page_title: History of retail
section_title: Medieval Europe
hierarchical_section_title: History of retail / Medieval Europe
caption_attribution_description: Original image description from the Deutsche FotothekMedizin &amp; Apotheke
context_page_description: Retail markets have existed since ancient times. Archaeological evidence for trade, probably involving barter systems, dates back more than 10,000 years. As civilizations grew, barter was replaced with retail trade involving coinage. Selling and buying are thought to have emerged in Asia Minor in around the 7th-millennium BCE. Gharipour points to evidence of primitive shops and trade centers in Sialk Hills in Kashan, Catalk Huyuk in modern-day Turkey, Jericho and Susa. Open air, public markets were known in ancient Babylonia, Assyria, Phoenicia, and Egypt. These markets typically occupied a place in the town's center. Surrounding the market, skilled artisans, such as metal-workers and leather workers, occupied permanent premises in alleys that led to the open market-place. These artisans may have sold wares directly from their premises, but also prepared goods for sale on market days. In ancient Greece markets operated within the agora, an open space where, on market days, goods were displayed on mats or temporary stalls. In ancient Rome, trade took place in the forum. Rome had two forums; the Forum Romanum and Trajan's Forum.
context_section_description: In Medieval England and Europe, relatively few permanent shops were to be found; instead, customers walked into the tradesman's workshops where they discussed purchasing options directly with tradesmen. In 13th-century London, mercers, and haberdashers were known to exist and grocers sold "miscellaneous small wares as well as spices and medicines" but fish and other perishables were sold through markets, costermongers, hucksters, peddlers or other types of itinerant vendor.
  In the more populous cities, a small number of shops were beginning to emerge by the 13th century. In Chester, a medieval covered shopping arcade represented a major innovation that attracted shoppers from many miles around. Known as "The Rows" this medieval shopping arcade is believed to be the first of its kind in Europe. Fragments of Chester's Medieval Row, which is believed to date to the mid-13th century, can still be found in Cheshire. In the 13th or 14th century, another arcade with several shops was recorded at Drapery Row in Winchester. The emergence of street names such as Drapery Row, Mercer's Lane and Ironmonger Lane in the medieval period suggests that permanent shops were becoming more commonplace.
  Medieval shops had little in common with their modern equivalent. As late as the 16th century, London's shops were described as little more than "rude booths" and their owners "bawled as loudly as the itinerants." Shopfronts typically had a front door with two wider openings on either side, each covered with shutters. The shutters were designed to open so that the top portion formed a canopy while the bottom was fitted with legs so that it could serve as a shopboard. Cox and Dannehl suggest that the Medieval shopper's experience was very different. The lack of glazed windows, which were rare during the medieval period, and did not become commonplace until the eighteenth century, meant that shop interiors were dark places. Outside the markets, goods were rarely out on display and the service counter was unknown. Shoppers had relatively few opportunities to inspect the merchandise prior to consumption. Many stores had openings onto the street from which they served customers.
  Outside the major cities, most consumable purchases were made through markets or fairs. Markets were held daily in the more populous towns and cities or weekly in the more sparsely populated rural districts. Markets sold fresh produce; fruit, vegetables, baked goods, meat, poultry, fish and some ready to eat foodstuffs; while fairs operated on a periodic cycle and were almost always associated with a religious festival. Fairs sold non-perishables such as farm tools, homewares, furniture, rugs and ceramics. Market towns dotted the medieval European landscape while itinerant vendors supplied less populated areas or hard-to-reach districts. Peddlers and other itinerant vendors operated alongside other types of retail for centuries. The political philosopher, John Stuart Mill compared the convenience of markets/fairs to that of the itinerant peddlers:
  "The contrivance of fairs and markets was early had recourse to, where consumers and producers might periodically meet, without any intermediate agency; and this plan answers tolerably well for many articles, especially agricultural produce … but were inconvenient to buyers who have other occupations, and do not live in the immediate vicinity … and the wants of the consumers must either be provided for so long beforehand, or must remain so long unsupplied, that even before the resources of society admitted of the establishment of shops, the supply of these wants fell universally into the hands of itinerant dealers: the pedlar, who might appear once a month, being preferred to the fair, which only returned once or twice a year."
  Blintiff has investigated the early Medieval networks of market towns across Europe and suggests that by the 12th century there was an upsurge in the number of market towns and the emergence of merchant circuits as traders bulked up surpluses from smaller regional, different day markets and resold them at t
caption: A typical 17th-century shop, with customers being served through an opening onto the street
exif: {"Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.10.12", "Image DateTime": "2020:01:29 11:33:04", "Thumbnail ImageWidth": "256", "Thumbnail ImageLength": "196", "Thumbnail BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail PhotometricInterpretation": "6", "Thumbnail SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "232", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "17348"}