Innovation and Medieval Communities
The Circulation of Ideas and Practices in and out of the Town (1200-1500)
Edited by Elodie Lecuppre-Desjardin Edited by Nils Bock Edited by Élodie Lecuppre-Desjardin
This book highlights the complex relationships of innovation and transformation in communities in Northwest Europe between 13th and 15th century by observing the reception of innovations and the strategies of their diffusion or rejection.
The creation of new things and the destruction of old things is a principle of capitalism and apparently well known to us. The Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter expressed this in the formula of “creative destruction”. In this way, destruction is not a defect of market activity, but the necessary consequence of something new coming into being. If we accept this logic, which contrasts every general gain with a concrete loss, as one of the contradictions of the capitalist economy, well studied for the 19th and 20th centuries, we must admit that medieval culture also demonstrated its mastery of the art of the paradox when the question of innovation is raised. Indeed, dynamics of the relationship between old and new are not, by the focus on technical and industrial progress or digital change, specific to modernity and postmodernity. Cultural change characterises all cultures, although the characteristics and perceptions differ. This is particularly true for times of cultural change, which must not be reduced too quickly to the epochal change of Antiquity-Middle Ages-Modern Times. The European Middle Ages between 13th and 15th century exhibits such dynamics of old and new and therefore offers the possibility of tracing them analytically. In this context, the long-held image of an epoch in which all change was slowed down or prevented can be rejected. On focusing on problem solution and conflicts, the studies gathered in this collective book provide a variety of strategies which can be qualified as new on the basis of the use of reflections, materiality, technical solutions, sciences or innovative methods. Different combinations are conceivable, from the new as an impulse for change, to the use of the new to preserve the old state, and even to the rejection of the new. In this way, by looking through the mirror of the past, this book also contributes to a differentiated view of innovation in our contemporary societies.
- Edited by Elodie Lecuppre-Desjardin
- Edited by Nils Bock
- Edited by Élodie Lecuppre-Desjardin
Other Titles in this Series
Earning Dignity
Labour Conditions and Relations during the Century of the Black Death in Marseille
Volume 38
Councils, Conflicts, Correspondence
Urban Diplomacy in Reval (Tallinn) and Lübeck (c. 1470–1570)
Volume 67
Des villes en revolte
Les republiques urbaines aux Pays-Bas et en France pendant la deuxieme moitie du XVIe siecle
Volume 23
Urban Hierarchy
The Interaction between Towns and Cities in Europe in Late Medieval and Early Modern Times
Volume 53
Gouverner la ville au bas Moyen Age
Les elites dirigeantes de la ville de Namur au XVe siecle
Volume 16
La Justice dans une ville du Nord du Royaume de France au Moyen Age
Etude sur la pratique judiciaire a Saint-Quentin (fin XIe-debut XVe siecle)
Volume 24
Civilites et incivilites urbaines
Urbanite, rituels et ceremonies dans la ville du XVIIe siecle
Volume 62
Le chatiment des villes dans les espaces mediterraneens (Antiquite, Moyen Age, Epoque moderne)
Volume 26
De Bono Communi
The Discourse and Practice of the Common Good in the European City (13th-16th c.) / Discours et pratique du Bien Commun dans les villes d'Europe (XIIIe au XVIe siecle)
Volume 22
Le pouvoir en ville
Gestion urbaine et pratiques politiques a Geneve (fin XIIIe - debut XVIe siecles)
Volume 25
The Rise of Cities Revisited
Reflections on Adriaan Verhulst's Vision of Urban Genesis and Developments in the Medieval Low Countries
Volume 61
Technologies of Learning
Apprenticeship in Antwerp from the 15th Century to the End of the Ancien Regime
Volume 11
Woven into the Urban Fabric
Cloth Manufacture and Economic Development in the Flemish West-Quarter (1300-1600)
Volume 54
Emotions in the Heart of the City (14th-16th century) / Les emotions au coeur de la ville (XIVe-XVIe siecle)
Les emotions au coeur de la ville (XIVe-XVIe siecle)
Volume 5
Urban Elites and Aristocratic Behaviour in the Spanish Kingdoms at the End of the Middle Ages
Volume 27
Des amities ciblees
Concours de tir et diplomatie urbaine dans le Saint-Empire, XVe-XVIe siecle
Volume 51
The Power of Space in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe
The cities of Italy, Northern France and the Low Countries
Volume 30
The city, the duke and their banker
The Rapondi family and the formation of the Burgundian state (1384-1430)
Volume 7
Usuriers publics et banquiers du Prince
Le role economique des financiers piemontais dans les villes du duche de Brabant (XIIIe-XIVe siecle)
Volume 28
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