Land was a crucial resource in pre-industrial Europe. This volume contains studies into the patterns and significance of urban landownership from early medieval town origins to the 19th century. Experts address issues such as town origins, land rent and legal aspects of landownership.

Land was a crucial resource in pre-industrial Europe. This volume contains studies into the patterns and significance of urban landownership from early medieval town origins to the 19th century. Experts address issues such as town origins; land rent; legal aspects of landownership; the development of an urban land market; economic, social, political and cultural functions of urban land within the wider patterns of landownership; private, public and corporate landownership; the role of the sovereign and the state, and the motives and mentalities of the landowners and the tenants.

Working with British property records - the potential and the problems
property patterns, buildings and the social structure of urban society - some reflections on Ghent, Lubeck and Novgorod
the evolution of land rent in late medieval Bergen
medieval town-funding on the estates of the Benedictine order in England
landlords, the property market and urban development in medieval England
feuing, "farming", and Scottish urban form, c. 1600-1900
some aspects of urban landownership in western Hungary
limited urban landownership - towns and nobility in early modern Poland, c. 1500-1650
urban landownership in early modern Sweden
profit, power and private planning - landowners and small towns in early modern Norway
the processes of urban improvement in provincial Ireland
through the gates - power and profit in an Irish estate town.