Preindustrial European towns depended on skilled and wealthy immigrant inflows

Evidence

Braudel says it best: “These indispensable immigrants were not always unskilled labourers or men of little aptitude. They often brought with them new techniques that were as indispensable as their persons to urban life. The Jews, driven out by their religious beliefs not their poverty, played an exceptional role in these transfers of technology… . There were other valuable immigrants, itinerant artists for instance attracted by expanding towns which were extending their public buildings; or merchants, particularly the Italian merchants and bankers, who activated and indeed created such cities as Lisbon, Seville, Medina del Campo, Lyons and Antwerp. An urban community needs all sorts and conditions of men, not least rich men. Towns attracted the wealthy just as they attracted the proletariat, though for very different reasons.” — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 1521

Categorization

• XREF: Braudel’s observation that religious exile (Jews) doubled as technology transfer connects to the chapter’s account of Europe’s heterogeneous labor origins.