Urban Martial Culture in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Gebunden

Klappentext

Presents the concept of martial culture as a way of integrating aspects of urban life that have hitherto been explored separately or neglected entirely.

Premodern towns in Europe were martial entities: fortified walls protected their inhabitants from outside threats; gates separated them from unwelcome strangers. Even towns that were not defined by their walls served as rallying points for assembling troops or provided the necessary infrastructure for martial events. Within the emerging European states, it was towns that brought together the bankers who financed the princes' warfare, gathered the artisans who furnished their armies, and opened the markets that distributed money, goods, and fighters. Overall, towns served as producers, organisers, and brokers of martial culture within the rapidly changing political world of late medieval and early modern Europe. This book explores the complexity of urban martial culture in towns across the Holy Roman Empire, Italy, England, and the Low Countries. The contributors consider the city as a martial space; the people who owned and wielded weapons, from citizen militias to master-gunners; the weapons themselves and the vocabulary, production, and symbolism attached to them; the relationship between social standing and weapon use; and, finally, the place of urban martial culture within the broader dynamics of early modern state formation.