The Beginnings of the European Towns (Urbanism)

General Trend#

From The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol.3:

The European town in the form known to us from the late middle ages lie in the tenth century. Urbanism began its dynamic phase in the late eleventh century, reachingi ts climax in the 13th, but the basic elements were assembled between the decomposition of the Frankish empire at the end of the 9th century and the early decades of the 11th. In this transitional period the commercial revolution began.

Broadly the growth routes that the towns underwent can be divided into three kinds, mostly according to geography:

Southern Europe, in particular Italy, where the form of classical walled civitates remained.
France, Germany, in particular Germany where civitates were sparsely distributed.
Essential features of the medieval town – both its social and juridic make up and its topography and visual image – were formed in the core of Carolingian Europe, in the civitates of northern Italy, and of the west and east Frankish kingdoms.
England and the Baltic region.

The towns that were not civitates were mostly fortifications, manors, monasteries. Even the Gallic civitates, equipped with fortifications following the Germanic incursions at the end of the 3rd century, essentially had the functions of a mere citadel; market, trade, and to a large extant craftwork largely took place outside these fortifications, though nearby. Briefly, by origin we have: monastic proto-towns, Anglo-Norman towns with strong castles, Gaelic market towns or plantation towns

The market is not the root of the medieval town, but prepared the ground for the urban economy and can be described as the motor which kept the economic cooperation between the separate settlement kernels going. Spiritual communities as well as secular magnates set up markets, not least because they saw in them a possibility of selling the agrarian produce of the manorial economy.

Factors that fostered the emergence of towns include but aren't limited to:

Trade routes available.
Security and laws provided by the lords, and moreover, privileges.
Church buildings and the relics stored, attracting pilgrims and also luxury merchants.
Large-scale buildings, the monasteries and collegiate churches founded there and their collections of relics increased the attractiveness of these places both for secular vassals and for merchants, who found groups of wealthy consumers to provide for. Besides the general economic conditions and the impulses from lordship, the development of an impressive architecture and the enhanced presence of the saints in their reliquaries belonged to the important factors driving on the emergence of the medieval town in Germany and France.

Factors that determined the characteristics of Medieval towns include but aren't limited to:

It was above all the growth visible everywhere and its associated building activity which shaped the characteristic picture of the medieval European town. It was the great stone buildings of the church and of rulers which were decisive here. […] The equipping of civitates with a ring-wall and a multiplicity of churches, often located according to a preconceived plan, was the manifestation of an urban ideal which lords gave architectural form.
Shaping and maintenance of the market peace, self-organisation of the merchants: prosperous and increasingly professional long-distance traders with a tendency to form guilds and settle permanently, governmental peace ordinances to regulate the market.
The form and extent of the influence exerted by princely power: the importance of ministerial dependants of lords.