What do we call the medieval system where workers specialize and sell goods in towns?

The story behind the answer

It refers to a town-centered market system in which artisans and merchants specialized in crafts and traded their goods for money in shops and markets. That contrasts with the manorial system (self-sufficient rural estates), the guild system (associations regulating entry, quality, and prices within a trade), and the feudal economy (land-for-service arrangements rooted in agriculture).

From the 11th to 13th centuries, European towns surged as trade revived: the Champagne fairs connected north and south, the Hanseatic League tied Baltic and North Sea ports, and city charters fostered a freer climate for commerce. A new bourgeois class emerged, coinage circulated widely, and regional specialties flourished—Flemish cloth, Venetian glass, Lombard banking. Even after the Black Death, these urban networks concentrated skills and capital, accelerating recovery and reshaping medieval society.