Woven into the urban fabric : cloth manufacture and economic development in the Flemish West-Quarter (1300-1600) / Jim van der Meulen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Meulen, Jim van der, author.

Contributor:

Rosengarten Family Fund.

Series:

Studies in European urban history (1100-1800) ; 54.

Studies in European Urban History (1100-1800), 1780-3241 ; volume 54

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Textile industry--Belgium--History--16th century.

Textile industry.

Textile industry--Belgium--History--15th century.

Textile industry--Belgium--History--14th century.

Flanders--Commerce--History.

Flanders.

Physical Description:

251 pages : illustrations, maps ; 27 cm.

Place of Publication:

Turnhout, Belgium : Brepols Publishers, [2021]

Summary:

Woven into the urban fabric' is a regional study about economic development in the late medieval Low Countries that offers novel insights and conclusions pertinent to all economic historians of pre-industrial Europe through its innovative combination of widely diverse source materials and state-of-the-art analytical frameworks. This regional study focuses on the socio-economic development of the so-called West-Quarter of the county of Flanders during the period 1300-1600. Through the expansion of potent textile industries in the countryside from the fourteenth century onwards, this region gradually attained distinctly urban characteristics in terms of production scale, specialisation, product quality, and the aim for external markets. By the middle of the sixteenth century the West-Quarter had even become one of Flanders's main production regions of woolen cloth. This book assesses how and why this economic expansion took place, why it happened at that particular moment, and why in this region. The broader aims of the research are twofold: first, to offer a contribution to the debate on Europe's transition from a feudal to a capitalist or market economy by looking at the influence of specific social structures and institutional frameworks on the economic development of pre-industrial societies. Secondly, this book contributes to the debate about the divide between town and countryside in pre-industrial Europe, combining the outlooks and methods of both urban and rural historians in order to qualify this supposed dichotomy.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: ch. 1 The ties between agriculture and industry

ch. 2 Entrepreneurship and industrial organization

ch. 3 The commercial aspect

ch. 4 Town and countryside in the Flemish West-Quarter

ch. 5 Collective action and industrial expansion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten Family Fund.

ISBN:

9782503594552

2503594557

OCLC:

1265344964