The Legal History of Cities
Kings, princes, or states have often been the primary focus of legal historians. In late medieval and early modern Europe, however, seminal developments in the creation and use of law and legal institutions took place at the urban level. Join us to explore and write an urban legal history! On this website you will find tools and leads to study the legal history of cities, as well as get to know our research.
Henri Pirenne
Medieval Cities (1925)
< ‘Burghers [produced] a system of regulation so marvellously adapted to its purpose that it may be considered a masterpiece of its kind. The city economy was worthy of the Gothic architecture with which it was contemporary. It created with complete thoroughness a social legislation more complete than that of any other period in history […]. All this would have been impossible if the civic spirit of the burghers had not been equal to the tasks that were laid upon them. The love of gain was allied, in [urban merchants], with local patriotism.’ >
