Review Essay: Agents and Agency in the English Medieval City
Forty years have passed since the publication of Maurice Beresford’s magisterial book, New Towns of the Middle Ages, the first systematic historical survey of medieval “town plantation.” During this time new studies have shown how many of the towns that Beresford called new are, in fact, a product of longer-term growth arising from a process of urban formation that involved distinctive stages of development. There is, then, a less than sharp divide between the new towns and those many others described by some urban historians as “organic-growth” towns. As Lewis Mumford pointed out, a division drawn between planned and unplanned towns is artificial and should be discarded. There is no doubt, though, of the continued scholarly interest in those urban places described by Beresford as new towns. Recently, a number of highly detailed studies have appeared on the new towns in Florentine Italy, and the “bastides” of southwest France, for example. Work also continues on the new towns of medieval England and Wales, where archaeological and morphological studies have shown how the foundation of a town was preceded by trading and urban activity. A charter granting borough status typically came quite late in the process, even for those classic examples of English medieval new towns studied by Beresford: the truly “planted” town was relatively rare. Over the intervening forty years, historians of English medieval towns have begun to show that the process of urban formation was a protracted one, and planning produced towns and cities
Urban planning and the design of towns in the Middle Ages: the Earls of Devon and their ‘new towns’
This paper examines what processes might have been involved in the design and planning of new urban landscapes in the High Middle Ages. It does so by looking in detail at the morphology of a group of late twelfth century ‘new towns’ established by one particular aristocratic family in southern England. The paper seeks to encourage a move away from orthodox interpretations of medieval urban forms, and challenges the view that irregularities in plan-form signify a lack of planning.
Arbitration and the Growth of Urban Liberties in Late Medieval England
In December 1448, the city of Exeter agreed with the bishop and dean and chapter of the cathedral church to abide by the arbitration of two local magnates who settled a complex dispute over urban jurisdiction. That the arbitrators decided against the city, which suffered a slight constitutional setback as a result, is only one of several important conclusions to be drawn from a study of the dispute and its resolution. The nature of the argument and the procedures by which both parties sought to resolve it shed light on the character of urban constitutional growth in the later Middle Ages, on legal procedures and what medieval people thought about the law, and on the lengths they were willing to go to assure a decision that was as favorable as possible without poisoning relations between two institutions that coexisted within city walls. The case also illustrates the important role arbitration played in dispute settlement and reveals this method to be as viable an alternative as recourse to the common-law and equity courts of the royal government. Exeter's case is unique in that so much written evidence survives to testify to the financial investments and political aims of both parties involved. Comparisons will be drawn to other boroughs that endured similar jurisdictional disputes in the fifteenth century, but their evidence is far less revealing of decision and motivation than that remaining for Exeter. Although many of the major documents associated with the case have been in print for over a century, and examined in some detail in a brief monograph published over fifty years ago, the nature of the records has focused more attention on the city's participation than on that of the cathedral.