ABSTRACT
A study of town life in the Middle Ages brings us into contact with one of the most interesting phases of social history, and reveals the manners and modes of thought of that class which is still the backbone of the nation. A small number of towns, founded by Edward I, were free from the beginning, but the majority were hampered in the early stages of their growth by services due to manorial lords. By degrees they shook off these disabilities, and in the later Middle Ages they possessed extensive powers of self-government : a few of them even had their own mints. They were treated with consideration and respect by the Crown: when Henry VII concluded a commercial treaty with Burgundy, he sent the document to all the chief towns in England, so that the mayors might affix the civic seals. The loans so frequently granted by towns to the king afford us a measure of their wealth, and also suggest one of the causes of their growing importance. The absorption of the nobles in warfare was another circumstance which favoured their development. With the single exception of the Cinque Ports, English towns did not form confederations like many of the German and Italian cities, but each stood apart by itself, and carried on negotiations with its neighbours almost as if it were a separate state. The townsmen were completely taken up with their own affairs, and cared little for public business: their interests were municipal rather than national, and the prosperity of their town was of more moment to them than that of the country. To us who have a wider outlook, they may seem terribly narrow and self-centred, but their intense local patriotism was the result of their struggle for liberty, and without it they could not have won the victory.
