Municipal account books not only record revenues and expenses, but sometimes also provide information about the admission of new citizens, migration patterns, diplomatic missions, and details about investors in the public debt. Court records supply information about urban society and its tensions. For example, a good deal about the life of apprentices can be gleaned from suits concerning apprentices and masters. These records also provide a picture of what it was like to be an adolescent male in a big city. Other types of documents that shed light either directly or indirectly on urban history include maps, censuses, and coroners' records.
Maps can reveal the lay-out of the city, how land was used, and how the city grew.
Censuses, drawn up for taxation purposes, provide information about population, family structure, and wealth distribution. Coroners' reports provide accounts of victims' activities immediately preceding death, thereby supplying the historian with glimpses of daily routines and interactions that normally went unrecorded. Monastic, episcopal, hospital, and university records can pertain directly or indirectly to the history of a city. Bishoprics and many monasteries were situated in towns. All four of the above-mentioned types of institutions owned urban property and enjoyed privileges that could lead to legal disputes with cities.