The documents by which some three hundred planned new towns (bastides) were founded in south-western France: contracts of paréage between a king or count and the local lord, and charters of customs granting settlers their plots, their liberties and their market.
A bastide usually began with a paréage: the king (or count) brought protection, privileges and his officers; the local lord or abbey brought the land; and the two shared the revenues. Monpazier in Périgord, for example, was founded in 1284 under such an agreement between Edward I, as duke of Aquitaine, and Pierre de Gontaut, lord of Biron. A charter of customs then set out the settlers’ terms: each received a plot for a house in the town at a fixed ground rent, and commonly a garden plot and a share of arable outside it; they were exempted from many lordly dues, allowed to elect consuls, and granted a weekly market and yearly fairs.
The charters say little about geometry; the plans themselves do (the straight streets, the equal plots, the square), and so do the royal orders for new towns. When Edward I wished to lay out a new town at Berwick in 1296, he summoned from the English towns men who knew best how to devise, order and array a new town for the profit of the king and of merchants. The evidence for the layout is therefore partly written and partly the measured towns themselves.
The book, part by part
I Paréage and customs
Joint lordship; equal plots at a fixed rent; market and fairs; elected consuls.
Rules: Equal plots at a fixed rent · The market square with its arcades and hall
II The royal planners
Edward I’s summons of 1296 for men to devise and array a new town.