Power, Profit and Urban Land Landownership in Medieval and Early Modern Northern European Towns - Historical Urban Studies

Land was a crucial resource in pre-industrial Europe, and questions of urban landownership and usage must be considered key issues in medieval and early modern urban history. Recently, there has been an upsurge of research interest in this field in many countries, and this volume brings together a representative collection of studies, most of which have not been published before, into the patterns and significance of urban landownership from early medieval town origins to the 19th century in northern Europe. Twelve experts in the field address issues such as landownership and the origins of towns; the development of an urban land market; economic, social, political and cultural functions of urban land within the wider patterns of landownership; private, public and corporate landownership; towns as landowners; legal aspects of urban landownership and land rent; the laying-out and development of plots; the role of the sovereign and the state and the motives and mentalities of urban landowners and tenants. Methodological questions such as the reconstruction of plots and patterns of landownership, retrospective analysis and comparative studies are also covered.