Medieval England Urban Environment Inspection

As the city environment is in close relationship with residents living within, whatever change occurs in the environment can impose great impact on the residents. The existence of medieval European cities is distinct from others, with impressive influence on the city development and citizen’s life imposed by the internal living environment. Compared with cities of European continents, cities in England is more worthy of research and investigation. Early medieval England was low in production capability and slow in feudalization, and the cities at that time also stayed in the undeveloped level. After Norman the conqueror, however, an integrated country which was absent from the European continent was established in England, and the economy gained development and cities were established nationwide. In late medieval time, cities in England developed rapidly and the economic level was increasingly raised, attracting all kinds of craftsmen and merchants, even from foreign land, to do business here. The unprecedented population agglomeration was doing benefits to urban development and testing the cities at the same time. The biggest pressure concerned what living environment should be provided to residents, and how residents live in such environment.This paper, focusing on the living environment of residents in cities of England and starting from the development of cities, is composed of three major chapters in addition to the Introduction and Conclusions.The first chapter gives a specific investigation of the city development of medieval England, based on an overview of the city development of the entire medieval Western Europe. The channel that separates England and the European continent also slows down the development of this country, different from other European countries. In its early time, frequent kingdom wars and outer invasion rendered the cities developing relatively slow, generally positioned as religion cities, with unapparent economic nature. In the late time, the frequent emergence of cities formed the city network in different levels, advancing the constant development of urban economy.As the focus of the paper, the second chapter makes a detailed investigation of the living environment of cities in late medieval England. The increasingly large population converged in cities, which presented various formats and street layout. In particular, houses were constructed with greater density. With the closest relationship with residents, the living environment influences people’s life in many aspects, and concerns the obviously direct side that is presented to people.The third chapter discusses the inheritance and reconstruction of cities in England to environment, which can be seen as the further exposition of the second chapter. As cities in England stayed in the medieval form in the early modern times, the living environment of cities had the tendency of deterioration, rather than improvement. The transformation of city environment did not begin until after the industrial reform, when the residential hygiene and security experienced systematic transformation.