| Discussion topics | Documents | Reading |

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Discussion Topics and Essay questions

a) Rural society

• Were the changes in agrarian society in this period to the advantage of landowners or of peasants?
• Were social relations in the countryside characterised by conflict or co-operation?
• In which ways did peasants 'matter' in early modern Europe?

b) Urban society

• How were early modern towns governed?
• Why did some towns flourish in this period while others stagnated?
• In which ways was 'urban life' fundamentally different from 'rural life' in this period?

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Documents

**NOTE: Some eresources are accessible only on-campus or via off-campus proxies or the athens service**

Texts

Images

Rural Society The 'Twelve Articles' of the German Peasants (1525) Social Conditions in 17th Century France (c.1650) Abraham Cowley, Of Agriculture (1650) Urban Society ·The Great Fire of London: article in the 'London Gazette' (3-10 September 1666) John Stow, Survey of the Cities of London and Westminster (1603) 'Migration and the Early Modern English Town' (TLTP courseware tutorial)

Rural Society Albrecht Dürer, 'Three Peasants in Conversation' (c. 1497) The structure of a 'typical' German village (c.1500) David Kellners, Berg und Saltz wercks Buch (1702) [image of the salt mines and mining in Germany] Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Peasant Wedding (c.1568) Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Peasant Dance (1568) Map of the scale of the Peasants' War (1525) Urban Society Pieter Aertsen, Market Scene I Pieter Aertsen, Market Scene II (c.1550) Albrecht Dürer, The Wire-drawing Mill (c. 1489) Map of Basel and other imperial cities

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Selected Key Texts

• Tom Scott (ed.), The Peasantries of Europe: From the Fourteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries (1998).
  
• C.R. Friedrichs, The Early Modern City, 1450-1750 (1995).
• Henry Kamen, Early Modern European Society (2000), chaps. 4, 6 (ebook).
• David Nicholas, Urban Europe, 1100-1700 (2003).
• Marten Prak (ed.), Early Modern Capitalism: Economic and Social Change in Europe, 1400-1800 (London) (ebook).
• E.A. Wrigley, ‘Urban Growth in Early Modern Europe’, Scottish Economic and Social History 12 (1992) (scanned copy).
  

Further Reading

a) Rural Society

• W. Abel, Agricultural Fluctuations in Europe (1980), esp. part II
• T. Aston & C. Philpen (eds), The Brenner Debate: Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe (1986) (ebook).
  
• P. Blickle, ‘From subsistence to property’, Central European History 25 (1992).
  
• P. Blickle, The Revolution of 1525: The German Peasants' War from a new Perspective (1981).
• M. Bush, ‘Tenant right and the peasantries of Europe under the old regime’, in his Social Orders and Social Classes in Europe since 1500 (1992).
  
• “ (ed.), Serfdom and Slavery (1996), esp. chs 13, 15.
  
• W. Hagen, Ordinary Prussians: Brandenburg Junkers and Villagers, 1500-1840 (2002)
• Tim Harris, The Politics of the Excluded, c. 1500-1850 (2001), esp. ch. 2.
  
• Colin Jones, ‘Vital signs in rural France’ in The Great Nation: France from Louis XIV to Napoleon (2002)
• H. Kamen, ‘The Economic and Social Consequences of the Thirty Years War’, Past and Present (1968)
• P. Kriedte, Peasants, Landlords and Merchant Capitalists 1500-1800 (1983)
• Mark Overton, Agricultural Revolution in England: The Transformation of the Agrarian Economy, 1500-1850 (1996) (ebook).
• T. Robisheaux, ‘Peasant unrest and the moral economy in the German southwest 1560-1620’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte/Archive for Reformation History 78 (1987) (available as print journal in Library)
  
• W. Rösener, Peasants in the Middle Ages (1992)
• A. Rowlands, ‘Conditions of Life for the Masses’, in Cameron (ed.), Early Modern Europe (1999).
  
• T. Ruiz, Spanish Society 1400-1600 (2001)
• T. Scott, ‘Peasant revolts in early modern Germany’, Historical Journal 28 (1985)
• L. Vardi, ‘Imagining the harvest in early modern Europe’, American Historical Review 101 (1996)
• P. Withington, Society in Early Modern England (2010)

b) Urban Society

• W. Beik, Urban Protest in Seventeenth-Century France: The Culture of Retribution (1997)
• P. Benedict, 'Faith, fortune and social structure in 17thC Montpellier', Past & Present 152 (1996)
• P. Benedict (ed.), Cities and Social Change in Early Modern France (1989) (ebook)
• P. Clark & P. Slack (eds), Crisis and Order in English Towns 1500-1700 (1972)
• P. Clark & P. Slack, English Towns in Transition 1500-1700 (1976)
• A. Cowan, ‘Urban Elites in Early Modern Europe: An Endangered Species?’, Historical Research 64 (1991).
  
• “ , Urban Europe, 1500-1700 (1998)
• “ (ed.), Mediterranean Urban Culture, 1400-1700 (2000)
• J. Ellis, ‘A steady state? Urban society in early modern Europe’, Journal of Urban History 24 (1998) SLC
• J. De Vries, European Urbanization, 1500-1800 (1984)
• J. De Vries, ‘Renaissance cities’, Renaissance Quarterly 42 (1989)
• R. Finlay, ‘Debate: Natural Decrease in Early Modern Cities’, Past and Present 92 (1981) (see also Sharlin article below)
  
• “ , Urban Politics in Early Modern Europe (2000) (ebook)
• M. Hunt, The middling sort:commerce, gender, and the family in England, 1680-1780 (1996) (ebook)
  
• Katherine Lynch, Individuals, Families, and Communities in Europe, 1200-1800: The Urban Foundations of Western Society (2003)
• R. Mackenney, The City-State, 1500-1700: Republican Liberty in an Age of Princely Power (1989)
• D. Nicholas, Urban Europe 1100-1700 (2003)
• A. Sharlin, ‘Natural Decrease in Early Modern Cities: A Reconsideration’, Past and Present 79 (1978) (see also Finlay article above).
  
• E.A. Wrigley, ‘Urban Growth in Early Modern Europe’, Scottish Economic and Social History 12 (1992) (scanned copy)

c) Food and Diet

• Albala, Ken. Eating Right in the Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002) (ebook)
  
• " , Food in Early Modern Europe (Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 2003)
• " , The Banquet: Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2007)
• Brears, Peter C. D., Stuart Cookery: Recipes and History (London: English Heritage, 2004)
• " , Tudor Cookery: Recipes and History (London: English Heritage, 2003)
• David Gentilcore, Food and Health in Early Modern Europe: Diet, Medicine and Society, 1450-1800 (2016) (ebook)
• Beat Kümin (ed.), A Cultural History of Food in the Early Modern Age (Oxford, 2012)
• Laudan, Rachel, Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2013) (ebook)
  
• Montanari, Massimo, The Culture of Food (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994)
• Muldrew, Craig, Food, Energy and the Creation of Industriousness: Work and Material Culture in Agrarian England, 1550-1780 (Cambridge, 2011)
• Spang, Rebecca L., The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000)
• Spary, Emma, Eating the Enlightenment: Food and the Sciences in Paris (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012)
• Strong, Roy, Feast: A History of Grand Eating (London: Pimlico, 2003)
• Thirsk, Joan, Food in Early Modern England: Phases, Fads, Fashions 1500-1760 (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2007).
  

Module Forum

Module Homepage

E-Resources

Chronology

External Links:

• Earls Colne, Essex - records relating to the parish of Earls Colne
  

• Virtual Norfolk - documents relating to the history of early modern Norfolk, includes 'Commentary on Urban Society'

• 'Enclosure and Resistance in Oxfordshire: A Tradition of Disorder?' - short essay by S. Hindle
•  Maps of Amsterdam - part of searchable 'Historic cities' database
• Dartford 1500-1800
• 'The old Northgate, Chester' - YouTube video of reconstruction, c. 1640
  
• Historic Food
• Social History Primary Sources (in German)