Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The European city concept derives from Max Weber and historians of the Middle Ages. In “The City,” Weber characterizes the medieval western city – in modern language, western European city – as having the following features: a fortification, a market, and a specifically urban economy of consumption, exchange, and production; a court of law and the ability to ordain a set of rules and laws; rules relating to landed property (since cities were not subject to the taxes and constraints of feudalism); and a structure based on associations (of guilds) and – at least partial – political autonomy, expressed in particular through the existence of an administrative body and the participation of the burghers in local government. This combination of political autonomy, religious culture, specifically urban economy, and differentiated social structure, all surrounded by a wall, made the western city an original sociological category and a structuring element in the Europe of the Middle Ages between 1000 and 1500. This golden age of urban Europe reached its high point at the end of the Middle Ages, when feudal structures were gradually fading, but before the states had established their domination everywhere ( Tilly 1990 ). The “western city” model elaborated by Weber defines an original set of analytical perspectives to analyze cities from a sociological perspective. Firstly, the “western city” ... log in or subscribe to read full text