![]() Their wealth, but, more importantly, their dominance of the conduits of commerce, enabled them to obtain political control of the city. In her study of Exeter, Maryanne Kowaleski argued that the political power of members of the civic elite was grounded in their social and economic status as merchants. ![]() Swanson, «The Illusion of Economic Structure: Craft Guilds in Late Medieval English Towns», Pas (.)ĢUrban historians have explored thoroughly the economic basis of oligarchy. Kowaleski, «The Commercial Dominance of a Medieval Provincial Oligarchy: Exeter in the Late Fou (.) The scholarly consensus has encouraged historians to shift their attention from the causes of oligarchy to its character and to feel confident in asking, not «if» there was oligarchy, but «how did English medieval oligarchy work?». 1 The issue of oligarchy has dominated historical inquiry to such an extent that, although there has been debate about the appropriateness of the term and differences of opinion about the relative importance of its ideological and material foundations, there is agreement about the ultimate triumph of a form of government in which power was concentrated increasingly in the hands of the few. Shaw, «Social Networks and the Foundations of Oligarchy in Medieval Towns», Urban History, 3 (.)ġHistorians regard the growth, consolidation and entrenchment of urban oligarchy as the defining feature of the political history of towns in late medieval England. Shaw, The Creation of a Community: The City of Wells in the Middle Ages, Oxford, 1993, p.
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