Der auf den Referaten einer Tagung beruhende Band stellt Aspekte des mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Städtewesens Mittel- und Westeuropas und des byzantinischen, später osmanischen Reichs vergleichend gegenüber. In jeweils zwei Beiträgen werden ausgehend von einem gemeinsamen Fragenkatalog grundlegende Themen der Städteforschung sowohl aus der „westlichen“ als auch aus der „östlichen“ Perspektive behandelt. Themenfelder sind Kontinuitäten und Brüche in der langfristigen Entwicklung, der städtische Raum, Rechtsverhältnisse und Eliten, theologische und sakrale Aspekte. Auch Ergebnisse und Methoden der Archäologie und der Georeferenzierung in der Stadtgeschichtsforschung sind einbezogen.

Concepts of visual communication form an explanatory framework for discussing the visual expressions of urban symbolic communication in urban life in towns in the center of Europe in the late medieval and early modern period, including the dramatic times of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. This book examines the role of images and visual representation by concentrating on the varieties of symbolic communication in towns that made a range of relationships visual: the status and role of urban civic, professional, and religious communities and the relations between the town and its lord or powerful families and individuals. The geographical framework of this book is the region in the former Habsburg countries north of the Danube River embracing the region between western Bohemia and what is today eastern Slovakia, including the borderland towns of northern Austria. Two studies focus on specific local and occupational communities in the Prague towns, but most of the texts in this book focus on small towns by contemporary European standards in which many forms of urban topography, buildings, objects, and monuments survive, even though few written sources have been preserved. Accessing a wide range of literature in regional languages and German for English speakers, this collection describes typical urban landscapes in early modern Central Europe outside the well-known Central European urban centers and traditional areas of study. The book is a relevant new contribution to medieval and early modern studies, not only covering an underappreciated geographical area but also addressing general questions about the history of rituals and performance as well as visual culture, communication, and identity discourses in late medieval and early modern urban space.

The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World is a comprehensive examination of recent discussions and findings in the exciting field of cultural history. A synthesis of how the new cultural history has transformed the study of history, the volume is divided into three parts – medieval, early modern and modern – that emphasize the way people made sense of the world around them. Contributions cover such themes as material cultures of living, mobility and transport, cultural exchange and transfer, power and conflict, emotion and communication, and the history of the senses. The focus is on the Western world, but the notion of the West is a flexible one. In bringing together 36 authors from 15 countries, the book takes a wide geographical coverage, devoting continuous attention to global connections and the emerging trend of globalization. It builds a panorama of the transformation of Western identities, and the critical ramifications of that evolution from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, that offers the reader a wide-ranging illustration of the potentials of cultural history as a way of studying the past in a variety of times, spaces and aspects of human experience. Engaging with historiographical debate and covering a vast range of themes, periods and places, The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World is the ideal resource for cultural history students and scholars to understand and advance this dynamic field.

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.

The concept of resilience, which originally emerged in psychology, has spread to numerous disciplines and was further developed particularly in social ecology. Resilience experiences an ongoing growing reception in the humanities and historical and social sciences as well, including heterogenic approaches on how to conceptually frame resilience. Common to these approaches is, that resilience becomes topical in the context of analysing phenomena and processes of the ‘resistibility’ of certain (socio-historical) units or actors which are perceived as being faced with various constellations of disruptive change. In this context, resilience is not only taken to mean the opposite of vulnerability, but at the same time, resilience and vulnerability are understood as complementary concepts. From this perspective, vulnerability is a necessary condition of resilience and vice versa. Against this background, the present volume provides a preliminary appraisal of socio-scientific and historical resilience research by assembling contributions of authors originating from different disciplines. Thus, it fosters an interdisciplinary discussion on the theoretical and analytical potentials as well as the empirical applicability of the concept of resilience. ContentsStrategies, Dispositions and Resources – Theoretical contributions • Medieval case studies • Reflections and General Comments The EditorsDr. Martin Endreß is Professor for General Sociology at the University of Trier. Dr. Lukas Clemens is Professor for Medieval History at the University of Trier. Dr. Benjamin Rampp is research assistant for General Sociology at the University of Trier.

Medieval towns were vibrant and complex social environments where diverse groups and lifestyles encountered and influenced each other. Surprisingly, in the study of urban archaeology, the aristocracy, one of the leading and most influential groups in medieval society, has so far been neglected. This book puts "aristocracy in towns" on the archaeological research agenda. The interdisciplinary and comparative study explores the significance and representation of aristocrats and their interaction with civic elites in sea-trading towns of the southwestern Baltic from the 12th to the 14th centuries. Essentially, however, the analysis of urban elite culture leads to discussion of a much more fundamental issue: the informative value of material culture for the investigation of social conditions. The book provides new archaeological approaches to the study of social differentiation in towns, and contributes to a deeper understanding of the complexity of urban social structures.

The Byzantine world contained many important cities throughout its empire. Although it was not ‘urban’ in the sense of the word today, its cities played a far more fundamental role than those of its European neighbors. This book, through a collection of twenty-four chapters, discusses aspects of, and different approaches to, Byzantine urbanism from the early to late Byzantine periods. It provides both a chronological and thematic perspective to the study of Byzantine cities, bringing together literary, documentary, and archival sources with archaeological results, material culture, art, and architecture, resulting in a rich synthesis of the variety of regional and sub-regional transformations of Byzantine urban landscapes. Organized into four sections, this book covers: Theory and Historiography, Geography and Economy, Architecture and the Built Environment, and Daily Life and Material Culture. It includes more specialized accounts that address the centripetal role of Constantinople and its broader influence across the empire. Such new perspectives help to challenge the historiographical balance between ‘margins and metropolis,’ and also to include geographical areas often regarded as peripheral, like the coastal urban centers of the Byzantine Mediterranean as well as cities on islands, such as Crete, Cyprus, and Sicily which have more recently yielded well-excavated and stratigraphically sound urban sites. The Routledge Handbook of the Byzantine City provides both an overview and detailed study of the Byzantine city to specialist scholars, students, and enthusiasts alike and, therefore, will appeal to all those interested in Byzantine urbanism and society, as well as those studying medieval society in general.