Growth of Towns

Question 1

Rodney Hilton on the relationship between agrarian economy and towns:

Answer 1

they could not operate independently of each other

towns were responsible for a civilising process - sowed the seeds of the future in the not always receptive soil of feudal society.

Question 2

Feudal towns in society:

Answer 2

80-90% in villages and hamlets

labour force based on families

income of ruling class from peasant society, rent

jurisdiction was main expression of social and political power

Question 3

What was the role of the church in urban and rural societies?

Answer 3

• disseminator of theological principles and coherent social ideology
• guaranteed control over the mass population through monopoly of the sacramental rituals and therefore the route to salvation after death
• these rituals and sermon preaching embedded in organisation which was also dominated socially and economically by a landed interest who hierarchy mirrored the feudal society

Question 4

dichotomy of church and state in urban and rural settings:

Answer 4

• specialised consumption needs
• luxury commodities = symbols of status
• secular buildings, castles & manors, ecclesiastical buildings, bigger cathedrals, abbeys, collegiate and parish church s
• military functions, costs were rivalled by the costs of equipment, men and horses diverted from productive labour into military expeditions
• 11th-15th century administration costs grew as states grew
• required an ever-increasing money income - money rent

Question 5

Why was there a need for more money?

Answer 5

agricultural producers had to market agricultural surplus to get cash to pay rents, fined, amercements and tax.

village markets: provision facility for the sale of grain and livestock

larger towns markets: additional role - money was spent - wines, spices, fine cloths, and armour were not to be found in local markets but in London, big fairs, provincial capitals, ports.

Question 6

Rodney Hilton points to the 1377 Poll tax as an indication to the level of urbanisation in medieval England, what does this primary source show us?

Answer 6

reflects high rural immigration

capital city at 45,000 to 50,000

500 market towns with high populations

evidence of observable pattern of urbanisation in 1337 was not fundamentally altered by the population collapse

Question 7

What other documentation backs the findings of the 1337 Poll Tax?

Answer 7

the 1334 lay subsidy return

this was based on movable goods instead of heads

evidence of observable pattern of urbanisation in 1337 was not fundamentally altered by the population collapse.

Question 8

According to Rodney Hilton what was the rush for lords to acquire charters for village markets?

Answer 8

to allow them to cash in on direct and indirect market profits - easier for tenants to acquire cash to pay rent.

Question 9

What does Rodney Hilton say this rush to acquire charters tells us about urbanisation?

Answer 9

although charters did not make markets, there is an assumption that the lords paid for the charters did so with rational calculation

Question 10

How were villages and bigger towns linked through the trade in markets?

Answer 10

corn-mongers - linked villages and small market towns with the bigger area of urban consumption

wool-mongers - linked producers with the bigger urban centres of cloth production, but with the overseas market

small town and village level, retail trading, especially in victual, was very much a woman’s craft, as it was indeed on the streets of the capital and the bigger cities

Question 11

How did feudal landowners make their money?

Answer 11

success in collecting considerable income from their estates - distance between them and the peasant economy was the foundation of their prosperity

Question 12

How did urban governments mimic the feudal control landowners in the country had over their peasants?

Answer 12

use of craft organisations

sort of municipal police

determining distribution of labour, length of working day, remuneration of labour and various matters of production technology

Question 13

What does Rodney Hilton argue on immigration from the countryside into urban towns?

Answer 13

that rural immigrants entering urban populations would not be entering an unfamiliar world - they would have found indications of a feudal presence

Question 14

examples of feudal presence in England Urban populations:

Answer 14

Medieval Castles: Tower of London, fortresses in Bristol, Nottingham, Norwich, Gloucester, and Oxford

Bristol castle whose receipts even induced levies on certain categories of Bristol craftsmen.

Question 15

Where ecclesiastical presence felt in urban populations? if so how and in what ways?

Answer 15

1086 transfer of secular property to the church

ecclesiastical presence was felt - cathedrals, bishops, and archbishops (York, Canterbury)

St Peter’s abbey in Gloucester, Benedictine Prior to Coventry

they had specific commercial privileges ie St Giles Fair at Winchester, wileded by the Bishops, fair controlled by Benedictine Prior of St James in Bristol

suspension of normal urban trade during the period of the fair

Question 16

Rodney Hilton on the evidence of seigneurial power in the towns:

Answer 16

industry suburb of Bristol, Redcliffe, was until the 1330s, the franchise of the Berkeley’s

feudal presense in town

private lords would possess many more than two thirds of the Markey towns, and would exercise considerable control through the presence of their steward.

towns were an essential and inseparable part of the wider society

Question 17

Rodney Hilton on the difference between agricultural and urban towns:

Answer 17

the concentration of population was accompanied by specific forms of sociability and intellectual activity. Rhythm of work less affected by weather than in the countryside.

Question 18

Georges Duby on ideology:

Answer 18

‘ideology is not a reflection of life but a scheme for influencing it’

Question 19

Lorraine Attired on Urban identity in Medieval English towns:

Answer 19

1. after getting chartered liberties in the 12th&13th C, English towns continued to augment both their privileges and physical spaces in which they exercised them.
2. urban officers thereby sought to define civil identity as distinct from the rural, noble, and ecclesiastical powers that surrounded them
3. case studies show how urban space impacted territorial, legal, and ethnic identity in late medieval society.