Chapter 1 - Cities and Their Strangers

Summary

Against the background of growth in the European economy and population after 1000, the rise of towns and their distinctive cultures is considered with all its creativity and its risks. A basic chronology and analysis of urban growth is provided, with attention to the differing experiences of Europe’s regions. Among the many tasks facing those who ruled urban centres was the question of membership: who was to be allowed into the city, and on what terms? Central to civic culture was the concept of the ‘common good’, which required newcomers to settle and fill the city’s needs. Such migration supplied townspeople with expert services (in law, finance, medicine, and governance), and it drew on newcomers marked by difference – of religion and language. Some of the underlying ideas and concepts are introduced in this chapter, based on studies of migration and urban life in the period under study, and in later ones too.