The small medieval town has recently captured the
attention of historians, geographers and
archaeologists. Documentary work is, for example,
not only disentangling the fluctuating history of
local markets, but also demonstrating that, despite
their small size, seignorial boroughs of the later
thirteenth century had a diverse occupational
structure that entitles them to be regarded as
genuinely urban. Indeed, Hilton has recently argued
that as much as half the urban population lived in
these small towns. This research has also emphasized
the economic vitality of the smaller towns in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and has raised
the possibility that they were prospering at the
expense of the provincial capitals, a trend to be
seen in the context of the movement of industry from
the towns to the countryside.