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EAUH Conference 2006

Session abstracts/Specialist Sessions

1. Inter-city exchanges: Networks of inter-city exchanges

Period: Modern

Cities do not live in isolation. While some cities have valued enclosure rather than openness, cities have always practiced numerous exchanges. Nonetheless, historians —of modern history at any rate— have rarely examined these exchanges, which undoubtedly contributed to numerous innovations not only in technical areas but also in the establishment of networks of solidarity and aide or management methods.

Cities exchanged both information and know-how in order to benefit from the results of experiments carried out elsewhere or to avoid committing errors that had led to failure. Such exchanges could be either spontaneous or the decision of municipal governments. Cities that wished to install a municipal water supply system would send engineers or, at times, elected officials for a research trip to cities already equipped with such systems; those cities interested in revamping their urban management techniques would send emissaries to study other modes of functioning between the local and central power. These exchanges were often informal (for example, a colleague’s spontaneous visit during a trip, the serendipitous encounters between elected officials and technicians). But they could also be more formal with an intention to prolong them, giving rise to the emergence of national or international organizations whose official goal was precisely the exchange of experience. An example of such an effort to establish more permanent exchanges was the creation of l’Union internationale des villes on the eve of World War I ; at other moments and on a different scale, inter-urban fraternities (hermandades) existed on the Iberian peninsula and in the Rhineland, the décapole has organized such inter-urban solidarities for ages.

For many technicians or politicians, the observation of other cities, the comparison of experiences, as well as study trips were sources of enrichment. This workshop, then, is dedicated to the study of such exchanges. The papers should reflect on the formal and informal modes of spreading urban experiences, at the national, international, or intercontinental level. The papers should also consider the role of such exchanges in the decision-making process and in the solutions adopted. This examination of inter-urban networks should adopt a longue durée perspective so that the workshop participants consider continuities and moments of transition in the past. Similarly, the papers should consider different spatial locations in order to determine whether « regional models » exist in the conception and use of inter-urban exchanges in order to stimulate, or not, urban policies (in Northern Europe, Central Europe, the Iberian peninsula, the Anglo-saxon world…)

(French version)
Les villes ne vivent pas isolées. Même si certaines ont pu valoriser la clôture plutôt que l’ouverture, les villes ont beaucoup échangé entre elles. Pour autant, les historiennes et les historiens, au moins pour la période contemporaine, ont peu prêté attention à ces processus qui sont, sans doute, à l’origine de nombreuses innovations tant dans le domaines techniques que dans celui de la mise en place de réseaux de solidarité et d’entraide ou des modes de gestion.

Les villes ont échangé pour tirer partie des expériences positives menées ailleurs ou pour éviter de commettre des erreurs ayant conduit à des échecs. Ces échanges sont souvent spontanés ou résultent de la volonté d’une municipalité. Telle ville qui veut installer un système d’adduction d’eau envoie un ou des ingénieurs et, parfois, des élus pour un voyage d’étude dans des villes qui sont déjà équipées d’un tel système, tel pays envisageant des transformations de la gestion urbaine envoie des émissaires pour étudier d’autres modes de fonctionnement entre le local et le pouvoir central. Ces échanges peuvent être informels (ex : visite spontanée aux collègue d’une ville au cours d’un déplacement, rencontres fortuites entre élus et techniciens) ; ils peuvent être aussi plus formalisés et tenter de se pérenniser et, ainsi, donner naissances à des organisations nationales ou internationales dont l’objectif affiché est l’échange d’expériences. L’Union internationale des villes qui se constitue à la veille du premier conflit mondial est un exemple emblématique de cette formalisation, mais à d’autres échelles et en d’autres temps, les fraternités inter villes (hermandades) ont existé dans le cadre de la péninsule ibérique et, dans le monde rhénan, la décapole a organisé les solidarités interurbaines pendant des lustres.

Pour beaucoup de techniciens ou d’hommes politiques, l’observation des autres villes, la comparaison des expériences, les voyages d’études ont été une source d’enrichissement. Il serait opportun qu’un atelier se consacre à l’étude de ces échanges. Les communications devraient porter sur ces modes de diffusion des expériences urbaines, tant aux plans formels qu’informel, tant à l’échelle nationale qu’internationale, voire intercontinentale.

Les communications devraient étudier le rôle des échanges dans la prise de décision, dans l’adoption d’une solution. Il serait nécessaire que la réflexion sur les réseaux d’échanges interurbains s’inscrive dans la longue durée afin que les participants de l’atelier puissent examiner les continuités ou les ruptures. De même, il serait intéressant que les communications portent sur des espaces différents afin de mettre en lumière l’existence éventuelle de « modèles régionaux » (Europe du Nord, Europe centrale, monde ibérique, monde anglo-saxon…) dans la manière de concevoir et d’utiliser ces échanges interurbains pour stimuler, ou non, l’adoption de politiques urbaines.

2. Leisure in 19th and 20th century urban space

Period: Modern

The session focuses on modern forms of leisure in the 19th and 20th century urban environments. How has leisure and its use of city space evolved along major social, economical and cultural transformations? Whereas many traditional forms of recreation have declined in the modern period, such pastime activities as e.g. sport have became immensely popular, forming a new kind of mass leisure culture. Yet others, such as public drinking have became to be seen as illegitimate, even dangerous, and often heavily restricted, controlled and regulated by authorities. Rather than being a neutral sphere of urban life, leisure in public and private spaces has been often politizised and deeply divided on lines of class and gender. For example parks and squares have been fewer in working class districts than in more prestigious areas; in a similar fashion, the use of cafés and public houses has often been divided by invisible class and gender lines.

As a setting for social interaction, the modern city has undergone radical transformations during the 19th and especially 20th century. From dance-halls and amusement parks to cinema-theatres and discos, a wide variety of new, often commercial spaces of social interaction have emerged. Together with increased free time and spatial mobility, this has led to an unprecedented diversification and individualisation of urban recreation, but also to new tensions and uncertainties.

We invite for papers that discuss the different forms of urban leisure activities or the urban places reserved for leisure. The session hopes to offer a broad European perspective on the transformations of leisure and past time in the modern city.

3. The rising of a national sound: music in the capital, 1750-1850

Period: Early modern

In the eighteenth century music played a remarkable role in the emergence of a new ‘public sphere’. Both opera house and concert hall turned into places where people of divergent social origin not only met, but also formed ideas and discussed about political, social, cultural and moral issues. In the public discourse the notion of the ‘nation’ gained a steadily growing weight. This was true for the musical field as well. Well-known is the case of the Querelle des Bouffons, which took Paris in its grasp from 1752 on. As Tim Blanning has still recently described (The culture of power and the power of culture, Oxford, 2002), the question whether or not French opera prevailed over Italian opera, was in the end a question about the cultural or moral supremacy of one nation over the other.

In these changing circumstances, it was vital for the crowned heads of Europe to give themselves a place in the arising nationalist discourse and to present themselves as ‘first servants’ of their peoples. This meant the end of an era in which culture had mainly served representational goals. Whereas in the high days of absolutism urban culture had been to a large extent an ‘aping of the court’, as Norbert Elias puts it, it was the city and, more in particular, the capital city that was called to play the protagonist cultural role in times of emerging nationalism. The court culture, if it wanted to subsist, had no other choice than to integrate in the urban culture of the (capital) city.

In France, where the monarchs failed to adjust to the changing social climate, the concept of the ‘nation’ got after 1789 into the very centre of political theory, since it was called to serve as the fundamental legitimation for the new regime. As far as music is concerned, the abolishment of the old class society created a situation in which a more rational and systematic organisation of a ‘national’ music scene became possible. In the centralistic philosophy of revolutionary and post-revolutionary France, Paris was in all respects the beating heart of the national music life. Its musical institutions (conservatory, opera, concert societies) served as a model for the rest of the country. The French model proved to be successful in the nineteenth century, since it was imitated in many countries. The ‘musical system’ which was set up in Belgium after the independence (1830), for example, was nearly an exact copy of the French original.

For the political authority a centralised, hierarchically structured music life offered a considerable advantage. It allowed a more efficient and effective use of music for the nation’s sake. Music in its different forms was not only able to enhance national cohesion and to consolidate a national identity (festivals), but at the same time it could build up a national prestige and self-confidence towards the other countries. In that way virtuosi often acted like cultural ambassadors of their native country.

Purpose of the proposed (specialist) session is to focus on the music life in European capital cities in a time of emerging nationalism (1750-1850), to look in which way music in these cities reflected and supported a nationalist discourse, and to evaluate the significance of the capital for the musical landscape in the country.

4. Transport et circulations intra-urbains dans une perspective comparative des grandes capitales européennes à l'époque préindustrielle

Period: Early modern

Si les circulations interurbaines et les réseaux de communication ont fait l'objet de nombreux travaux et de plusieurs colloques récents à l'échelle européenne, les dessertes intra-urbaines demeurent plus mal connues dans la période préindustrielle. La croissance rapide des grandes capitales aux XVIIe et surtout au XVIIIe siècle a pourtant eu pour conséquence l'intensification des déplacements des personnes et des marchandises à l'intérieur de celles ci ainsi que celle des échanges avec leurs périphéries. A Paris, la sédentarisation de la Cour à Versailles a de plus entraîné l'essor des flux entre la ville capitale et le centre où s'exerce le pouvoir politique, qui attire un public nombreux mais aussi une masse considérable de fournisseurs. Précocement, le besoin de transports publics comme la nécessité d'une réglementation de la circulation des marchandises et des animaux dans la ville sont apparues, suscitant à leur tour une offre de transport organisée par la puissance publique dans le cadre de l'économie des privilèges. Celle-ci s'accommode de plusieurs formules juridiques (libre entreprise, cadre corporatif, office, monopoles d'exploitations sur certains trajets), selon qu'il s'agit de transporter personnes ou marchandises, par terre ou par eau. Il s'agirait lors de cette session de confronter les différents modèles européens d'organisation, en s'attachant à la fois à leurs spécificités juridiques, économiques, sociales et spatiales. Le partage des fonctions entre acteurs selon les produits et les trajets, les conditions d'exploitation des services, soumis ou non à des cahiers des charges plus ou moins contraignants et à un contrôle des tarifs, l'impact sur l'espace urbain de l'apparition de pôles de redistribution des produits (ports, chantiers, halles centrales...), constituent des axes pertinents d'approche de cette dimension de la vie urbaine. Il s'agira en outre d'identifier les conditions et la chronologie d'apparition de services collectifs de transports propres à soutenir ou à accroître la mobilité des hommes et des marchandises dans l'espace urbain.

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Transport and intra-urban traffic. A comparative history of European Cities in pre-industrial times.
Even if there were numerous studies and several recent European symposia about inter-urban circulation and communication networks, we still know very little about the intra-urban transport services in pre-industrial times. The rapid growth of the great capitals in the seventeenth and especially the eighteenth century brought on the intensification of movements of people and goods inside the towns and the increase of exchanges between the centre and the periphery of towns. As for Paris, the royal court’s move to Versailles multiplied the flow between the capital city and the political centre. This attracted many people and a great number of tradesmen. The need for public transport as the necessity for controlling the movement of goods and animals in towns appeared early on. This forced the State to propose public ways of transport through the organization of privileges. Many legal formulas would be used (free enterprise, corporate body, public office, monopolistic service of certain routes). It all depended on what was carried, people or goods, and the kind of transport this was, on land or river. Our session will confront the different models of transport organization, which functioned in Europe, trying to catch at the same time the legal, economic, social and spatial aspects. The sharing of the functions between actors according to the products and the routes, the running conditions of these services depending upon their more or less restrictive requirements as well as the control of their rates and the impact on urban space of the appearance of redistribution poles for goods (ports, building sites, central markets, etc.) will constitute the three main axes of our session. Moreover, we will try to identify the terms and the history of these public services of transport, as ways to support and increase the mobility of men and goods in urban spaces.

5. Lived Time in the City

This Panel will draw upon recent path-breaking work into urbanism and 'applied time'. It calls for papers that are prepared to explore how townspeople lived their lives and how they interpreted Time whether daily, yearly, and/or in their life-cycles. Examples might include analysis of the approved and actual ‘times of day’ for different activities – eg. the working day or the working year; or investigations of cultural expressions of rapid ‘round-the-clock’ town living; or explorations of the ritual year within an urban environment. By putting a number of different case histories together, this Panel will throw light on the extent to which concepts/lived patterns of Time are socially constructed; and, in particular, whether and how far there was/is a specifically ‘urban’ dimension to the universal experience of living in Time.

6. Villes et archipels/ Cities and Archipelagos

L'objectif de cette séance consiste à réfléchir aux diverses façons dont les villes ont tiré parti des caractéristiques des milieux naturels les environnant, tout comme à la manière dont ces milieux naturels ont influencé le type de développement qu'ont connu les villes, en prenant le cas particulier de milieux urbains qui, tels Montréal ou Stockholm, sont situés dans des archipels.

Comment l'aménagement et le développement des rives à des fins résidentielles, récréatives ou encore industrielles ont-ils altéré les milieux naturels ? En quoi la forme archipel a-t-elle conditionné l'aménagement et l'occupation du territoire et donné lieu à un type spécifique de réglementation urbaine?

Dans cette séance, nous chercherons donc à saisir à la fois les transformations survenues dans les milieux urbains et naturels et les relations dynamiques entre ces deux milieux. Des propositions de communication portant sur des villes situées dans des archipels sont bienvenues.

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The purpose of this panel is to reflect upon the diverse ways in which cities have made use of certain characteristics of their natural surroundings and, conversely, how the natural environment has influenced these cities’ development. The specific focus will be on urban areas that, as Montreal or Stockholm, are situated on archipelagos.

How has the natural environment been altered by the layout and development of shorelines for residential, recreational or industrial purposes? To what extent has the archipelago form conditioned the use and occupation of the land and given rise to specific types of urban regulation?

This panel will seek to understand both the transformations that have occurred in urban and natural environments as well as the dynamic relationships between these milieus. We welcome proposals for papers discussing any city located on an archipelago.

7. Generations in towns

Period: Medieval/Early modern

This session aims to take up the roles, relationships and dynamics of generations in medieval and early modern towns, from different perspectives. In the first place, there is the question of inter-generational relations in trades, urban government, and family life. Secondly, there are the problems of succession in the same areas, and the transmission of goods, skills, and connections from one generation to the next. Generations should not only be understood in family terms, but also as the changing relationships between age-groups or cohorts.

There would naturally be cooperation as well as conflicts between generations, and it would be interesting to evaluate the roles and changes of generations in shaping and changing urban life over time. The emphasis should thus be on processes and dynamics, not static descriptions or examples of single families.

We would like to invite contributions by historians, demographers, geographers and others, to address, for instance, economic, spatial, political, cultural, educational and gender aspects of generations in pre-industrial towns.

8. International city networks and networking activities during the 20th century

Period: Modern

This multidisciplinary session will focus on the historical development of international city networks and the activities, which comprised these networks. It will especially focus on the ways in which these networks have evolved over the 20th century, and examine how some activities predominated over others at different points of time. Proposals are, then, invited from scholars working on the relationship between urbanization and globalization / Europeanization, although the historical evolution of city networks will be examined through a number of overlapping questions:

• Which individuals and/or institutions (political/municipal, economic, social, voluntary, etc.) mobilized and represented the city on an international stage? Has representation changed over the 20th century?

• What have been the main motives behind city networks during the 20th century: peace, economic development, civic pride, social capital, sustainability, power? How successful have cities been in realizing these objectives?

• What impact has the Europeanization of civil society had on the (in)dependent urban variable? How have cities responded to this process? How have they mobilized resources to lobby at the national and supranational levels?

• What has been the relationship between international city networks and globalization, especially since the 1960s? How have cities sought to extend networks beyond Western Europe into the developing world? What role have cities in Eastern Europe played in existing institutions and networking activities?

• What legacies has international action brought to the architecture, urbanism and physical character of cities?

• How has the relationship between the city, its wider region and the state (national and supranational) altered during the 20th century? What impact has local government reform had on structures of governance in the second-half of the 20th century, and how has this influenced the objectives and accomplishments of international city networks?

• How have city networks evolved and adapted during the 20th century? What impact did major external events like war, political ruptures and changes to economic and cultural structures have on their formation and function?

Some of those international city networks that could be examined include the International Union of Local Authorities (IULA), actions under the European Outline Convention on Trans-frontier Cooperation between Territorial Communities (Council of Europe), multi-level political institutions, the international town planning movement, and the post-war peace movement. Networking activities include city-to-city relationships (town twinning), civic information-gathering exercises, voluntary exchanges, business visits by economic actors, and international sporting competitions.

While the organizers welcome proposals for case studies on specific cities, comparative papers that examine cities in different countries or city networks in general are especially encouraged. All papers will be pre-circulated and participants should be prepared to give only a five to ten minutes presentation at the conference to allow for longer discussion. The session arises from multidisciplinary research as part of the “Cities as International and Transnational Actors (CITTA): History, Current Dynamics and Future Role” network, a three-year research project funded by the European Science Foundation. Further details on CITTA’s research activities can be found at http://www.diesonline.it/citta-esf/.

9. Narrating the city: everyday experience and urban networks

Period: Modern

The "urban imaginary" (James Donald) is made from narrations about cities, usually of planners, social critics, architects, artists, filmmakers and writers. In this section the focus is on the narratives of 'ordinary' and/or marginalized city dwellers, and how they weave themselves into the urban texture through various networks. Such urban networks can be interpersonal or inter-group relations, negotiated to urban places, in workspace, or to the public sphere of the city. Networks can rely on various means of communication, such as face-to-face interaction, telecommunication, public urban rituals, dress codes, sprayed tags on street corners etc. Urban networks can be very durable but also temporary, they can be visible and widespread but also obscure but far-reaching etc. The narratives of non-elite city dwellers often intersect and overlap with or are inspired by mainstream discourses about the city. But non-mainstream collective urban narratives can also interact with elite discourses by rejecting it and creating counter-narratives. Then again, personal narratives often digress from any urban collectivity and/or intersect with several 'master-narratives' about the city.

The section invites contributions on how urban experiences of every-day life are dealt with in personal narratives, what their relation to urban collectivity is, and what makes this way of transferring and structuring information special. Which influence does narrativity of sources have on the work of the historian? Are memories articulated by the narrator into some kind of history? What happens if we transform such narrations into an Urban History? Both theoretical reflections and pure case studies are welcome. Methods may comprise, but do not have to be limited to oral history, social history, historical discourse analysis and micro-history. Preferably contributions will deal with their topic in a comparative way, either comparing two or more cities or urban settings, or several methods, such as research with oral and written sources, or several historical periods.

The time-scope is, due to the topic of narrations, roughly 20th century, however, if written narrative sources of non-elite members are available, also other modern history presentations are welcome.

10. La musique dans la ville XVe-XIXe siècles

Period: Early modern

L’histoire des espaces musicaux depuis la fin du Moyen Age est indissociable de l’histoire urbaine. Et pas seulement parce que les lieux de formation (académies de musique, collèges musicaux, conservatoires), les lieux de production comme ceux de représentation et donc de consommation musicales (palais, églises, théâtres publics, kiosques à musique, salles de concert…) se concentrent pour l’essentiel dans les villes. En effet, la réflexion sur les ancrages sociaux et et spatiaux de la musique dans la ville met en lumière trois inflexions majeures qui ont suivi des temporalités variées d’une cité à l’autre, d’un Etat à l’autre : la progressive spécialisation de ces lieux s’accompagnant parfois d’une spécialisation dans un genre musical clairement identifié, et d’une diversification des pratiques de consommation ; leur insertion sans cesse réaffirmée notamment à partir du XVIIe siècle dans un projet plus vaste de politique monumentale et urbanistique ; le processus d’émancipation de ces espaces et de leurs acteurs par rapport aux différents pouvoirs s’exerçant à l’échelle de la ville.

Sans négliger les aspects architecturaux, cette session souhaite revenir sur les formes d’inscription urbaine de ces espaces musicaux et sur la géographie de l’activité des musiciens à l’échelle de la ville. Peut-on repérer des quartiers dédiés à la production et à la consommation des différents genres musicaux ? Leur localisation obéit-elle à une logique de centralité spécifique ou bien est-elle aimantée par l’existence de centres politiques et religieux plus anciens ?

La session veut donc également éclairer les liens complexes qu’entretiennent ces institutions culturelles avec le pouvoir urbain, les autorités religieuses de la ville, le prince dans les villes de cour. Dans quelle mesure le gouvernement municipal a-t-il pu investir ces espaces musicaux ? Comment la musique dans ses différentes formes a-t-elle participé à la construction et à l’affirmation d’une culture et d’une identité urbaine ? Dans ce processus de construction symbolique, on veillera à souligner l'incidence et l'importance de l'identité confessionnelle des villes : le développement de la vie musicale urbaine correspond-il à une sécularisation de l'espace public, l'essor de la musique dans la ville signifie-t-il une perte d'influence du clergé dans la ville ? Par ailleurs, la musique peut-elle être mobilisée à l’identique dans les villes protestantes et catholiques ? Peut-on comparer sur ce point la politique de construction des théâtres d’opéra au XVIIe siècle dans les villes protestantes de l’espace germanique, et celle menée dans l’Europe catholique? La question de l’ingérence du pouvoir princier dans les différentes formes d’activité musicale conduit d’une part à réfléchir sur les usages de la musique dans le cérémonial monarchique et d’autre part à repérer les différentes modalités qui permettent tout au long de la période d’étude de passer d’un système de production musical exclusivement mécénal à la formation d’une économie et d’un marché du spectacle musical à proprement dit.

11. Representing modernity: political and social caricature in European cities in the late 19th and 20th centuries

Period: Modern

The growth of cities, the development of the media, and the emergence of mass politics – fundamental and much studied features of modern urban history – encouraged the proliferation of distinctive types of graphic representation: the humorous and satirical imaging of modern urban life, and of the political leaders who claimed to be shaping it. Participants in this session are invited to present case studies of these caricatural practices, that address inter alia questions of authorship, style, reception, publishing platform, political and social significance and relation to urban context and networks. The overall aim of the session will be to place these representational practices in a comparative framework, bringing out, and interpreting, similarities and dissimilarities in the forms of visual satire that developed in cities across Europe during the period.

12. Clean Towns: The problem of garbage disposal in the European cities (XIXth-XXth centuries)

Period: Modern

The first out-and-out process of industrialization fostered the creation of urban technological networks in Europe, along with the birth of a new type of city. Ranging from transportation systems, to potable water, sewers and waste disposal, gas supply lines and electricity, the study of networks finds fundamental application also in the case of European urban centers, which are renovating their own existing infrastructures, thereby creating a network of services that represent one of the more convincing vehicles for moving towards the modernization of the nation. Urban infrastructures and services constitute a privileged observation point and true litmus test for grasping the terms involved in the process of economic and social progress of cities.

European urban history grew significantly in the last years. In particular scholars have focused the history of networked technical services, which a recent bibliography included initially, under Large Technical Systems, from a methodological point of view, to then grant them final research autonomy following the birth of the idea of the Networked City.

Technology's role in this new context marked by change was absolutely fundamental. Some of the period's innovations of far-reaching impact were put at the service of cities, affecting the urban social fabric and resolving problems that had seemed insurmountable just a few years earlier. A new concept of the urban environment came and it was based on a systemic view, in which technology and public services are indissolubly intertwined.

We find also that there were substantial efforts to create much more solid regulatory activities in terms of legislation. The importance of the measures and works aimed at endowing all urban systems with standards, services and infrastructures, which would regulate their operation efficiently, is clearly grasped. Municipal codes took on a more importance. They furnished regulations covering health and sanitation, and governing building construction.

The role of the political institutions was crucial for the development of public health disciplines and for launching of a series of initiatives that could not longer be neglected. It is true that the Municipal governments went ahead with the establishment of special firms or set up municipal management systems.

The public's challenge for services also involved the elites in power in the City Halls, with the demand calling for a new willingness to take on the entrepreneurial risk of creating enterprises under municipal ownership, the body which many saw as being capable of satisfying most completely the new consumers. The local authorities were forced by the actual needs of the urban communities to face the need to redefine tasks, functions and powers of execution.

Tramway lines, gas and electricity networks captured the biggest interests of the scholars till now. The condition of public health and sanitation infrastructures, including not only the sewerage and waste disposal systems, but also the water supply system and widening the range of issues on up to the Public Health offices and other health-care facilities and units, constitutes an extraordinary reflection on which an examination of a nation's and/or a city's level of civilization can be based.

13. The changing urban family, 1500-1750: cross-Europe perspectives

Period: Early modern

In most pre-modern European societies, the structure and integrity of the family unit was a fundamental assumption underlying many aspects of urban life. The household head both ruled the family at home and answered for it in the wider society of the city. Marriage, apprenticeship and service integrated individuals into the household and contributed to the perpetuation of its values into the next generation. But the urban family itself was not an unchanging constant, given the demographic and social flux experienced across Europe in the pre-industrial period, c.1500-1750. Many of the characteristics of urban populations (origins, age profile and sex ratios, skills levels, and job opportunities) altered significantly. The cost of living rose generally. Structures of employment changed; poverty increased. Economic, spatial and legal factors combined to produce new social topographies and patterns of residence. The size and composition of the family and household, and the ways in which people lived together, were inevitably affected.

This session proposal invites contributions from researchers working on aspects of family and household in larger European urban centres in the period c.1500-1750. We hope for research-based contributions, probably focusing on a single town or city, which seek to answer wider questions about pre-industrial urban society. We would like contributors to explore a set of related topics: in what ways did the size and composition of households and families change over this period? How did this relate to changing material conditions of housing and habitation? How did changes in family size and structure influence the relationship between the individual, the household, and the wider urban society? We are interested in both approaches and conclusions, and would aim to pre-circulate papers so that in the session itself discussion can be wideranging and comparative, considering such issues as: how do changes within the family relate to the social and economic transformations in early modern urban society, especially in the expanding port cities and metropolises of international trade? Did the varying experiences of different cities lead to a greater variety of family and household forms? what part did the family play in containing or defusing the tensions resulting from social and economic change? Comparison of methodologies - how structural alterations can be identified and traced over a long period - will necessarily illuminate sources and historiographies, while comparing results and conclusions will open up a new set of questions about urban demographic and social structures and the possibilities of generalisation.

The session proposers currently co-direct an AHRB-funded research project on the family in early modern London, entitled 'People in place: families, households and housing in early modern London' (see http://www.history.ac.uk/cmh/cmh.main.html, under 'Research projects').

14. Rivers and cities: Imperial politics and the development of cities along the Volga and the Danube in the 18th and early 19th century

Period: Early modern

The Volga and the Danube are rightly called arteries of the Russian and the Habsburg Empires. Both rivers have structured economic regions of central importance for the two empires. Geography and nature played a key role although the development of the cities depended on a wide range of factors: e.g. imperial policy, economic opportunities especially in the international trade, various local or regional factors. The middle and lower Volga belonged since the 16th centuries to the Tsarist Empire, but it formed a frontier region until the 18th century, which was only loosely administratively integrated. The middle part of the Danube on the other hand was incorporated into the Habsburg Empire only since the end of the 17th century but with much more vigour in the 18th century. Thus the policing of the cities along parts of the both rivers during the 18th and early 19th century tells us much about imperial politics at their height.

The panel will look in more detail into the effects of the related imperial politics on some of its major cities along the two rivers in the pre-industrial time period, beginning with the process of populating the cities, especially attracting ethnic and confessional communities for economic reasons. The panel will deepen our knowledge on the framework of the cities itself and of imperial politics; at the same time it will bring up e.g. the question of the continuity or discontinuity of the multiethnic past of the cities in pre-modern and modern times.

15. Espaces libres et lieux publics (XVIIIe-XXe siècles)

Period: Early modern/Modern

Nous proposons d’aborder dans cet atelier les questions touchant aux espaces libres et aux lieux publics, dans l’acception la plus large de ces deux termes, envisagés dans les situations urbaines à partir de l’époque moderne. Il s’agit de s’interroger sur l’aspect matériel de ces espaces et de ces lieux ou sur les visions théoriques dont ils sont l’objet, de les saisir dans les actions comme dans les discussions qu’ils suscitent, toutes ces manifestations permettant de comprendre ce qui préside à l’émergence ou/et au maintien des « creux » dans la matière bâtie urbaine dans leurs relations aux enjeux sociaux qui les sous-tendent.

Trois thèmes principaux —les processus d’élaboration, les usages, les enjeux— retiennent l’attention :

Quels sont les processus à l’origine de la création ou de l’apparition d’espaces libres et de lieux publics en ville ? Quels sont les projets et les objectifs éventuels qui président à leur création, quand celle-ci résulte de la mise en œuvre d’une politique délibérée ? En particulier, la création d’espaces libres et de lieux publics s’inscrit-elle dans des dispositifs (sanitaires, politiques, hygiéniques, commerciaux, religieux, éducatifs…) plus larges ?

Les usages faits des espaces libres et lieux publics participent-ils d’une mixité sociale ou intergénérationnelle ou au contraire de processus ségrégatifs ? Si tel est le cas, par quels mécanismes ces ségrégations s’opèrent-elles ? Quelle est la part qui revient aux espaces eux-mêmes ? En particulier, assiste-t-on à des fréquentations et à des usages séquentiellement différenciés selon les catégories sociales ou les générations, et quel en est le rythme ? Les espaces libres et lieux publics sont-ils l’objet de conflits entre usages et/ou usagers, entre usages « programmés » et usages « illégitimes » ?

Quels sont les enjeux que les parties en présence investissent dans les conflits pour la maîtrise d’un espace libre ou d’un lieu public ? Et comment l’articulation entre ces enjeux et l’espace public se noue-t-elle ? Si la question se pose autour des conditions de l’apparition d’espaces et de lieux publics, les menaces éventuelles pesant sur l’existence d’un espace libre ou d’un lieu public et les réactions qu’elles suscitent peuvent être révélatrices d’enjeux. L’observation des acteurs mesurant les actions à l’aune des objectifs affichés, des compromis arrachés, peut aussi s’avérer très fructueuse…

Créer une promenade plantée au début du XVIIIe siècle, des jardins ouvriers dans le courant du XIXe siècle ou encore préserver des espaces libres en cœur de ville au début du XXe siècle sont autant d’exemples de circonstances où des « objets » comme les places, parcs et jardins, mais aussi les voiries, investissent les débats sur la ville, la révélant au détour de conflits, de détournements. Aussi la liste des questions reste ouverte et les terrains auxquels elles peuvent être adressées très divers.

16. Fiscalités et identités urbaines à la fin du Moyen Age

Period: Medieval

L’objectif de la session proposée consiste à étudier le rôle de l’établissement et du développement d’une fiscalité d’Etat dans la transformation des représentations spatiales et dans le façonnement des identités urbaines de l’Europe des derniers siècles du Moyen Âge. Nous posons l’hypothèse que la création d’une fiscalité d’État, distincte des revenus domaniaux ou régaliens traditionnels, à partir de la dernière décennie du XIIIe siècle, et les transformations ultérieures de cette fiscalité en plusieurs étapes jusqu’à la fin du XVe siècle, sont lourdes de conséquences sur le devenir des villes et des communautés urbaines. Parce que cette fiscalité repose de plus en plus sur l’appareil administratif des villes qu’elle contribue à fonder ou à régénérer, elle tend à reconfigurer la disposition d’ensemble des espaces politiques et des représentations qui les supportent et les accompagnent. Parce qu’elle pèse de tout son poids sur ces villes, sur leurs ressources aussi bien que sur leurs élites dirigeantes, elle contribue également à façonner l’identité même des villes et à enrichir leurs pratiques rituelles, discursives ou symboliques. Cette fiscalité et la fiscalité urbaine s’interpénètrent - quand elles ne se confondent pas comme dans les communes italiennes - soit que l’Etat taxe la ville, soit que la ville gère la perception du prélèvement urbain, soit que villes et Etats fassent appel aux mêmes hommes.

En d’autres termes, si les villes de la fin du XVe siècle sont significativement différentes de ce qu’elles étaient quelque deux cents ans plus tôt, ce n’est pas uniquement (ni peut-être principalement) en raison immédiate du cycle traditionnel des crises et difficultés de la période (guerres, pestes et famines). C’est également parce qu’entre les deux termes de cette évolution, l’instauration définitive d’un prélèvement étatique relativement lourd a contribué à faire des villes, soit par elles-mêmes, soit en tant que capitales régionales, soit encore par leurs interventions fondamentales au sein des assemblées représentatives, des partenaires indispensables d’un État territorial fondé sur le consentement (un consentement, certes, souvent dénué d’enthousiasme) vécu et exprimé à travers un système de représentation de l’espace dans lequel elles jouent désormais le rôle le plus important.

À partir des sources émanant des autorités centrales (chartes, diplômes et documents comptables) et des autorités urbaines (comptabilités et registres de délibérations municipales), nous nous proposons d’analyser les thèmes suivants :

- relation villes-Etats dans la délimitation et la gestion des espaces fiscaux

- assiettes fiscales et production d’espaces de perception

- fiscalités et définition ou redéfinition des identités sociales : exemptés et privilégiés

- fiscalités et reconfiguration des espaces urbains

- fiscalités et transformations des pratiques rituelles, discursives et symboliques des villes

17. Housing Policy in Europe – Research Results and Methodological Starting Points for a Multinational Comparison

Period: Modern

Housing is considered a non-substitutable consumer good since having a place to live constitutes a basic human need. The primary aim of government housing policies is thus to assure that a sufficient quantity of housing of adequate quality is available to the populace. The instruments of government housing policy and additional subsidiary political objectives in the housing sector are the upshot of political discourses and decisions. From this point of view, it seems legitimate to subject systems of promoting housing construction and decision-making processe

in establishing housing policies to systematic scholarly analysis.
The first step will be to use the most important research findings available in this field as a basis to describe the systems of promoting housing construction in selected EU member states. Proceeding in this way will provide an overview that reveals similarities and differences among the selected states. In going about this, we intend to conduct a comparative analysis including at least one country each from Scandinavia, the British Isles, Central, Southern and Eastern Europe in order to achieve geographic coverage of the EU. Secondly, we will describe the decision-making mechanisms and structures in legislation regulating the promotion of housing construction in the selected European states systematically and from a long-term perspective. Following this analysis concentrating on individual countries, the third step will focus on similarities and differences among political decision-making processes within the EU with the aim of elaborating on these various models from a historical perspective. Fourthly, in order to show the real effects of housing policymaking, we will provide examples of the consequences of housing policy decisions in individual instances and on a broader urban planning level, whereby emphasis will be on a consideration of the current phase of housing policy.

18. Urban elites and territorial power structures in Antiquity and Late medieval and Early Modern Societies

Period: Medieval/Early modern

One prominent feature of European urbanization since classical antiquity is the notion of political autonomy. From its inception in the eigth century BCE the Greek polis was ideally a self-governing state. Medieval cities were not always seen as city-states, but many Medieval cities also knew a high degree of political autonomy. In some cases we find that democratic political structures developed, but more common was an oligarchic system, in which urban elites in effect ruled their cities.

This autonomy was, however, not immutable. In the course of their history Greek poleis and Medieval cities were confronted with the claims to authority of larger territorial power structures. The Greek cities became subjugated first to Hellenistic Kings and subsequently to Roman emperors, whereas Medieval cities also had to cope with claims to power by territorial authorities. These developments caused tension, not in the last place for the urban elites, who found themselves in the middle of these processes.

In this panel we wish to explore how urban elites coped with the encroachment of territorial powers.

We want to investigate this problem from two angles.

In the first place we wish to focus on institutional developments, which could prove a source of tension between urban and central authorities. One of the main bones of contention between urban and central authorities was taxation. Both claimed the right to tax, and new taxes could be added.

• Who were (made) responsible for collecting the taxes?

• How did elites (and urban masses) react to the new tax regimes?

Another point for consideration is the maintenance and development of urban (legal) privileges (e.g. the right to hold political meetings, to legislate, to organise periodic markets) .

• What was the role of the local elites in securing or maintaining such privileges?

• How were urban privileges manipulated by the central authorities?

In the second place we invite papers that focus on the position of the elites themselves.

How did the political developments affect the position of the elites in the cities? On the one hand they may have suffered a loss of personal authority. The composition of the local elites may also have changed due to central appointments. On the other hand, urban elites may also have seen opportunities to manipulate the new system for strengthening their hold over their communities, by gaining central support for their position of power.

• Were members of urban elites integrated into the central elite? (did they secure positions at court? Were they involved in central government?)

• How did the composition of the elites change? (did central authorities promote or appoint puppet on a string?).

To focus the discussion and to facilitate a useful comparison we propose to limit ourselves to two demarcated areas: the Greek city in the Hellenistic and Roman period, en the cities of Late Medieval Holland and Flanders. We have opted for these in the first place because both areas had a strong tradition of political autonomy. In the second place, both areas were marked by a relatively high degee of urbanization for pre-industrial levels. Cities were often relatively large and well over 10% of the population (occasionally more than 30%) was resident in cities. As a result of this the effects of the process of transformation will have been particularly evident (and well documented) in these cases. We aim to have an equal number of ancient and medieval historians, so that each sub-question will be discussed for both periods.

19. Satellite Towns

Period: Early modern/Modern

Many national or regional capitals had in their neighbourhood relatively small towns which nevertheless, thanks to some specific urban functions, succeeded in remaining rather independent from these capitals. Sometimes these functions consisted of being the seat of the monarchy, like Versailles near Paris or, to a lesser extent, Tsarskoje Selo near St Petersburg. Sometimes these functions were harbour functions like Altona to Hamburg, Piraeus to Athens or Sas van Gent to Ghent. In other cases a regional capital functioned as satellite of the national capital like Haarlem to Amsterdam. And there have also been developments in which old fully fledged towns were outstripped by relatively new industrial ones. This happened for instance in the British, German, and Belgian mining areas. And in the USA as well as in some parts of Europe, important centres of education, like universities, were founded in small towns in the proximity of bigger ones.

An important question concerning these relations is of course to which extent complementary functions are involved or just additional or even overlapping ones. We would like to have papers in our session, which not pivot exclusively on one town, but papers in which the results of research on one ore more towns is placed in the context of a general analysis of centre-satellite relations. Of course the functions we intend to compare cover all societal domains: political, social, economical and cultural, while the interaction we want to analyze has a broad spectrum from cultural interaction and political influence to flows of goods and migration.

20. The religious use of urban spaces before and after the Reformation (ca. 1300-1650)

Period: Medieval/Early modern

In recent years much work has been done on the role of religious processions in the construction of a civic religion and an urban identity. In particular, the deliberate use of urban space and urban time during these rituals has been studied. However, by privileging the theme of religious processions the stress has been laid on the creation of a common identity and a civic harmony rather than on the underlying religious conflicts and tensions. In this session we will re-examine the religious use of urban spaces by looking at the public practices (ritual practices, building practices, riots…) of specific groups with a mixed urban and religious identity such as the mendicant orders, beguines, flagellants, militant Calvinists or the Jesuits. The central question will be how these groups challenged and negotiated urban space and how, as such, they redefined the boundaries between the sacred and the profane. Chronologically, the period before and after the Reformation (ca. 1300-1650), when urban religion was challenged by a changing relation between the clergy and the laity and by the growing confessionalization, will be treated in order to detect the patterns of change and continuity in the religious use of urban spaces. Case studies on different areas in Western Europe will be invited.

21. Trade, Ethnicity and Urban Culture in European Port Cities (17th-20th centuries)

Period: Early modern/Modern

Because of their international trading links, port cities tended to attract human capital from relatively distant regions. They were often noted for the extent of long-distance immigration and during the course of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries an increasingly high proportion of their in-migrants came from distant locations. Immigrant groups played an important role in fostering and maintaining trading connections, but they also had a profound effect on the long-term process of social and cultural change in port-cities. Many ports accommodated different in-migrant ‘nations’ and ‘foreign’ elements often exercised a powerful function in shaping the character of individual cities.

This session will focus on the development of ethnic communities in a number of European port-cities between the seventeenth and twentieth centuries. It will explore the growth and development of ethnic communities, their contribution to trade and commerce, and the extent to which they influenced the urban culture of European ports. It will assess the significance of ethnic settlement for trading networks, the mechanisms for maintaining national identity, the problems of assimilation, and the contribution of in-migrant communities to the development of cultural identity in terms of cultural traditions, confessional affiliation, language and community links.

By focusing on the experience of different immigrant groups within a specific port-city context, the session will extend existing knowledge of the migration process itself, provide an insight into the common aspects of the migrant experience, and offer a comparative framework for analysing the factors which determined the different contribution of in-migrants to modern urban culture in European port-cities.

22. Colonial cities in Eurasia and Africa: The relationship of space, culture and power

Period: Early modern/Modern

European urban history needs to include colonial cities. European empires were ruled through cities, some in the metropole and some in the colonies. Similarities of architecture and planning mask deep social, economic, and cultural differences, which play out in the organization and use of urban space. How did colonial authorities maintain power and authority in urban settings where they were in a small minority? What mechanisms existed for mediating differences in language, religion, culture, and access? To what extent were public spaces shared? What sorts of contestation were permitted and how were they resolved? Through comparisons or through the study of individual examples, urban scholars are invited to submit work on the linkage of space and power in colonial cities. Possible subjects include the built environment, formal organization, ritual, and representation.

23. The concept of the "European City" and urban realities in twentieth-century southern Europe

Period: Modern

In recent years the concept of the "European City" has been emphasised in a number of studies from the social and historical sciences, in particular by German scholars. They have breathed new life into a discussion that has begun in the early 20th century and lasted until the 1960s. It has been based on Max Weber’s concept of the "occidental city" and was dominated by the long-standing crisis of the European self-conscience between the First World War and the breakdown of the colonial empires of various European powers. The "European city" was part of a wider debate about the modernisation of European society and it became a symbol for this modernisation as well as for the preservation of "European individuality" in opposition to "American conformism", which reportedly found its expression in particular in urbanisation patters across the Atlantic. The current academic discussion intends to demonstrate the uniqueness of the occidental-European urban community and couples this with the demand from urban sociologists that Europe must create historically informed guidelines for a strategic orientation of the development of its urban civil societies in the 21st century.

In this debate, leading urban sociologists and historians of modern Europe postulate a number of intertwined characteristics of the "European city", which distinguishes it not only from North American cities but also from the rapidly growing metropolises of the developing world. These include: the strong influence of a powerful city administration on urban development, dominated by a self-conscious urban bourgeoisie; the decisive role in urban development of a professional elite consisting of politicians, architects and city planners; the creation of a functioning infrastructure and of institutions to care for the social, economic and cultural needs of city dwellers (known in much of Europe as "municipal socialism"); the small scale of slum areas through interventions from social service states; a limited growth, particularly after the Second World War; a specifically "European" physical appearance of the city through medieval or early modern city cores, ring roads, squares and the incorporation of outlying villages which also acts to give cities specific identities; a sharp contrast between city and country which results in a specific urban way of life. This concept of the city is contrasted with the mushrooming and faceless North American urban development, which allegedly only follows market forces, and the city development in the third world which calls forth mass depravation.

However, if these ideas about the "European city" are compared with urban realities in 20th century Europe, it is easily demonstrated that most of the mentioned peculiarities only apply to cities in north-western Europe. If developments in Eastern Europe and particularly south of the Alps are taken into consideration, a very different picture emerges. Although Southern Europe cannot be taken as a homogenous entity, many of its metropolises share a number of characteristics, which deviate considerably from the aforementioned pattern. Among them are: a usually weak and unprofessional city administration, often officiating on the basis of clientilism and legitimated primarily through the central state; no well-functioning urban infrastructure; the illegal erection of dwellings outside central development plans; a city planning which has mainly suggestive but little real influence on the actual development of the city; in comparison to Western and Central Europe no social service state; a socially much less segregated structure of city dwelling, partially because of the existence of a multitude of small family businesses which do not differentiate between workplace and residence; the strong influence of family structures and personal relations on urban social formations; a much weaker separation between the public and the personal sphere than in the North of the continent. Apart from that the often-used terminology of the transformation from a fordist to a post-fordist city cannot be applied to Southern Europe because cities there, due to their industrialisation patterns, never had a fordist character and therefore could not have the social formations, which are ascribed to it.

A theoretical debate on the paradigm of the "European city" can only be successful, if the historical development of urban structures outside a "core Europe" is sufficiently researched. This is not the case. Urban history focuses overwhelmingly on north-western Europe and if cities in Europe’s South are taken into consideration than mostly to draw attention to "divergent" or "belated" developments. This session intends to draw attention to urban development in Southern Europe by way of contrasting some of its central characteristics – as mentioned above – with the established "European" picture. The focus will be on four mediterranean countries and their cities: Spain, Italy, Greece and Turkey.

24. Childhood and Youth in Urban Europe: Institutions and Organisations

Period: Modern

Despite the frequent visibility and often relatively large numbers of children in European towns and cities throughout the centuries, little or no attention has been paid by urban historians to children’s impact on the environment, nor the ways that their surroundings shaped the experience of childhood. Yet in the last quarter of the twentieth century, urban planners began to record children’s perceptions of city life, and subsequently to consult them about proposed changes. (1) This interdisciplinary panel will consider such issues over a long time-span, and with reference to a range of European countries. While operating within a broad historical framework, participants will draw on expertise and theoretical insights from a number of disciplines, including geography, education, and sociology, and will discuss both experience and representation. We welcome both established and new researchers, and particularly papers which offer a comparative perspective.

An initial theme will be “bricks and mortar”, buildings and institutions for children and young people and their impact on the urban environment, as well as on the young. These included hospitals for children, schools, colleges, leisure-based organisations, orphanages and other residential institutions. Participants will explore the relative importance of such institutions within civic life across Europe. For example, fund-raising for children’s hospitals could be represented as a focus for civic identity from the late nineteenth century. Child guidance clinics can be used as a lens to analyse the ways through which “problem children” were viewed and categorised in the urban setting in interwar Britain. The movement of children in and out of such buildings also contributes to our understanding of urban space, for example, in relation to the health and mortality of children in Foundling hospitals across Europe.

A contrasting strand will look at “children on the move”, both within urban contexts structured by adults, such as zoos and adventure playgrounds, and those controlled by the young. Processions of children, and young people marching had had religious, social and often political significance since ancient times, whether during the Lupercalia of ancient Rome (2), in early medieval religious ceremonies, (3)or the organised youth movements founded from the late 1880s, some of which had an international dimension.

Children and youth as sources of disorder and subversion have perhaps received more attention hitherto, notably the spectacle of disorderly modern apprentices, French college students or of street children. (4) A more neglected theme, but a significant one will be the extent to which the young constructed their own rituals and rules about the use of urban space, and the mechanisms of exclusion or inclusion which they imposed.

________
Footnotes:

1. Stanley Tucker, “Community Development: A Strategy for Empowerment” in Pam Foley, Jeremy Roche and Stanley Tucker,eds, Children in Society: Contemporary Theory, Policy and Practice, (Palgrave/The Open University, Basingstoke, 2001), 115-116. Claudio Faraldi, “Planning Childhood: Children’s Social Participation in the Town of Adults” in Pia Christensen and Margaret 0’Brien, eds, Children in the City: Home, Neighbourhood and Community (Routledge Falmer, 2003), 184-194. (back to text)

2. Augusto Faschetti, “Roman Youth”, in Giovanni Levi and Jean-Claude Schmitt, eds, A History of Young People in the West, Volume I, Ancient and Medieval Rites of Passage (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge Massachusetts/London, England, 1997), 56-59. (back to text)

3. Janet Nelson, “Parents, Children and the Church in the Earlier Middle Ages” in D. Wood, ed, The Church and Childhood, Studies in Church History, 34, (Boydell and Brewer, Woodbridge, 1994), 96-7. (back to text)

4. For example, Natalie Zemon Davis, “The Reasons of Misrule: Youth Groups and Charivaris in Sixteenth Century France”, Past and Present 50, February 1971, 41-75. (back to text)

25. Urban Centres of South Asia: Merchants and Maritime Commerce

Period: Early modern/Modern

Overall changes in economy and society of South Asia in the context of advent of Europeans would be the underlying theme of the panel. The changing social pattern, happenings on the high seas and linkage between urban areas with rural hinterland would be explored. The panel would explore in detail about the coming of European traders and consequent developments like establishment of factories, role of the Company and private traders, decline of indigenous craft, problem of urban space, communication system, medical facility and volume of trade

From early time, urban centres have played a decisive role in progress of human kind and South Asian region is no exception. The emergence and existence of highly developed civilizations, as revealed in history, were always associated with a high degree of social development and urban centres played an important role in it. The intra-regional and oceanic trade, dependence on rural hinterland, social mobility, mode of production, development of technology and coming of external powers etc has influenced the process of urbanization. Beginning from early modern period to the coming of colonial powers is the temporal dimension of the panel and its spatial dimension will cover the cities of South Asia. The diachronic relationship between politics and economy of the town and cities will be studied in regional and international setting. The problems of spatial and distributional aspects of market would be dealt with. There was neither urban decay nor decline in trade and commerce, but there was emergence of new centres and decay of some towns.

Specialist Sessions Abstracts (page 2)

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