A Companion to Medieval Lübeck offers a new archaeological, historical and art historical as well as architectonical perspective on the medieval history of the city of Lübeck from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries.

From the tenth century on, technical and technological advancements in agriculture resulted in an unprecedented growth of cultivated land in Europe, which would contribute to a progressive integration of markets. This economic drive occurred during a time of profound political, social, and religious change. In certain parts of Europe, citystates emerged to become the standard form of polity, breaking away from previous ruling models and thrusting a new era of urban life and economic development. This period was also marked by the zenith of Islam throughout the Middle East, the Maghreb, and the Iberian Peninsula, with its people revolutionising agricultural production. Through specific case studies, this book aims to understand how these pieces of the medieval economy worked and evolved, how distinctive they were from one region to another, and what consequences local, regional, and international trade have had in people’s everyday lives.

A Companion to Medieval and Early Modern Confraternities presents confraternities as fundamentally important venues for the acquisition of spiritual riches, material wealth, and social capital in early modern Europe and Post-Conquest America.

Gift-giving played an important role in political, social and religious life in medieval and early modern Europe. This volume explores an under-examined and often-overlooked aspect of this phenomenon: the material nature of the gift. Drawing on examples from both medieval and early modern Europe, the authors from the UK and across Europe explore the craftsmanship involved in the production of gifts and the use of exotic objects and animals, from elephant bones to polar bears and 'living' holy objects, to communicate power, class and allegiance. Gifts were publicly given, displayed and worn and so the book explores the ways in which, as tangible objects, gifts could help to construct religious and social worlds. But the beauty and material richness of the gift could also provoke anxieties. Classical and Christian authorities agreed that, in gift-giving, it was supposed to be the thought that counted and consequently wealth and grandeur raised worries about greed and corruption: was a valuable ring payment for sexual services or a token of love and a promise of marriage? Over three centuries, Gift-Giving and Materiality in Europe, 1300-1600: Gifts as Objects reflects on the possibilities, practicalities and concerns raised by the material character of gifts.

Water is a global resource for modern societies - and water was a global resource for pre-modern societies. The many different water systems serving processes of urbanisation and urban life in ancient times and the Middle Ages have hardly been researched until now. The numerous contributions to this volume pose questions such as what the basic cultural significance of water was, the power of water, in the town and for the town, from different points of view. Symbolic, aesthetic, and cult aspects are taken up, as is the role of water in politics, society, and economy, in daily life, but also in processes of urban planning or in urban neighbourhoods. Not least, the dangers of polluted water or of flooding presented a challenge to urban society. The contributions in this volume draw attention to the complex, manifold relations between water and human beings. This collection presents the results of an international conference in Kiel in 2018. It is directed towards both scholars in ancient and mediaeval studies and all those interested in the diversity of water systems in urban space in ancient and mediaeval times.

Monetisation and Commercialisation in the Baltic Sea, 1050–1450 explores the varied uses of silver and gold in the Baltic Sea zone during the medieval period. Ten original contributions examine coins and currencies, trade, economy, and power, taking care to avoid an out-of-date approach to economic history which assumes a progression from ‘primitive’ forms to ‘developed’ structures. Combining a variety of methodological approaches, and drawing on written sources, archaeological and numismatic evidence, and anthropological perspectives, the book considers the various ways in which silver and gold were used as monetary currency, fiscal instruments of power, and gifts in the High and Late Medieval societies of the Baltic Sea. This book will appeal to scholars and students of medieval European history, as well as those interested in economic history, and the history of trade and commerce.

This volume provides a multidisciplinary view on the complexity of an emerging city, offering, for the first time in English, an overview of the current state of research on Vienna in the Middle Ages.