MS 5141. Demography, Trade, Urbanisation in Medieval Central
Europe
(Tuesday 13.40 - 15.20, Seminar, 2 credits)
Instructors: Balázs Nagy (Room FT 401) Tel. 327-3052 and Ian Blanchard (Room FT 502) Tel 327-3048
E-mail: nagybal@ceu.hu;ian.blanchard2@ukonline. co.uk
Office Hours: Before and after class and by appointment
The aim of this course is to give an introduction into the economic transformations of Central Europe, (Germany, Bohemia, Poland and Hungary) in the period of early and high Middle Ages. It will give an overview of the main determinants of the economic/commercial activities of the period, eg. demographic changes, the significance of mining and minting in medieval economies, social and technical factors of transportation and the interactions of urbanization and commercial activity. Besides these the course will concentrate on individual commercial zones which were in close contact with Central Europe.
Weekly Outline
Date -------------------Instructor------ Topic
9 January 07.---------Blanchard. -----The Current
Modelling of the Middle Ages: A Central and South-Eastern European Anomoly?
16 January 07.------- Blanchard.------ Economic
Development Central Europe (Poland, Bohemia and Hungary)
23 January 07.------- Blanchard-------- International
Monetary and Commercial Systems
30 January 07.------- Blanchard.-------- Plague
and Change in the 'Real' Economy
06 February 07------- Blanchard-------- Medieval
Economic Growth in Historical Perspective. A
Case Study of Britain in the Middle Ages and After
13 February 07.------- Nagy.------------ Demography,
Tendencies in Population History
20 February 07.------- Nagy.------------ Town
and Commerce
27 February 07.------- Nagy------------ Communications
and Transport
6 March 07.------------ Nagy------------ Mining
and Trade of Precious Metals
13 March 07. -----------Nagy------------ Trade
of East Central Europe and the Influence of the South German Towns
20 March 07.----------- Nagy-------------The
Crisis of the 14th Century
27 March 07.------------ Nagy------------Summing up
Requirements:
Depending on the number of participants, each student will be invited to choose one or two topics and to give an oral presentation and to prepare a written essay on the state of research and the most relevant questions on their selected topics upon consultations with one of the instructors. A strong, commented bibliography is also required. Good reading knowledge of Latin and German (including the ability of reading some edited German sources in the original language) will come useful.
for MA and PhD students
Optional
Bibliography
Blanchard, Ian, The Middle Ages: A Concept too Many: Inaugural Lecture (Edinburgh, 1996)
Blanchard, Ian, Cossacks and Tartars: Nomadic Societies of the Asiatic and Trans-Pontine Steppe. A CD of this book, which is currently in press will be made available to all students. For a brief article on the medieval aspects of the subject see by the same author "Cultural and Economic Activities in the Nomadic Societies of the Trans-Pontine Steppe", Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU, XI (2005), pp 191-206 also available at http://www.ianblanchard.com/CEU/IMC_Leeds_2004.html Paper C
Blanchard, Ian,
Medieval Crafts, Guilds and Industrial Development: Central-Western European
Comparison (Hungarian translation available
there)
Blanchard, I. "The Continental Cattle Trades, 1400-1600." The Economic History Review, 2d ser., 39 (1986), 427-460.
Bautier, R. H., "The fairs of Champagne" in Rondo Cameron (ed.), Essays in French economic History (Homewood, 1970), pp. 42-63
Carus-Wilson, E. M., "The Woollen Industry" in M. M. Postan and E. E. Rich, eds. Cambridge Economic History of Europe, Vol. II, Trade and Industry in the Middle Ages, 2nd rev.edition (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 614-90
Dollinger, P., The German Hansa (Stanford, 1970)
Dygo, M., "Was there an economic crisis in late medieval Poland?" Vierteljahrschrift fur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 1990, pp. 305-322
Ennen, E., The Medieval Town (Amsterdam: North-Holland Pub. Co. 1979)
Fügedi, Erik. "The Demographic
Landscape of East-Central Europe," East-Central Europe in Transition.
From the Fourteenth to the Seventeenth Century. (Ed. Antoni Maczak,
Henryk Samsonowicz, Peter Burke), 47-58. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1985.
Gieysztor, Aleksander. "Trade and Industry
in Eastern Europe before 1200." Cambridge Economic History of
Europe. Vol. II. Trade and Industry in the Middle Ages, 474-502.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Le Goff, J., Your money or your life: economy and religion in the Middle Ages (New York: MIT Press, Zone Books, 1988)
Malowist, Marian, "The Trade of Eastern Europe in the Later Middle Ages." Cambridge Economic History of Europe. Vol. II. Trade and industry in the Middle Ages, 525-563. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Ohler, N., The Medieval Traveller (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1989)
Lopez, R., "The Trade of Medieval Europe: The South"Cambridge Economic History of Europe. Vol. II. Trade and industry in the Middle Ages, 379-401. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Russell, J.C., Late ancient and medieval population (Philadelphia, 1958)
Spufford, Peter,Money and its Use in Medieval Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Spufford, Peter, Power and Profit: The
Merchant in Medieval Europe (London: Thames and Hudson, 2003)
Stromer, Wolfgang von,"Nuremberg in the International Economics of the Middle Ages", Business Historical Review, vol., XLIV, Nr 2 (summer 1970), 210-224
Stromer, Wolfgang von, "Commercial policy and economic conjuncture in Nuremberg at the close of the Middle Ages: A model of economic policy," The Journal of European Economic History, 1 (1981), 119-129
Wyrozumski, J., "Was Poland affected
by the late-medieval crisis of feudalism?" Acta Poloniae Historica,
78 (1998), 5-17
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