Henri Pirenne – Economic and Social History of Medieval Europe

“Soon the space that cities and burgs had to offer these newcomers, who became more and more numerous and embarrassing in proportion as trade increased, was no longer sufficient. They were driven to settle outside the walls and to build beside the old burg a new burg, or, to use the term which exactly describes it, a faubourg (fortsburgus), i.e., an outside burg. Thus, close to ecclesiastical towns or feudal fortresses there sprang up mercantile agglomerations, whose denizens devoted themselves to a kind of life which was in complete contrast to that led by the people of the inside town. The word portus, often applied in documents of the tenth and eleventh centuries to these settlements, exactly describes their nature.{35} It did not, in fact, signify a port in the modern sense, but a place through which merchandise was carried, and thus a particularly active place of transit. It was from it that in England and in Flanders the inhabitants of the port themselves received the name of poorters or portmen, which was long synonymous with bourgeois or burgess and indeed described them rather better than the latter, for the primitive bourgeoisie was exclusively composed of men living by trade” (Pirenne, 1937: 41-42).

Pirenne, H. (1937). Economic and Social History of Medieval Europe. Harcour, Beace and Company.