Main entry:

Gottfried, Robert Steven, 1949- author.

Title & Author:

Bury St. Edmunds and the urban crisis : 1290-1539 / Robert S. Gottfried.

Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey : Princeton University Press, [1982]

Description:

xvi, 313 pages : illustrations, maps ; 25 cm

Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (pages 291-306) and index.
The physical setting -- The demographic basis for change -- The economic basis for change -- The burghal élite and the foundations of borough power -- The extent and division of burghal corporate power -- The political implications : the risings of the burgesses -- The dissolution of the abbey and the transfer of power -- Conclusions : Bury St. Edmunds, the urban crisis, and late medieval society -- Appendixes. The sources -- The late medieval abbots and aldermen -- The town rentals -- Place-name surnames of Bury St. Edmunds' inhabitants -- Landholding and inheritance -- Statistical information on the burghal élite.

Summary:

"In a study of the West Suffolk town of Bury St. Edmunds from the thirteenth until well into the sixteenth century, Robert Gottfried challenges the prevailing thesis that all English towns suffered from abject economic decline for two centuries after the Black Death. On the contrary, the author demonstrates, Bury St. Edmunds enjoyed an economic boom throughout the later middle ages and into the Tudor period. The home of a great abbey and scene of a vigorous struggle between town and church, Bury St. Edmunds owed its prosperity to its textile production and marketing and to its position as center of an urban region that defied conventional political boundaries to extend the influence of the town far beyond its gates. Professor Gottfried bases his work on demographic, financial, and social details for over 2,000 townsfolk. Computerized and analyzed, this data provides the first large-scale statistical analysis of a medieval English urban center. Clearly presented here is the record of how Bury St. Edmunds transformed itself from a community dependent on its famous abbey to a secular regional center controlled by its merchants and artisans. Its story takes on additional interest from its location in the large trading area of eastern England, northern France, the Netherlands, and parts of northwest Germany from which the modern economy was to develop"-- Dust jacket.

Resources:
Table of contents
Publisher description

ISBN:

0691053405
9780691053400

Subject:

Social Conditions history
Economic history
Politics and government
Social conditions
Economische geschiedenis.
Middeleeuwen.
Geschichte (1290-1539)
Bury St. Edmunds (England) Economic conditions.
Bury St. Edmunds (England) Social conditions.
Bury St. Edmunds (England) Politics and government.
Bury Saint Edmunds (Angleterre) Administration.
Bury Saint Edmunds (Angleterre) Conditions sociales.
Bury Saint Edmunds (Angleterre) Conditions économiques.
England Bury St. Edmunds
Bury Saint Edmunds
Bury St. Edmunds (England) History.
Bury Saint Edmunds (Grande-Bretagne) Conditions économiques.
Bury Saint Edmunds (Grande-Bretagne) Conditions sociales.
Bury Saint Edmunds (Grande-Bretagne) Politique et gouvernement.

Holdings:

Location: Library main 324915
Call No.: 324915
Copy: 1
Status: Available