Category: urban legal history
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Brill has just published the book Debt or Sin? The Moral Roots of European Legal and Economic Thought, edited by Wim Decock and Wouter Druwé. The volume includes a contribution by dr. Maurits den Hollander titled ‘Debt and Insolvency in Early Modern Amsterdam: Religious Influences on the Desolate Boedelskamer?’. In the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, a…
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Brill has just published “𝐋𝐚𝐰 𝐚𝐬 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞? 𝐃𝐞𝐛𝐭 𝐀𝐝𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐒𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐦𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐝𝐚𝐦 𝐄𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐦𝐲 (𝐒𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐲)” by dr. Maurits den Hollander as part of the new volume ‘Amsterdam: Sovereignty and Legal Agency of a 17th-Century Commercial City’, edited by Dave De ruysscher and Janne E. Nijman. The contribution examines insolvency practices in seventeenth-century Amsterdam as…
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From 2-5 September 2026, our team joined the 17th Conference of the European Association for Urban History. This edition was organised in the beautiful city of Barcelona, with as main theme “City Networks of Europe and Beyond”. This topic closely connects to the idea of ‘Multilevel Governance in Premodern Cities of Commerce’ that we develop…
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Thursday 11 June 2026, Marco in ‘t Veld and Wenneke Bos held a lecture for the Historische Vereniging Schoonhoven about medieval toll- and staple rights. In this presentation they argued that the medieval staple rights of Dordrecht (established in 1299) were a next step on the escalation latter of toll enforcement. As toll collectors were…
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In June 2026, Brepols published a monograph by dr. Christian Manger as part of the series Studies in European Urban History. Councils, Conflicts, Correspondence. Urban Diplomacy in Reval (Tallinn) and Lübeck (c. 1470–1570) examines how the magistrates of the Hanseatic towns Lübeck and Reval managed conflicts which exceeded the formal limits of their own jurisdiction…
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We are excited to announce that a new article by dr. Christian Manger and dr. Maurits den Hollander has just appeared in firstview: “The Value of Work: Petitions and Public Servants in Zwolle, c.1550–1700.” In this article we examine a diverse group of early modern urban public workers – from health and security to education…
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In the latest issue of BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review, an article by dr. Christian Manger and dr. Maurits den Hollander titled ‘Advisers or Decision-Makers? The Agency of Dutch Urban Administrative Officials, c. 1500-1700’ appeared. It analyses the unique position of secretaries and pensionaries in thegovernments of cities in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century NorthernNetherlands.…
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🌐 As part of our research project on multilevel governance in medieval and early modern commercial cities, we are expanding our website with a series of short vignettes on the legal histories of key trading hubs. In each of these introductions we explore the organisation of urban governance in relation to the economy of the…
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Dr. Marco in ‘t Veld (Tilburg University), dr. Bart Holterman (Forschungsstelle für die Geschichte der Hanse und des Ostseeraums), and dr. Maurits den Hollander (Tilburg University) warmly invite all academics interested in medieval river trade in an urban context to submit their paper proposals for our main session (nr. 3) at the EAUH conference in…
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🌐 As part of our research project on multilevel governance in medieval and early modern commercial cities, we are expanding our website with a series of short vignettes on the legal histories of key trading hubs. In each of these introductions we explore the organisation of urban governance in relation to the economy of the…