The Communal Age in Western Europe, c.1100-1800: Towns, Villages and Parishes in Pre-Modern Society (Studies in European History)

The Communal Age in Western Europe, c. 1100-1800 offers a fresh interpretation of the significance of towns, villages and parishes in the medieval and early modern period. Drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary sources from numerous regions, Beat Kümin:

• explains how local communities empowered common people through collective agency and a degree of local autonomy
• demonstrates how communal units impacted on key historical developments, from the Reformation to state formation
• provides case studies of the Italian city, the English parish and the village in the Holy Roman Empire
• surveys communal origins, constitutions and cultural representations, as well as contested issues such as gender roles and inner tensions
• evaluates related historiographical debates on communalism and republicanism.


Informed by a genuinely comparative and integrated approach, this original volume offers an excellent introduction to European history 'from below', and to the fundamental building blocks of European society.