1st Edition
Cities and Economy in Europe Markets and Trade on the Margins from the Middle Ages to the Present
Exploring new perspectives concerning regions traditionally considered “on the margins” of Europe, this book fills a gap in current historiography through its analysis of cities, space, and economy from the High Middle Ages to the present.
Markets, trade, and economy in general have formed the backbone of urban life ever since the emergence of cities and towns, but classical theorists have largely focused on developments in Western Europe. Urban research in the last few decades has advanced in many ways to supersede and correct this still influential image and to include other parts of Europe into the analytical framework. Building on these emerging methodologies, this volume pays close attention to the fringes of Europe in the East, North, West, and South. The essays discuss the development of various spaces as nodal points for the exchange and production of commodities that took place in cities and towns. The scope of this work allows for a point of comparison to frequently studied examples in Europe, encouraging readers to identify larger patterns beyond individual examples.
Cities and Economy in Europe: Markets and Trade on the Margins from the Middle Ages to the Present is the perfect resource for students and researchers of economic and urban history.
Markets and Trade on the Margins: An Introduction
Katalin Szende and Erika Szívós
Part 1: Markets and Marketplaces, Open and Walled
1. Seats of Power and Marketplaces in Italian Medieval Cities
Rosa Smurra
2. The Marketplace (Torg) in Medieval Novgorod as a Space of Commerce and Action
Pavel Lukin
3. Forms and Functions of Market Squares in Medieval Hungary
Boglárka Weisz
4. Annual Fairs and Town Spaces: The Impact of Periodical Trade on Urban Infrastructure in Late
Medieval and Early Modern Poland
Anna Paulina Orłowska and Patrycja Szwedo-Kiełczewska
5. Trade and Sociability in Markets and Fairs within the Romanian Principalities in the Eighteenth and
Nineteenth Centuries
Dan Dumitru Iacob
6. A Town Hall or a Trading Facility? Markets in the Small Towns of Ukraine (Eighteenth and Nineteenth
Centuries)
Olga Kozubska
7. Greater Prague Emerging, 1880–1922: Space and Money as Politically Significant Variables
Jiři Pešek
Part 2: The Flow of Trade and the Urban Economy
8. Some Archaeological Evidence for International Trade in Irish Towns in the Middle Ages
Michael Potterton
9. Landscapes of Paper Production and the Centres of Book Printing in Italy and Central/Western Europe
in the Fourteenth to Sixteenth Centuries
Franz Irsigler
10. Centres and Landscapes of Wool Export Trade in the Crown of Castile from the Fifteenth to the Early
Nineteenth Century
Máximo Diago Hernando
11. Trade Routes and Commercial Networks in Early Modern South-Eastern Europe in the Light of
Transylvanian Sources
Mária Pakucs
12. Timber Trade, Townscapes and Urban Networks in Early Modern Norway and Northern Europe
Finn-Einar Eliassen
13. Loss of Urbanity: “The Death of Grocery Stores and Pubs” and the Impending End of the Grätzl in
Vienna, 1950–1985
Peter Eigner
Biography
Katalin Szende is a Professor of Medieval Studies at the Central European University (CEU), Budapest and Vienna. Her research concentrates on urban history, particularly medieval towns in the Carpathian Basin and Central Europe, with regard to society, demography, literacy, everyday life, and topography. Her latest monograph is Trust, Authority, and the Written Word in the Royal Towns of Medieval Hungary (2018).
Erika Szívós is a Professor of History at the Department of Economic and Social History at Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), Budapest. The focus of her research and teaching is Central European social, cultural, and urban history. One of her recent publications is “The Historic City and the East-West Exchange: Architecture, Urban Renewal and International Knowledge Transfers under State Socialism in Hungary” (Urban History, 29, no. 3 (2022): 523–548).
Boglárka Weisz is a Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Medieval History Department at the Institute of History of the Research Centre for the Humanities and leader of the “Lendület” Medieval Hungarian Economic History Research Group. Her main research interests are economic and urban history in medieval Hungary. Her previous publications include Markets and Staples in the Medieval Hungarian Kingdom (2020); ed. Fontes ad rem mercatoriam regni Hungariae pertinentes I. De commerciis domesticis (2020), II. De commerciis externis (2021).
