Medieval British Towns

Medieval British Towns sets out to explain the reasons for the explosion of town foundation throughout the British Isles from the 12th century onwards. It compares the foundation and development of towns and includes smaller market towns.

The only survey of the urban, commercial and industrial history of the period between the Norman conquest and the Black Death.

This book brings together twelve outstanding articles by eminent historians to throw light on the evolution of medieval towns and the lives of their inhabitants. The essays span the period from the dramatic urban expansion of the thirteenth century to the crises in the fifteenth century as a result of plague, population decline and changes in the economy. Throughout the breadth of current debates surrounding the history of urban society is fully explored.

Medieval British Towns sets out to explain the reasons for the explosion of town foundation throughout the British Isles from the twelfth century onwards and charts the subsequent development of towns through to the early sixteenth century. The raison d'etre of towns throughout the British Isles was as market places and centres of trade in an increasingly commercialised society. The comparative approach adopted here illuminates the diverging experiences of towns in the four different countries of the British Isles, but sets them within the overall context of a shared value system, where social cohesion was provided by the church. It offers a guide to students and general readers first venturing into the study of medieval urban history and provides comparative material for more experienced students of both history and the related disciplines of archaeology and historical geography.

"Though the book is primarily about medieval towns in Britain, many parallels are drawn with contemporary towns and cities all over Europe, from Ireland to Russia and from Scandinavia to Italy. It is written in the belief that medieval urban archaeology should be a Europe-wide study, as are the fields of architecture and urban history."--BOOK JACKET.

This series on the towns and cities of Britain provides an introduction to the research in this field.

David Palliser focuses here on towns in England in the centuries between the Norman Conquest and the Tudor period, on which he is an acknowledged authority. Urban topography, archaeology, economy, society and politics are all reviewed, and particular attention is given to relationships between towns and the Crown, to the evidence for migration into towns, and to the vexed question of urban fortunes in the 15th and 16th centuries. The collection includes two hitherto unpublished studies and is introduced and put in context by a new survey of English towns from the 7th to the 16th centuries.