Table Of Contentwww.routledge.com
The Medieval Town
1200-1540
Readers in Urban History
General Editors:
Peter Clark and David Reeder
The Centre for Urban History, Leicester University
THE MEDlEYA L TOWN
A Reader in English Urban History, 1200-1540
Edited by Richard Holt and Gervase Rosser
THE TUDOR AND STUART TOWN
A Reader in English Urban History, 1530-1688
Edited by Jonathan Barry
THE EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY TOWN
A Reader in English Urban History, 1688-1820
Edited by Peter Borsay ·
THE VICTORIAN CITY
A Reader in British Urban History, 1820-1914
Edited by R. J. Morris and R. Rodger
The English Medieval Town
A Reader in English Urban History
1200-1540
Edited by
Richard Holt and Gervase Rosser
~~ ~~o~~~;n~~~up
LONDON AND NEW YORK
First Published 1990 by Longman Group UK Limited
Published in the United States of America
by Longman Inc.
Published 2014 by Routledge
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
The medieval town: a reader in English urban
history 1200-1540. - (Readers in urban history).
l. England. Towns, history
I. Holt, Richard, 1948 June 22- II. Rosser, Gervase 1956 May 5-
III. Series
942'. 009' 732
ISBN 978-0-582-05128-7 PPR
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The medieval town: a reader in English urban history
1200-1540 / edited by Richard Holt and Gervase Rosser.
p. em.
ISBN 0-582-05129-0. -ISBN 0-582-05128-2 (pbk.)
1. Cities and towns, Medieval-England. 2. City and town life-
England-History. I. Holt, Richard, 1948- II. Rosser,
Gervase, 1956
HT115.E54 1990
307.7 6'0942'0902- dc20 89-49706
CIP
Publisher's Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this book but points out
that some imperfections from the original may be apparent.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
1. Introduction: The Engish town in the Middle 1
Ages
Richard Holt and Gervase Rosser
2. Towns in English Medieval Society 19
R. H. Hilton
3. The English borough in the thirteenth century 29
G. H. Martin
4. The first half-century of the borough of 49
Stratford-upon-Avon
E. M. Carus-Wilson
5. Small town society in England before the Black 71
Death
R. H. Hilton
6. Suburban growth 97
D. J. Keene
7. Craftsmen and the economy of London in the 120
fourteenth century
E. M. Veale
8. Gloucester in the century after the Black Death 141
Richard Holt
9. Ralph Holland and the London radicals, 1438-1444 160
Caroline M. Barron
v
Contents
10. The commercial dominance of a medieval provincial 184
oligarchy: Exeter in the late fourteenth century
Maryanne Kowaleski
11. The essence of medieval urban communities: The 216
vill of Westminster 1200-1540
Gervase Rosser
12. Ceremony and the citizen: The communal year at 238
Coventry 1450-1550
Charles Phythian-Adams
13. Urban decline in late medieval England 265
R. B. Dobson
Index 287
VI
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce articles:
Associated Book Publishers (UK) Ltd for 'Ceremony and the
citizen' in Crisis and Order in English Towns 1500-1700 edited by
P. Clark and P. Slack (Routledge, 1972); Basil Blackwell Ltd for
'The first half-century of the borough of Stratford-upon-Avon' by
E.M. Cams-Wilson in Economic History Review, 18 (1965); Bristol
and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society and the author, R. A
Holt, for 'Gloucester in the century after the Black Death' in Trans
actions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 103
(1985); Council for British Archaeology and the author, Derek
Keene, for 'Suburban growth' in The Plans and Topography of
Medieval Towns in England and Wales edited by M. W. Barley
(CBA Research Report 14, 1976); The Historical Association and
the author, Caroline M. Barron, for 'Ralph Holland and the London
radicals 1438-1444' in A History of the North London Branch of the
Historical Association, together with Essays in Honour of its Golden
Jubilee (London, 1970); Hodder and Stoughton Ltd for 'Craftsmen
and the economy of London in the fourteenth century' by E. M.
Veale in Studies in London History Presented To Philip Edmund
Jones edited by A. E. J. Hollaender and W. Kellaway, copyright©
1969 Elspeth M. Veale; Leicester University Press, a division of
Pinter Publishers, for 'Towns in societies: Medieval England' by R.
H. Hilton in Urban History Yearbook (1982); The Past and Present
Society and the author, R. H. Hilton, for 'Small town society in
England before the Black Death' in Past and Present: A Journal of
Historical Studies, 105 (November 1984), world copyright The Past
and Present Society; Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies for
'Commercial dominance of a medieval oligarchy' by M. Kowaleski
in Mediaeval Studies, 46 (1984), © 1984 by the Pontifical Institute of
Medieval Studies, Toronto; Royal Historical Society for 'Urban
decline in late medieval England' by R. B. Dobson in Transactions
vii
Acknowledgements
of the Royal Historical Society, 27 (1977), 'The English borough in
the thirteenth century' by G. H. Martin in Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society, 13 (1963) and 'The essence of medieval urban
communities: The viii of Westminster 1200-1540' by A. G. Rosser
in Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 34 (1984).
Vlll
Chapter One
INTRODUCTION: THE ENGLISH
TOWN IN THE MIDDLE AGES
Richard Holt and Gervase Rosser
The period between the late twelfth century and the beginning of
the sixteenth marked a distinct phase in the history of the English
town. Within this long span of three centuries, wider economic and
social developments brought about dramatic changes in urban life.
The era opened, in a context of rapid population growth, with a
rising trend of urban expansion and new town foundations; by the
middle of the fourteenth century that trend was reversed, and within
the contracted economy of England (as of Europe in general) after
the arrival of the Black Death, towns inevitably contracted both in
size and numbers. Nevertheless, the period is distinguished by an
underlying continuity of the essential forms of urban life, which dif
fered in important respects from those both of earlier and of later
times. The purpose of this introduction, therefore, is to provide a
working definition of the medieval town in England, and to establish
the general context for the particular stuqjes that follow.
The first point to emphasize is that most English towns of the
late Middle Ages were small by the standards of the modern city,
or indeed by those of the greater urban centres of medieval Flanders
or Italy. The majority of English towns contained fewer than 1500
people. Even so, taking into account the numerous small towns es
tablished in England by the year 1300, the country should be seen
as sharing in the urbanization that affected much of Europe in the
twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Secondly, the medieval European
town was not differentiated from the countryside to the same extent
as towns in other times and places. The English town in particular
was subject to the pervasive powers both of royal government and
of society at large; the town's incorporation within the wider politi
cal and social framework was consolidated by legal and fiscal
developments of the thirteenth century. The assimilation of urban
to rural social structures was underlined by a further distinctive trait
of the medieval English town, which was the relatively undeveloped
nature of urban industry. The preponderance of domestic produc
tion in medieval industry rendered unnecessary the development of
a large urban proletariat, with the result that social relations in
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