City, Citizen, Citizenship, 400–1500. A Comparative Approach

The VICI research project Citizenship Discourses in the Early Middle Ages has a new book published by Palgrave Macmillan, entitled: City, Citizen, Citizenship, 400-1500. A Comparative Approach. It is an interdisciplinary study of medieval thinking about the city in text, image, and material culture.

Medieval perceptions

The volume is about medieval perceptions and their articulation in text, image and material form. The principal focus is not on cities or citizenship per se, but on those who used such concepts, wrote about them, and visualised and depicted them. 

The book explores why the city remained significant beyond urban areas, such as the periphery, desert, and monastery. It examines medieval views on the ideal city and civic community, which could include criticism of earthly cities and their institutional trappings. It challenges scholarly norms and redefines citizenship beyond politics or legal status.

Full open access

This book adopts a long-term, interdisciplinary, and cross-cultural perspective, bringing together contributions on the Early, High, and Later Middle Ages, covering both the medieval East and West, and representing a wide variety of disciplinary angles and sources. 

Edited by project members Els Rose, Robert Flierman and Merel de Bruin-van de Beek, the book contains chapters by Utrecht medievalists from the departments of Celtic and Classical Languages and Culture, French Language and Culture, and History, in addition to international contributions. The book has been published in full open access.