Changes in Medieval TimesPart 2 — Guilds, Trade & the Manor
Craft Guilds
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Craft Guilds - Other terms
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You found the right place for every craftsman. A real master would call that a masterpiece!
Trade Fairs Then and Now
Homebrew Computer Club – Menlo Park
▶Pirates of Silicon Valley clip:the Homebrew Computer Club
San Francisco Computer Faire 1977
▶Pirates of Silicon Valley clip:the West Coast Computer Faire ▶The Shoemaker
and the Elves
Trade Fairs in the Middle Ages were similar to the computer fairs in the late 1970's. Merchants went to the big cities of Europe and set up booths and sold different products. Cloth was the number one trade item. Other popular items of trade were wine, cheese, leather, ropes, and dyes.
Merchants were making a lot of money at these fairs and started taking more risks to buy more goods. Profits were reinvested in more goods.
Merchants were making a lot of money at these fairs and started taking more risks to buy more goods. Profits were reinvested in more goods.
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Forward
Then & Now: Two Fairs, 700 Years Apart
Jehan, cloth merchant of Ghent (1250): I carry Flemish wool four hundred miles to the fair at Troyes. If the roads are bad, I am ruined. If the buyers come, I am rich.
Dale, booth vendor, San Francisco (1977): I carried a circuit board and a TV set forty miles down the highway. Same deal. If nobody stops at my table, I’m back in my garage.
Jehan: And what does your little box do?
Dale: Honestly? Most people don’t know yet. That’s why I’m here — to show them.
Jehan: Ha! Every new cloth was like that once. You let them touch it, and they believe.
Dale: So what do you do with your profits?
Jehan: Buy more wool. Bigger risk next year.
Dale: …Yeah. We call that a startup.
Talk It Over
- Why go in person? A merchant rode for weeks to reach a fair; in 1977 people drove across California to the Computer Faire. What can you do face-to-face that you can’t do from home? Is that still true today?
- The booth. Medieval merchants laid out cloth for buyers to feel. The Apple II was first shown to the public at a booth at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire. Why does a new product need to be seen and touched?
- Risk and reinvestment. Fair merchants took bigger risks and put their profits back into more goods. Where in the clips does someone take a big risk? What could they have lost?
- Copying and competition. At the Homebrew Computer Club, members shared designs freely. Would a medieval guild have allowed that? Why do guilds — and companies today — protect their secrets?
- Trust. How did a buyer in 1250 know the cloth wasn’t cheap? How do we decide whether to trust a seller today — reviews, brand names, warranties?
- Your fair. What is today’s trade fair — CES, comic cons, gaming expos, Etsy, Amazon? Is an online marketplace a fair, or something new?
Jehan and Dale are made-up characters.
Pirates of Silicon Valley is a 1999 made-for-television film directed by Martyn Burke, based on the book Fire in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine. It aired on TNT in 1999.
Name these Guilds
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Farming / Agriculture
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Three Field System
Around 800 A.D. farmers began to organize their land into three fields instead of two. Two of the fields were planted and the third was left fallow (resting). Crops under this system increased food production giving the people more to eat. Well-fed people, especially children, could resist diseases better and live longer. European populations grew rapidly as a result of the three field system.
Old Way
New Way
First Year
Second Year
Third Year
Wheat field
Barley field
FallowThis field is resting and soaking up nitrogen.
Life on the Manor
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The Commercial Revolution
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The world was ready for the commercial revolution. Merchants had more opportunities to make a profit. To buy more goods merchants had to borrow money, but the Church forbade Christians from lending money at interest, a sin called usury. The Church relaxed its rule on usury and Christians entered the banking business. Banking became an important business, especially in Italy.