Small places with large consequences: The importance of small towns in England, 1000-1540

Historical Research

Volumn 75, Issue 187, 2002, Pages 1-24

  Dyer, Christopher ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LEICESTER   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 2942553701     PISSN: 09503471     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1468-2281.00138     Document Type: Article

References (128)

1. D. Johnson, 'Dickens at Stafford, Apr. 1852', in Staffordshire Histories: Essays in Honour of Michael Greenslade, ed. P. Morgan and A. D. M. Phillips (Staffordshire Record Soc, 4th ser., xix, 1999), pp. 201-16
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5. D. Palliser, 'Introduction', in Cambridge Urban Hist., i. 4-7
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7. Influential works include R. H. Britnell, The Commercialisation of English Society, 1000-1500 (Cambridge, 1993)
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9. B. M. S. Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture 1250-1450 (Cambridge, 2000)
10. R. H. Hilton, The English Peasantry in the Later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1975)
11. idem, 'Medieval market towns and simple commodity production', Past & Present, cix (1985), 1-23
12. idem, English and French Towns in Feudal Society: a Comparative Study (Cambridge, 1992)
13. E.g., C. J. Bond, 'Central place and medieval new town: the origins of Thame, Oxfordshire', in The Built Form of Western Cities: Essays for M. R. G. Conzen, ed. T. R. Slater (Leicester, 1990), pp. 83-106
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15. M. R. G. Conzen, 'The use of town plans in the study of urban history', in The Study of Urban History, ed. H. J. Dyos (1968), pp. 113-30
16. More recent work has been conveniently reviewed in T. R. Slater, 'Understanding the landscape of towns', in Landscape: the Richest Historical Record, ed. D. Hooke (Soc.for Landscape Studies, supplementary ser., i, 2000), pp. 97-108
17. Cambridge Urban Hist., i
18. The outstanding e.g.s here are the Bristol Record Society, London Record Society and Southampton Record Society
19. C. Gross, The Gild Merchant: a Contribution to British Municipal History (Oxford, 2 vols., 1890), ii. 289-351
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21. British Library, Additional MS. 40167
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25. E.g., Henley Borough Records: Assembly Books i-iv, 1395-1543, ed. P. M. Briers (Oxfordshire Record Soc., xli, 1960)
26. Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Record Office, BRT series
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28. G. A. Thornton, 'A study in the history of Clare, Suffolk, with special reference to its development as a borough', Trans. Royal Hist. Soc., 4th ser., xi (1928), 83-115
29. E. M. Carus-Wilson, 'The first half-century of the borough of Stratford-upon-Avon', Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xviii (1965), 46-63
30. The latter study has now been revised and supplemented in The History of an English Borough: Stratford-upon-Avon 1196-1996, ed. R Bearman (Stroud, 1997)
31. The more recent studies are: M. Bailey, 'A tale of two towns: Buntingford and Standon in the later middle ages', Jour. Medieval Hist., xix (1993), 351-71
32. H. Grieve, The Sleepers and the Shadows. Chelmsford: a Town, its People and its Past (Chelmsford, 1988)
33. R. H. Hilton, 'Small town society in England before the Black Death', Past & Present, cv (1984), 53-78
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36. J. Goodacre, The Transformation of a Peasant Economy: Townspeople and Villagers in the Lutterworth Area, 1500-1700 (Aldershot, 1994)
37. P. Clark and L. Murfin, The History of Maidstone: the Making of a Modern County Town (Stroud, 1995)
38. P. May, Newmarket, Medieval and Tudor (Newmarket, 1982)
39. C. M. Newman, Late Medieval Northallerton: a Small Market Town and its Hinterland, c.1450-1540 (Studies in North East Hist., iii, 1999)
40. R. H. Hilton, 'Low-level urbanization: the seigneurial borough of Thornbury in the middle ages', in Medieval Society and the Manor Court, ed. Z. Razi and R. Smith (Oxford, 1996), pp. 482-517
41. A. J. L. Winchester, Landscape and Society in Medieval Cumbria (Edinburgh, 1987)
42. H. S. A. Fox, 'Medieval urban development', in An Historical Atlas of South-West England, ed. R. Kain and W. Ravenhill (Exeter, 1999), pp. 424-31
43. Victoria County History of Bedfordshire, iii. 399-417 (Leighton Buzzard); V.C.H. Cambridgeshire, ix. 398-414 (Willingham)
44. Cambridge Urban Hist., i. 752-3
45. There are speculations about the urban population in C. Dyer, 'How urbanised was medieval England?', in Peasants and Townsmen in Medieval Europe: Studia in Honorem Adriaan Verhulst, ed. J. M. Duvosquel and E. Thoen (Ghent, 1995), pp. 169-83
46. Hilton, English and French Towns, pp. 34-5 gives figures for individual provinces which suggest a French total
47. Clark, Small Towns, pp. 1, 186-7
48. H. R. T. Summerson, Medieval Carlisle: the City and the Borders from the Late 11th to the Mid-16th Century (Cumberland and Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological Soc., extra ser., xxv, Kendal, 1993)
49. R H. Britnell, 'Specialization of work in England, 1100-1300', Econ. Hist. Rev., liv (2001), 1-16, at pp. 11 -14
50. The Wealth of Shrewsbury in the Early 14th Century, ed. D. and R. Cromarty (Shropshire Archaeological and Historical Soc, 1993)
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52. C. Gill, History of Birmingham (2 vols., Oxford, 1952), i. 12-31
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54. The Poll Taxes of 1377, 1379 and 1381, pt. i, ed. C. C. Fenwick (British Academy Records of Soc.and Econ. Hist., new ser., xxvii, Oxford, 1998), pp. 291-2, 311
55. The Military Survey of 1522 for Babergh Hundred, ed. J. Pound (Suffolk Records Soc., xxviii, 1986), PP. 55. 7
56. Household Accounts from Medieval England, pt. i, ed. C. M. Woolgar (British Academy Records of Soc.and Econ. Hist, new ser, xvii, Oxford, 1992), p. 248
57. M. G. Fulford, S. Rippon, J. R L. Allen and J. Hillam, 'The medieval quay at Woolaston Grange, Gloucestershire', Trans. Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Soc., cx (1992), 101-27
58. Stafford, Staffordshire Record Office, D 641/3/D/1/29
59. L. R. Poos, A Rural Society after the Black Death: Essex 1350-1525 (Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Times, xviii, 1991), p. 38
60. Fenwick, pp. 214-15
61. Bearman, pp. 9-11, 29, 33-5, 46, 54
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63. A. E. Brown, Early Daventry: an Essay in Early Landscape Planning (Leicester, 1991), pp. 29-32
64. T. R. Slater, 'English medieval new towns with composite plans: evidence from the Midlands', in idem, Built Form, pp. 63-6
65. C. Dyer, 'The great fire of Shipston-on-Stour', Warwickshire Hist., viii (1992-3), 179-94
66. V.C.H. Oxfordshire, vii. 180
67. J. S. Roskell, The Commons in the Parliament of 1422: English Society and Parliamentary Representation under the Lancastrians (Manchester, 1954), pp. 230-1
68. P. J. P. Goldberg, 'Urban identity and the poll taxes of 1377, 1379 and 1381', Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd ser., xliii (1990), 196-216, at p. 199
69. Hilton, 'Small town society', pp. 64-77
70. Suffolk Record Office (Ipswich Branch), HD 64/1/28
71. S. H. Rigby, 'Boston and Grimsby in the middle ages: an administrative contrast', Jour. Medieval Hist., x (1984), 51-66
72. N. M. Trenholme, The English Monastic Boroughs: a Study in Medieval History (University of Missouri Studies, ii, 1927)
73. Peberdy
74. English Gilds: the Original Ordinances of More than 100 Early English Gilds, ed. J. T. Smith and F. L. Bretano (Early English Text Soc, orig. ser., xl, 1870), pp. 247-9
75. Urban culture is recorded in the Records of Early English Drama series, published in Toronto. For Droitwich see D. J. Jones, "The cult of St. Richard of Chichester in the middle ages', Sussex Archaeological Collections, cxxi (1983), 79-86, at p. 84
76. Clerical Poll-Taxes of the Diocese of Lincoln, 1377-81, ed. A. K. McHardy (Lincoln Record Soc, lxxxi, 1992), pp. 14-29
77. E.g., C. Dyer, 'Small-town conflict in the later middle ages: events at Shipston-on-Stour', Urban Hist., xix (1992), 183-210, at p. 208
78. on the general point, see J. A. H. Moran, The Growth of English Schooling, 1390-1548 (Princeton, N.J., 1985), pp. 237-79
79. C. Revard, 'Scribe and provenance', in Studies in the Harley Manuscript: the Scribes, Contents and Social Contexts of British Library MS. Harley 2253, ed. S. Fein (Kalamazoo, Mich., 2000), pp. 21-109
80. The Wakefield Pageants in the Towneley Cycle, ed. A. C. Cawley (Manchester, 1958), pp. xxx-xxxi
81. Cambridge Urban Hist., i. 346-7
82. Annals of Windsor, i, ed. R R. Tighe and J. E. Davies (1858), pp. 399-403
83. Goodacre, p. 12
84. Bearman, p. 56
85. C. Dyer, 'The consumer and the market in the later middle ages', in idem, Everyday Life in Medieval England (1994), p. 264
86. B. Harvey, 'The aristocratic consumer in England in the long 13th century', Thirteenth-Century England, V (1997), pp. 17-37
87. For an early 14th-century e.g. of purchases in a small town (Clare), see F. A. Underhill, For Her Good Estate: the Life of Elizabeth de Burgh (Basingstoke, 1999), p. 69
88. Accounts of the Cellarers of Battle Abbey 1275-1513, ed, E. Searle and B. Ross (Sydney, 1967)
89. C. Dyer, 'Trade, towns and the church; ecclesiastical consumers and the urban economy of the west midlands, 1290-1540', in The Church in the Medieval Town, ed. T. R Slater and G. Rosser (Aldershot, 1998), pp. 60-9
90. Norwich, Norfolk Record Office, MCR/B/26
91. Brit. Libr., Harleian Roll, F21
92. B. M, S. Campbell, J. A. Galloway, D. Keene and M. Murpby, A Medieval Capital and its Grain Supply: Agrarian Production and Distribution in the London Region c.1300 (Historical Geography Research Ser., xxx, 1993), pp. 46-53
93. M. Kowaleski, Local Markets and Regional Trade in Medieval Exeter (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 302-3
94. N. Mayhew, 'Modelling medieval monetisation', in Britnell and Campbell, p. 58
95. A. Watkins, Small Towns in the Forest of Arden in the 15th Century (Dugdale Soc.Occasional Papers, xxxviii, 1998), p. 17
96. L. F. Salzman, Building in England down to 1540 (Oxford, 1967), pp. 517-19
97. J. N. Hare, 'Building and economic change in the towns of North Hampshire in the late middle ages', Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society Newsletter, xxxiii (2000), 23-4
98. N. Alcock and R. Meeson, 'Henley-in-Arden, the Heritage Centre, 150 High Street,' West Midlands Archaeology, xlii (1999), 109-15
99. This is based on calculations of consumption per head in Campbell, Galloway, Keene and Murphy, pp. 31-6
100. and in J. A. Galloway, D. Keene and M. Murphy, 'Fuelling the city: production and distribution of firewood and fuel in London's region, 1290-1400', Earn. Hist. Rev., xlix (1996), 447-72
101. This idea is explored in C. Dyer, Bromsgrove: a Small Town in Worcestershire in the Middle Ages (Worcestershire Historical Soc.Occasional Publications, ix, 2000), pp. 36-9
102. H. C. Darby, Domesday England (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 260-3, 285
103. Cambridge Urban Hist., i. 525
104. J. Laughton and C. Dyer, 'Small towns in the east and west midlands in the later middle ages: a comparison', Midland Hist., xxiv (1999), 24-52, at pp. 44-5
105. Lay Subsidy Roll for the County of Worcester circ.1280 [recte 1275], ed. J. W. Willis Bund and J. Amphlett (Worcestershire Historical Soc, 1893), pp. 8-9
106. Lay Subsidy Roll for the County of Worcester, 1 Edward I, ed. F.J. Eld (Worcestershire Historical Soc., 1895), pp. 38-9
107. The Early Records of Medieval Coventry, ed. P. R. Coss (British Academy, Records of Soc.and Econ. Hist., new ser., xi, Oxford, 1986)
108. Bearman, pp. 58-9
109. Early Huntingdonshire Lay Subsidy Rolls, ed. J. A. Raftis and M. P. Hogan (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Subsidia Mediaevalia, viii, 1976), p. 71
110. Dyer, Bromsgrove, p. 54
111. E. A. Wrigley, 'A simple model of London's importance in changing English society and economy, 1650-1750', Past & Present, xxxvii (1967), 44-70, at pp. 48-9
112. R. K. Field, "Migration in the later middle ages: the case of the Hampton Lovett villeins', Midland Hist., viii (1983), 29-48, at p. 35
113. S. Thrupp, 'A survey of the alien population of England in 1440', in Society and History: Essays by Sylvia L. Thrupp, ed. R Grew and N. H. Steneck (Ann Arbor, Mick, 1977), pp. 133-49
114. J. Röhrkasten, 'Handwerker aus Zentraleuropa im spä tmittelalterlichen England', in Handwerk in Europa: vom Spätmittelalter bis zur Frühen Neuzeit, ed. K. Schulz and E. Müller-Luckner (Munich, 1999), pp. 88, 92
115. R. R. Mundill, England's Jewish Solution: Experiment and Expulsion, 1262-90 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 286-90
116. Watkins, p. 12
117. G. Rosser, 'Going to the fraternity feast: commensality and social relations in late medieval England', Jour. British Studies, xxxiii (1994), 430-46
118. M. K. Mcintosh, Controlling Misbehavior in England, 1370-1600 (Cambridge, 1998)
119. Bearman, pp. 62-79
120. H. Fulton, 'Trading places: representations of urban culture in medieval Welsh poetry', Studia Celtica, xxxi (1997), 219-30
121. Newman, pp. 102-10, 124-42
122. Bailey, 'Two towns'
123. G. G. Astill, Historic Towns in Berkshire (Berkshire Archaeological Committee, ii, 1978), pp. 43-7; May
124. A. G. Rosser, Medieval Westminster, 1200-1540 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 226-48
125. M. Carlin, Medieval Southwark (1996), pp. 101-27
126. Newman, pp. 81-93 tends to an economic explanation; Bearman, pp. 49-52 gives more weight to social/political influences. M. Bailey links informal government with the decline in market toll revenues (idem, 'Trade and towns in medieval England: new insights from familiar sources', Local Historian, xxix (1999), 194-211)
127. The 'maturity' of the urbanization is discussed in C. Dyer, 'Market towns and the countryside in late medieval England', Canadian Jour. Hist., xxxi (1996), 18-35
128. and in Trade, Urban Hinterlands and Market Integration c.1300-1600, ed. J. Galloway (Centre for Metropolitan History Working Paper Ser., iii, 2000)