Essay On Medieval Merchants

709 Words3 Pages

Living in the Medieval times, the merchant/ trader was very important positions trading special goods that others were not able to have. The merchant was usually found in towns and was lower on the social pyramid only above the peasants and serfs. Most of the time they were at their shop in the town and sold everyday things. Traders traded with other people who had stuff to get rid of the stuff they didn’t want to get stuff they did want. Lots of times, merchants had the power, because they could sell them a piece of clothing and get more money than it is actually worth. Traders could trade a piece of wood for a piece of gold, this not a real trade, but they had the upper hand in trading. The daily life of a medieval merchant/ trader was very hard without lots of resources. One reason is that, the merchant lived in a house that only had 1 or …show more content…

Some merchants crossed foreign boundaries when trading and paid taxes or offered gifts to the local rulers. They were also not liked by the clergy, so the clergy convinced the community that these activities were evil and against God’s will. As such, people would blame the merchants for natural catastrophes including disease, floods or famine as a punishment to the community from God. There were different kinds of merchants such as a wholesale merchant who operates in the chain between produce and retail merchant, typically dealing in large quantities of goods. There were merchants who, in the eyes of the nobility, were perceived as misers and weren’t liked by the clergy. Many of the times the main merchant traders were the Genoese and Venetians. The merchant was very important and the role of the merchant became even more important and entrenched in society in the wake of the thirteenth and the fourteenth centuries. Merchants sold food, razors, cleaning products, spindles, whetstones, clothing and other household