Towns in Decline, AD 100–1600. Edited by T. R. Slater. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000. Pp. xii, 325. $89.95.

Extract

This volume consists of papers presented at a 1996 conference. Its professed remit, to contribute an internationally and chronologically wide-ranging discussion on the nature of urban decline across Europe from Roman to Reformation times, raises high expectations. And the book does indeed embrace many parts of Europe and includes some extremely useful regional overviews. Especially notable are Roger White's summary reinterpretation of possible archaeological continuities into post-Roman times at the Roman city-site at Wroxeter in England; a valuable discussion of the changing fortunes of the civitas capitals of late antique Gaul by S. T. Loseby; an illuminating tour d'horizon of the cities of the central Danube region between 100 and 1600 provided by Peter Csendes; and, in the most distinguished essay of the volume, an original and deeply considered discussion of the interconnections between decolonization and urban change in Ireland between 1300 and 1550 by its leading medieval urban historian, Howard Clarke.