Wimborne Minster, Dorset : a study of a small town 1620 to 1690

This is a study ofWimbome Minster, one of 700 or so small market towns that existed in the early modern period. Urban historians have tended to concentrate on the larger towns and cities, due partly to the lack of archive material. The Wimborne sources allow for a number of themes to be discussed. The study of demography highlights the growth in the urban population between the 1640s and 1670s, whilst the rural population stagnated. In the rural area it was a period of change with enclosure, the development of new crops and the conversion of copyhold to leasehold tenure. The analysis of the urban economy shows that Wimborne had a relatively sophisticated occupational structure. It was also developing as a cultural centre. The administrative structure of a non-corporate town can be investigated, identifying a three-tier hierarchy dominated by kinship and occupational networks. There have been very few attempts to analyse law and order issues of a community 'in the round'; issues discussed are punishment, court jurisdiction, the perceptions of crime and the hierarchy's attitude to morality. The turbulent nature of seventeenth-century politics and religion is apparent in towns both large and small. The hostility between the Arminian and Puritan factions within the established church in the 1620s and 1630s, reactions to the Commonwealth and Restoration, and the persecution of the recusant and Protestant nonconformist communities are analysed to reveal a community in conflict with itself The research concludes by examining the urban/rural interface. It highlights the crucial role that the rural hinterland played in supplying food to the growing urban centre. It discusses the relationship between the rural and urban through occupational groups. Small towns such as Wimbome contained complex societal networks, through kinship, religion, politics and occupations. By studying these inter-relational networks a more complete and valid picture of these communities can be seen.