Cherednichenko O. The Daily Life of Towns and Cities in Late Medieval England.

The dissertation deals with the daily life of town dwellers in England - in the chronological scope of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries and the geographical scope of late medieval English Kingdom (excluding Wales). The towns as such were the indisputable leaders of cultural, commercial, political activity throughout the Middle Ages; and the period under scrutiny shows traces of being the transitional phase between medieval and early modern periods. From the historiographical point of view, the daily life as a complex was revealed to be not researched enough yet, the relevant historical sources being in magnitude notwithstanding. A number of important points were made in the course of the work. Namely, it was established that the sanitary and hygienic considerations were for a long time in the focus for both central and local urban authorities, who tried to deal with them in a reasonable way, though not always holding health issues, as opposed to maintaining steady supply of victuals, in priority. The key tendency in the development of the house architecture of late medieval towns was revealed to be a greater inclination towards privacy, alongside with the greater availability of new building materials and technologies. The food consumption in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries expanded considerably: the assortment became richer and more varied, and the taste was taken more and more into consideration, which led to the immense popularity of spices. The clothing was an important sign of both occupation and social status; the concept of fashion gradually came into life.