project Hypotheses The Rise of Towns in Medieval Europe The rise of medieval towns in Europe is reminiscent of Michelangelo's unfinished sculptures, which were intended for the tomb of Julius II. Looking at these sculptures we can see their origins, blocks of stone. We can also see the dramatic figures emerging from the stone. In composition the stone remains the same but in function it becomes something entirely new. It is the same as it was and yet fundamentally different than that which came before it. What made the medieval towns emerging from the feudal system different from the towns that came before them? Towns, as such, were not new innovations of the medieval period. Communities with large populations had formed even in ancient civilizations. In Western civilization, the most obvious town would be Rome, which has ebbed and peaked in population during its long history. There were also small towns that grew up around army garrisons, monasteries, cathedrals, and courtly residences. Towns were also created through deliberate action of feudal lords. Each of these towns fit within the bounds of feudal society. The populace within them owed allegiance to the Lord, who ruled the town, held the land and maintained the military might to defend it. They obeyed the laws put forth by their lord and paid for the privilege of serving him receiving some protection in the process. He in turn served another lord, who, more than likely, served another. Those at the top of the hierarchy of men, the king and the Pope, served the apex of the hierarchy, God. Towns grew around monasteries, castles, and garrisons out of the necessity of the occupants of those institutions. The people within the towns performed vital functions for the monks, lords, and soldiers. They provided raw materials such as food and cloth as well as services such as butchering and tailoring. This group of people became the merchant class. It was this group of individuals, who had wealth without property, who, by the very nature of trade, moved freely from place to place, and who had modest educations, unlike the servile class, who inspired the struggles that gave birth to a new kind of town. Analysis of Primary Document The Rise of Towns in Medieval Europe The Murder of Charles the Good by Galbert of Bruges is a work of love. Charles, Count of Flanders, was brutally murdered on March 2, 1127 in his own castle, in his own church, while at prayer. Galbert, who deeply respected and loved his feudal lord, Charles, who was "our natural lord and prince, renowned for his knightly valor and royal blood . . . generous toward the poor, courteous and honorable among his barons, cruel and wary toward his enemies," was shocked and outraged by Charles' murder. This "little handful of a book" explains the events leading up to the murder of Count Charles, as well as chronicles the events following his murder. As we read Galbert's words, we see the events as he saw them and we hear them as he heard them. Twelfth century Flanders was a time and place of relative stability, at least on the surface. However, a calm surface can hide turbulent waters. A strong undercurrent of tension and instability was waiting to burst through the calm surface of life in Flanders. The political and social system of feudalism did much to help create the illusion of stability and control the violence inherent within it. However, its grasp on society was tenuous. Feudalism relied on a system of heredity to fill positions of power and a system of oaths to ensure loyalty among the nobles. Heredity and oath giving were both points of stress within the system. Under pressure, such as that caused by the murder of Count Charles, those stress points were pushed beyond their breaking points and the illusion of stability was shattered. This was the world in which Galbert of Bruges lived. Galbert was a cleric and a notary, brought up and educated in the monastic system. As a cleric he would have lived under the hierarchical rule within the Catholic Church and been respectful of its mirror in secular society. As a notary it was part of his function in society to keep records. It was in his nature to document significant events. In the case of Count Charles' murder, he did so as the events occurred or shortly thereafter. As Galbert's book is from his point of view, it is necessarily skewed by his interpretation of what he saw. His loyalties and beliefs would have affected that interpretation. Had the events as they occurred not gone against what Galbert understood to be the natural order of the world, it seems unlikely that he would have been so compelled to record them as they happened rather than at their resolution. Galbert was clearly loyal to Count Charles and his loyalty also skews his interpretation of events. Had a notary loyal to the Erembald clan kept a diary of the same events, it would be an entirely different document. There are several reasons why Galbert may have written his book. He never specifically mentions a directive from church superiors to do so, as Walter of Therouanne did. Given the character of Galbert's writing, it is unlikely that he would fail to mention it. In his introduction, Galbert says that he "committed to writing for the memory of the faithful the strange outcome of his [Charles'] death." It is possible that he wrote simply for other members of the clergy. He may have written simply as a way to clear his own mind and make sense of the complex and tragic events that greatly affected his life. He may have written the book in hope that it would teach others a lesson. He says at the end of his introduction, "And let no one renounce or betray earthly rulers who we are bound to believe were placed over us by the ordinance of God." If nothing else, this statement explains both his outrage and shock at the events and provides a possible motivation for writing the book. Galbert did not set out deliberately to chronicle the birth of the town of Bruges. That seems, rather, to have been a serendipitous result of his habit of journaling. As Galbert chronicles the conflicts between the different lords, knights, and townspeople over who should be Count of Flanders after Charles' murder, he inadvertently illustrates the process of creating a medieval town. The townspeople of Bruges, in the power vacuum created by the murder of their Count, found themselves wielding greater power than they ever had before, which they utilized to their advantage. They received "a little charter of agreement" and gained for themselves "an oath . . . of both king and count, to the effect that neither king nor count . . . would any longer disturb our citizens . . . about paying the toll and rent . . . honestly and fairly, without reservation." Similar conflicts between the feudal system and a servile class pushing for autonomy occurred in other places in Europe. Hugh of Poitiers, also a twelfth century cleric and notary, documented the conflicts and struggles between French feudal lords, the clergy, and the emerging townspeople in his work The Vézelay Chronicle. The outcome of these struggles, as in Bruges, was a modicum of independence from both secular and religious authorities for the townspeople. Modern scholarship can also be a useful tool in understanding Galbert, his world, and the new town emerging from it. Marc Bloch's Feudal Society offers an analysis of the feudal system, an integral part of Galbert's world. Understanding how feudal government functioned can help in understanding the chaos that ensued following Charles' death and why the town of Bruges, as it developed, did not fit within this system. Modern scholarship can also assist in studying occurrences similar to the one in Bruges. William H. TeBrake's A Plague of Insurrection offers a modern study of a peasant revolt in Flanders two hundred years after Galbert's time. While Galbert's work of love provides a first hand account of events of great social change, he could not possibly have fully understood the significance of those events or the importance his "little handful of a book" would hold centuries later. Annotated Bibliography The Rise of Towns in Medieval Europe Primary Source Documents
Secondary Source Documents
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