R.H. Hilton – English and French Towns in Feudal Society, A Comparative Study
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R.H. Hilton – English and French Towns in Feudal Society, A Comparative Study
Past & Present Publications [Cambridge University Press 1995] buy new or used at abebooks.co.uk | buy new at amazon.co.uk 
If you use either of these links to purchase this item breviary stuff will receive 5% commission This is a comparative study of the role of English and French towns in feudal society in the middle ages. Professor Hilton challenges the view that 'a town is a town wherever it is', and takes issue with the perception of the medieval town as a harbinger of capitalism. Differences between English and French feudalism are taken into account; but these differences, as well as those between English and French medieval towns, existed within sufficiently similar cointexts to justify the kind of comparison pioneered by Marc Bloch in his Seigneurie française et manoir anglais. Medieval France was much larger than medieval England, and contained a far larger number of towns. French town populations were bigger than those in England, although it is possible that England had a higher proportion of small market towns. Comparisons are made between the feudal presence within the towns of both countries, and between their urban social structures. Conflicts arising from urban demands for freedom and autonomy are examined, together with frictions between various levels of society, such as mercantile elites, craft masters, journeymen, the unskilled and marginals. Finally, the mercantile domination of English town governments is contrasted with tht acquired by lawyers and officials in late medieval French towns — the 'trahesion de la bourgeoisie', as one French historian has described it. In bringing together much material which dissolves old categories and simplifications in the study of medieval towns, Professor Hilton provides an important new perspective on medieval society and the nature of feudalism. Contents
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