History of England 1-6

The number of new towns was growing very rapidly, in the same period, as the economic life of the country quickened; in the forty years between 1191 and 1230 some forty-nine new towns were planted. These were generally planned by a great lord who wished to create a market for the surrounding countryside. He then collected rents and taxes, making money far in excess of the amount to be gained from land devoted to agriculture. The bishop of Lincoln, for example, laid out a street of shops and houses beside a small village; he then diverted the principal road towards it. So was created the market town of Thame in Oxfordshire. Leeds was conjured into being in 1207 when the lord of the manor of Leeds, comprising a small village, planned thirty building plots on either side of a new street just beside a crossing of the river Aire. These were profitable investments, and a measure of their success can be found in the fact that after 900 years they still flourish. Somewhere beneath the modern foundations lie the bake-houses, the latrines, the taverns and the prisons of the early thirteenth century.

Many of these new towns were built by the command or recommendation of the king, and were known as royal boroughs. The same imperative of profit applied. Thus in 1155 the king decreed that at Scarborough ‘they shall pay me yearly for each house whose gable is turned towards the street fourpence, and for those houses whose sides are turned towards the street, sixpence’.

The older towns, with their foundations in the first century and perhaps even before, continued to expand. They were becoming more self-aware. Their walls were strengthened and dignified; Hull, for example, built the first surrounding wall made entirely out of brick. The association of the leading townspeople, with the mayor as their chief officer, became known as communia or communa. In 1191 the system of mayor and aldermen was established in London. The leaders of the towns began to resent external interference; the aldermen of London, for example, were quite capable of defying the royal court at Westminster.

The leaders of the towns built walls and gates, with main streets leading directly to the market area. The same trades, such as shoemaking and bread-baking, had a tendency to congregate together. Certain towns were already identified by their principal commodity, so that we hear of the russet cloths of Colchester and the soap of Coventry. The Knights Templar established a town in Buckinghamshire which they named as Baghdad, hoping to create in imitation a great market there; it is now known more prosaically as Baldock. ‘Fairs’ were instituted at Boston and Bishop’s Lynn, Winchester and St Ives. In the larger towns, an entire street might be devoted to a single trade. The population was growing along with everything else. By the late twelfth century London numbered 80,000, while Norwich and Coventry each harboured 20,000 inhabitants.

The original outline of Stratford-upon-Avon, planned by the bishop of Worcester in 1196, is still visible in the modern streets; houses still stand on the plots where they were sited by the bishop; many of the names of the streets have also survived. A female huckster of the thirteenth century would still be able to navigate the roads of the town. Even a great city such as London still bears the traces of its origin.

The traders of these towns, old or new, helped to develop guilds that enforced standards; these guilds merchant, as they were called, prospered to such an extent that eventually they took over the administration of most of the towns. The guilds had a long existence, dating back to the ninth and tenth centuries, but in their original incarnation they were ‘friendly societies’ of a pious nature; they prayed for the souls of their dead brethren, and supported their members in case of dire need.

Members of the same trade naturally tended to join the same guild; so economic, as well as spiritual, interests played a part. They became organized. They laid down standards of business and manufacture. They refused to allow outsiders to participate in their ‘mysteries’ and instead set up a rigid system of apprenticeship. They had once met in the churchyard or in the town hall, but by the end of the twelfth century many of them had acquired imposing premises of their own commonly known as the guildhall.

Yet they retained their pious endeavours, collecting for charity and for the expenses of death; many of them maintained a chapel, or at least an altar light, at their nearest church. They built bridges and roads, although the improvement of transport was perhaps a matter of self-interest. The craft guilds were also responsible for the sequences known as miracle or mystery plays that were the most important aspect of English drama in the age before Shakespeare. This concatenation of religious, social and economic power is thoroughly medieval.