During the late Middle Ages and the early modern period, polycentric political structures based on fragmented forms of sovereignty, the importance of multinuclear urban systems and respect for constitutional, legal and cultural diversity were predominant in the most densely populated European regions, and even within consolidated monarchical systems, such as the Spanish Monarchy. The strong jurisdictional component of these power structures – the result of the existence of numerous corporations, communities, guilds, estates and militias capable of political action and exclusive rights – explains the need to challenge monolithic and homogeneous visions of the state. In this chapter, this vision is replaced by an urban, bottom-up perspective that follows the experience of early modern legal and political theorists as well as citizens. Cities were the primary stage for political action, where assemblies, councils and guilds competed with one another or joined forces to form common spaces of negotiation with sovereigns or other institutions.

Gender is fundamental to how towns shaped themselves. Women were often, not always, the majority, which had implications for how they inserted themselves in and contributed to shaping the identity of towns. Similarly, where men predominated, their experience and the character of the town could vary appreciably. Gender tensions, over work and political rights, for example, influenced formal and informal urban economies and polity. Economic, political and social transitions through networks, global exchanges, imperial and colonial exploits had important implications for both the character of the urban and the perceptions of gender. Simultaneously, gender shaped urban culture. Historians interrogating femininity and masculinity have expanded our understanding of gender dynamics in the urban world, and furthermore recognised the kaleidoscope of sexual identities in society. Gender relations vary over space and time and are not the same from one city to another. Differences of race and ethnicity further complicate the picture. This chapter examines shifts in gender from a bourgeois ideal to a contemporary vision articulated in a radically changed urban world, where the vote is nominally universal, where equal pay and equal opportunity are mantras for a ‘modern’ democratic city. Transitions were not straightforward and there was no continuous road to modernity.

The cities of Byzantine and Ottoman Europe developed under distinct political and cultural influences, but both empires shared certain commonalities in their urban development. The city of Constantinople/Istanbul, as the capital of both the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, served as a hub for the political, economic, cultural, and scientific power of the two empires. At the same time, a number of fundamental differences can be identified when comparing the cities of Byzantine and Ottoman Europe. The late Byzantine provincial cities were small and often confined to the fortified areas, serving primarily a defensive purpose. In contrast, the Ottoman cities developed during a time of political stability and significant population growth. Neither Byzantine nor Ottoman cities enjoyed the same level of independence and development as their Western counterparts. Nevertheless, the role of centralisation should not be overstated when considering the development of Byzantine and Ottoman cities.

Volume I offers a broad perspective on urban culture in the ancient European world. It begins with chronological overviews which paint in broad brushstrokes a picture that serves as a frame for the thematic chapters in the rest of the volume. Positioning ancient Europe within its wider context, it touches on Asia and Africa as regions that informed and were later influenced by urban development in Europe, with particular emphasis on the Mediterranean basin. Topics range from formal characteristics (including public space), water provision, waste disposal, urban maintenance, spaces for the dead, and border spaces; to ways of thinking about, visualising, and remembering cities in antiquity; to conflict within and between cities, economics, mobility and globalisation, intersectional urban experiences, slavery, political participation, and religion.

This chapter surveys the evolution of urbanisation in Western Europe during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The discussion follows the urban geography of the region, how and why it changed, and the relationship to industrialisation, capitalist production, market and transport networks. It considers the ways in which cities and towns along the Channel coast and North Sea, the coast of the Atlantic, and along the Mediterranean both substantiate and exhaust the vision of ‘Western Europe’ and evidence the richness of European patterns of urban life. Emphasis is on the density of the urban network as well as the multiplicity and distinctiveness of urban society in Western Europe as it evolved over time. Attention is given to the bourgeois and working-class experience, the rise of urban reform and planning, and the dissemination of Western European urban patterns as a model of modernity. The chapter recounts the fate of cities in the first and second world wars. It gives full attention to the late twentieth century and how Western European urban life changed under the influence of modernisation schemes, post-industrial society and globalisation.

Italian cities were at the forefront of cultural change during the period 1400-1700, with innovations in architecture and urban design being adopted widely across the rest of the continent. During the early modern period, many Italian cities took on key elements of the built appearance that they retain to this day. Monumental form and the application of increasingly ordered urban planning regulations were achieved thanks also to well-organised administrations that levied taxes that could in part subsidise urban improvements. The wealth of urban elites likewise contributed to this process through widespread participation in the construction of residential palaces and new religious buildings. Cities, and the concentrations of people and wealth that assembled there, were at the very heart of the cultural renewal that is associated with the period; literary, artistic and intellectual culture was defined by its urban nature, whether this was within a courtly or civic setting.

Volume II charts European urbanism between 700 and 1850, the millennium during which Europe became the world’s most urbanised region. Featuring thirty-six chapters from leading scholars working on all the major linguistic areas of Europe, the volume offers a state-of-the-art survey that explores and explains this transformation, how similar or different such processes were across Europe, and how far it is possible to discern traits that characterise European urbanism in this period. The first half of the volume offers overviews on the urban history of Mediterranean Europe, Atlantic and North Sea Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and European urbanisms around the world. The second half explores major themes, from the conceptualisation of cities and their material fabric to continuities and changes in the social, political, economic, religious and cultural histories of cities and towns.

Volume II charts European urbanism between 700 and 1850, the millennium during which Europe became the world’s most urbanised region. Featuring thirty-six chapters from leading scholars working on all the major linguistic areas of Europe, the volume offers a state-of-the-art survey that explores and explains this transformation, how similar or different such processes were across Europe, and how far it is possible to discern traits that characterise European urbanism in this period. The first half of the volume offers overviews on the urban history of Mediterranean Europe, Atlantic and North Sea Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and European urbanisms around the world. The second half explores major themes, from the conceptualisation of cities and their material fabric to continuities and changes in the social, political, economic, religious and cultural histories of cities and towns.

The urban development of Britain and Ireland is not usually considered within a single frame of reference, a fact that reflects their conflicted histories. This chapter attempts to provide a comparative account to differences not only between Britain and what became the independent Republic of Ireland in 1921 but also between the ‘four nations’ of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The historical narrative is organised around four phases: 1850–1910, seen as witnessing the consolidation of the modern city in terms of demography and urban form; 1910–70 marked by the emergence of the twin forces of town planning and urban modernism; the 1970s and 1980s viewed as a period of urban crisis; and urban renaissance since 1990 in national and regional capitals, though not in other urban places such as seaside towns and de-industrialising urban regions. This chronological narrative is crosscut by the experience of race, colonialism and violence, which marked British urbanism not only overseas but also at home and on the island of Ireland. The result is an urban history that views urbanism in Britain and Ireland relationally: in connection to the simultaneous urbanisation of continental Europe and North America and to the matrix of colonial and post-colonial relations.

Analysing Northern and Mediterranean Europe together, this chapter challenges old and new grand narratives. There was urban growth during the sixth and seventh centuries in certain regions of northern and Mediterranean Europe, contrary to old notions of total urban decline linked to collapse paradigms of the western Roman Empire, including ideas about social collapse. There had been contractions, redefinitions of urban space and its uses, but in many places, those changes had already largely occurred in the later third and fourth centuries. This chapter traces the force of collaborative and competitive actions in the process of redefining urban spaces and spurring growth. Different social groups acted as drivers of the growth of cities and the creation of new forms of town between the sixth and twelfth centuries. The story of the Early Medieval city is one of diversity.

Volume I offers a broad perspective on urban culture in the ancient European world. It begins with chronological overviews which paint in broad brushstrokes a picture that serves as a frame for the thematic chapters in the rest of the volume. Positioning ancient Europe within its wider context, it touches on Asia and Africa as regions that informed and were later influenced by urban development in Europe, with particular emphasis on the Mediterranean basin. Topics range from formal characteristics (including public space), water provision, waste disposal, urban maintenance, spaces for the dead, and border spaces; to ways of thinking about, visualising, and remembering cities in antiquity; to conflict within and between cities, economics, mobility and globalisation, intersectional urban experiences, slavery, political participation, and religion.

The chapter discusses approaches and findings in the field of urban governance, which emerged in urban history research from the 1990s onwards. The concept is based on the observation that traditional historiography of local administrations systematically underestimated or simplified the interrelation and inferences between the management of local public affairs, the central state and civil society. Studies in this field analyse such interferences and interactions between central and local government, civic associations, and popular culture, as well as political rituals and symbolic practices. The chapter builds on the pioneering work of Morris and Trainor (2000) and Gunn and Hulme (2020), who presented two complementary and overlapping approaches with a more structure-oriented and primarily cultural-historical perspective. The chapter first reflects on the major periods and shifts in urban governance in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and then examines the relations between central states and local governments. Key processes such as the rise of the urban bourgeoisie and the modern networked city in the late nineteenth century, forms of governance in twentieth-century suburban areas, and urban governance in authoritarian states, including socialist cities, are discussed. Special attention is given to variations of urban governance in different European regions.