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- Title
Urban Decline? The Flight from Office in Late Medieval York.
- Authors
Kermode, Jennifer I.
- Abstract
This article investigates the degree of urban decline in England during the 15th and 16th centuries. Evidence of men evading civic office is available for many large towns and is most often contained within pleas of poverty, which claimed that a particular town was impoverished by such evasions. Whether there were quite as many evaders as contemporaries claimed and whether these men were in all cases substantial, is not clear without further research. In the continuing debate concerning the fortunes of late medieval towns, the "flight from office" has been cited as both a symptom of, and a contributory factor to, urban decline. It has been described as a danger signal for the viability of towns in a pre-industrial society. The evasion of office-holding has been explained as an indication that citizens could no longer afford to maintain the elaborate ceremonial of the earlier medieval period, and as a reaction to the onerous demands of local government. The impression has been given that few burgesses, competent or otherwise, willingly served in borough government during an economic recession, and that with the flight of top rank merchants to the country, the difficulties of a large town were exacerbated.
- Subjects
ENGLAND; CITIES &; towns; URBAN decline; COMMUNITY change; POVERTY; URBAN archaeology; LOCAL government; BUSINESS cycles
- Publication
Economic History Review, 1982, Vol 35, Issue 2, p179
- ISSN
0013-0117
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2595014