Übung Cities and citizens urban life in Europe from late Middle Ages to the Early Modern Age 1400-1600

Between 1400 and 1600, a period of increasing urbanization, only around 10% of the total amount of European population resided in cities or towns. However, despite constituting a minority, the socioeconomic, political and cultural role of the urban society, together with a greater profusion of documentary sources related to cities, have resulted in a considerable attention of historiography to urban matters and the birth of a particular historiographic field: urban history. Cities are associated to the diversity of economic and cultural activities, the population density and the seat of different secular and ecclesiastical powers. On their streets noblemen, patricians, merchants, artisans, clergymen and the marginalized people shared a reduced space brimful of bonds, conflicts, negotiations, exchanges, rivalry, consense and rituals. The present course intends to analyse diverse aspects of everyday life in the European towns and cities in a period of mild urbanization and recovery after the XIVth century crisis and prior to the XVIIth century one. From the economic significance of cities to their role in the formation of States or the question of urban identity, the approaches to the subject are almost endless. The objective is to combine different historiographic perspectives on cities (demographic, economic, social, political, institutional, cultural or from relatively new trends such as the history of the Emotions) with different types of sources (contracts, guild regulations, personal diaries, urban chronicles, city records, etc.) that will enrich both the methodological skills of the students and their knowledge of the late medieval and early modern cities. P rüfungsformen im BA und mod. LA: RE Introductory bibliography: Nicholas, David, The Later Medieval City: 1300-1500. London: Longman, 1997. Friedrichs, Christopher, The Early Modern City: 1450-1750. London: Longman, 1995. Anmeldung bitte per E-Mail an: marianmromera@lrz.uni-muenchen.de Fakultät für Geschichts- und Kunstwissenschaften LMU München SoSe 2015 Martin Romera Maria Angeles