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From ‘palace’ to ‘town’: Northampton and urban origins

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

John H. Williams
Affiliation:
Northampton Development Corporation

Extract

In the second half of the twelfth century Northampton was one of the largest and wealthiest towns in all England. This represented, however, only a transient phase, since by the early part of the fourteenth century the town had assumed a more modest position. As a result of a series of disastrous fires in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, little now survives to remind us of Northampton's former medieval glories, and its earlier development has been until recently but dimly perceived. Over the last decade, however, archaeological and other research has facilitated the identification of elements of continuity in the upper Nene basin (in which Northampton lies) stretching back several thousand years. In particular it is now possible to demonstrate that the late Saxon borough emerged as the culmination of a gradual evolutionary process throughout the Anglo-Saxon period rather than as the result of a single dramatic act of foundation. This has important implications for ideas relating to the re-emergence of towns in the ninth and tenth centuries and is particularly significant in that Northampton has no obvious major Romano-British antecedent.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1984

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References

1 The work has been carried out by the Archaeological Unit of Northampton Development Corporation since 1970. The author is grateful to all past and present members of staff, excavators, and specialists for their contribution to the work; also to the Department of the Environment for generous financial assistance; and to J. Campbell and M. Biddle for discussion of various topics. Recent summaries of present views are contained in Williams, J. and Bamford, H., Northampton – the First 6000 Years (Northampton, 1979)Google Scholar, and Williams, J. H., Saxon and Medieval Northampton (Northampton, 1982)Google Scholar. The final excavation reports for the following sites have been referred to as relevant in footnotes: St Peter's Street (see below, n. 6), Marefair (see below, n. 6), Chalk Lane (see below, n. 6) and the Horsemarket kiln (see below, n. 71). The ‘palace’ structures (excavated by the author and M. Shaw) will be published as a Northampton Development Corporation monograph; Black Lion Hill (excavated by M. Shaw) and Gregory Street (excavated by the author, F. Williams and T. Yates) will probably be published in forthcoming volumes of Northamptonshire Archaeology, where reports on much of the Unit's other work are to be found. In addition to the other general articles cited in the footnotes, Northampton's rôle in relation to town development is also discussed in Williams, J. H., ‘A Review of some Aspects of Late Saxon Urban Origins and Development’, Late Saxon Settlement, ed. Faull, M. and Rowley, T. (Oxford, forthcoming).Google Scholar

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