{"product_id":"the-later-medieval-city-a-history-of-urban-society-in-europe-9780582013179","title":"The Later Medieval City (A History of Urban Society in Europe)","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Later Medieval City  1300-1500  the second part of David Nicholass ambitious two-volume study of cities and city life in the Middle Ages  fully lives up to its splendid precursor  The Growth of the Medieval City. (Like that volume it is fully self-sufficient  though many readers will want to use the two as a continuum.) This book covers a much shorter period than the first. That traced the rise of the medieval European city system from late Antiquity to the early fourteenth century; this offers a portrait of the fully developed late medieval city in all its richness and complexity.  David Nicholas begins with the economic and demographic realignments of the last two medieval centuries. These fostered urban growth  raising living standards and increasing demand for a growing range of urban manufactures. The hunger for imports and a shortage of coin led to sophisticated credit mechanisms that could only function through large cities. But  if these changes brought new opportunities to the wealthy  they also created a growing problem of urban poverty: violence became endemic in the later medieval city. Moreover  although more rebellions were sparked by taxes than by class conflict  class divisions were deepening. Most cities came to be governed by councils chosen from guild-members  and most guilds were dominated by merchants. The landowning elite that had dominated the early medieval cities of the first volume still retained its prestige  but its wealth was outstripped by the richer merchants; while craftsmen  who had little political influence  were further disadvantaged as access to the guilds became more restricted.  The later medieval cities developed permanent bureaucracies providing a huge range of public services  and they were paid for by sophisticated systems of taxation and public borrowing. The survival of their fuller  richer records allow us not only to apply a more statistical approach  but also to get much closer  to the splendours and squalors of everyday city-life than was possible in the earlier volume. The book concludes with a set of vibrant chapters on women and children and religious minorities in the city  on education and culture  and on the tenor of ordinary urban existence.  Like its predecessor  this book is massively  and vividly  documented. Its approach is interdisciplinary and comparative  and its examples and case studies are drawn from across Europe: from France  England  Germany  the Low Countries  Iberia and Italy  with briefer reviews of the urban experience elsewhere from Baltic to Balkans. The result is the most wide-ranging and up-to-date study of its multifaceted subject. It is a formidable achievement.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45651603914805,"sku":"ByrdShop_0582013178","price":116.33,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780582013179.jpg?v=1781836348","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/the-later-medieval-city-a-history-of-urban-society-in-europe-9780582013179","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}