【简译】中世纪的贸易

Medieval trades were essential to the daily welfare of the community and those who learned a skill through apprenticeship could make a higher and more regular income than farmers or soldiers. Professionals like millers, blacksmiths, masons, bakers and weavers grouped together by trade to form guilds to protect their rights, guarantee prices, maintain industry standards and keep out unlicensed competition.

          中世纪的各行各业对社区的日常福利至关重要，那些以学徒身份学习技能的人可以比农民或士兵获得更高更多的固定收入。像磨坊主、铁匠、泥瓦匠、面包师和织工这样的专业人士根据行业组合在一起，成立行会，以维护他们的权利，保证市场价格，维持行业标准，并阻止不正当竞争。

As towns grew into cities from the 11th century so trades diversified and medieval shopping streets began to boast all manner of skilled workers and their goods on sale, from saddlers to silversmiths and tanners to tailors. Naturally, trades and trading practices varied over time and place throughout the Middle Ages and so what follows is a general overview of some of the common and interesting features of trades in medieval Europe.

          从11世纪开始，随着城镇逐渐发展成为城市，贸易也随之多样化，中世纪的商业街上开始出现各种形式的熟练工人和他们出售的商品，从马鞍工到银匠，从制革工到裁缝。当然，在整个中世纪，贸易和贸易惯例因时间与地点的不同而相异，因此，下面是对中世纪欧洲贸易的一些常见和有趣特征的总体概述。

学     徒

Many children learnt the trade of their parents by informal observation and helping out with small tasks but there were also full apprenticeships, paid for by parents, where young people lived with a skilled worker or master and learned their craft. Very often a master who took on an apprentice also took on the role of parent, providing all their needs and moral guidance while in turn the apprentice was expected to be obedient to their master in all matters. An apprentice was not usually paid but did receive their food, lodgings and clothing. Boys and girls typically became apprentices in their early teens but sometimes they were as young as seven years old when they started out on the long road to learn a specific trade. There were many cases of apprentices running away and rules were established that the master and the apprentice's father had to spend one day each looking for the missing youth. There were time limits of one year, after which a master need not take the escapee back under apprenticeship.

          许多孩子通过非正式的观察和帮助完成小任务来学习他们父母的手艺，但也有由父母支付费用的正式学徒；年轻人与熟练工人或师傅住在一起，学习他们的手艺。很多时候，带学徒的师傅也扮演着父母的角色，为学徒们提供所有的需求和道德指导，而反过来，学徒也被期望在所有问题上服从他们的师傅。学徒通常没有报酬，但可以获得食物、住宿和衣服。男孩和女孩通常在十几岁时成为学徒，但有时他们在七岁时就开始走上学习特定贸易的漫长道路。有许多学徒逃跑的案例，所以在当时制定了规则，即师傅和学徒的父亲必须各花一天时间来寻找失踪的青年。有一年的时间限制，在这之后，师傅不需要把逃跑的人带回。

The length of the apprenticeship depended on the trade and the master (the benefit of free labour was a temptation to extend the training for as long as possible) but around seven years seems to have been the average. A cook's apprentice might only need two years training while at the other end of the spectrum a metalworker like a goldsmith might have to learn their trade for ten years before they could set themselves up with their own business. An apprentice usually qualified by producing a 'masterpiece' which showed off his acquired skills. Earning the title of master cost money besides skill, though, and a qualified apprentice who could not afford their own place of business was known as a journeyman as they usually travelled around and found work with a master with premises wherever they could.

          学徒期的长短取决于行业和师傅（免费劳动力的好处是尽可能延长培训时间的诱惑），但大约七年时间似乎是当时的平均值。厨师学徒可能只需要两年的培训，而像金匠这样的金属工匠可能需要学习十年的手艺，然后才能建立自己的作坊。学徒通常通过制作一个“杰出的作品”来展示他所获得的技能，从而获得从业资格。不过，赢得大师的头衔除了技术之外还需要金钱，一个合格的学徒如果没有能力负担自己的营业场所，他们还是会被称为学徒，因为他们通常会四处奔波，在任何可就业的地方找到有场所的大师工作。

中世纪的行会

Once their own business was up and running, from the 12th century master tradesmen became members of guilds. These organisations, managed by a core group of seasoned professionals known as guildmasters, sought to protect the working conditions of their members, ensure their products were to a high standard and outside competition was minimised. Regular inspections ensured (at least to some degree) that goods were exactly what they were advertised as, that regulation measurements and weights were adhered to, that prices were correct and that members did not unfairly compete with each other for clients. By imposing regulations on apprenticeship, guilds could also regulate the labour supply and ensure there were not too many masters at any one time and the prices of both labour and goods did not crash.

          从12世纪开始，贸易者的生意一旦开始运作，他就立即成为行会的成员。这些行会组织由被称为行会会长的经验丰富的专业人员组成的核心小组管理，旨在保护其成员的工作条件，确保其产品达到高标准，并尽量减少外部竞争。定期检查确保（至少在某种程度上）商品与广告上的内容完全一致，遵守规定的测量和重量，价格正确，以及成员之间不会不公平地争夺客户。通过对学徒制的规定，行会也可以调节劳动力供应，确保在任何时候都不会有过多的师傅，劳动力和商品的价格也不会崩溃。

行业中的女性

While there were very few guilds specifically for or managed by women, and although most apprentices were male and so too their masters, there was a significant minority of women involved in some trades. Widows, especially, were prominent in the trades as they could, if they were without a close male relative and they remained single, run their deceased husband's business. There were some restrictions, though; for example, they were not able to train an apprentice themselves. Some trades such as the poulterers of Paris did permit any woman with means to own businesses, while many trades such as silk production and veil makers were dominated by women workers. There are records (notably tax assessments), then, of all manner of trades being managed by women from lacemakers to butchers.

          虽然很少有专门为女性服务或由女性管理的行会，大多数学徒是男性，他们的师傅也是男性，但有相当一部分女性参与了一些行业。尤其是寡妇，她们在这些行业中很突出，因为如果她们没有近亲，而且仍然单身，她们可以经营已故丈夫的生意。不过，也有一些限制；例如，她们不能自己培训学徒。一些行业，如巴黎的家禽业，确实允许任何有能力的女性拥有自己的企业，而许多行业，如丝绸生产和面纱制作，则由女工主导。因此，有记录显示（特别是纳税评估），许多行业都有女性的身影，从花边师到屠夫。

磨 坊 主

Each castle or manor had its own mill to serve the needs of its surrounding estate, not only for the grain from the lord's lands but also that of the serfs who were usually obliged to grind their grain at the lord's mill. Mills could be powered by wind, water, horses or people. One essential item to set up business was a good quality millstone that did not wear smooth quickly but, unfortunately, this was a pricey commodity. The Rhineland gained a great reputation for producing the best millstones and one of those could cost 40 shillings or the equivalent of ten horses in England. With such a heavy investment and because a castle or manor did not need to use its mill very often (even if ground grains did not keep very long), the mill was often rented out to a miller who could then make whatever profit he could from it.

          每个城堡或庄园都有自己的磨坊，以满足其周围庄园的需要，不仅是领主土地上的粮食，还有农奴的粮食，他们通常必须在领主的磨坊磨制粮食。磨坊的动力可以是风、水、马或人。开办业务的一个必要条件是拥有质量好、不会很快磨损的磨石，但不幸的是，这是一种价格昂贵的商品。莱茵兰因生产最好的磨石而赢得了巨大的声誉，一块磨石的价格为40先令，相当于英国的10匹马。由于投资如此之大，而且城堡或庄园不需要经常使用其磨坊（即使磨出的谷物保存时间不长），磨坊往往被出租给磨坊主，然后他可以从中赚取利润。

The miller enjoyed a high social status in the community because he was essential to it, had a steady income and it was not an unpleasant job to do. Still, because a miller had to make money in order to pay for the mill's rent, they were sometimes viewed with suspicion by other villagers who worried that they never quite got back the quantity of flour their grain had warranted. As one medieval riddle went:

          What is the boldest thing in the world?

          A miller's shirt, for it clasps a thief by the throat daily. (Gies, 155)

          磨坊主在社区中享有很高的社会地位，因为他是社区的基本成员，有稳定的收入，而且这是一份令人愉快的工作。但是，由于磨坊主必须赚钱以支付磨坊的租金，他们有时会被其他村民怀疑，因为他们担心自己的粮食永远无法换回应有的面粉数量。正如中世纪的一个谜语所说：

          世界上最大胆的东西是什么？

          磨坊主的衬衫，因为它每天都能扣住一个小偷的喉咙。

铁     匠

In the Middle Ages, the cheapest materials were wood and clay but some items required metal, usually iron, which was much more expensive. Thus the blacksmith was as essential as the miller to any medieval community. Many agricultural tools needed iron parts, if only for their cutting edges, and so blacksmiths were kept busy producing new tools and repairing old ones. Cooking pots and horseshoes were other sought-after products from the blacksmith's near-magical ability with forge, hammer and anvil. However, such was the medieval necessity of making things last as long as possible that a village blacksmith might not be so busy that he could earn a living, and he also needed an impressive but costly range of tools and equipment himself in order to fulfill orders. Consequently, blacksmiths usually inherited the business from their fathers and many also farmed some land to make ends meet. A blacksmith at a manor or castle was better off as he might receive charcoal made from the trees of the lord's forest for free and have the benefit of a couple of the lord's serfs working his small strip of farmland while he was busy with his hammer and tongs.

          在中世纪，最便宜的材料是木材和粘土，但有些物品需要用到金属，通常是铁，这种金属在当时要贵得多。因此，铁匠和磨坊主一样，是任何中世纪社区的必需职业。许多农业工具需要铁制部件，即使只是为了切割边缘，因此铁匠们一直忙于生产新工具和修理旧工具。炊具和马蹄铁是铁匠在锻造、锤子和铁砧方面近乎神奇的能力所带来的受欢迎的产品。然而，在中世纪，为了使东西尽可能地持久使用，一个村庄的铁匠可能不会忙到足以谋生，而且他还需要一系列昂贵的工具和设备来完成订单。因此，铁匠通常从他们的父亲那里继承生意，许多人还耕种一些土地以维持生计。庄园或城堡里的铁匠情况较好，因为他可能会免费得到领主森林里的树木制成的木炭，并且在他忙于制造锤子和钳子的时候，领主的几个农奴也会在他的小块农田里干活。

面 包 师

With bread forming such an important part of the medieval diet, especially for the lower classes, the bakers were another ever-present trader but they were, for the same reason, one of the most regulated. Regular inspections, at least in towns, ensured bakers were serving the right quality, size and weight of loaves. For this reason, bread was typically stamped with an identification mark of just who had baked it. Despite these precautions, it was not unknown for bakers to supplement the flour content of bread with something a little cheaper like sand. Those who tried to swindle their customers and were caught often found themselves chained to a pillory with the offending bread tied around their necks. In order for fresh bread to be available in the mornings, bakers were one of the few tradesmen permitted to work at night.

          面包是中世纪饮食的重要组成部分，特别是对下层阶级来说，面包师是不可或缺的职业，但由于同样的原因，他们也是最受监管部门监管的商人之一。至少在城镇，监管部门会定期检查确保面包师提供正确的质量、大小和重量的面包。出于这个原因，面包上通常会印有谁烤制的识别标记。尽管有这些预防措施，面包师用沙子等稍微便宜的东西来补充面包中的面粉成分也不是没有。那些试图欺骗顾客并被抓到的人常常被锁在柱子上，脖子上绑着违规的面包。为了在早晨提供新鲜面包，面包师是少数被允许在夜间工作的商人之一。

屠     夫

The butcher prepared choice cuts of pork, mutton, and beef as well as poultry and game. Selling an expensive commodity and occupying the dirtiest and smelliest part of the town, butchers were right down there with the fish merchants in the low popularity stakes amongst urban shoppers. In addition, as with the bakers, many people were suspicious of just what a butcher put in his sausages to save money. As one joke went:

          A man asked the sausage butcher for a discount because he had been a faithful customer for seven years. “Seven years!” exclaimed the butcher. “And you're still alive!” (Gies, 49)

          屠夫会准备精选的猪肉、羊肉和牛肉，以及家禽和野味。屠夫销售着昂贵的商品，并占据着城市中最肮脏、最臭的地方，在城市购物者中，屠夫与鱼商的人气都很低。此外，与面包师一样，许多人怀疑屠夫为了省钱在香肠里放了些什么。正如一个笑话所说：

          一个人要求屠夫打折出售香肠，因为他已经是七年的忠实顾客了。“七年了！”屠夫感叹道。“你居然还活着！”

To keep consumer confidence high, there were additional rules imposed by the butchers' guild which prohibited the sale of meat from such animals as cats, dogs, and horses, as well as outlawing the mixture of tallow with lard.

          为了保持消费者的信心，屠夫协会还制定了额外的规则，禁止销售猫、狗和马等动物的肉，并禁止将牛油与猪油混合。

纺 织 工

Many peasant women spun thread in the home and then sold it on to a weaver, who was usually male. Although some women would have continued to weave on an upright loom, by the High Middle Ages weaving was typically done on a larger scale by a skilled weaver using a horizontal loom which was beyond the means of a peasant. England and Wales enjoyed a high reputation for their wool in medieval times while Flanders became a major centre of wool cloth production. Wool was washed to remove grease, then dried, beaten, combed and carded. The wool was then spun and worked on the loom to make a rough cloth which was next fulled (soaked, shrunk and then usually dyed), sometimes using a water-powered mill or trampled underfoot. The cloth was then sheared and brushed, perhaps many times, in order to produce a very fine, smooth cloth.

          许多农妇在家里纺线，然后卖给织工，织工通常是男性。虽然有些妇女会继续在织布机上织布，但到了中世纪晚期，织布通常是由熟练的织工使用水平织布机在更大的范围内进行，这不是农民所能承受的。英格兰和威尔士的羊毛在中世纪享有很高的声誉，而佛兰德斯则成为羊毛布的主要生产中心。羊毛经过清洗以去除油脂，然后进行干燥、打浆、分拣和梳理。然后，羊毛被纺出来，在织布机上加工成粗布，接下来被填满（浸泡、收缩，然后通常被染色），有时使用水力磨坊或在脚下践踏。然后对布进行剪切和刷洗，也许会进行多次加工，以便生产出非常精细、光滑的布。

建 筑 工

One thing everyone needed was a roof over their heads. As societies became more prosperous, towns grew in size and construction techniques improved from the 13th century, so many people looked for better and more substantial homes to live in. Prosperous peasants looked to improve on their traditional mud and timber cottages while lords were looking to impress with manor houses that might look like the castle most of them could not afford. Consequently, there developed many specialised trades for each facet of any building's construction such as masons, tilers, carpenters, thatchers, glassmakers and plasterers. Carpenters, especially, were involved in the subsequent upkeep of houses and other structures such as barns, granaries, churches and bridges.

          每个人都需要一栋带顶的家。随着社会变得更加繁荣，城镇规模不断扩大，建筑技术也从13世纪开始得到改善，因此许多人都在寻找更好、更坚固的房屋来居住。富裕的农民希望改善他们传统的泥土和木头小屋，而领主们则希望用看起来像城堡一样的庄园来打动他们，但他们中的大多数人都负担不起。因此，在建筑的每个方面都发展了许多专门的行业，如泥瓦匠、瓦工、木匠、茅草匠、玻璃匠和抹灰工。特别是木匠，他们参与居住房屋和其他建筑的后续维护，如谷仓、粮仓、教堂和桥梁。

At the top of the building profession were the master builder and master mason, both of whom needed to be skilled in mathematics and geometry to produce their scale models and parchment plans upon which lesser workers would depend in order to make the real-life pieces of a building fit together properly. As they rarely lifted a finger themselves, they also needed to be good managers of the large team of skilled workers under their command on specific projects, especially the big ones like building a castle or church.

          在建筑行业的顶端是建筑大师和泥瓦匠大师，他们都需要精通数学和几何学，以制作比例模型和在羊皮纸作出施工计划，而较少的工人将依靠这些模型和计划，以使现实生活中的建筑碎片正确地组合起来。由于他们很少自己动手，所以他们还需要在具体项目上成为他们手下大批熟练工人的良好管理者，特别是像建造城堡或教堂这样的大项目。

城市贸易商

Larger towns and cities, of course, had especially numerous and diverse tradespeople. There were tailors, drapers, dyers, saddlers, furriers, chandlers, tanners, armourers, sword makers, parchment makers, basket-weavers, goldsmiths, silversmiths and, by far the biggest industry sector, all manner of food sellers. Many of these trades might be grouped together in parts of a city so that guilds could better regulate their members or to attract visitors such as by the city gates or because a particular area had a tradition for one trade (like Notre-Dame in Paris had for books, which it still has today).

          当然，较大城镇和城市有特别多的贸易者。有裁缝、窗帘、染色师、马鞍工、毛皮匠、皮匠、制革师、装甲师、制剑师、羊皮纸制造商、织篮师、金匠、银匠以及迄今为止最大的行业部门——各种形式的食品销售商。这些行业中，许多行业可能被集中在一个城市的某些地方，以便行会能够更好地管理他们的成员，或吸引游客，如在城门边，或因为一个特定的区域有一个行业的传统（如巴黎圣母院的书籍，至今仍然有售卖）。

 医     生

Medieval doctors, at least in the later Middle Ages, learnt their expertise at a university and enjoyed a high status but their practical role in society was limited to diagnosis and prescription. A patient was actually treated by a surgeon and given medicine which was prepared by an apothecary, both of whom were regarded as tradesmen because they had learnt their skills via the system of apprenticeship. As a surgeon could be expensive, many of the poorer class took their minor physical problems to a much cheaper option; the local barber. When not cutting hair and trimming moustaches, a barber performed minor surgeries and also pulled teeth. The poor might also seek the skills of a peddler of folk medicine who dispensed advise and lotions based on traditional and natural remedies which, despite their dubious origins, must have worked to some degree in order for them to keep practising throughout the Middle Ages.

           中世纪的医生，至少在中世纪后期，在大学里学习专业知识，享有很高的地位，但他们在社会中的实际作用仅限于诊断和开药。病人实际上是由外科医生治疗，并由药剂师配药，这两人都被视为商人，因为他们是通过学徒制度学习技能的。由于外科医生的费用很高，许多贫困阶层的人把他们身体上的小问题交给一个更便宜的选择：当地的理发师。在不剪头发和修剪胡子的时候，理发师会做小手术，也会拔牙。穷人也可能寻求民间医药小贩，他们根据传统和自然疗法提供建议和药水，尽管这些药水的来源很可疑，但一定在某种程度上是有效的，因此他们在整个中世纪都能继续行医。

参考书目：

Blockmans, W. Introduction to Medieval Europe 300–1500. Routledge, 2017.

Gies, F. Life in a Medieval Castle. Harper Perennial, 2015.

Gies, F. Life in a Medieval City. Harper Perennial, 2016.

Gies, F. Life in a Medieval Village. Harper Perennial, 2016.

Leyser, H. Medieval Women. Orion Pub Co, 2002.

Pounds, N.J.G. The Medieval Castle in England and Wales. Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Singman, J.L. The Middle Ages. Sterling, 2013.

原文作者：Mark Cartwright

          驻意大利的历史作家。他的主要兴趣包括陶瓷、建筑、世界神话和发现所有文明的共同思想。他拥有政治哲学硕士学位，是《世界历史百科全书》的出版总监。

原文网址：https://www.worldhistory.org/Medieval_Trades/