Cities of Strangers: Making Lives in Medieval Europe - Book Review

https://www.amazon.in/Cities-Strangers-Making-Medieval-Lectures/dp/1108740537

Cities of Strangers illuminates life in European towns and cities as it was for the settled, and the 'strangers' or newcomers who joined them between 1000 and 1500. Some city-states enjoyed considerable autonomy which enabled them to legislate how newcomers could settle down and become citizens in support of a common good. Such communities invited bankers, merchants, doctors, notaries, and judges to settle down and help bring about good urban living. Immigration was also shaped by dynastic rulers, who often invited groups from afar to settle down and help their cities flourish.
There was a great deal of difference between cities-language, religion, occupation-in shared spaces, regulated by law. But when the plague began to occur regularly in European cities around 1350, this benign cycle began to break down. High mortality rates eventually led to demographic crises and, as a result, less tolerant and more authoritarian attitudes emerged, resulting in violent expulsions of even long-established groups.
Tracing the development of urban institutions and using a wide range of sources from across Europe, Miri Rubin recreates a complex picture of urban life for settled and migrant communities over the course of five centuries and provides an innovative viewpoint with insights into Europe's past.
Examining how 'foreigners'-settling newcomers as well as settled ethnic and religious minorities-were treated in urban communities between 1000 and 1500, Cities of Strangers is exploring pathways to citizenship and arrangements for those who are unlikely to become citizens during a period of urban growth and its aftermath in medieval Europe.
'Miri Rubin takes us deeply into the practices of inclusion and exclusion in medieval cities across Europe, in Cities of Strangers. Introducing us into the variety of newcomers who have sustained urban life, she also shows us how the taint of strangeness has marked long-domiciled groups of Jews and even native-born women. Her compelling narrative reminds us how needy the migrants are at our gates and how universal our quest to belong is.