Italian towns were stronger and larger than those of France. Each one held wide-spreading territories, and therefore the whole country was really in their hands. Spain had chartered communities earlier than France or England. In these Spanish towns citizens of a certain amount of property paid no taxes; but if fighting men were needed to protect the country, they were bound to serve and also to provide horses for themselves at their own expense. For this reason, a man's horse could not be seized for debt. In France, the citizens must defend their land if necessary; but they could be called out for only a limited time and to a certain distance from the walls of their home city. There was another law which also tended to make them somewhat independent. This was that before they agreed to enter upon any piece of military service, they had a right to take into account the nature of the cause for which they were called into service. This was an excellent arrangement; for if two nobles, for instance, took up arms because of some trivial quarrel, the citizens could not be forced to join in it.

A town, then, in the Middle Ages was simply a large village with walls and towers. It had special privileges, granted by the king or by the convent or the noble in whose province it was situated, and it was sure to gain more either by purchase or by some shrewd bargaining with the owner in his time of need. A town usually had many customs peculiar to itself. At Chester in England, if a fire caught in a man's house and the flames spread, he must pay his next neighbor two shillings, and pay the town a fine of five shillings. In some of the English towns it was the rule for the mayor and corporation to walk once a year around the boundaries, inspecting the landmarks. A company of children were taken with them, and in order to impress the limits upon their minds, copper coins were given to them at each turning; a far more agreeable method than the old Roman fashion of sacrificing a lamb or a pig at every corner. To be called a city, a town must be the residence of the bishop. For a long while, a town was as much a piece of private property as a manor. Its lord could sell it if he chose, and the citizens could do nothing to hinder him. The value was somewhat in proportion to its size. It was therefore of advantage to the owner to have the number of inhabitants increase, and strangers were usually welcome.

The walls about a town were thick and high. Watchmen were always on guard to give the alarm at the approach of an enemy. The houses were built of various materials. There were cottages of mud, and there were comfortable residences of brick. Some were built of wood with the framework arranged in elaborate patterns. Others were ornamented with plaster decorations and painted panels. In many cases, the lower story was of stone and the rest of the house of wood. Roofs thatched with straw or reeds were common for a long while; but at length it was required that tiles should be used. Windows were sometimes glazed, and sometimes the space was filled in with wooden lattice work. There were churches and inns for travelers, and there was always a town hall in which the business of the town was transacted. The town halls on the Continent were larger and more splendid than those in England; but the English halls were not to be ashamed of by any means; for it was a matter of pride with a town to have as handsome a hall as could be afforded.

By far the greater number of people in a city were either craftsmen, that is, manufacturers of various articles, or merchants. To become a craftsman required a long training. If a boy wished to be a carpenter, for instance, his parents selected some master carpenter and asked him to take their son as an apprentice. If he was willing, both parents and master signed a formal agreement. The parents gave their son into the charge of the master for a fixed number of years, promising on the boy's part that he would be obedient and diligent and would not tell any of his master's secrets. The master agreed to give the boy a home and his clothes and to teach him all that he himself knew about the carpenter's trade. The boy was not supposed to be of much service during the first years of his apprenticeship; but long before the end of his time had come, he was expected to be able to assist his master enough to pay him for all previous trouble and expense.

After the boy had learned the trade and his time was up, he became a journeyman. This name is thought to have come from the French journée, meaning day, because he worked by the day. Many journeymen never rose any higher, but an industrious workman could soon save enough money to set up for himself, which meant becoming a master, having a shop in his own house, hiring journeymen, and taking apprentices. Providing himself with tools was not a difficult matter, for they were few and simple. Two axes, an adze, a square, and a spokeshave were all that were necessary; and their combined cost was only one shilling. Materials were often supplied by the customers. No journeyman was allowed to become a master until he had presented a masterpiece, or an excellent piece of carpentry to the gild, or society of carpenters, and had thus shown to them that he was able to do work that would meet with their approval.

The merchants varied in rank from the great importer whose vessels sailed wherever desirable exports could be found to the small tradesman whose little shop was in his own house. Some of these merchants were both rich and generous, and attained to high positions in affairs of state. They built for themselves handsome houses that were probably decidedly more comfortable than the castles of the time. The house of one of the smaller traders was usually a combination of shop and home and storehouse. The building was generally narrow and high with a gable overlooking the street. In the gable was a door, and from this door a crane projected. The lower floor was a basement or cellar. The first floor was given up to the shop. Above that was the living room, and back of the living room was the kitchen. The floor above was the general sleeping room, and over this was the great garret. This was used as a storeroom, and goods were lifted to it by means of the crane in the gable. Often a "salesroom" was merely a bench under a porch. Here whatever the workman made was spread out for the passers-by to see, and purchase if they would. Many signs swung over the street, and on each of them was painted some device to suggest the business of the house. The boar's head—a favorite Christmas dish—was often adopted as a tavern sign. The pilgrims in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales  spent the night at the Tabard Inn; and doubtless this had a wooden sign representing a tabard, or sleeveless jacket worn over armor. The Flying Horse was the name of a tavern in Canterbury, and we can easily guess what the sign must have been. The ivy was sacred to Bacchus, the god of wine, and therefore the custom arose of putting a spray of vine or even a green bush over the door of a place where wine was sold. To this day the mortar and pestle often indicate an apothecary's; the shop of the pawnbroker is marked not by a name, but by three golden balls, taken from the arms of the Lombards, the first great money-lenders in England; and the twining stripes of the barber's pole signify either the flowing blood or the bandages used in bleeding, for in early times the barbers were also the bleeders.

The streets in mediæval days were narrow and, except in made-to-order towns, they were crooked and rambling. The upper stories of the houses often projected so far over them that opposite neighbors could almost shake hands from their windows. In front, the houses must have been rather gloomy, but back of them there were usually gardens, which must have been a great delight to the good folk of the time; for they not only walked in them, but played chess and danced and ate their dinners in them. In England, lilies and roses seem to have been the favorite flowers; but marigolds, poppies, violets, and foxgloves were often seen. Many plants were cultivated as medicines, among them sage, mallows, and nightshade. In the vegetable gardens there were lettuce, cresses, onions, melons, cucumbers, and beets. Apples and pears were common, and cherries seem to have been well known and general favorites. Every year, when the cherries were ripe, feasts or fairs were held in the orchards, which were called cherry fairs. People seemed never to weary of trying experiments on the cherry tree. An old book on gardening declared that grapes could be made to ripen as early as cherries. This is the way it was to be done: A grapevine must be set out beside a cherry tree; and after it was growing thriftily, it must be drawn through a hole bored through the tree. The bark of the vine was to be cut away from the part that went through the tree, and the hole must be completely filled. After a year had passed, the vine was supposed to be so much at home in the tree that its own roots might be cut off, and it would find its food in the sap of the cherry. It was a faithful monk who gave this recipe; but one cannot help wondering whether he had ever tested it or only reasoned it out in his cell; and whether, even if it was a success in the fifteenth century, the daring gardener who ventured to try it in the twentieth would not come to grief. Any one who is more fond of pomegranates than peaches may wish to try another recipe that seems to have been in good standing at about the same time. This one bade that when the peach-tree was in bloom, it should be sprinkled with goat's milk several times a day for three days, whereupon it would not fail to produce pomegranates. Surely this was a far simpler and easier method than grafting. There was ample opportunity for even the Londoners to try all such experiments; for, besides the smaller gardens within the city, there were large and spacious orchards just beyond the walls with plenty of room for trees of all sorts.