Medieval Barcelona- The Guilds

On February 23rd, my Barcelona City class took our third field trip to the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona to see where the guilds were located during the Medieval period. Our class met in front of the Cathedral of Barcelona and we began our journey into the time of the guilds. The first thing that Xavi pointed out was the layout of a typical street store during that time period. The store front was at street level, obviously, and he said that the corners were the most valuable real estate for a store. The first floor, or primero, is where the owner of the store lived. The higher floors were where the servants lived. This seems contrary to today's standards, but they did not have elevators back then so everyone had to take the stairs. The wealthy owner of the store did obviously not want to climb four sets of stairs to get into bed at night. Anyways, we continued our field trip by moving through the streets of the various guilds. During medieval times, each street had many of the same types of stores. These stores could include siver makers, iron workers, mirror makers, or clothing stores. All of the various categories grouped together on to one street where a type of "stock market" could take place; this type of stock market was called "La Llotja". Vendors would bring their materials to a common area and all the store owners would bid on various prices. Xavi pointed out that today all the streets are named after the various guilds that they housed during Medieval times. After moving through the streets of the guilds, we made our way into a magnificent church. There were graves throughout the interior of people who donated money to the church. The largest donators had their family crests on the ceiling of the church. After the church, we made our way to La Ribera, something comparable to the NYSE nowadays. It was where all the boats coming from the sea got their cargo priced for sale in Barcelona. Xavi noted that three groups technically own La Ribera (Catalonia, Barcelona, Madrid), and they fight over it constantly. Anyways,with all these various elements, I found the field trip to the Guilds to be one of the most interesting and informative of the entire semester.