In the 13th century, the monarchs of the Přemyslid dynasty, whose territory overlapped with that of the present-day Czech Republic, were increasingly affected by the dismal state of the Crown's finances. As a result, the Přemyslids initiated intensive silver exploitation, among other means to ensure income. This book's objective, based on interdisciplinary research, is therefore to describe and present the structure of mining and metallurgical areas in the kingdom of Bohemia, as well as to examine and identify how ore mining and metallurgy shaped and interacted with settlement organization and the medieval landscape.

DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Europe will lead you straight to the best attractions this diverse continent has to offer, from the majestic peaks of the Alps to the turquoise waters of the Mediterranean. This newly updated guidebook is packed with information on the culture, history, architecture, and art of the continent, in addition to the best of Europe's gardens, beaches, cathedrals, castles, and shopping. DK's insider travel tips and essential local information will help you discover Europe your way, whether you want to explore the luscious green landscape of Ireland, relax on a beach in Greece, or both. Discover DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Europe. Detailed itineraries and "don't-miss" destination highlights at a glance. Illustrated cutaway 3-D drawings of important sights. Floor plans and guided visitor information for major museums. Local drink and dining specialties to try, things to do, and places to eat, drink, and shop by area. Area maps marked with sights. Detailed city maps include street finder indexes for easy navigation. Insights into history and culture to help you understand the stories behind the sights. Hotel and restaurant listings highlight DK Choice special recommendations. With hundreds of full-color photographs, hand-drawn illustrations, and custom maps that illuminate every page, DK Eyewitness Travel Guide: Europe truly shows you what others only tell you. Series Overview: For more than two decades, DK Eyewitness Travel Guides have helped travelers experience the world through the history, art, architecture, and culture of their destinations. Expert travel writers and researchers provide independent editorial advice, recommendations, and reviews. With guidebooks to hundreds of places around the globe available in print and digital formats, DK Eyewitness Travel Guides show travelers how they can discover more. DK Eyewitness Travel Guides: the most maps, photographs, and illustrations of any guide.

The Grove Encyclopedia of Northern Renaissance Art provides unparalleled scope and depth in a field that has inspired and informed Western art for centuries. Drawing on the unsurpassed scholarship on the Renaissance in Northern Europe in The Dictionary of Art, the Encyclopedia deals with all aspects of Northern Renaissance art ranging from artists, architecture, and patrons to the cities and centers of production vital to the flourishing of art in this period. It offers fully updated articles and bibliography as well as more than 500 illustrations, maps, drawings, diagrams, and color plates. Comprehensive and engaging, this resource is an essential and accessible reference for students, researchers, and scholars researching in this important area.

Although the Middle Ages saw brilliant achievements in the diverse nations of East Central Europe, this period has been almost totally neglected in Western historical scholarship. East Central Europe in the Middle Ages provides a much-needed overview of the history of the region from the time when the present nationalities established their state structures and adopted Christianity up to the Ottoman conquest. Jean Sedlar’s excellent synthesis clarifies what was going on in Europe between the Elbe and the Ukraine during the Middle Ages, making available for the first time in a single volume information necessary to a fuller understanding of the early history of present-day Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and the former Yugoslavia. Sedlar writes clearly and fluently, drawing upon publications in numerous languages to craft a masterful study that is accessible and valuable to the general reader and the expert alike. The book is organized thematically; within this framework Sedlar has sought to integrate nationalities and to draw comparisons. Topics covered include early migrations, state formation, monarchies, classes (nobles, landholders, peasants, herders, serfs, and slaves), towns, religion, war, governments, laws and justice, commerce and money, foreign affairs, ethnicity and nationalism, languages and literature, and education and literacy. After the Middle Ages these nations were subsumed by the Ottoman, Habsburg, Russian, and Prussian-German empires. This loss of independence means that their history prior to foreign conquest has acquired exceptional importance in today’s national consciousness, and the medieval period remains a major point of reference and a source of national pride and ethnic identity. This book is a substantial and timely contribution to our knowledge of the history of East Central Europe.

This is the first comprehensive study of loans and debts in Central European countries in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period. It outlines the issues of debts and loans in the Czech lands, Poland and Hungary, with respect to the influence of Austria and Germany. It focuses on the role of loans and debts in medieval and early modern society, credit markets in these countries, the mechanism of lending and borrowing, forms of credit, availability of loans, frequency of credits dealings, range of lending business, and last, but not least, the financial relationships inside the social classes and between them. The research presented in the book is based on a wide range of resources including credit contracts and agreements, evidence of loans and debts of courts, accounting of nobility, towns, churches and guilds, merchant diaries and Jewish registers, as well as other financial records. It covers a wide range of historical disciplines including economic and financial history, social history, the history of economic thought as well as the history of everyday life. It also contains a wealth of case studies, which offer, for the first time in English, a comprehensive and representative sample of the most up-to-date Central European research on the history of loans and debts and serves as a basis for a comparison with the other parts of Europe during the same period. The book is designed primarily for postgraduates, researchers and academics in financial, economic and historical sciences but will also be a valuable resource for students of business schools.

The aim of this book is to introduce the reader to the organization of medieval Prague up to the early 15th century with a focus on the first two essential phases of agglomeration development: early urban and post-charted. Prague was a so-called “multi-part town”, consisting of several municipalities and separate urban complexes. This publication examines these Prague towns, their inhabitants, and the institutions that served them, as well as many events and places not connected directly to this book’s “urban” subject but which nevertheless constitute an inseparable background and significantly influenced the whole community of Prague.