How did people in the medieval times sell goods?

Answer 1

Just about anyone went to medieval fairs. The farmers went to sell their products, and to buy. Tradesmen went to sell their goods. Bakers and butchers and anyone else who dealt with anything at all, went to the fairs to buy and sell. Performers went to fairs to earn money playing or juggling. Some fairs seem to have been associated with tournaments. Other fairs were associated with church holidays.

Fairs were held in Roman times and continued throughout the middle ages, or at least most of the middle ages. We probably have few or no records of fairs in the early middle ages, but then we don't have records on a lot of things for those times.

Answer 2

Through the entire Middle Ages there was money, but in the earliest years it was in short supply and people probably traded primarily, or possibly exclusively, by barter.

During much of the Middle Ages, trade was done in terms of a commodity, such as wheat, and both millers and landlords were often paid in wheat. This practice gradually became less common as the Middle Age went by, and in time was replaced almost entirely by transactions in money.

The money was mostly silver coinage, and mostly based on the old Roman denarius. The coins were often about the size of a US dime, or UK 5 pence. Copper coinage was used in the Byzantine Empire, but not so much elsewhere. There were gold coins, but most people never saw them. There were also denominations of account, such as the UK shilling, which were used for accounting, but not minted until after the Middle Ages.

Peasants and merchants alike sold goods at fairs, which were held in villages or at important places along roads, such as crossroads, fords, or bridges. Some goods, such as beer and prepared meals, were sold directly from the houses of the people who made them; prepared meals were common in towns because most people could not afford to have their own kitchens.

Towns were defined by the presence of a permanent market, where merchants had booths. Local merchants and hawkers had booths they kept, and travelling merchants rented booths.

There were always itinerant tradesmen and craftsmen who stopped at farms and villages to sell, and possibly to buy.

Answer 3

You could buy almost anything at a yearly fair. Merchants and dealers sold cloth, clothes, shoes, pottery, iron goods, food, gloves, hats, animals, furniture and chests, wall hangings, candles, spices, wine, ale, birds, trinkets, pins and needles, horses, inks, sulphur, Mercury, alum, red dye, peppers, saffron, furs, tanned leather, shoe leather, marten skins, bellows, besoms (brooms), soap, mirrors, razors, whetstones, firesteels, spindles, rings, horse harness and saddles, knives and sheaths, lanterns, wooden bowls, buckets and many more things.

There might also be entertainers, musicians and jugglers. There would certainly also be thieves, pickpockets and fraudsters using weighted dice to cheat people out of their money.

Answer 4

People sold anything and everything at medieval fairs. They were a lot like flea markets, but with more emphasis on food and drink.

There is a link below.