What do we mean by a town?
Enormous diversity -- size: Paris in early C14 very significantly over 100,000, Venice, Milan, Genoa, Florence, perhaps London ~100,000
        particular concentration of larger towns northern / central Italy / Mediterranean littoral
                                                       AND Northern  France / Low Countries / Rhineland
BUT many towns much smaller -- 1 or 2,000 persons
Italian Relation says no towns outside London except York
Probably bigger before Black Death, but not necessarily indicator of vitality

Economic Factors
Most people make their livelihood out of trade and commerce rather than agriculture
victualling trades usually largest group
some towns dominated by single craft, invariably textiles (eg Ypres)
but diversity of crafts urban characteristic

craft guilds as organisations controlling regulation of trade / labour -- quasi-democratic collectivities or instruments of civic / mercantile rule?
craft masters exercised authority over wives, children, apprentices, servants, journeymen / labourers
hostility to collectivities of journeyment etc.

centres of towns / cities tended to be most prosperous -- location of market places / civic buildings
marginal areas / suburbs tended to be poor -- labourers etc.
cf. zoning in Nuremberg

growth of new urban centres in later Middle Ages associated with rural industry -- eg Freiburg and the Breisgau (S. Germany); Sudbury, Lavenham, Wakefield etc.

Political Factors
Towns looked to govern themselves
Old established towns -- struggle to gain autonomy from local magnate (could be bishop eg Cologne)
in Empire towns might look to authority of emperor as way of circumventing more immediate authority -- free imperial cities
New towns -- lords would offer degree of self-government to attract settlers
by later C13 town governments often controlled by a patriciate

control of citizenship -- only privileged minority considered citizens -- definition tends to shift from property to guild identity -- dependents / employees / labourers excluded

challenges to patriciates by lesser merchants and artisans -- Bruges, Ghent 1302
major series of urban revolts later C14 (notably c 1378-83 -- Florence 1378; Brunswick, Ghent 1380, London 1381, Lübeck 1380-4 etc.)
also bloodless revolts resulting in guild government -- Augsburg 1368, Cologne 1396
but non-citizens / labourers etc. invaiably excluded (nb Florence 1378; Romans allowed labourers symbolic seat on council)

from later C15 mercantile oligarchies increasingly dominant
shift in what civic government thought it was about -- regulation of trade, especially foodstuffs / order > end of period, godly government (eg Coventry 1492, Augsburg 1520s)

colonial dimension to civic rule in some contexts --
eg Hanseatic port of  Reval (now Tallinn, Estonia), Riga (now Latvia)  ruled by ethnic German mercantile elite; Ragusa (now Dubrovnic, Croatia) ruled by Italian mercantile elite

civic authority could be extended over surrounding rural hinterland
control of pasture etc. to ensure supply of meat
Italian city states -- exercised jurisdiction over contado to ensure supply of food to the city (as represented in Siena Palazzo Publico frescoes)

Cultural Factors
Towns represent themselves as being different from their rural hinterland:
walls -- physical distinction as well as defence / economic purpose
friaries
hospitals
public buildings -- markets, guildhalls, bridges, paved streets etc.
origin myths -- Siena founded by Senio and Ascanio, twin sons of Remus, the brother of Romulus, founder of Rome (so borrows something of Rome's prestige)
patron saints -- St Genevieve (Paris); Virgin Mary (Siena) -- protected city when threatened by Florence 1260
drama, festivities, processions etc. -- eg royal entries etc. -- served didactic / propaganda role (eg Anglo-Burgundian Paris), also helped bind townsfolk together whilst reinforcing hierarchy
Corpus Christi processions -- Plays in some German towns also N. England
        Wakefield -- uses cycle to assert urban identity whilst still seigniorial borough -- borrows from York
Cultural diversity --
communities of beguines (devout women living communal, but not monastic lives) in Low Countries, N. France, Rhineland
Southern European towns eg Narbonne, Toulouse, Montpellier (S. France), Augsburg, Ulm (S. Germany), Florence etc. -- public brothels as civic amenities

Cosmopolitan nature of large cities --
presence of outsiders -- eg Italian merchants in Paris, Bruges, Ghent, Italians and Flemings in London etc.
presence of other faiths -- Jewish communities in many towns and cities (but expelled from England 1290, France 1306 (but not Carpentras), Spain 1492; Rhineland pogroms mid C14
converts from Islam in S. Spain, but persecuted from late C15 (fall of Granada 1492)

There are no simple definitions -- towns had to work at presenting themselves as such -- urban identity is as much a matter of representation as fact

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