Medieval France
The collapse of the Roman Empire devastated the French economy. Town life and trade declined and society became based on the self-sufficient manor. What limited international trade existed in the Merovingian age — primarily in goods such as silk, papyrus, and silver — was carried out by foreign merchants such as the Radanites.
Agricultural output began to increase in the Carolingian age as a result of the arrival of new crops, improvements in agricultural production, and good weather conditions. However, this did not lead to the revival of urban life; in fact, urban activity further declined in the Carolingian era as a result of civil war, Arab raids, and Viking invasions. (See also Pirenne thesis).
The High Middle Ages saw a continuation of the agricultural boom of the Carolingian age. In addition, urban life grew during this period; towns such as Paris expanded dramatically. However, in the fourteenth century, bad weather, the Hundred Years War, and the Black Death, led to the temporary collapse of the French economy.
Read more about this topic: Economic History Of France
Famous quotes containing the words medieval and/or france:
“The Christos-image
is most difficult to disentangle
from its art-craft junk-shop
paint-and-plaster medieval jumble
of pain-worship and death-symbol.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“The bugle-call to arms again sounded in my war-trained ear, the bayonets gleamed, the sabres clashed, and the Prussian helmets and the eagles of France stood face to face on the borders of the Rhine.... I remembered our own armies, my own war-stricken country and its dead, its widows and orphans, and it nerved me to action for which the physical strength had long ceased to exist, and on the borrowed force of love and memory, I strove with might and main.”
—Clara Barton (1821–1912)