Town Life
Clue: These animals could be found shuffling about in the town gutters, adding to the filth and chaos.
What are pigs?
Clue: This new social group grew in importance as trade increased in the Middle Ages.
Answer: Who are the merchants?
Clue: These groups set wages and standards, and protected tradespeople’s interests.
Answer: What are guilds?
Clue: Towns grew mostly along these.
Answer: What are trade routes?
Clue: Medieval towns were known for being dark and smelly partly because they lacked these on their streets.
Answer: What are footpaths and streetlights?
Clue: To protect themselves and their profits from robbers and pirates, merchants formed these.
Answer: What are partnerships (or companies)?
Clue: These young people trained for seven years in a trade under strict rules.
Answer: Who are apprentices?
Clue: People left this type of land to try a new life in the towns.
Answer: What is the manor (or the countryside)?
Clue: The streets were covered in food scraps, bones, sewage and waste from these animals.
Answer: What are slaughtered animals?
Clue: This powerful merchant guild controlled trade around the Baltic Sea and even waged war.
Answer: What is the Hanseatic League?
Clue: Unlike today’s trade unions, guilds included these types of people.
Answer: Who are employers?
Clue: With the end of raids and food shortages, this system of social organisation started to weaken.
Answer: What is feudalism?
Clue: People tramped through smelly muck to get to this bustling part of town, where traders, jugglers and pickpockets gathered.
Answer: What is the marketplace?
Clue: These skilled tradespeople often travelled to Asia, Africa, and the Middle East to bring back spices, silks, and other exotic goods.
Answer: Who are the merchants?
Clue: These skilled workers, shown in medieval illustrations, were highly respected and used ladders and pulleys.
Answer: Who are stonemasons?
Clue: These new skills could be learned in town, including weaving, leather work and ale brewing.
Answer: What are trades (or crafts)?
Clue: Poorer people lived in cramped wooden homes near this part of the town.
Answer: What are the town walls?
Clue: From traders in Iran and China, Europeans learned about these two helpful inventions.
Answer: What are windmills and soap?
Clue: This happened to feudalism when people began to give money instead of personal services to their lords.
Answer: What is the breakdown (or decline) of the feudal system?
Clue: The homes of the wealthy were located here in the town.
Answer: What is the town centre?