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The existence of a recurrent market, for example, weekly or monthly, was an important driver of economic development as well as an important source from which the specific legal system of cities sprang. Markets caused merchants and craftsmen to settle and expand upon the legal framework created by the right to hold a market to expand their economic activities. Cities Elsa Peretti Open Heart bracelet defined as legal entities exercising certain rights and privileges which usually included, besides the Marktrecht, that of self- administration, of levying taxes, sometimes the right to mint currency, to hold court, to self-defense, and freedom from servitude for its Bürger.In social and economic terms, cities were characterized by social stratification based on income rather than birth, and a division of labor by trade, which, in the course of time, was further divided by specialization of tasks within the production process.

In practical terms this meant the development of the two economic activities typical for cities: trade and craftsmanship as the primary, if not the sole, means of income. The barter and - with the Flower charm bracelet of a money-based economy - increasingly the sale of products or services created an economic system that was of much greater complexity than that in and of rural villages. Production of goods took place in small family-run enterprises. The overwhelming majority of masters of any given trade anywhere had one or two journeymen and apprentices working for them who Tiffany Cushion Toggle bracelet under the same roof as the master. For a long time, many craftsmen also had a few head of cattle and carried on some agriculture on the side. Neither were they truly independent: many produced almost exclusively for a noble family and its retainers rather than for the open market.

As the Patriziat, the members of the nobility and wealthy merchants from whom the city councils constituted themselves, organized into various Gilden to maintain and expand their hold on political power vis-a-vis the noble Stadtherr as well as their fellow city-dwellers, craftsmen responded by organizing as well. Their organization became known as Zunft. Most Zünfte began as Charm bracelet of members of the same craft for religious, social or economic, that is, for private, purposes. Since craftsmen often lived together in their own city quarters, turning these private associations into autonomous, self- administrative organizations under public law was a natural response to the developing Gilde of the merchants.