ArcheoLogica Data 5.2/2025

Long-running debates about the extent to which towns in later medieval England suffered from a process of ‘decline’ in the later 14th and early 15th century have traditionally been dominated by historical evidence, from which relative wealth and population have been calculated. Archaeological analysis offers an opportunity to take a different approach to this question, by comparing patterns of regeneration both within and between towns. This paper explores this potential in relation to three small towns in eastern England; Maldon (Essex), Thaxted (Essex) and Huntingdon (Cambridgeshire). By reconstructing patterns of regeneration through excavated remains and the occurrence of standing buildings we propose that archaeology serves to demonstrate the complexity, and highly contextualised character, of urban development in this period.