Archaeology and the smaller medieval town

Abstract

The small medieval town has recently captured the attention of historians, geographers and archaeologists. Documentary work is, for example, not only disentangling the fluctuating history of local markets, but also demonstrating that, despite their small size, seignorial boroughs of the later thirteenth century had a diverse occupational structure that entitles them to be regarded as genuinely urban. Indeed, Hilton has recently argued that as much as half the urban population lived in these small towns. This research has also emphasized the economic vitality of the smaller towns in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and has raised the possibility that they were prospering at the expense of the provincial capitals, a trend to be seen in the context of the movement of industry from the towns to the countryside.