ABSTRACT
A noticeable gap in the debate on the fortunes of late medieval English towns is any detailed assessment of the Church's urban role, and how its analysis might contribute to development of the issues. 1 The Church has not been ignored: the extensive building and repair are often cited; and the discussion of changing rent levels is often based on records of clerical urban institutions like the vicars choral of York Minster and the varied ecclesiastical bodies in Winchester. But the precisely church origins of the evidence are not seen as significant: church-building is put alongside the building of guild-halls, town walls, and other projects; rents paid to ecclesiastical bodies are treated just like those of lay individuals and institutions.2 Yet evidence of the financial fate of urban churches may usefully expand the analyses of the changing fortunes of English towns between the Black Death and the onset of the Reformation.
