The English Medieval Town.pdf

Academy Chicago Pub | 1980 | Pdf | Eng | ISBN:10 0586082727 | 272 p | 43.1 MB

No study of the English medieval town should begin without some cautionary words. Medieval England was never intensively urbanized. Estimates naturally vary, but, at one recent guess, as much as ninety-five per cent of its population might still have been rural as late as 1500, and these proportions were not to alter significantly for another two centuries at least. The Units of settlement which, for one reason or another, could be described as 'towns' were plentiful, but they were often very small. London alone, with a late-medieval population approaching 50,000, could compare with some of the greater continental cities.
Among English provincial capitals, York had as few as 8000 inhabitants, whereas a quite substantial country town might muster three or four thousand at most.