The towns of England and northern Italy in the early fourteenth century

TJ'hough the societies of Europe in the early fourteenth century were 1 predominantly agrarian, the growth of long-distance and short-distance trade had encouraged the growth of employment outside agriculture and spread the use of money in rural communities. In charting the commercialization of everyday life, and in explaining it, historians justifiably emphasize the importance of towns, using this term to include both centres of international trade and the many small market-centred communities whose impact was only local. The expansion and multiplication of towns was one of the ways in which population growth had been accommodated since the eleventh century, and by I300 urban demand for food and industrial raw materials offered a diverse range of marketing opportunities for countrymen. But across Europe there was great variation in the number and size of towns. These contrasts colour the way historians perceive regional economic differences more than any other indicator, and not surprisingly. The size of urban populations had implications for political organization, social structure, education, and culture as well as for the volume and pattern of trade. Two countries whose history can help to explain the economic significance of such differences are England and northern Italy-that is, Italy north of the kingdom of Naples. Why was town life so much less developed in the former than in the latter? How does the contrast relate to other characteristics of their economies? Let us start by examining the towns of the two countries more closely, distinguishing between those that were very large, large, middle-sized, and small.2