27、A Medieval Town

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27、A Medieval Town
In the middle Ages, towns in Europe were noisy and crowded by day, but quiet
and dark at night, the silence broken only by cat and dog fights, late-night revelers
and watchmen calling out the hours. Churches, guilds, fairs and markets all drew
people into the towns.
If you walked through a medieval town, you took care where you stepped,
because most people threw out their rubbish into the muddy streets. Open drains ran
alongside and smelled awful. To fetch water, people went to the town well or bought
it from the water-seller, hoping it was clean. Pigs and chickens wandered in and out of
small yards. Houses were built close together, with the top floors often jutting out
over the street. Since most houses were made chiefly of wood, they caught fire easily.
At night, the curfew bell warned people to cover or put out their kitchen fires.
Many houses were also shops and workplaces. Traders and craftworkers formed
groups called guilds to organize their businesses and to set standards of work. Guilds
also staged pageants, dramas and religious processions, and set up training schools.
Some towns were famous for their fairs and attracted foreign merchants from all over
Europe, as well as entertainers such as jugglers, clowns, acrobats, minstrels,
performing monkeys and dancing bears. Fairs also attracted quack doctors and
pickpockets ready to cheat innocent visitors from the countryside.
In towns, work was to be found building magnificent cathedrals and churches, as
well as castles and defensive walls. Large trading cities in Europe, such as Hamburg,
Antwerp and London, grew rich from buying and selling wool and other goods carried
across the sea in small wooden sailing ships. About 90 cities in northern Europe
formed the Hanseatic League to fight pirates, win more trade and keep out rivals.