Characteristics of Sixteenth-Century European Towns

Size, legal status, or presence of fortifications(walls or other defensive barriers)might seem natural criteria in defining the distinction between town and village in sixteenth-century- Europe. Ultimately, however,it was none of these, but rather “urban” functions that distinguished even the smallest towns from villages.Some villages could be relatively large. Some had their own walls. On the other hand, many towns were unfortified and lacked legal status as a town.

Early modern towns were multifunctional. Whether they were large or small this was what they shared. and this in turn is what distinguished them most from rural settlements. Not all of these functions were economic, but the economic functions were the foundations upon which all others were constructed. Only newly established military towns, such as Palmanova in northeastern Italy or Neuf-Brisach on the Franco-Imperial border, and the occasional ecclesiastical center were an exception to this pattern. Without the money and demographic momentum generated by economic activity, towns were not selected as the location for administrative centers, law courts, capital cities, colleges and universities. Cathedrals, or the sites for religious orders. They might be transformed in the process, as were Madrid, when it was chosen definitively by Philip ll in 1561 as the capital of Spain, and Weilburg in Hesse, which was reconstructed for a similar purpose in the late seventeenth century by Count Johann Ernst of Nassau, but the preconditions for growth were already there.

Five economic functions distinguished towns from the countryside: their location as centers for exchange; the presence of artisans; occupational diversity; regular links with other centers of exchange; and influence over a hinterland, or rural area far from any town. These distinguishing characteristics were then reinforced. by social and cultural indicators, such as more complex forms of government, the presence of a stratified society with an identifiable elite, the presence of processionals, such as lawyers or schoolteachers. and of religious orders and educational establishments. As time passed, new cultural indicators were added, such as discussion groups and charitable societies.

By using these urban characteristics and indicators, it is possible to suggest that centers of all sizes in western Europe shared common urban identity. Consider two Italian urban centers: Venice and the Sicilian town of Gangi, which, while no quite at the opposite ends of the urban spectrum, are usually considered belong to totally different spheres. Gangi had a population of some 4,000 in the mid-sixteenth century. Two-thirds of its inhabitants were engaged in agriculture. The others were artisans shopkeepers, merchants, servants, rentiers (people whose earnings are derived from rent on properties), and members of religious orders. At the height of its prosperity at the end of the sixteenth century. on the other hand. Venice had a population of 190,000. It was a major international trading center, supported by a substantial industrial sector, and was the capital of an extensive maritime and land-based empire. It had a significant number of merchants, renters, and professionals among its permanent population. As a point of departure for pilgrims and a point of arrival for tourists, it also functioned as a center of hospitality. Servants and others engaged in the business of food, drink, and hotels swelled the already large numbers who worked in the households of the permanent residents. In spite of these substantial contrasts both Gangi and Venice shared the basic economic functions and the social and cultural indicators that have already been discussed. Both functioned above all as centers of exchange, which linked their rural hinterlands to long-distance trading networks. Gangi lay on the old Roman road between Palermo and Messina and was an important center for the export of livestock and wine. Venice’s strategic location at the head of the Adriatic Sea enabled it to link the eastern and western Mediterranean with the producers and consumers of central Europe. It was also a center of exchange for goods emanating from northern Italy. Each town had its important public buildings and churches, a central square, and large houses belonging to an elite. Each had its cultural identity. Comparisons of similar kind could be made from any region of Europe.

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1 、?Size, legal status, or presence of fortifications(walls or other defensive barriers)might seem natural criteria in defining the distinction between town and village in sixteenth-century- Europe. Ultimately, however,it was none of these, but rather “urban” functions that distinguished even the smallest towns from villages.Some villages could be relatively large. Some had their own walls. On the other hand, many towns were unfortified and lacked legal status as a town.?

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