ABSTRACT

Studies of early-modern Scottish urban development have tended to focus on the legal and institutional development of the burgh rather than the economies and societies of towns. Recent research has produced some important re-interpretations, integrating early-modern Scottish towns more closely with mainstream European urban history. Between the early sixteenth and mid-eighteenth centuries the economy and society of Scotland’s towns changed considerably. The revival of trade in the later sixteenth century was linked with substantial population growth in Scotland’s larger towns. One result of this was a marked increase in the proportion of Scotland’s population which was urbanised. These and other influences altered the social and economic structure of the medieval burgh, transforming its tight-knit, relatively unstratified community. Change continued in the later seventeenth century, symbolised by the act of 1672 which dismantled most of the trading monopolies enjoyed by the royal burghs. Even so there were strong elements of continuity, particularly in institutional structures. These, often only slightly modified, continued to serve the pre-industrial town as well as the medieval burgh providing an important element of stability in urban life.