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IMC 2007: Sessions

Session 714: Space, Power, and Urban Networks between East and West, I

Tuesday 10 July 2007, 14.15-15.45

Sponsor:Faculty of Arts, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
Organisers:Károly Goda, Department of Social & Economic History, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
Judit Majorossy, Department of Medieval & Early Modern History, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
Moderator/Chair:Vanessa Harding, Department of History, Classics & Archaeology, Birkbeck, University of London
Paper 714-aThe Competences and Functions of North European Council Members in the 15th Century: A Comparative Approach
(Language: English)
Sofia Gustafsson, Department of History, Stockholms Universitet
Index terms: Administration, Daily Life, Genealogy and Prosopography, Social History
Paper 714-bThe Fabric of Power: Urban Political Elites in Late Medieval Central Europe
(Language: English)
Károly Goda, Department of Social & Economic History, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest
Index terms: Administration, Genealogy and Prosopography, Geography and Settlement Studies, Social History
Paper 714-cHierarchies of Elites: Ragusan Citizens between Power and Exclusion
(Language: English)
Zrinka Pešorda Vardić, Department of Medieval History, Croatian Institute of History, Zagreb
Index terms: Administration, Gender Studies, Mentalities, Social History
Abstract

This two-part session aims at focusing on a landscape of late medieval European urbanisation seldom represented in Western scholarship and especially not from a comparative perspective. The world of urban communities between Slavia Orthodoxia and the heartland of German-speaking Central Europe never formed a homogeneous region: its multicultural character generated a unity in diversity. Accordingly, the Baltic region, Central Europe and Dalmatia will be in the focus of various papers that examine the changing roles of urban political elites in an age of transformation (14th-16th centuries), exploring the leading groups from various aspects (agency, recruitment, stratification, social topography, and mentality), not only the fabric, but also the social, spatial and cultural dimensions of urban power will be put under scrutiny as a question of continuity and change in comparative approach from the Baltic to the Adriatic. As a result, the papers will reveal the common and specific characteristics of the urban past of present-day new Europe.