Urban Studies Archive
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Chivalry and Public Disorder in Thirteenth-Century Florence
Posted on May 13, 2013 | No CommentsThe was the second of two fabulous papers given at the my first session on Medieval violence. Whereas the first paper in this series looked at violence in the university setting, this one tackled violence in an elite sphere - Florentine knights and their retinues. -
Student Violence at the University of Oxford
Posted on May 9, 2013 | No CommentsMy first foray of KZOO 2013 couldn't have been off to a better start with, “I just don’t want to die without a few scars”: Medieval Fight Clubs, Masculine Identity, and Public (Dis)order. There were only two papers in this session and both were riveting. I felt like I couldn't type fast enough to get it all in! The first paper was given by Professor Andrew Larsen of Marquette University. Professor Larsen published a book on high and late medieval student violence and the Saint Scholastica's Day Riot at Oxford university. -
From Montpèlerin to Tarabulus al-Mustajadda: The Frankish-Mamluk Succession in Old Tripoli
Posted on April 21, 2013 | No CommentsModern Tripoli still shows the division into two different urban areas existing since the Middle Ages. Until the arrival of the Crusaders Tripoli merely consisted of the ancient town on the coast. -
Identifying Women Proprietors in Wills from Fifteenth-Century London
Posted on April 21, 2013 | No CommentsMost Londoners lodged their post obit requests with the Husting Court, the county court of London. The testators were primarily wealthy artisans and merchants, since one needed to possess a substantial amount of property in order to register the details of the division of that property. -
The Greek Renaissance in Italy
Posted on April 14, 2013 | No CommentsFor various reasons north Italy toward the end of the fourteenth century seemed peculiarly adapted to become the seat of another classical renaissance, though of one some what different in character and results from that which had already run its course. -
Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice: From Oriental Bazar to English Cloister in Anglo-French
Posted on April 1, 2013 | No CommentsUntil recently, such limited interest as late Anglo-French was able to arouse amongst scholars specializing in medieval French has been confined, with only a very few exceptions, to the efforts made in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries to teach what was by now a language unknown to most of the inhabitants of a country moving inexorably towards the unchallenged dominance of English as the national language. -
New Towns in Medieval France and Nature of Institutions
Posted on April 1, 2013 | No CommentsIn its early stages, a new town was a village community created by a central authority (king or overlord) on his wildland to meet the needs of growing populations and to further both its own benefits and the common interests of the inhabitants. -
The Virgin Mary in High Medieval England, A Divinely Malleable Woman: Virgin, Intercessor, Protector, Mother, Role Model
Posted on March 31, 2013 | No CommentsThis thesis examines the significance of the Virgin Mary in England between the late fifteenth century and early sixteenth century. The primary sources selected indicate the variety of ideas circulating about her during this period. Strictly religious texts such as the Bible and early Christian writings ground Late Medieval beliefs about Mary in their historical context. -
Archeological and Historical Approaches to Complex Societies: The Islamic States of Medieval Morocco
Posted on March 20, 2013 | No CommentsWe postulate that during the Medieval period two widely different sociopolitical contexts existed, giving rise to diverse urban patterns. Most importantly, we argue that the second of these patterns represents a widespread situation that is inadequately treated in the literature. -
Urban Space and Political Conflict in Late Medieval Flanders
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsThis essay investigates political claims over space in Ghent, urban Flanders’ largest city during the late Middle Ages. -
Elite and government in medieval Leiden
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsThe development of Leiden's 61ite is traced up to 1420. The siege of the city in that year and the assumption of power by Jan van Beieren resulted in important changes in the urban government: the faction of the Hoeken finally lost ascendancy and the viscount of Leiden ceased to have control over the city's administration. -
Fashion of Middle England and its Image in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales
Posted on February 24, 2013 | No CommentsFashion of Middle England and its Image in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales Petra Štěpánková Bachelor Thesis, Masaryk University – Brno, Faculty of Education, Department of English Language and Literature, Brno (2012)... -
Rome During Avignon: Myth, Memory, and Civic Identity in Fourteenth-Century Roman Politics
Posted on February 19, 2013 | No CommentsBroadly conceived, my dissertation examines the traditions of popular government emerging spasmodically in the roughly two hundred and fifty years between the Roman senate’s 1143 revival, and the papacy’s definitive 1377 return to Rome from roughly seven decades in Avignon. The majority of my inquiry, however, is directed toward the much-understudied fourteenth century. -
Hidden in Plain Sight: The “Pietre di Paragone” and the Preeminence of Medieval Measurements in Communal Italy
Posted on February 11, 2013 | No CommentsPropelled by an active engagement with measurements, the medieval communes devised a revolutionary method to preserve these measurements, which I call Pietre di Paragone. -
The tailors of London and their guild, c.1300-1500
Posted on February 8, 2013 | No CommentsThe unusually full medieval records of the guild of London tailors, known from 1503 as the Merchant Taylors' Company, provides a rare opportunity to assess the variety of roles which these organisations played in late-medieval London. -
City and Countryside in Medieval England
Posted on January 27, 2013 | No CommentsAn impressive array of data, ranging over the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, has been collected by two full-time researchers, James Galloway and Margaret Murphy. Of primary importance for the project are demesne farming accounts and inquisitions post mortem (detailing manorial land and other assets, especially again those of the demesne), both of which sources survive in very large numbers for the period under review. Also, the project incorpor- ates large amounts of data from urban records, particularly those dealing with merchants who were prominent in organizing London's food supply. -
Dealing with rubbish in a medieval town: a ceramic case study
Posted on January 16, 2013 | No CommentsHow was rubbish perceived or categorized? -
My kingdom in pledge : King Sigismund of Luxemburg’s town pledging policy, case studies of Segesd and Bartfa
Posted on January 13, 2013 | No CommentsThis thesis strives to present a small part of this huge and complex topic by analyzing one of the most interesting aspects of Sigismund’s pledging policy, namely, pldeges of the towns. -
The Impact of Climate Change on Late Medieval English Culture
Posted on December 28, 2012 | No CommentsThis thesis challenges the extremes of both environmental determinism and the modernist perspective that humanity exists in social and/or cultural isolation from the natural environment. -
A good riddance of bad rubbish? Scatological musings on rubbish disposal and the handling of ‘filth’ in medieval and early post-medieval towns
Posted on December 10, 2012 | No CommentsWhat did people do with their rubbish, what does the material contained in these pits actually signify, and how representative of what would have been in use on these sites are the material assemblages recovered from these contexts? -
The weir and the flowing earthworks of Bedford
Posted on December 9, 2012 | No CommentsSurprisingly few urban dwellers today know in which direction their local river flows. Which way is upstream and which downstream? Such knowledge, once so crucial, no longer has much significance for town inhabitants. Other flows – of electricity, gas and oil – now provide most of the energy that the town needs. -
The 727/1327 Silk Weavers’ Rebellion in Alexandria: Religious Xenophobia, Homophobia, or Economic Grievances
Posted on December 7, 2012 | No CommentsA brawl in the streets of 14th century Alexandria between Egyptians and Europeans - what caused it? -
The Invisible Wall of St John. On Mental Centrality in Early Medieval Italy
Posted on December 5, 2012 | No CommentsThe spatial categories of this society provided the basis for the view of certain places as being associated with a sacral materiality which is foreign to modern conceptualizations. It is the aim of this study to elucidate some of these early medieval notions of space. -
A Tale of two cities and the Abbasid Caliphate 132- 656 / 750 – 1258
Posted on December 1, 2012 | No CommentsExamining the role of Baghdad in the development of the Abbasid Caliphate. -
A Marginal Occupation? The Medieval Laundress and her Work
Posted on November 22, 2012 | No CommentsThe wider study of an ostensibly menial activity that, with certain notable exceptions, offered insecure and poorly paid employment to illiterate women of low status is certainly beset with problems.
