Urban society
Seminar and Essay Questions
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How transformative was commercial growth in thirteenth-century Europe?
- What explains the success of medieval merchants despite the risks of international trade?
- Should guilds be viewed as barriers to economic development?
- Who held power in medieval towns?
Documents
Essential Reading
'Images of Market Trade' in James Davis, Medieval market morality : life, law and ethics in the English marketplace, 1200-1500, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)
R. Britnell, 'Town Life' in , R. Horrox and M. Ormrod, eds. (Cambridge University Press, 2012)
e-resources
- The Internet Medieval Sourcebook has sections on and .
- ''. BBC radio series, November 2005.
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In Our Time, "The City", Part and . BBC Radio series, March 2010.
- Map showing the main trade routes of late medieval EuropeLink opens in a new window. The black lines show the routes of the Hanseatic League, the blue Venetian and the red Genoese routes. Purple lines are routes used by both the Venetians and the Genoese. Overland and river routes are stippled.
- The Carta marinaLink opens in a new window of the Baltic Sea region (1539)
- .
Further Reading
Bautier, R.-H., The Economic Development of Medieval Europe (London, 1971)
Blockmans, Wim, Mikhail Krom and Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz (eds.), (Routledge, 2017) (lots of useful articles)
Brundage, James A., in Joseph R. Strayer et al. (eds.), Dictionary of the Middle Ages, 13 vols. (New York, 1982-89), vol. 12, pp. 335-9.
Davis, James, Medieval market morality : life, law and ethics in the English marketplace, 1200-1500, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012)
Day, John, The Medieval Market Economy (Oxford, 1987)
Duby, Georges, The Early Growth of the European Economy: Warriors and Peasants from the Seventh to the Twelfth Century (Ithaca, NY, 1974)
Epstein, S. R., . (Leiden: Cambridge University Press, 2008)
Gerrard, Daniel, in Discovering William of Malmesbury, Rodney M. Thomson , Emily Dolmans , Emily A. Winkler (eds.) (Boydell and Brewer, 2018), pp.27-36.
Hanawalt, Barbara, Growing Up in Medieval London: The Experience of Childhood in History (Oxford, 1993) []
Holt, Richard, and Rosser, Gervase, (eds.), The English Medieval Town: A Reader in English Urban History 1200-1540 (London, 1990)
Howell, Martha C., Commerce before capitalism in Europe, 1300-1600 (Cambridge, 2010).
Hunt, Edwin S., and Murray, James M., A History of Business in Medieval Europe, 1200-1550 (Cambridge, 1999)
Le Goff, Jacques, Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago, 1980)
Lopez, Robert S. et al. (eds. and trans.), Medieval Trade in the Mediterranean World (1955; rept. 2001) [An important collection of documents]
Lopez, Robert S., (Cambridge, 1976)
Mollat, Michel, The Poor in the Middle Ages, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New Haven, 1986)
Nicholas, David, Medieval Flanders (London, 1992)
Nicholas, David, The Growth of the Medieval City (Harlow, 1997)
Nicholas, David, The Later Medieval City (Harlow, 1997)
Ogilvie, Sheilagh C., (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011)
Phipps, Teresa, 'Female Litigants and the Borough Court: Status and Strategy in the Case of Agnes Halum of Nottingham' in , Richard Goddard and Teresa Phipps (eds) (Boydell, 2019)
Pirenne, Henri, Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade (Princeton, NJ, 1952)
Postan, M.M., et al. (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, vol. 2: Trade and Industry in the Middle Ages, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, 1987)
Pounds, N., An Economic History of Medieval Europe, 2nd ed. (London, 1994)
Spufford, Peter, (Cambridge, 1988)
Spufford, Peter, Power and Profit: The Merchant in Medieval Europe (London, 2002)
Wood, Diana, Medieval Economic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002)
