Broadly defined, urban planning today is a process one might describe as half design and half social engineering. It considers not only the aesthetic and visual product, but also the economic, political, and social implications, as well as the environmental impact. This collection of essays explores the question of whether this sort of multifaceted planning took place in the Middle Ages, and how it manifested itself outside of the monastic realm. Bringing together the monastic historian and archaeologist, with scholars of art and architecture, this volume expands our comprehension of how those in roles of authority saw the planning process and implemented their plans to structure a particular outcome. The examination of architectural complexes, literary sources, commercial legers, and political records highlights the multiple avenues for viewing the growing awareness of the social potential of an urban environment.

An introduction to the life of towns and cities in the medieval period, this book shows how medieval towns grew to become important centers of trade and liberty. Beginning with a look at the Roman Empire's urban legacy, the author delves into urban planning or lack thereof; the urban way of life; the church in the city; city government; urban crafts and urban trade, health, wealth, and welfare; and the city in history. Annotated primary documents like Domesday Book, sketches of street life, and descriptions of fairs and markets bring the period to life, and extended biographical sketches of towns, regions, and city-dwellers provide readers with valuable detail. In addition, 26 maps and illustrations, an annotated bibliography, glossary, and index round out the work. After a long decline in urban life following the fall of the Roman Empire, towns became centers of trade and of liberty during the medieval period. Here, the author describes how, as Europe stabilized after centuries of strife, commerce and the commercial class grew, and urban areas became an important source of revenue into royal coffers. Towns enjoyed various levels of autonomy, and always provided goods and services unavailable in rural areas. Hazards abounded in towns, though. Disease, fire, crime and other hazards raised mortality rates in urban environs. Designed as an introduction to life of towns and cities in the medieval period, eminent historian Norman Pounds brings to life the many pleasures, rewards, and dangers city-dwellers sought and avoided. Beginning with a look at the Roman Empire's urban legacy, Pounds delves into Urban Planning or lack thereof; The Urban Way of Life; The Church in the City; City Government; Urban Crafts and Urban Trade, Health, Wealth, and Welfare; and The City in History. Annotated primary documents like Domesday Book, sketches of street life, and descriptions of fairs and markets bring the period to life, and extended biographical sketches of towns, regions, and city-dwellers provide readers with valuable detail. In addition, 26 maps and illustrations, an annotated bibliography, glossary, and index round out the work.

An opportunity to experience the daily hustle and bustle of life in the late Middle Ages, A Day in a Medieval City provides a captivating dawn-to-dark account of medieval life. A visual trek through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries--with seasoned medieval historian Chiara Frugoni as guide--this book offers a vast array of images and vignettes that depict the everyday hardships and commonplace pleasures of people living in the Middle Ages. A Day in a Medieval City breathes life into the activities of city streets, homes, fields, schools, and places of worship. With entertaining anecdotes and gritty details, it engages the modern reader with its discoveries of the religious, economic, and institutional practices of the day. From urban planning and education to child care, hygiene, and the more leisurely pursuits of games, food, books, and superstitions, Frugoni unearths the daily routines of private and public life. Beginning in the countryside and moving to the city and inside private homes, stunning color images throughout offer a visual ramble through medieval Florence, Venice, and Rome. A Day in a Medieval City is a charming portal to the Middle Ages that you'll surely want with you on your travels to Europe--or in your armchair.

"This little volume contains the substance of lectures ... delivered from October to December 1922 in several American universities."--Pref. Bibliography: p. [245]-249.

What was life like in towns and cities in medieval Europe? How did people live, and why was it that some towns grew into major urban centres while others did not? After the year 1000, all across Europe urban life prospered as it had never done before. New towns emerged, and established towns and cities grew larger and became more powerful and dominant. During the later Middle Ages these towns and cities were the focus of religious, political, commercial and social activity; the places where power, profit, piety and people all came together. Urban life was indeed the making of medieval Europe. Drawing upon original research, as well as the work of medieval historians, urban archaeologists and historical geographers, Keith Lilley explores the close relationship that existed between the life of towns in the Middle Ages and the life within towns. Taking a fresh and challenging approach, this richly-illustrated book will be invaluable to anyone interested in medieval Europe. It focuses on important themes, including lordship, property, and townscape, and explores the processes which not only shaped the towns and cities of medieval Europe, but also the people who lived in them.

The Art of Medieval Urbanism examines the role of monumental sculpture and architecture in the medieval cityscape, offering a pathbreaking interpretation of the relationships among art, architecture, and the history of urbanism. In the first study of its kind, Robert Maxwell shifts attention away from the great Gothic cities of the later Middle Ages to focus on the urban context of art making in the earlier Romanesque era. Maxwell concentrates on Parthenay, a flourishing town in eleventh- and twelfth-century Aquitaine. Exploring Parthenay's exceptionally well-preserved structures, the author charts two centuries of urban development in southwestern France. Drawing on the methods of historical anthropology, Maxwell brings the monumental arts into dialogue with courtly romance literature, the iconography of seals and coins, history writing, and contemporary mythologies of place to show how the urban experience inflected the invention of history, aristocratic self-fashioning, and urban identity. Maxwell's interdisciplinary approach shows that medieval urbanism should be understood as a fabric of constructed identities of history, self, and place grounded in the monumental arts. The Art of Medieval Urbanism offers a fresh model for urban studies and proposes a new approach to the study of medieval art by restoring an urban dimension to our view of Romanesque production.

The concept of the medieval city is fixed in the modern imagination, conjuring visions of fortified walls, towering churches, and winding streets. In Riemenschneider in Rothenburg, Katherine M. Boivin investigates how medieval urban planning and artistic programming worked together to form dynamic environments, demonstrating the agency of objects, styles, and spaces in mapping the late medieval city. Using altarpieces by the famed medieval artist Tilman Riemenschneider as touchstones for her argument, Boivin explores how artwork in Germany’s preeminent medieval city, Rothenburg ob der Tauber, deliberately propagated civic ideals. She argues that the numerous artistic pieces commissioned by the city’s elected council over the course of two centuries built upon one another, creating a cohesive structural network that attracted religious pilgrims and furthered the theological ideals of the parish church. By contextualizing some of Rothenburg’s most significant architectural and artistic works, such as St. James’s Church and Riemenschneider’s Altarpiece of the Holy Blood, Boivin shows how the city government employed these works to establish a local aesthetic that awed visitors, raising Rothenburg’s profile and putting it on the pilgrimage map of Europe. Carefully documented and convincingly argued, this book sheds important new light on the history of one of Germany’s major tourist destinations. It will be of considerable interest to medieval art historians and scholars working in the fields of cultural and urban history.