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Medieval Society

Citizens

Citizens? Wasn't everyone a citizen of someplace?

No. The word itself comes from Latin and was specifically tied to the city of Rome, at least at first. Even later, as citizenship was expanded to include peoples from all over the Empire, they were still in some sense merely being added to the body of citizens that were in Rome itself. All through the Middle Ages, the only time the word is used, it's used in connection with a town. Other people weren't citizens, they were subjects.

So, citizenship was a privilege. More precisely, citizenship brought with it a whole host of privileges and duties, exactly as it does with modern citizenship. The citizen was required to do various acts of public service, including such things as manning the walls, patrolling neighborhoods, and serving in the militia. Citizens were subject to taxation by the city.

On the other hand, citizens had their own court system, enjoyed certain economic protections, and could count on being protected by that selfsame militia. Citizens also had recourse to public welfare if they fell on hard times.

Citizenship was not conferred automatically upon all residents. In fact, most people living in medieval cities were not citizens, they were merely residents. Citizenship was reserved to a minority: adult, male, and meeting various qualifications such as mastership in a guild or even being married. The specifics varied greatly with time and place, but in general citizenship was reserved to maybe ten percent of the total population. Citizens were not necessarily wealthy, but they were unlikely to be homeless or jobless. They weren't day laborers either, but were business owners, large or small. Nor were the journeymen or apprentices of a guild citizens. Broadly speaking, citizenship grew steadily more restricted after around 1360 or so.

Citizenship rarely meant voting, either. It was a prerequisite to public office, but officials were appointed or were chosen by complex voting systems that never were the process of a general election. The one time the whole body of citizens did geta vote of sorts was in times of crisis, when it was common for the city government to summon the "whole citizenry"—which usually meant every citizen who cared to attend—to assemble in the main town square, where a single question would be put and voted by voice. This might be the adoption of a new constitution (usually in connection with some overthrow of the previous government) or participation in a war. Except for these extraordinary circumstances, most citizens paid little heed to government.

The key thing about citizenship in relation to social order is that it set the citizen apart from those who lived in the countryside. If there was a crime, the citizen could claim the right to be tried in his own city courts. In some parts of Europe, the town also controlled surrounding villages, and the citizen automatically held special status went he went out into the country. In Germany and elsewhere, the towns had the right of representation in city leagues or in imperial assemblies or courts, so citizenship gave him special status there as well.

The German word for town (well, one of the words, anyway) was burg, so the word for citizen there was burger. In France it was bourgeois (from bourg). In England it was burgher. In every language, the word didn't mean anyone who lived in a town; it meant "citizen." When you read about the "rise of the bourgeoisie" this is who is meant. Not the rise of "ordinary folk" or even "the middle class" but the rise of the privileged citizens of incorporated communities.