Sixteenth-century Antwerp and Its Rural Surroundings
Subtitle: Social and Economic Change in the Hinterland of a Commerical Metropolis (Ca. 1450- Ca. 1570) (Studies in European Urban History (1100-1800))
Series: Studies in European Urban History (1100-1800) SEUH 14
Publisher: Brepols Publishers
Published: June 30, 2008
Place of publication: Turnhout
Language: eng
Format: Paperback
Number of pages: 350
ISBN-13: 9782503527253
Subjects: Modern - 16th Century; Western Europe - General; History; History - General History; History: World
Description: This study of sixteenth-century Antwerp and its surroundings is an attempt to combine commercial explanation models concerning the impact of great towns on their surrounding countryside with an approach in which institutional factors, and especially property relations, play the major role. It focuses on four types of influence of Antwerp on its surroundings:

    * the demographic impact
    * the increasing urban demand for agrarian products
    * the impact of the urban economy on non-agrarian types of labour in the countryside and
    * the purchases of land and other investments made by Antwerp citizens and their impact on the property relations in the surrounding countryside

Within the framework of these four fields of interaction between town and countryside, three essential questions have to be answered: First, how can we characterize the urban influence in each of these fields? Can it be considered a stimulus for the rural economy or rather an obstacle? Second, what was the economic response of the rural economy to the urban impact? Did it respond by specializing, according to the model presented by J. de Vries, and others, or were there obstacles that obstructed specialization? Third, what role did the medieval legacies play in the interaction between the 'capitalist' metropolis and the 'feudal' countryside?