ABSTRACT
Many of the inland boroughs were strategically placed on routes along river valleys, especially at points where rivers were forded or bridged. The largest inland group of new marketing centres was strung along the Tyne valley - New- castle, Gateshead, Ovingham, Corbridge and Hexham - marking this as a major focus for the formation of boroughs in the north. The high proportion of boroughs, and the small number of recorded markets, that characterises the twelfth-century evidence for commercial development in the north can be related, in part, to the region’s distance from the core region of either English or Scottish royal authority and the correspondingly slower development of legal practice and terminology relat-ing to regalian rights over the licensing of markets. Average holdings were probably larger in the north than in southern England, and rents were moderate, which encouraged the consumption of purchased commodities in village societies.
