News Release

Tales of the cities, from the UK's largest academic gathering

Peer-Reviewed Publication

University of Leeds

‘I Love Paris’. ‘New York, New York’. ‘A Foggy Day in London Town’. Cities have long been places of hope and imagination in popular culture.

Yet our love affair with the world’s great cities did not begin with the Broadway musical. It started long before the Roman Empire, and from the 7th Century, at the start of the Middle Ages, it has been gathering new strength.

In fact, so important is the concept of the city – both real and imagined – in medieval life that it is the key theme at this year’s International Medieval Congress at the University of Leeds. Of the 1121 papers to be presented at the UK’s largest academic conference, to be held from 9 to 12 July, more than 500 deal with various aspects of urban living in Europe and beyond.

“For more than 10,000 years cities have been among the most important institutions underpinning order and continuity in human affairs. In Europe, during the Middle Ages, towns and cities became more numerous and more significant than ever before, picking up from a low ebb in urban life at the beginning of the period,” says Professor Derek Keene of the Institute for Historical Research at the University of London, one of the organisers of the Congress.

“Despite the fact that medieval cities were a great deal more uncomfortable to live in than modern cities are, they were seen as places of opportunity where people aspired to a better life for themselves and their families.”

“Medieval cities provided ideological links with the past, helped to establish new systems of social and political order, served as sites of economic development and cultural exchange, and for many had a cosmological significance. Their role in shaping the modern world has been immense, and still continues.”

Not all the great medieval cities have fared equally well, as the Congress will demonstrate. While Milan, London and Paris are still economic, political and cultural powerhouses, others like Cordoba in Spain, Riga in Latvia and Canterbury in England are now better known as interesting stops on a tourist’s itinerary.

“Over the past 1,000 years we have seen the fortunes of once great cities wax and wane,” says Prof Keene. “For example, Baghdad in the 8th and 9th centuries was one of the richest and most cultivated cities in the world, with hospitals, libraries and mosques. Meanwhile London was no more than a small trading settlement on the European periphery, and Rome was but a shadow of its former self.”

Prof Keene believes that an understanding of medieval cities can make an important contribution to the management and future prospects of modern cities. “Cities often do best by being left to develop organically, with growth arising, in a self-organising fashion, from the inhabitants’ initiative, experience and needs. Many of the aspects of urban life that we value most today have arisen in this way and can be traced back to the Middle Ages. Higher-level intervention can be a valuable source of order and investment, but if handled in the wrong way can be stultifying and socially divisive. In the modern world we might contrast, in this respect, cities such as New York, London or Naples, with Paris, Washington or St Petersburg.”

This year’s IMC coincides with the 800th anniversary of the foundation of the borough of Leeds. “The Middle Ages was a period of small-scale urbanisation, with small market towns springing up across Europe, Asia and elsewhere. This was one of its most significant contributions to the modern urban network. Some, like Leeds with its highly developed cloth market, would become internationally important cities during the Victorian era,” says Prof Keene.

2007 also marks the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the Leeds Centre for Medieval Studies and the International Medieval Bibliography, both now part of the Institute for Medieval Studies, which hosts the IMC each year.

Axel Muller, director of the IMC, comments: “The field of medieval studies, which is characterised by a wide variety of approaches, often of an interdisciplinary nature, is thriving around the globe. The preoccupations of the modern world are the same as those that troubled our medieval ancestors: from the serious – dealing with the clash of cultures and religions – to the superficial – coping with an unconventional appearance.

“Far from picking over old bones or leafing through dusty manuscripts, medieval studies has become synonymous with innovation, utilising cutting-edge technology to unearth the past. For example, we have used Google Earth, GIS, carbon dating, DNA testing and other tools to digitally visualise medieval culture and establish online databases. These methods were not available even a decade ago.”

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