Examining the nature and diversity of urban life during the 16th and 17th centuries-- a period of considerable economic, political and social change-- this text stresses the extent to which towns remained distinct from their rural hinterlands.

Whilst much has been written about early modern urban history, the majority of this work has focussed on Western Europe with relatively little available in English on towns and cities in the former communist East. However, in recent years urban scholars have increasingly looked to a much more inclusive picture of Europe that compares and contrasts development across the whole continent. Dealing primarily with Bohemia, Hungary and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, this book provides an insight into a number of key issues concerning the economic, social and demographic trends in early modern East-Central European urban history. Taking a supra-national perspective, across a long time span, it examines the effects of migration, Reformation, state building and economic change on the transformation of medieval urban communities into early modern societies. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, particularly the registers of new citizens kept by many towns and cities, a fascinating picture of urban development and social structure is reconstructed that not only tells us much about East-Central Europe, but adds to our knowledge of the whole continent.

Whilst much has been written about early modern urban history, the majority of this work has focussed on Western Europe with relatively little available in English on towns and cities in the former communist East. However, in recent years urban scholars have increasingly looked to a much more inclusive picture of Europe that compares and contrasts development across the whole continent. Dealing primarily with Bohemia, Hungary and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, this book provides an insight into a number of key issues concerning the economic, social and demographic trends in early modern East-Central European urban history. Taking a supra-national perspective, across a long time span, it examines the effects of migration, Reformation, state building and economic change on the transformation of medieval urban communities into early modern societies. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources, particularly the registers of new citizens kept by many towns and cities, a fascinating picture of urban development and social structure is reconstructed that not only tells us much about East-Central Europe, but adds to our knowledge of the whole continent.

This book is a wide-ranging survey of European society in the two centuries preceding the Industrial Revolution. It draws on published research in the major European languages, and provides a broad overview of the major structural changes that occurred between 1500 and 1700, both in social organization and in the various social classes.

Surveying court life and urban life, warfare, religion, and peace, this book provides a comprehensive history of how gender was experienced in early modern Europe. Gender, Power and Privilege in Early Modern Europe shows how definitions of sexuality and gender roles operated and more particularly, how such definitions--and the activities they generated and reflected--articulated concerns inside a given culture. This means that the volume embodies an interdisciplinary approach: literature as well as history, religious studies, economics, and gender studies form the basis of this cultural history of early modern Europe. There are new approaches to understanding famous figures, such as Elizabeth I, James VI and I and his wife Anna of Denmark; Francis I; St. Teresa of Avila. Other chapters investigate topics such as militarism and court culture, and wider groups, such as urban citizens and noble families. The collection also studies ways in which gender and sexual orientation were represented in literature, as well as examinations of the theoretical issues involved in studying history from the angle of gender.

As long as there have been governments, ordinary people have been acting in a variety of often informal or extralegal ways to influence the rulers who claimed authority over them. Shaping History shows how ordinary people broke down the institutional and cultural barriers that separated elite from popular politics in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe and entered fully into the historical process of European state formation. Wayne te Brake's outstanding synthesis builds on the many studies of popular political action in specific settings and conflicts, locating the interaction of rulers and subjects more generally within the multiple political spaces of composite states. In these states, says Te Brake, a broad range of political subjects, often religiously divided among themselves, necessarily aligned themselves with alternative claimants to cultural and political sovereignty in challenging the cultural and fiscal demands of some rulers. This often violent interaction between subjects and rulers had particularly potent consequences during the course of the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, and the Crisis of the Seventeenth Century. But, as Te Brake makes clear, it was an ongoing political process, not a series of separate cataclysmic events. Offering a compelling alternative to traditionally elite-centered accounts of territorial state formation in Europe, this book calls attention to the variety of ways ordinary people have molded and shaped their own political histories.

The problem of the poor grew in the early modern period as populations rose dramatically and created many extra pressures on the state. In Northern Europe, cities were going through a period of rapid growth and central and local administrations saw considerable expansion. This volume provides an outline of the developments in health care and poor relief in the economically important regions of Northern Europe in this period when urban poverty became a generally recognized problem for both magistracies and governments. With contributions from international scholars in the field, including Jonathan Israel, Paul Slack and Rosalind Mitchison, this volume draws on research into local conditions and maps general patterns of development.

European history between the Renaissance and the General Crisis of the 17th century is dominated by the spectacular triumphs of princes. The development of absolutism was a powerful threat to the liberties which towns had won in the Middle Ages and which were rooted in the aristotelian polis. This neglected story forms the subject of this study, which sets the victories of princely armies against a background of economic and social change, but points to the survival of European republicanism and its significance for the development of modern Europe and the modern West.

Reflecting the vigour of both urban and medieval history, this timely textbook by a leading scholar of urban studies is a broadly interdisciplinary work that breaks new ground by emphasising the links between the late medieval and early modern cities. Urban Europe, 1100-1700: - examines the common social, governmental, economic and intellectual roles played by most pre-modern cities - views cities as originating in local market relations, then expanding with the growing complexity of their functions into regional centres of culture, government and exchange - adopts an organic, evolutionary and environmental approach, particularly in its application of geographical systems to early urbanisation - makes extensive use of maps and original source material to illustrate aspects of the urban experience David Nicholas' study will appeal to students and scholars of history, geography and urban studies. Sociologists and political economists will also value its demonstration of the continuing relevance of the thought of Max Weber, while urban planners will find its analysis of the rationality of pre-modern cities highly useful.