Landlords and tenants in London, 1550–1700

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Historians have largely ignored the tens of thousands of landlords, and hundreds of thousands of tenants in early modern London. Society was not organized to readily reveal their relation and magnitudes, so the issue must be approached from a variety of directions. Modern stereotypes of both were well formulated by that period, despite the intricacy in and frequent dual role of landlord and tenant played by the same persons. Property holdings were dispersed among a variety landlords, so tenants faced no stranglehold over dwellings, while landlords in the main used rental holdings to supplement their basic incomes.