Tait's classic study explores the origins and growth of English towns, from their emergence as a response to the Dnish threat, to their later constitutional affairs and municipal governance, guilds and merchants.

Professor Palliser focuses here on towns in England in the centuries between the Norman Conquest and the Tudor period, on which he is an acknowledged authority. Urban topography, archaeology, economy, society and politics are all brought under review, and particular attention is given to relationships between towns and the Crown, to the evidence for migration into towns, and to the vexed question of urban fortunes in the 15th and 16th centuries. Two essays set urban history in a broader framework by considering recent work on town and village formation and on the development of parishes. The collection includes two hitherto unpublished studies and is introduced and put in context by a new survey of English towns from the 7th to the 16th centuries.

Proceedings of the Society's conference held at the University of York in April 2002. This book brings together the papers presented at the Society for Medieval Archaeology's spring conference held in York in 2002. The conference set out to reunite urban and rural archaeology. Papers define the differences between town and country, compare the two ways of life, trace the interconnecting links between townspeople and country dwellers, and show how they interacted and influenced one another. Contributors include archaeologists concerned with artefacts, buildings, environment and regions, historical geographers working on urban space, and historians interested in material culture.

This is a comparative study of the role of English and French towns in feudal society in the middle ages. 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 on the nature of feudalism. He argues that medieval towns were not, as is often thought, the harbingers of capitalism, and emphasises the way in which urban social structures fitted into, rather than challenged, feudalism.

The vast majority of castles in England, Wales, Ireland, and France have virtually no military history' of sieges or physical conflict across the whole panorama of more than five centuries'. This is quite a sobering thought.

"Provides an excellent selection of complete texts or substantial extracts from key primary sources, helpfully grouped thematically and illustrating many current issues in modern historical study." - Rosamond McKitterick, Newnham College, University of Cambridge