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This book is a guide to Shrewsbury, a market town and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, 150 miles (240 km) northwest of London. The town center has a largely unspoiled medieval street plan and over 660 listed buildings, including several examples of timber framing from the 15th and 16th centuries. Shrewsbury Castle, a red sandstone fortification, and Shrewsbury Abbey, a former Benedictine monastery, were founded in 1074 and 1083 respectively by the Norman Earl of Shrewsbury, Roger de Montgomery. The town is the birthplace of Charles Darwin and is where he spent 27 years of his life.
Local enterprise, institutional quality and strategic location were of central importance in the growth of medieval towns. This book, comprising a study of 112 English towns, emphasises these key factors. Downstream locations on major rivers attracted international trade, and thereby stimulated the local processing of imports and exports, while the early establishment of richly endowed religious institutions funnelled agricultural rental income into a town, where it was spent on luxury goods produced by local craftsmen and artisans, and on expensive, long-running building schemes. Local entrepreneurs who recognised the economic potential of a town developed residential suburbs which attracted wealthy residents. Meanwhile town authorities invested in the building and maintenance of bridges, gates, walls and ditches, often with financial support from wealthy residents. Royal lordship was also an advantage to a town, as it gave the town authorities direct access to the king and bypassed local power-brokers such as bishops and earls. The legacy of medieval investment remains visible today in the streets of important towns. Drawing on rentals, deeds and surveys, this book also examines in detail the topography of seven key medieval towns: Bristol, Gloucester, Coventry, Cambridge, Birmingham, Shrewsbury and Hull. In each case, surviving records identify the location and value of urban properties, and their owners and tenants. Using statistical techniques, previously applied only to the early modern and modern periods, the book analyses the impact of location and type of property on property values. It shows that features of the modern property market, including spatial autocorrelation, were present in the middle ages. Property hot-spots of high rents are also identified; the most valuable properties were those situated between the market and other focal points such transport hubs and religious centres, convenient for both, but remote from noise and pollution. This book takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on expertise from the disciplines of economics and history. It will be of interest to historians and to social scientists looking for a long-run perspective on urban development.
In an age when the political institutions of Europe and America were already democratizing, the owners of a huge parcel of land in North America went the other way, to feudalism. This book is an original study of the patricians who directed the history of gorgeous Campobello Island. A unique governance underpinned the Owens until their power strained and broke. Three Tory aristocrats from Wales – a father, his son, and between them the father’s nephew – exercised rule over Campobello Island from 1767 to 1857. They were called Principal Proprietors. Theirs was a fractious family that patterned a rule by landlord which they endeavored impose on North American soil. The first Welsh squire, Captain William Owen, a swashbuckling adventurer, received the grant of the 24-square-mile “Outer Island” as a reward for his heroism in the Royal Navy. A restless person, he returned to the Navy at 60 to fight the French in India. The second, a distrustful snob, who took Cambridge University’s highest mathematical prize was David Owen. A friend in London, General Benedict Arnold, convinced him to go to Canada and claim the Island. The third Welsh squire of Campobello, Admiral Fitzwilliam Owen, had an illustrious career as a surveyor for the Empire. He was a great abolitionist who led sting operations against slave traders on the African coasts and created a British colony in Mombasa which he governed as a protectorate not to profit from trade but from which to hunt slavers and free slaves. On Campobello he was popular but autocratic and took a particular interest in the young ladies. The story thread continues with the island being acquired by an American company that sold parcels to rusticators like the Roosevelt family. Franklin Delano Roosevelt summered on the Island for three decades and left an indelible mark on its culture.
Examines relations between centre and localities in seventeenth century England by looking at early Stuart government through the lens of provincial towns.This book investigates relations between centre and localities in seventeenth century England by looking at early Stuart government through the lens of provincial towns. Focusing particularly on incorporated boroughs, it emphasises the distinctive circumstances that shaped governance in provincial towns and the ways towns contributed to the state. Royal charters of incorporation legally defined patterns of self-government and local liberties in corporate boroughs, but they also created a powerful bond to the crown. The book argues that a dynamic tension between local autonomy and connection to the centre drove relations between towns and the crown in this period, as borough governments actively sought strong ties with central authority while also attempting to preserve their chartered liberties. It also argues that the 1620s and 1630s ushered in new patterns in the crown's relations with incorporated boroughs, as Charles I's regime hardened policies towards urban localities. Based on extensive original research in both central government records and the archives of a wide range of provincial towns, the book covers critical aspects of interaction between towns and the crown, including incorporation and charters, governance and political order, social regulation, trade, financial and military exactions, and religion.s in the crown's relations with incorporated boroughs, as Charles I's regime hardened policies towards urban localities. Based on extensive original research in both central government records and the archives of a wide range of provincial towns, the book covers critical aspects of interaction between towns and the crown, including incorporation and charters, governance and political order, social regulation, trade, financial and military exactions, and religion.s in the crown's relations with incorporated boroughs, as Charles I's regime hardened policies towards urban localities. Based on extensive original research in both central government records and the archives of a wide range of provincial towns, the book covers critical aspects of interaction between towns and the crown, including incorporation and charters, governance and political order, social regulation, trade, financial and military exactions, and religion.s in the crown's relations with incorporated boroughs, as Charles I's regime hardened policies towards urban localities. Based on extensive original research in both central government records and the archives of a wide range of provincial towns, the book covers critical aspects of interaction between towns and the crown, including incorporation and charters, governance and political order, social regulation, trade, financial and military exactions, and religion.
Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.