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While earlier historians have seen the elaborate public rituals of the Burgundian dukes as stagnant forms held over from the chivalric world of the High Middle Ages, Peter Arnade argues that they were a vital theater of power through which the ducal court and the urban centers constantly renegotiated their relationship. This book is the first to apply the combined insights of social, political, and cultural history to an important but little-explored area of medieval and early modern Europe, the Burgundian Netherlands. Realms of Ritual traces the role of ritual in encounters between the dukes of Burgundy (later the Habsburg princes) and the townspeople of Ghent, the most important city in th...
The oeuvre of Marc Boone (Ghent, 1955) has become standard reading for specialists of medieval European towns and cities, as well as for those interested in the history of state building - most notably that of the Burgundian polity. Honoring Ghent University's venerable tradition of medieval studies begun by Henri Pirenne and building upon the work of his Doktorvater Walter Prevenier, Marc Boone also investigated taxation and the history of government spending, popular protest, and the persecution of "deviant" sexuality. Over the course of his rich career, he served as president of the European Association of Urban History and as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of Ghent University. For more than twenty years, he taught the introductory course on historical criticism to every first-year student of the faculty, and thus had a major impact on the pensee critique of generations of young minds. Upon the occasion of his retirement in 2021, his former students have compiled this collection of some of his best historical essays, half of which have been translated from French and Dutch into English.
During the late Middle Ages, a considerable number of men in Germany and Switzerland were executed for committing sodomy. Even in the seventeenth century, simply speaking of the act was cause for censorship. Here, in the first history of sodomy in these countries, Helmut Puff argues that accusations of sodomy during this era were actually crucial to the success of the Protestant Reformation. Drawing on both literary and historical evidence, Puff shows that speakers of German associated sodomy with Italy and, increasingly, Catholicism. As the Reformation gained momentum, the formerly unspeakable crime of sodomy gained a voice, as Martin Luther and others deployed accusations of sodomy to discredit the upper ranks of the Church and to create a sense of community among Protestant believers. During the sixteenth century, reactions against this defamatory rhetoric, and fear that mere mention of sodomy would incite sinful acts, combined to repress even court cases of sodomy. Written with precision and meticulously researched, this revealing study will interest historians of gender, sexuality, and religion, as well as scholars of medieval and early modern history and culture.
They were, in the words of one contemporary observer, "the Promised Lands." In all of Europe, only Northern Italy could rival the economic power and cultural wealth of the Low Countries in the later Middle Ages. In The Promised Lands, Wim Blockmans and Walter Prevenier trace the relations between the cultural and economic developments of the Low Countries and the political evolution of the region under the rule of the dukes of Burgundy. Combining political, diplomatic, administrative, economic, social, artistic, and cultural history, Blockmans and Prevenier have synthesized the most recent research on the subject—much of it their own—to produce the most accessible and authoritative book in English on the subject. This is an updated and revised translation of a classic work first published in 1988, now expanded and reoriented toward a broader international readership.
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 ...
Although the city as a central entity did not simply disappear with the Fall of the Roman Empire, the development of urban space at least since the twelfth century played a major role in the history of medieval and early modern mentality within a social-economic and religious framework. Whereas some poets projected urban space as a new utopia, others simply reflected the new significance of the urban environment as a stage where their characters operate very successfully. As today, the premodern city was the locus where different social groups and classes got together, sometimes peacefully, sometimes in hostile terms. The historical development of the relationship between Christians and Jews...
One of the first long-term studies of the Catalonian city of Manresa during the late medieval crisis.
The origins of capitalism can be found in the Middle Ages.
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 ...
In Communes and Conflict, Jan Dumolyn and Jelle Haemers explore the urban rebellions that regularly erupted in Flanders between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries. They analyse not only how these rebellions were sparked and repressed, but also how they shaped the culture and identity of Flemish townspeople. Drawing from a wide range of theoretical methods and concepts, including those of discourse analysis, semiotics, speech acts, collective memory and material cultural studies, the authors return to key Marxist questions on ideology, labour and class interest to map the perspectives of the rebels, the urban patriciate and the Flemish and Burgundian nobility.