America as a Medieval City

Posted by $ MikeMarotta 10 years ago to History
0 comments | Share | Best of... | Flag

I highly recommend THE CITY by Max Weber. If you understand the medieval European city, you understand the roots of America as a bourgeois nation based on trade, legal equality among the citizens from lack of inherited status which at the same time allowed an open future to each individual.

Even firearms versus chivalry is bourgeois because merchants have no time for military training and just wanted weapons that anyone could use. Gunpowder blasted away the feudal order.

Broad literacy allowed the printing press to deliver its benefits. Among those consequences, cities had constitutions and charters. Genoa had several to resolve crises. For two hundred years, the coins of Genoa usually were struck in the name of Conrad II, a pretender to the Holy Roman Empire who never was in Genoa. Every now and then a medieval city had a woman for a mayor. Cities brought new forms of property and inheritance. A notarized testament could pass a market stall to anyone; it did not automatically fall to a first-born son or to any blood relative. The populations of cities changed as immigrants came in.

The image for this article is a "City View Thaler" from Basel, circa 1640. Use your browser to search for images of City View Thaler to see these large silver coins all over middle Europe.


Add Comment

FORMATTING HELP


FORMATTING HELP

  • Comment hidden. Undo