Town and Crown: The Governance of Later Thirteenth-Century Northampton by John H. Williams

Hardcover. Condition: Fine. Dust Jacket: Near Fine. 2014. Northhampshire Records Society. 1st Edition, 1st printing.

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Northampton was one of the most important towns in England and yet, as a result of a series of catastrophic fires, little survives of its medieval built heritage and the borough archives also suffered grievously. Nonetheless important records do survive, somewhat scattered in the National Archives, at the Bodleian Library, in Northamptonshire Record Office and elsewhere.

In the first part of the volume the relationship between the crown and and the burgesses of Northampton in the later thirteenth century is discussed, particularly in relation to the governance of the town, its finacial management and the maintenance of judicial systems.

The second part of the volume presents some key documents relating to thirteenth-century Northampton, including a unique group recording payment of the town's farm while it was in the king's hands in 1293-4, and also Northampton's early custumal. There is a revised chronological list and 'biographies' of Northampton's thirteenth-century mayors and bailiffs.