There were the traveling artists who moved from noble court to noble court. And there were the artists who were employed (at least temporarily) at a court.
Especially later, in large cities, there were also artists whose reputation made it possible to have their own workshop and work from there.
The medieval, especially the early and high medieval nobles considered patronage as an essential element of their own status presentation. One was someone if one could afford to patronize/pay for art.
The benefit of patronizing art was both in the present (I show what I can afford) and in the future (I secure the memory of myself after my death).
And much of that, perhaps unfortunately not as a general value in entrepreneurship today, I find structurally in dealing with open source funding.
There are the "traveling artists" who live on the hope of (irregular) donations. There are the "employed artists" at court and there are those with their own place of work.
So open source projects/maintainers that have to live from many (small and large) donors. Projects/Maintainers that are sponsored/paid by (big) companies. And there are the projects that have a second (often hosted versions and services around the OS project) as a source of income.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)