Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 URBAN ORIGINS: THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF DURHAM TO 1250
- 2 THE URBAN LANDSCAPE OF DURHAM 1250–1540
- 3 DURHAM'S MEDIEVAL BUILDINGS
- 4 LANDLORD AND TENANTS: THE ECONOMIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DURHAM PRIORY AND ITS URBAN TENANTS IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES
- 5 TRADES AND OCCUPATIONS
- 6 LORDSHIP IN ACTION: THE MAINTENANCE OF LAW AND ORDER IN LATE-MEDIEVAL DURHAM
- CONCLUSION: LORDSHIP AND COMMUNITY: THE RELATIONS BETWEEN DURHAM AND ITS ECCLESIASTICAL OVERLORDS IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES
- Appendix 1 Maps and plans of Durham
- Appendix 2 Tables
- Appendix 3 The dates of the bishops of Durham from 995 to the Dissolution
- Appendix 4 The obedientiaries of Durham Priory
- Appendix 5 The Durham courts
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - TRADES AND OCCUPATIONS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- INTRODUCTION
- 1 URBAN ORIGINS: THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF DURHAM TO 1250
- 2 THE URBAN LANDSCAPE OF DURHAM 1250–1540
- 3 DURHAM'S MEDIEVAL BUILDINGS
- 4 LANDLORD AND TENANTS: THE ECONOMIC RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DURHAM PRIORY AND ITS URBAN TENANTS IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES
- 5 TRADES AND OCCUPATIONS
- 6 LORDSHIP IN ACTION: THE MAINTENANCE OF LAW AND ORDER IN LATE-MEDIEVAL DURHAM
- CONCLUSION: LORDSHIP AND COMMUNITY: THE RELATIONS BETWEEN DURHAM AND ITS ECCLESIASTICAL OVERLORDS IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES
- Appendix 1 Maps and plans of Durham
- Appendix 2 Tables
- Appendix 3 The dates of the bishops of Durham from 995 to the Dissolution
- Appendix 4 The obedientiaries of Durham Priory
- Appendix 5 The Durham courts
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The economic success of a medieval town naturally depended, to a great extent, on the variety of industries and trades it offered to the surrounding countryside and on the market it provided for the exchange of goods. A prosperous town acted as a magnet upon its immediate area, drawing a supply of labour and produce from the country and giving in return goods which were unobtainable in village communities and services which were dependent on the town's craftsmen. To anticipate the conclusions of the following survey, late medieval Durham emerges as a comparatively small market town with a limited range of trades. These trades or occupations were geared to the servicing of the urban community as a whole, and the two great ecclesiastical households of the bishop and the prior on the peninsula in particular, as well as to the needs of the agricultural communities nearby. Durham was still small enough to retain several characteristics of an agricultural community well into the sixteenth century: many open spaces, orchards and closes were to be found in the outer boroughs; and probably a significant proportion of the town's inhabitants were employed as seasonal agricultural labourers, working, for example, on the priory hostillar's manor of Elvethall. Durham was closely bound to its immediate hinterland and to a purely local market; it thus bears close comparison with a town such as fourteenth-century Colchester, where local trade predominated and agrarian-based occupations were important in the town's economy.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Lordship and the Urban CommunityDurham and its Overlords, 1250–1540, pp. 145 - 194Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1990