ABSTRACT
The high medieval urbanisation of Ireland was part of a much more extensive development of European towns during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The crucial mechanisms of feudal spatial integration were the complementary concepts of lordship and urbanisation. Lordship in Ireland has been defined less as an area than a set of elaborate personal ties which bound lord and vassal. Several themes are apparent in the rapidly growing body of research dealing with the development of urbanisation inIreland during the High Middle Ages. A growing conviction has emerged that the Anglo-Norman military colonisation of Ireland, which began in 1169, did not constitute as abrupt a breakpoint in the evolution of Irish society as once was assumed. Thomas Becket has identified around fifty Irish towns which were certainly walled during the High Middle Ages, the most intensive period of construction occurring between 1250 and 1320.
