Background
Nicholas, David M. was born on October 11, 1939 in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States.
(The first part of David Nicholas's massive two-volume stu...)
The first part of David Nicholas's massive two-volume study of the medieval city, this book is a major achievement in its own right. (It is also fully self-sufficient, though many readers will want to use it with its equally impressive sequel which is being published simultaneously.) In it, Professor Nicholas traces the slow regeneration of urban life in the early medieval period, showing where and how an urban tradition had survived from late antiquity, and when and why new urban communities began to form where there was no such continuity. He charts the different types and functions of the medieval city, its interdependence with the surrounding countryside, and its often fraught relations with secular authority. The book ends with the critical changes of the late thirteenth century that established an urban network that was strong enough to survive the plagues, famines and wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0582299063/?tag=2022091-20
( The Later Medieval City, 1300-1500, the second part of ...)
The Later Medieval City, 1300-1500, the second part of David Nicholas's ambitious two-volume study of cities and city life in the Middle Ages, fully lives up to its splendid precursor, The Growth of the Medieval City. (Like that volume it is fully self-sufficient, though many readers will want to use the two as a continuum.) This book covers a much shorter period than the first. That traced the rise of the medieval European city system from late Antiquity to the early fourteenth century; this offers a portrait of the fully developed late medieval city in all its richness and complexity. David Nicholas begins with the economic and demographic realignments of the last two medieval centuries. These fostered urban growth, raising living standards and increasing demand for a growing range of urban manufactures. The hunger for imports and a shortage of coin led to sophisticated credit mechanisms that could only function through large cities. But, if these changes brought new opportunities to the wealthy, they also created a growing problem of urban poverty: violence became endemic in the later medieval city. Moreover, although more rebellions were sparked by taxes than by class conflict, class divisions were deepening. Most cities came to be governed by councils chosen from guild-members, and most guilds were dominated by merchants. The landowning elite that had dominated the early medieval cities of the first volume still retained its prestige, but its wealth was outstripped by the richer merchants; while craftsmen, who had little political influence, were further disadvantaged as access to the guilds became more restricted. The later medieval cities developed permanent bureaucracies providing a huge range of public services, and they were paid for by sophisticated systems of taxation and public borrowing. The survival of their fuller, richer records allow us not only to apply a more statistical approach, but also to get much closer, to the splendours and squalors of everyday city-life than was possible in the earlier volume. The book concludes with a set of vibrant chapters on women and children and religious minorities in the city, on education and culture, and on the tenor of ordinary urban existence. Like its predecessor, this book is massively, and vividly, documented. Its approach is interdisciplinary and comparative, and its examples and case studies are drawn from across Europe: from France, England, Germany, the Low Countries, Iberia and Italy, with briefer reviews of the urban experience elsewhere from Baltic to Balkans. The result is the most wide-ranging and up-to-date study of its multifaceted subject. It is a formidable achievement.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0582013178/?tag=2022091-20
(Flanders, best known for its large cities and export-grad...)
Flanders, best known for its large cities and export-grade woollen cloth, is the setting for these articles. Professor Nicholas here emphasises the region's broader importance in the economy of medieval Europe as a focus of demand for grain and industrial raw materials. Imports to supply the bloated internal markets were more important in establishing the Flemish cities and creating the capital base of their elites than were cloth exports, which by the 14th century were being undercut by competitors from England and Brabant. The second part of the book looks at the turbulent domestic politics of the Flemish cities, conditioned by a network of nuclear and extended families whose personal antagonisms and heightened consciousness of honour led to decimating vendettas of a severity once associated mainly with Italy. It also examines the mix of urban and rural interests that characterised the elite, showing for instance that the famous van Arteveldes were as noteworthy in the swamps of northeastern Flanders as in the streets of Ghent.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0860785858/?tag=2022091-20
(Cradle of northern Europe's later urban and industrial pr...)
Cradle of northern Europe's later urban and industrial pre-eminence, medieval Flanders was a region of immense political and economic importance -- and already, as so often later, the battleground of foreign powers. Yet this book is, remarkably, the first comprehensive modern history of the region. Within the framework of a clear political narrative, it presents a vivid portrait of medieval Flemish life that will be essential reading for the medievalist -- and a boon for the many visitors to Bruges and Ghent eager for a better understanding of what they see.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1138836168/?tag=2022091-20
( This comprehensive survey of European history between 1...)
This comprehensive survey of European history between 1300 and 1600 challenges conventional vision of Europe that divides the world between the late-medieval and early modern periods, emphasizing the distortion involved in that construction. Important changes toward "modernity" are evident, the book argues, as early as the fourteenth century; only in religious history does there appear to be some justification for retaining the traditional notion that "modern age" began with Martin Luther, though even in that arena the institutional break of the Protestants with Rome cannot conceal fundamental continuity of expression and attitude.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0340662085/?tag=2022091-20
(This ambitious and wide-ranging study of the European Mid...)
This ambitious and wide-ranging study of the European Middle Ages respects the complexity and richness of its subject; always accessible, it is never merely superficial or over-simplistic. Stressing the long-term factors of continuity, evolution and change throughout, David Nicholas discusses the social and economic aspects of medieval civilization, and examines their links with political, institutional and cultural development. Designed for students and non-specialists, his book triumphantly meets the need for a comprehensive survey of the medieval world within the covers of a single authoritative volume.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0582092574/?tag=2022091-20
Nicholas, David M. was born on October 11, 1939 in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States.
Bachelor of Arts North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1961. Master of Arts, University California, Berkeley, 1963. Doctor of Philosophy, Brown University, 1967.
Assistant professor history University Nebraska, Lincoln, 1967-1971, associate professor history, 1971-1976, professor history, 1976-1989, Clemson (South Carolina) University, since 1989.
( This comprehensive survey of European history between 1...)
( The Later Medieval City, 1300-1500, the second part of ...)
(Cradle of northern Europe's later urban and industrial pr...)
(This ambitious and wide-ranging study of the European Mid...)
(The first part of David Nicholas's massive two-volume stu...)
(Flanders, best known for its large cities and export-grad...)