- Emeritus professor in medieval history, Leiden Universityedit
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The migration to cities The renowned urban historian Peter Clark provides an answer to the question at the heart of this volume in the introduction to his current synthesis. Urban communities, he writes, are characterized by chances: more... more
The migration to cities The renowned urban historian Peter Clark provides an answer to the question at the heart of this volume in the introduction to his current synthesis. Urban communities, he writes, are characterized by chances: more employment opportunities, the hope of greater social mobility, more freedom of thought and actions. But also by risks, including high mortality rates, greater economic and political instability and the danger of poverty.1 During the sixteenth century that he describes, large fluctuations occurred in the urban population. From the eleventh century, urbanization increased steadily and radically changed the character of European societies. There was a fundamental difference with the city foundations of Roman times which, in the colonies at least, derived from the urban character of Mediterranean cultures. This was partly the reason why they contracted and disappeared during the disintegration of the Empire. In another recent synthesis work about Europ...
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Universities emerged in the twelfth and thirteenth century as an entirely new type of educational institution, different from practices known in antiquity and in the Islamic world. The sharp rise of the cities and the commercial links... more
Universities emerged in the twelfth and thirteenth century as an entirely new type of educational institution, different from practices known in antiquity and in the Islamic world. The sharp rise of the cities and the commercial links between mainly Italian harbors and the Near East led to a transfer of knowledge that was instrumental in the creation of medical schools in Salerno and private law schools in Bologna. Fusion into universities was stimulated by papal protection derived from the notion of monastic immunity. Creative thinking and empirical research, especially in surgery, were disseminated throughout Europe thanks to the general use of Latin. Elementary training in grammar, rhetoric and logic was functional for the management of increasingly complex societies. Similarly, specialized knowledge in medicine and law offered responses to societal needs, although the theoretical or scholastic approach of learning limited its practical value. From the later fourteenth century, h...
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Over the last decades, new forms of evaluation and the intensity of their application have gradually taken such proportions that the whole character of the scholarly world is now infected by a kind of scientometric mania. Modern... more
Over the last decades, new forms of evaluation and the intensity of their application have gradually taken such proportions that the whole character of the scholarly world is now infected by a kind of scientometric mania. Modern information technologies, the strong expansion in the number of researchers and their number of publications have generated new requirements for the management of evaluations and new tools to accomplish it [1]. Moreover, easier transportation facilities have considerably increased scholars’ mobility on a global scale, which has accelerated and intensified their contacts. The budgets involved in the increasingly expensive material and personnel of laboratories have required closer scrutiny of the results of the huge investments, especially where most of them were made with public money, as prevails in Europe. This is indeed demonstrated by Nicola Gulley, who in Chapter 8 quotes an average annual growth of 3% in researchers and articles since the late 1940s in...
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8 ASUBTITLE: AIRLINE MANAGEMENT MUST UNDERSTAND AND MANIPULATE WASHINGTON AEROPOLITICS OR HIRE SOMEONE WHO DOES AND CAN.
Research Interests: Sociology and Psychology
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The process of European integration, the complexity of the problems involved and even the resistance it raises, astonishes observers in other parts of the world, especially in large states that have a long history of centralized... more
The process of European integration, the complexity of the problems involved and even the resistance it raises, astonishes observers in other parts of the world, especially in large states that have a long history of centralized government behind them. Is there really so little unity in Europe? If so, how can this be explained? Has European diversity generated only problems or has it, in fact, created new and unique opportunities? Is there a chance that growing concerns at EU-level about the cultural dimensions of European citizenship could, in fact, consolidate a sense of community? And, finally, how can historians contribute to the creation of a common European identity, if this is so weakly developed?
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... Esas asambleas, llamadas parlamentos en Näpoles, Sicilia y Cer-dena, cortes en los reinos espanoles, Ständetage en los territorios alemanes, esta-dos ... Cuando fue depuesto del trono en 1523, busco en los Paises Ba-jos la ayuda de su... more
... Esas asambleas, llamadas parlamentos en Näpoles, Sicilia y Cer-dena, cortes en los reinos espanoles, Ständetage en los territorios alemanes, esta-dos ... Cuando fue depuesto del trono en 1523, busco en los Paises Ba-jos la ayuda de su cunado para su enfrentamiento con ...
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We have considered the evolution of the relations between cities and states as the product of changing relative power positions. For the towns, these mainly consisted of their population figure, their economic and financial prosperity,... more
We have considered the evolution of the relations between cities and states as the product of changing relative power positions. For the towns, these mainly consisted of their population figure, their economic and financial prosperity, their communication facilities, their prerogatives in administrative, economic, fiscal, and judicial matters, and their military force. For the monarchies, the continuity and skills of the
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Cities, and especially capital cities, have always offered a stage for political ceremonies, festivals, processions, triumphs and struggles. The built mass in the centre, the axial streets and the accesses of capital cities consisting for... more
Cities, and especially capital cities, have always offered a stage for political ceremonies, festivals, processions, triumphs and struggles. The built mass in the centre, the axial streets and the accesses of capital cities consisting for a considerable part of public buildings and open spaces which have practical and symbolic functions for the state. By their shape, location and decoration, the buildings express the vision of political power as the rulers wanted it to be disseminated. This paper focuses on the changes introduced in existing cityscapes by rulers representing new ideologies, especially in Istanbul, Moscow and Berlin.
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Research Interests: Art and Bert Bakker
Starting from Tönnies’ classic dichotomy community/society, this paper compares the emergence of very large capital cities in the world’s earliest urbanised areas in South Asia, China, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, to the appearance of smaller... more
Starting from Tönnies’ classic dichotomy community/society, this paper compares the emergence of very large capital cities in the world’s earliest urbanised areas in South Asia, China, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, to the appearance of smaller cities in Europe later on. Whereas the former were built on political and military power, the latter, by contrast, developed rather in confrontation with it and increasingly independent from it. In the most urbanised regions, North-central Italy and the Low Countries, the largest cities were the wealthiest, the most socially differentiated, conflictual, and competitive. In this environment, creativity flourished in all areas. The comparison with imperial China shows that free economic and cultural exchanges were an additional condition fostering creativity and its application. Cultural innovation is spread by adoption and adaptation of ideas and products developed elsewhere, and the liberty to market them to ambitious buyers belonging to various cla...
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The increasing predominance of English as the international language, also in the humanities, has the disadvantage that other languages are losing their outreach, also seen in scholarly fields in w...
In contrast to Venice and the Swiss Confederation, the Dutch Republic has generally been seen as a novelty, inspired by renaissance ideology and protestant political thought. Close examination of t...