ABSTRACT
A careful consideration of, and sensitivity to, the language of urban decline was one of the first consequences of the conference from which this book derives. Much of the interest in premodern urban decline comes from the debate generated in the late 1970s and 1980s over the extent of urban economic decline in late-medieval England, following the ravages of the Black Death on urban populations in the period after 1348. 1 The way in which this debate was limited to the economy and population of towns, and frequently of particular towns, produced a model which envisioned three types of consequences. First, there were the effects on urban population, for which the estimates of reduction usually coalesced at about half to two-thirds of those pertaining in the second half of the thirteenth century. Secondly, there were the consequences for the urban economy of this dramatic decline in both the urban craft workforce and the agricultural workforce producing food for the urban population. Thirdly, there was the physical decline of the urban fabric with decayed tenements and grass-grown streets, which included the removal altogether of some small urban centres. These ‘D’ words: decline, decay and destruction, however, are not necessarily the irrevocable outcomes of periods of urban change marked by smaller numbers of people living and working in towns. For some people, such periods could be times of opportunity and, though the community might be smaller, living standards of individuals could be enhanced.
