Sabrina Corbellini and Margriet Hoogvliet Situated in the east of the present-day Netherlands, the city of Deventer was during the later Middle Ages part of the Holy German Empire. Due to its membership of the Hanseatic network of trading cities, Deventer was able to participate in commercial exchanges with far-away cities as Cologne, Bremen, Lübeck, […]

An Execution in Hamburg’s Theatre of the World 1686  In Hamburg, where the first opera house of the German-speaking lands opened its doors only eight years ago at the Goosemarket, the whole city turned into a stage on the 4th October 1686. Thousands of onlookers lined the streets, while hundreds of soldiers secured the public […]

Early modern city walls and gates had special meanings. They represented the power of civic authorities and the ideal order and security they offered to citizens. They were presided by guards day and night and often displayed the symbols of families in charge.  City gates were closed every day at sunset and reopened at dawn. […]

In the medieval and early modern periods, living in a town or city was the exception to the rule of living in rural agricultural surroundings.  Urban public spaces comprised an unusual concentration of relatively high numbers of people in a relatively small yet built-up space (or in larger capital cities, in smaller spaces within the […]