Medieval Westminster 1200-1540 Hardcover

Gervase Rosser

As a royal capital, Westminster was unique: a small town, characterized by a complex economy and society, but lacking legal incorporation. Gervase Rosser examines the nature of the urban community. Given social diversity and competing interests, what forces existed to contain tensions and ensure continuity? The regular expressions of shared interests and common identity - in local government, parochial life, and the activities of guilds - are perceived to be essential to the survival of the town. Gervase Rosser's argument has implications not only for the history of the small town, but for the history of urbanization throughout the medieval and early modern period.

9780198201564

English

Oxford University Press

1 Jan 97

442

it is one of the most enjoyable features of Dr Rosser's exceptionally well-written monograph that he is at pains to wrest very general lines of interpretation from the experience of this small ... and highly untypical town * Peter Robinson, History, No 246, Feb 1991 * an important contribution to medieval studies ... his book has a general importance over and above its specific importance as a most thorough study of England's developing capital"dward Miller, Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, Journal of Ecclesiastical Studies