Community, Urban Health and Environment in the Late Medieval Low Countries (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series, Series Number 119)

Proporcionado por el ed.: "By exploring the uniquely dense urban network of the Low Countries, Janna Coomans debunks the myth of medieval cities as apathetic towards filth and disease. Based on new archival research and adopting a biopolitical and spatial-material approach, Coomans traces how cities developed a broad range of practices to protect themselves and fight disease. Urban societies negotiated challenges to their collective health in the face of social, political and environmental change, transforming ideas on civic duties and the common good. Tasks were divided among different groups, including town governments, neighbours and guilds, and affected a wide range of areas, from water, fire and food to pigs, prostitutes and plague. By studying these efforts in the round, Coomans offers new comparative insights and bolsters our understanding of the importance of population health and the physical world - infrastructures, flora and fauna - in governing medieval cities" "By exploring the uniquely dense urban network of the Low Countries, Janna Coomans debunks the myth of medieval cities as apathetic towards filth and disease. Based on new archival research and adopting a biopolitical and spatial-material approach, Coomans traces how cities developed a broad range of practices to protect themselves and fight disease. Urban societies negotiated challenges to their collective health in the face of social, political and environmental change, transforming ideas on civic duties and the common good. Tasks were divided among different groups, including town governments, neighbours and guilds, and affected a wide range of areas, from water, fire and food to pigs, prostitutes and plague. By studying these efforts in the round, Coomans offers new comparative insights and bolsters our understanding of the importance of population health and the physical world - infrastructures, flora and fauna - in governing medieval cities"-- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Half-title page 3 Series page 4 Title page 5 Copyright page 6 Contents 7 List of Figures 8 List of Maps 9 List of Tables 10 Acknowledgements 11 Note on Currency, Wages and Dates 13 List of Abbreviations 15 Map 17 Introduction 19 1 Galenic Health and the Biopolitics of Flow 49 2 The Purged Urban Heart: Municipal Sanitation 101 3 Food, Health and the Marketplace 144 4 Good Neighbours: Nuisance and Harmony in Living Environments 188 5 Plague in Urban Healthscapes 234 6 Building Community, Balancing Public Health and Order 270 Conclusion Urban Health Expeditions 310 Bibliography 319 Index 349 Debunking the myth of medieval cities as apathetic in the face of filth and disease, Janna Coomans builds a new understanding of how preventative health practices shaped urban communities, with responsibilities negotiated among different groups, across areas ranging from water, food and sanitation to pigs, prostitutes and plague