Why was a market important in the lives of people in the middle ages?

Answer 1

yes.

An expanded answer: Villages did not have markets. Villages were basically farming centers, with a few craftsmen and professionals such as a smith, a carpenter, a miller, perhaps a few others, who might farm as well as practice a trade. Although there would have been local trade and barter, there were not organized markets.

Towns, on the other hand, did have markets with regular market days. These markets were places where the farmers of nearby villages could sell their produce, and local craftsmen could sell their goods. The economy of the towns focused on crafts, manufacture, and trade. Paris had several markets that were located in large covered buildings, sort of a medieval shopping mall, to allow business to take place even in bad weather.

Answer 2

Manors were as self sufficient as they could be, but that did not mean they could supply everything everyone needed, let alone everything everyone wanted. Anything that could not be grown or made on the manor had to come from a market or in itinerant trader, and people form the manors took some of their production to the market to sell. The goods most people had to go to market to buy include fine clothing, anything made of silver or gold, jewelry, tapestries and carpets, artwork, Musical Instruments, spices, pottery, any food not grown on the manor, and often such things as cutlery, rope, dried fish, dried fruit, wine, books, furniture, notions, shoes, and so on. The list is endless.