A comprehensive dissection of the making of urban society in the Low Countries during the middle ages and the sixteenth century.

Explores how preventative health practices shaped urban communities, social ties and living environments in the medieval Low Countries.

The Southern Low Countries were among Europe’s core regions for the repression of sodomy during the late medieval period. As the first comprehensive study on sodomy in the Southern Low Countries, this book charts the prosecution of sodomy in some of the region’s leading cities, such as Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp, from 1400 to 1700 and explains the reasons behind local differences and variations in the intensity of prosecution over time. Through a critical examination of a range of sources, this study also considers how the urban fabric perceived sodomy and provides a broader interpretive framework for its meaning within the local culture.

How medieval Dutch society laid the foundations for modern capitalism The Netherlands was one of the pioneers of capitalism in the Middle Ages, giving rise to the spectacular Dutch Golden Age while ushering in an era of unprecedented, long-term economic growth. Pioneers of Capitalism examines the formal and informal institutions in the Netherlands that made this economic miracle possible, providing a groundbreaking new history of the emergence and early development of capitalism. Drawing on the latest quantitative theories in economic research, Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden show how Dutch cities, corporations, guilds, commons, and other private and semipublic organizations provided safeguards for market transactions in the state’s absence. Informal institutions developed in the Netherlands long before the state created public safeguards for economic activity. Prak and van Zanden argue that, in the Netherlands itself, capitalism emerged within a robust civil society that constrained and counterbalanced its centrifugal forces, but that an unrestrained capitalism ruled in the overseas territories. Rather than collapsing under unrestricted greed, the Dutch economy flourished, but prosperity at home came at the price of slavery and other dire consequences for people outside Europe. Pioneers of Capitalism offers a panoramic account of the early history of capitalism, revealing how a small region of medieval Europe transformed itself into a powerhouse of sustained economic growth, and changed the world in the process.

Introduction to Medieval Europe 300–1500 provides a comprehensive survey of this complex and varied formative period of European history within a global context, covering themes as diverse as barbarian migrations, the impact of Christianisation, the formation of nations and states, the emergence of an expansionist commercial economy, the growth of cities, the Crusades, the effects of plague and the intellectual and cultural dynamism of the Middle Ages. The book explores the driving forces behind the formation of medieval society and the directions in which it developed and changed. In doing this, the authors cover a wide geographic expanse, including Western interactions with the Byzantine Empire, the Islamic World, North Africa and Asia. This fourth edition has been fully updated to reflect moves toward teaching the Middle Ages in a global context and contains a wealth of new features and topics that help to bring this fascinating era to life, including: West Europe’s catching up through intensive exchange with the Mediterranean Islamic world growth of autonomous cities and civic liberties emergence of an empirical and rational worldview climate change and intercontinental pandemics European exchange with Africa and Asia chapter introductions to support students’ understanding of the topics a fully updated glossary to give modern students the confidence and language to discuss medieval history Clear and stimulating, the fourth edition of Introduction to Medieval Europe is the ideal companion to studying the entirety of medieval history at undergraduate level.

A Cultural History of Shopping was a Library Journal Best in Reference selection for 2022. Throughout Europe, the collapse of Roman authority from the 5th century fractured existing networks of commerce and trade including shopping. The infrastructure of trade was slowly rebuilt over the centuries that followed with the growth of beach markets, emporia, seasonal fairs and periodic markets until, in the late Middle Ages, the permanent shop re-emerged as an established part of market spaces, both in towns and larger urban centers. Medieval society was a 'display culture' and by the 14th century there was a marked increase in the consumption of manufactures and imported goods among the lower classes as well as the elite. This volume surveys our understanding of medieval retail markets, shops and shopping from a range of perspectives - spatial, material culture, literary, archaeological and economic. A Cultural History of Shopping in the Middle Ages presents an overview of the period with themes addressing practices and processes; spaces and places; shoppers and identities; luxury and everyday; home and family; visual and literary representations; reputation, trust and credit; and governance, regulation and the state.

Cities of Strangers illuminates life in European towns and cities as it was for the settled, and for the 'strangers' or newcomers who joined them between 1000 and 1500. Some city-states enjoyed considerable autonomy which allowed them to legislate on how newcomers might settle and become citizens in support of a common good. Such communities invited bankers, merchants, physicians, notaries and judges to settle and help produce good urban living. Dynastic rulers also shaped immigration, often inviting groups from afar to settle and help their cities flourish. All cities accommodated a great deal of difference - of language, religion, occupation - in shared spaces, regulated by law. When this benign cycle broke down around 1350 with demographic crisis and repeated mortality, less tolerant and more authoritarian attitudes emerged, resulting in violent expulsions of even long-settled groups. Tracing the development of urban institutions and using a wide range of sources from across Europe, Miri Rubin recreates a complex picture of urban life for settled and migrant communities over the course of five centuries, and offers an innovative vantage point on Europe's past with insights for its present.

Beginning in the twelfth century, taxation increasingly became an essential component of medieval society in most parts of Europe. The state-building process and relations between princes and their subject cities or between citizens and their rulers were deeply shaped by fiscal practices. Although medieval taxation has produced many publications over the past decades there remains no synthesis of this important subject. This volume provides a comprehensive overview on a European scale and suggests new paths of inquiry. It examines the fiscal systems and practices of medieval Europe, including essential themes such as medieval fiscal theory and the power to tax; royal and urban taxation; and Church taxation. It goes on to survey the entire European continent, as well as including comparative chapters on the non-European medieval world, exploring questions on how taxation developed and functioned; what kinds of problems authorities encountered assessing their fiscal power; and the circulation of fiscal cultures and practices across cities and kingdoms. The book also provides a glossary of the most important types of medieval taxes, giving an essential definition of key terms cited in the chapters. The Routledge Handbook of Public Taxation in Medieval Europe will appeal to a large audience, from seasoned scholars who need a comprehensive synthesis, to students and younger scholars in search of an overview of this critical subject.

A Cultural History of Shopping was a Library Journal Best in Reference selection for 2022. Across Europe, the Early Modern period was marked by political, religious and cultural upheaval, and saw the emergence of the first global economy, developments which profoundly impacted how people shopped and what they were able to buy. This volume engages with the key debates around continuity and change in consumer behavior in the 'long 16th century' and the ways in which shopping became an educational and exciting act for many women, men and children across the social spectrum: shops and market stalls were filled with an increasingly wide range of goods made by skilled craftspeople and transported by merchants making evermore ambitious and lucrative journeys across the world. Even servants and the poor were exposed to these new things, for they could consume by eye and ear what they could not afford to take home in material form. Although they did not yet have a word for the activity of “shopping,” in this period men and women came to understand that this activity was more than a functional act to acquire necessities. A Cultural History of Shopping in the Early Modern Age presents an overview of the period with themes addressing practices and processes; spaces and places; shoppers and identities; luxury and everyday; home and family; visual and literary representations; reputation, trust and credit; and governance, regulation and the state.

After the State and the Church, the most well organized membership system of medieval and early modern Europe was the confraternity. In cities, towns, and villages it would have been difficult for someone not to be a member of a confraternity, the recipient of its charity, or aware of its presence in the community. In A Companion to Medieval and Early Modern Confraternities, Konrad Eisenbichler brings together an international group of scholars to examine confraternities from various perspectives: their origins and development, their devotional practices, their charitable activities, and their contributions to literature, music, and art. The result is a picture of confraternities as important venues for the acquisition of spiritual riches, material wealth, and social capital. Contributors to this volume: Alyssa Abraham, Davide Adamoli, Christopher F. Black, Dominika Burdzy, David D’Andrea, Konrad Eisenbichler, Anna Esposito, Federica Francesconi, Marina Gazzini, Jonathan Glixon, Colm Lennon, William R. Levin, Murdo J. MacLeod, Nerida Newbigin, Dylan Reid, Gervase Rosser, Nicholas Terpstra, Paul Trio, Anne-Laure Van Bruaene, Beata Wojciechowska, and Danilo Zardin.