The Manorial system

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Hi, i'm reading about the workings of the manorial system in Britain, and was wondering if all centres of population were based on the manor.
A History geek question really, but I was hoping if someone might know.

You also had centres based around ecclesiastical holdings, which might either be effectively manors (run by a bishop with the same serf villein system) or monasteries/nunnaries, which might be self administered by the brothers, or use labour or a mix.

You then had centres based around towns and cities where you had tradespeople, artisans etc.

The first Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth series has a couple of books set in this time period which show the interplay between the different power centres.

I KNEW someone would know! Thankyou.

(In England) everyone in the countryside technically belonged to a manor, but how much power or influence the manor asserted varied from time to time and place to place and according to the status of the individual - freeman or villein or serf.

A bishop or a monastery or a convent could be a lord of the manor just as a layperson could. Battle Abbey for example held a lot of manors in 1086 (Domesday).

Boroughs were more independent of manorial control, but lords of the manor could still assert some control. The lords of the manor of Manchester, for example, the Mosley family, were still dictating where the market could be held up to the 1840s, when the borough bought them out.

This is a useful resource:
Introduction to manorial records - The University of Nottingham

Thanks again!