Country-folk did not discover America. It was the enterprise of the
cities, with their growing industries and commerce, which brought about
the Commercial Revolution; and to the development of commerce,
industry, and the towns, we now must turn our attention.
TOWNS ON THE EVE OF THE COMMERCIAL REVOLUTION
[Sidenote: Trade and the Towns ]
Except for the wealthy Italian city-states and a few other cities which
traced their history back to Roman times, most European towns, it must
be remembered, dated only from the later middle ages. At first there
was little excuse for their existence except to sell to farmers salt,
fish, iron, and a few plows. But with the increase of commerce, which,
as we shall see, especially marked the thirteenth, fourteenth, and
fifteenth centuries, more merchants traveled through the country, ways
of spending money multiplied, and the little agricultural villages
learned to look on the town as the place to buy not only luxuries but
such tools, clothing, and shoes as could be manufactured more
conveniently by skillful town artisans than by clumsy rustics.
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