Search results

Ever since the nineteenth century, historians have seen a close connection between the urban revolts of the later Middle Ages and the 'liberty' urban rebels hoped to gain in ways that recalled the role of liberty as a central idea in modern revolutions. This article analyses what liberty could have meant to later medieval urban rebels in a close-up analysis of revolts in the two most urbanised regions of later medieval Europe, Italy and the Southern Low Countries. It is argued, first, that the slogan 'libertas' often had a particular meaning when it was invoked by rebels, usually in revolts against external rulers. Although their opponents frequently accused rebels of seeking complete independence, rebels often invoked this slogan to ask for the greater autonomy of urban political institutions within, rather than independence from, a larger jurisdictional framework. Second, liberty was not necessarily a central concern in all urban revolts. In the Ciompi revolt of Florence, for instance, demands about the provision of justice were much more important than demands revolving around the notion of liberty. In fact, when city-dwellers rebelled against 'tyrants' they may not have primarily thought of tyranny as the absence of freedom, but as the perceived violation of a legal order. ; Desde el siglo XIX, los historiadores han observado una estrecha conexión entre las revueltas urbanas de la baja Edad Media y la "libertad" que los rebeldes urbanos esperaban conquistar, de una forma que recuerda el papel de la libertad como idea central en las revoluciones modernas. Este artículo analiza lo que la libertad pudo haber significado para los rebeldes urbanos de la baja Edad Media, a través de un análisis detallado de las revueltas en las dos regiones más urbanizadas del periodo, Italia y los Países Bajos del Sur. Se argumenta, en primer lugar, que el eslogan "libertas" a menudo tenía un significado particular cuando era invocado por los rebeldes, generalmente en revueltas contra gobernantes externos. Aunque sus oponentes con frecuencia acusaron a los rebeldes de buscar la independencia completa, los rebeldes a menudo invocaron este eslogan para pedir una mayor autonomía de las instituciones políticas urbanas dentro de un marco jurisdiccional más amplio, en lugar de la independencia de este. En segundo lugar, la libertad no era necesariamente una preocupación central en todas las revueltas urbanas. En la revuelta de Florencia en Ciompi, por ejemplo, las demandas sobre la provisión de justicia eran mucho más importantes que las que giraban en torno a la noción de libertad. De hecho, cuando los habitantes de la ciudad se rebelaban contra los "tiranos", probablemente no estaban pensando en la tiranía como ausencia de libertad, sino que la percibían como la violación de un orden legal.

The processes by which ideas, objects, texts and political thought and experience moved across boundaries in the Middle Ages form the focus of this book, which also seeks to reassess the nature of the boundaries themselves; it thus appropriately reflects a major theme of Dr Malcolm Vale's work, which the essays collected here honour. They suggest ways of breaking down established historiographical paradigms of Europe as a set of distinct polities, achieving a more nuanced picture in which people and objects were constantly moving, and challenging previous conceptions of units and borders. The first section examines the construction of boundaries and units in the later Middle Ages, via topics ranging from linguistic units to social stratifications, and geographically from the Netherlands and Scotland to Gascony and the Iberian peninsula; it reveals how much the relationship between exchange and boundaries was reciprocal. The second section considers the mechanisms by which it took place, from West Africa to Italy and Flanders, and discusses the actual exchange of people, texts, and unusual artefacts. Overall, the essays bear witness to the constant interplay and interconnections throughout medieval Europe and beyond