Perhaps most important is the insight that the majority of towns were complex compositions of varieties of overlapping jurisdictions, between commune and lord, church and state. In contrast to some urban historians writing in the earlier 20th century, such as Henri Pirenne or Jacques Le Goff, Rubin therefore emphasises the diversity of urban types across Europe, in which only some urban communities in some regions exercised full powers of self-government, while many others were subject to the jurisdiction of princes and major lords. The chapter makes the case for aiming at a truly comparative understanding that embraces the whole of Europe rather than rooting arguments in the experience of particular regions (such as the Low Countries, France, or Italy). The first lecture provides an introductory overview of the extent and nature of urbanisation in later medieval Europe. The structure of the book is shaped by the four lectures on which it was based, although Rubin creates an overarching argument through them. Whereas previous overviews of medieval urban development have focussed on governance, social structure, economics, or the built environment, the focus of Strangers is on diversity and migration. It is, of course, far from being the first overview of the medieval urban history of this period but it is the first to bring it up to date with current concerns and interests. This extensive reading is communicated with verve and draws the reader in through the use of rich detail and engaging prose. Her reading is enriched, for example, by the ways in which scholarship on medieval towns in central and eastern Europe has flourished since the 1980s (particularly under the aegis of scholars such as Katalin Szende at the Central European University in Budapest), and by the broad sweep of urban studies fostered by centres such as the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Ghent. A particularly welcome feature is her inclusion of relatively recent scholarship. She has read widely in the urban history of both western and central Europe in most of the main European languages, and the chronological frame is similarly ambitious, covering more than two centuries of very dramatic changes in urban life c. She also draws inspiration from modern studies of migrant nations, particularly the USA, to ask how towns function within migration processes. Rubin tells us that it was the events of 2015-and particularly the Syrian diaspora-that led her to examine the deep history of attitudes towards migrants in the medieval past. It both offers an introduction for those unfamiliar with the social history of medieval cities and carries an argument about the development of a tendency at the end of the middle ages, and over the long 15th century in particular, towards more exclusionary, persecuting, societies. (2) They have produced a distinguished series of publications by Cambridge University Press offering works that make major historical themes accessible and relevant to general audiences but that also offer a distinctive perspective.Ĭities of Strangers accomplishes this dual task with energy and eloquence. The Wiles Lectures are a regular, occasional series of lectures on broad historical themes that were established in the 1950s ‘to promote the study of the history of civilisation and to encourage the extension of historical thinking into the realm of general ideas’. It is derived from the Wiles lectures delivered by Professor Miri Rubin at Queen’s University, Belfast in 2017. (1) In a bouncy rhyme it recalls the appealing street cries and smells of the city, but also the trickery and thievery at every turn, from the lawyers of Westminster to the street vendors around Cheapside, until at last the stranger, having lost and never recovered the coat on his back, escapes to a pastoral idyll in rural Kent.Ĭities of Strangers is a very welcome addition to studies of cities that focus on this fluidity of urban life. The ‘London Lickpenny’, a poem about the London metropolitan region composed around 1400, captured this vivacity but also the risks, even dangers, that confronted a stranger travelling across London. The fluid dynamics of urban life have long fascinated artists and preoccupied people in power. Cities and towns are places of movement and mingling, coming and going, settling down and moving on, and they always have been.
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