Towns And Local Communities In Medieval And Early Modern England

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 The collection includes two hitherto unpublished studies and is introduced and put in context by a new survey of English towns from the 7th to the 16th centuries.

Inspired by the path-breaking work of Robert Tittler, the authors explore late Medieval and Early Modern community and identity across England. They examine the decline of neighbourliness, the politics of market towns, clerical status, charity, crime, and ways in which overlapping communities of court and country, London and Lancashire, relate.

Despite the great wave of publications on European cities and towns in the pre-industrial period, little has been written about the thousands of small towns which played a key role in the economic, social and cultural life of early modern Europe. This collection, written by leading experts, redresses that imbalance. It provides the first comparative overview of European small towns from the fifteenth to the early nineteenth century, examining their position in the urban hierarchy, demographic structures, economic trends, relations with the countryside, and political and cultural developments. Case studies discuss networks in all the major European countries, as well as looking at the distinctive world of small towns in the more 'peripheral' countries of Scandinavia and central Europe. A wide-ranging editorial introduction puts individual chapters in historical perspective.

How were cultural, political, and social identities formed in the early modern period? How were they maintained? What happened when they were contested? What meanings did “community” have? This path-breaking book looks at how individuals were bound into communities by religious, professional, and social networks; the importance of place--ranging from the Parish to communities of crime; and the value of rhetoric in generating community--from the King’s English to the use of “public” as a rhetorical community. The essays offer an original, comparative, and thematic approach to the many ways in which people utilized communication, space, and symbols to constitute communities in early modern England.

Cities and Solidarities charts the ways in which the study of individuals and places can revitalise our understanding of urban communities as dynamic interconnections of solidarities in medieval and early modern Europe. This volume sheds new light on the socio-economic conditions, the formal and informal institutions, and the strategies of individual town dwellers that explain the similarities and differences in the organisation and functioning of urban communities in pre-modern Europe. It considers how communities within cities and towns are constructed and reconstructed, how interactions amongst members of differing groups created social and economic institutions, and how urban communities reflected a sense of social cohesion. In answering these questions, the contributions combine theoretical frameworks with new digital methodologies in order to provoke further discussion into the fundamental nature of urban society in this key period of change. The essays in this collection demonstrate the complexities of urban societies in pre-modern Europe, and will make fascinating reading for students and scholars of medieval and early modern urban history.

Medieval York provides a comprehensive history of what is now considered England's most famous surviving medieval city, covering nearly a thousand years. The volume examines York from its post-Roman revival as a town (c. 600) to the major changes of the 1530s and 1540s, which in many ways brought an end to the Middle Ages in England. York was one of the leading English towns after London, and in status almost always the 'second city'. Much research and publication has been carried out on various aspects of medieval York, but this volume seeks to cover the field in its entirety. David Palliser offers an up-to-date and broad-based account of the city by employing the evidence of written documents, archaeology (especially on the rich results of recent city centre excavations), urban morphology, numismatics, art, architecture, and literature. Special attention is paid to the city's religious drama and its wealth of surviving stained glass. The story of Medieval York is set in a wide context to make comparisons with other English and Continental towns, to establish how far York's story was distinctive or was typical of other English towns which have been less fortunate in the survival of their medieval fabric. It is essential reading for anyone interested in York's past and in its rich heritage of medieval churches, guildhalls, houses, streets, and city walls - the most complete medieval circuit in England.

The years between 900 and 1200 saw transformative social change in Europe, including the creation of extensive town-dwelling populations and the proliferation of feudalised elites and bureaucratic monarchies. In England these developments were complicated and accelerated by repeated episodes of invasion, migration and changes of regime. In this book, scholars from disciplines including history, archaeology and literature reflect on the major trends which shaped English society in these years of transition and select key themes which encapsulate the period. The authors explore the landscape of England, its mineral wealth, its towns and rural life, the health, behaviour and obligations of its inhabitants, patterns of spiritual and intellectual life and the polyglot nature of its population and culture. What emerges is an insight into the complexity, diversity and richness of this formative period of English history.

English dress in the second half of the sixteenth century has been studied in depth, yet remarkably little has been written on the earlier years, or indeed on male clothing for the whole century. The few studies that do cover these neglected areas have tended to be quite general, focusing upon garments rather than the wearers. As such this present volume fills an important gap by providing a detailed analysis of not only what people wore in Henry's reign, but why. The book describes and analyses dress in England through a variety of documents, including warrants and accounts from Henry's Great Wardrobe and the royal household, contemporary narrative sources, legislation enacted by Parliament, guild regulations, inventories and wills, supported with evidence and observations derived from visual sources and surviving garments. Whilst all these sources are utilised, the main focus of the study is built around the sumptuary legislation, or the four 'Acts of Apparel' passed by Henry between 1509 and 1547. English sumptuary legislation was concerned primarily with male dress, and starting at the top of society with the king and his immediate family, it worked its way down through the social hierarchy, but stopped short of the poor who did not have sufficient disposable income to afford the items under consideration. Certain groups - such as women and the clergy - who were specifically excluded from the legislation, are examined in the second half of the book. Combining the consideration of such primary sources with modern scholarly analysis, this book is invaluable for anyone with an interest in the history of fashion, clothing, and consumption in Tudor society.