Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Medieval towns and their motley inhabitants have long attracted scholarly attention. Not unlike other areas of medieval history, the study of cities and urban societies can be traced back to a handful of pioneering and towering canonical works. Jacob Burckhardt's incomparable The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, though admittedly about Renaissance culture, is a book deeply grounded in a select number of Italian cities as sites for the emergence of novel aesthetic notions, new ways of thinking about the state, civic festivals, and the like. Maitland's enduring Domesday Book and Beyond, while grounded in institutional history, pays significant and path-breaking attention to urban centers or emerging English towns (boroughs and the like). And, of course, Henri Pirenne's paradigmatic work Medieval Towns helped shape the way in which we have studied urban medieval history over the last century and a half. To these, should be added the influential synthesis by Rörig and the less-known work of Edith Ennen. In the case of Rörig, he brought to light the importance of urban developments in the Baltic region and the role of the Hansa in urban life. As to Ennen, she provides a most useful typology of the different zones or regions for urban development: from the Roman survivals in the Mediterranean, through a transitional zone north of the Roman habitats, to areas in northern Europe ... log in or subscribe to read full text