Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of maps and tables
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Map 1 England and its neighbours
- Map 2 England 900–1200
- I Introduction
- I.1 Land use and people
- I.2 Water and land
- I.3 Forest and upland
- I.4 Mineral resources
- I.5 Health and disease
- II.1 Authority and community
- II.2 Lordship and labour
- II.3 Order and justice
- II.4 War and violence
- II.5 Family, marriage, kinship
- II.6 Poor and powerless
- III.1 Towns and their hinterlands
- III.2 Commerce and markets
- III.3 Urban planning
- III.4 Urban populations and associations
- IV.1 Invasion and migration
- IV.2 Ethnicity and acculturation
- IV.3 Intermarriage
- IV.4 The Jews
- V.1 Religion and belief
- V.2 Rites of passage and pastoral care
- V.3 Saints and cults
- V.4 Public spectacle
- V.5 Textual communities (Latin)
- V.6 Textual communities (vernacular)
- VI.1 Learning and training
- VI.2 Information and its retrieval
- VI.3 Esoteric knowledge
- VI.4 Medical practice and theory
- VI.5 Subversion
- Glossary
- Time line 900–1200
- Further reading
- Index
- References
III.1 - Towns and their hinterlands
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of maps and tables
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Map 1 England and its neighbours
- Map 2 England 900–1200
- I Introduction
- I.1 Land use and people
- I.2 Water and land
- I.3 Forest and upland
- I.4 Mineral resources
- I.5 Health and disease
- II.1 Authority and community
- II.2 Lordship and labour
- II.3 Order and justice
- II.4 War and violence
- II.5 Family, marriage, kinship
- II.6 Poor and powerless
- III.1 Towns and their hinterlands
- III.2 Commerce and markets
- III.3 Urban planning
- III.4 Urban populations and associations
- IV.1 Invasion and migration
- IV.2 Ethnicity and acculturation
- IV.3 Intermarriage
- IV.4 The Jews
- V.1 Religion and belief
- V.2 Rites of passage and pastoral care
- V.3 Saints and cults
- V.4 Public spectacle
- V.5 Textual communities (Latin)
- V.6 Textual communities (vernacular)
- VI.1 Learning and training
- VI.2 Information and its retrieval
- VI.3 Esoteric knowledge
- VI.4 Medical practice and theory
- VI.5 Subversion
- Glossary
- Time line 900–1200
- Further reading
- Index
- References
Summary
THE SEARCH FOR DEFINITIONS
The growth of urban life is one of the most important features of English society in the period 900–1200. A small number of places in England arguably displayed urban characteristics before 900, but these were tiny in number and scope compared with the spread of towns visible in 1200. The traditional definition of what constituted a town, common in urban history prior to the 1970s, was taken directly from historical legal status based on founding charters and privileges. Archaeology, which began to reveal widespread traces of medieval occupation in English towns and cities in the third quarter of the twentieth century and has continued to do so since, has contributed a perspective which stresses the living conditions of ordinary people and the organic complexity of urban occupation. This led to a questioning of traditional historical definitions. Attempts were made, such as that by Martin Biddle, the excavator of medieval Winchester, to break down the essence of urbanization into a series of individual characteristics, such as a dense population, market functions, defences and evidence of planning – where conformity to all or some of which would qualify a place for urban status. Most historians, geographers and archaeologists still readily accord with the timeless and elegant definition provided by Susan Reynolds in 1977, namely that a town is ‘a permanent and concentrated non-agricultural settlement, supported by agricultural production located elsewhere, and maintaining a sense of social separateness from the countryside’.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Social History of England, 900–1200 , pp. 152 - 178Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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