A recent YouGov poll found that the word that Americans most associate with the middle ages is “violent”. Medieval towns may appear to be full of random violence, every alleyway a potential crime scene, every tavern brawl ending in bloodshed. But our recent research reveals a more complex, and in some ways familiar, reality.
In 14th-century London, York and Oxford, lethal violence clustered in a small number of hotspots, often no more than 200 or 300 metres long. Just as in modern cities, crime was not evenly spread but concentrated in certain streets and intersections where people, goods and status converged. The surprising difference is that in the middle ages, the busiest and wealthiest areas were often the most dangerous.
