essay1 [2]
arrived and not knowing what produce these needed would have nothing prepared and fit for sale. (4) It would be almost impossible to fix the price of the produce and the merchandise in the villages, between the merchants and the villagers. In one village the merchant would refuse the price asked for produce, hoping to find it cheaper in another village, and the villager would refuse the price offered for his merchandise in the hope that another merchant would come along and take it on better terms. All these difficulties are avoided when the villagers come to town on market days to sell their produce and to buy the things they need. Prices are fixed by the proportion between the produce exposed for sale and the money offered for it; this takes place in the same spot, under the eyes of all the villagers of different villages and of the merchants or undertakers of the town. When the price has been settled between a few the others follow without difficulty and so the market place of the day is determined. The peasant goes back to his village and resumes his work. The size of the market town is naturally proportioned to the number of farmers and labourers needed to cultivate the lands dependent on it, and to the number of artisans and small merchants that the villages bordering on the market town employ with their assistants and horses, and finally to the number of persons whom the landowners resident there support. When the villages belonging to a market town (i.e. whose people ordinarily bring their produce to market there) are considerable and have a large output the market town will become considerable and large in proportion; but when the neighbouring villages have little produce the market town also is poor and insignificant.
Chapter Five
Of Cities
The landlords who have only small estates usually reside in market towns and villages near their land and farmers. The transport of the produce they derive from them into distant cities would not enable them to live comfortably there. But the landlords who have several large estates have the means to go and live at a distance from them to enjoy agreeable society with other landowners and gentlemen of the same condition. If a prince or nobleman who has received large grants of land on the conquest or discovery of a country fixes his residence in some pleasant spot, and several other noblemen come to live there to be within reach of seeing each other frequently and enjoying agreeable society, this place will become a city. Great houses will be built there for the noblemen in question, and an infinity of others for the merchants, artisans, and people of all sorts of professions whom the residence of these noblemen will attract thither. For the service of these noblemen, bakers, butchers, brewers, wine merchants, manufacturers of all kinds, will be needed. These will build houses in the locality or will rent houses built by others. There is no great nobleman whose expense upon his house, his retinue and servants, does not maintain merchants and artisans of all kinds, as may be seen from the detailed calculations which I have caused to be made in the supplement of this essay. As all these artisans and undertakers serve each other as well as the nobility it is overlooked that the upkeep of them all falls ultimately on the nobles and landowners. It is not perceived that all the little houses in a city such as we have described depend upon and subsist at the expense of the great houses. It will, however, be shown later that all the classes and inhabitants of a state live at the expense of the proprietors of land. The city in question will increase still further if the king or the government establish in it law courts to which the people of the market towns and villages of the province must have recourse. An increase of undertakers and artisans of every sort will be needed for the service of the legal officials and lawyers. If in this same city workshops and manufactories be set up apart from home consumption for export and sale abroad, the
Chapter Five
Of Cities
The landlords who have only small estates usually reside in market towns and villages near their land and farmers. The transport of the produce they derive from them into distant cities would not enable them to live comfortably there. But the landlords who have several large estates have the means to go and live at a distance from them to enjoy agreeable society with other landowners and gentlemen of the same condition. If a prince or nobleman who has received large grants of land on the conquest or discovery of a country fixes his residence in some pleasant spot, and several other noblemen come to live there to be within reach of seeing each other frequently and enjoying agreeable society, this place will become a city. Great houses will be built there for the noblemen in question, and an infinity of others for the merchants, artisans, and people of all sorts of professions whom the residence of these noblemen will attract thither. For the service of these noblemen, bakers, butchers, brewers, wine merchants, manufacturers of all kinds, will be needed. These will build houses in the locality or will rent houses built by others. There is no great nobleman whose expense upon his house, his retinue and servants, does not maintain merchants and artisans of all kinds, as may be seen from the detailed calculations which I have caused to be made in the supplement of this essay. As all these artisans and undertakers serve each other as well as the nobility it is overlooked that the upkeep of them all falls ultimately on the nobles and landowners. It is not perceived that all the little houses in a city such as we have described depend upon and subsist at the expense of the great houses. It will, however, be shown later that all the classes and inhabitants of a state live at the expense of the proprietors of land. The city in question will increase still further if the king or the government establish in it law courts to which the people of the market towns and villages of the province must have recourse. An increase of undertakers and artisans of every sort will be needed for the service of the legal officials and lawyers. If in this same city workshops and manufactories be set up apart from home consumption for export and sale abroad, the