While family and the village community formed the heart of the agrarian economy, trade was its lifeblood. Tenants needed money to pay their rents and buy commodities. Smallholders needed food. Lords wanted to buy luxuries, build churches or castles, and hire servants. In meeting these demands, towns grew and flourished. As centres of trade and authority, they were clearly differentiated from villages and offered opportunities and services that were unavailable in villages. A sophisticated marketing system thus stretched into every corner of the countryside, linking the brisk trade in village grain, goods, and land to market towns and large cities. At the centre stood London. It dwarfed all other towns and during Edward's reign gradually emerged as the political and cultural capital of England as well as its commercial hub. Internal trade, moreover, offered an inviting target to a government bent on tapping every resource in its drive for war as well as to lords hoping to fatten their revenues. This chapter outlines the network of markets and trade before turning to an investigation of towns and urban society.

The growing population and the consequent heating up of the economy over the thirteenth century led to the propagation of markets. Though the overwhelming majority of people lived as farmers, a strong demand for foodstuffs was generated from four sources. The first was the village community. Smallholders who did not have enough land to feed themselves had to buy food.