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Jim van der Meulen, Woven into the Urban Fabric. Cloth Manufacture and Economic Development in the Flemish West-Quarter (1300–1600), Turnhout (Brepols) 2021, 250 p., 16 b/w fig., 13 b/w tabl. (Studies in European Urban History [1100–1800], 54), ISBN 978-2-503-59455-2, EUR 84,00., Francia-Recensio, 2023/2

"In the late Middle Ages, Central Europe was considered an important transit region for long-distance trade in goods imported over the Baltic and Black Seas, as well as from the urbanized areas of Flanders and Eastern Europe. At the same time, Central Europe displayed remarkable diversity in terms of language and ethnicity, which impacted intermediary trade and trade practices as a whole. A number of very significant trade routes crisscrossed central Europe and facilitated both north-south and east-west traffic through the area. A digital survey and detailed mapping of these premodern road connections are providing new insights and are allowing quantitative analyses of trade and traffic. Network analysis lends itself as a basis for further research. If one understands roads and places as a physical network, there are various elements that merit consideration, including, for example, the locations and dates of fairs, customs posts, staples, and ports, all of which can be viewed as nodes. The highways and regional routes are accordingly to be addressed as edges. Both can be weighted by linking them with statistical sources. Customs registers, for example, provide information about transport frequency and the value of transported goods. This article presents various existing applications of digital cartography, especially the Viabundus map of premodern transport. They are intended to encourage additional investigations for central Europe. Such studies would allow for a more thorough contextualization of trading cities like Cracow in the supra-regional transport network and thereby foster a better understanding of related economic developments., Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, Bd. 70 Nr. 3 (2021): Embracing Digital Methods: Towards a New History of Space in Central and Eastern Europe

Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, Bd. 70 Nr. 3 (2021): Embracing Digital Methods: Towards a New History of Space in Central and Eastern Europe

A number of studies have looked into local annuity markets, mainly focusing on local conditions. This article explores capital networks for urban debt by analyzing the external relations of the Brunswick annuity market in the 15th and 16th centuries. Our study is based on an examination of data on foreign buyers of Brunswick (Braunschweig) annuities from the unpublished ‘Weddeschatbücher’ that registered sales of redeemable annuities. The analysis takes into account different groups of buyers and reveals spatial patterns corresponding with those of commodity trade and political cooperation within and beyond the region. A closer look at the chronology of sales indicates that political crises were the main cause of urban debt and foreign investment. In particular, the Reformation led to structural changes to the supply of foreign capital. Although interest rates provided economic incentives for foreign buyers, political support was the predominant reason for both individuals and other communes to supply capital in times of need.

Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung, Bd. 64 Nr. 3 (2015): Transpolonität? Gesellschaftliche Eliten in den polnischen Gebieten um 1900 jenseits der Nationalgeschichte(n)