Small Towns in Early Modern Europe

The first major work in English to give a pan-European perspective on the changing role of small towns from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century.

Peter Clark (Edited by)

9780521464635, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 23 March 1995

332 pages, 6 b/w illus. 42 tables
23.6 x 16 x 2.4 cm, 0.614 kg

"Here we have a collection of essays that advances both general history and the urban theme it addresses: specialists in the history of the European regions that are covered will welcome some very useful additions to the literature in English." Alan Dyer, Journal of Modern History

Despite the great wave of publications on European cities and towns in the pre-industrial period, little has been written about the thousands of small towns which played a key role in the economic, social and cultural life of early modern Europe. This collection, written by leading experts, redresses that imbalance. It provides the first comparative overview of European small towns from the fifteenth to the early nineteenth century, examining their position in the urban hierarchy, demographic structures, economic trends, relations with the countryside, and political and cultural developments. Case studies discuss networks in all the major European countries, as well as looking at the distinctive world of small towns in the more 'peripheral' countries of Scandinavia and central Europe. A wide-ranging editorial introduction puts individual chapters in historical perspective.

Editorial preface
1. Introduction Peter Clark
2. The mainstays of the urban fringe: Norwegian small towns 1500–1800 Finn-Einar Eliassen
3. Small towns in the periphery: population and economy of small towns in Sweden and Finland during the early modern period Sven Lilja
4. Small towns in eastern central Europe Vera Bacskai
5. Small towns in England 1550–1850: national and regional trends Peter Clark
6. The cultural role of small towns in England 1600–1800 Michael Reed
7. Small towns in early modern Ireland Raymond Gillespie
8. In search of the small town in early nineteenth-century France Bernard Lepetit
9. Small towns in early modern Germany: the case of Hesse 1500–1800 Holger Graf
10. Demography and hierarchy: the small towns and the urban network in sixteenth-century Flanders Peter Stabel
11. Domestic demand and urbanization in the eighteenth century: demographic and functional evidence from the small towns of Brabant Bruno Blonde
12. The small towns of northern Italy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: an overview Peter Musgrave
13. Cities, towns and small towns in Castile 1500–1800 Juan Gelabert
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], European history [HBJD]