Rostovtzeff, Michael. “Cities in the Ancient World,” in volume Urban Land Economics, edited by R. T. Ely, Institute for Research in Land Economics, Ann Arbor, 1922.
Zimmern, Alfred E. The Greek Commonwealth: Politics and Economics in Fifth-Century Athens (2d rev. edition; Oxford, 1915).
2. Historians are still doubtful whether the medieval city was the product of a continuous growth starting with Rome or whether, around the year 1000, the city was born anew after some centuries of reversion to a simpler form of social life. There is little doubt, however, that the medieval city not only had a different structure but also played a decidedly different rôle than the Greek or the Roman city. The typical medieval city was fortified and had achieved a certain degree of political autonomy from the central government. It played its leading rôle, however, as the center of trade and commerce and the home of the guilds. With the sixteenth century there came an important change over the urban life of Europe. New inventions, such as that of gunpowder, made the city wall obsolete. The beginnings of industry spelled the doom of the narrow guild system. In the light of this new order of things the medieval city of a former day—which was really a town—either had to adapt itself to the new forces that had become operative and join the ranks of growing cities or else become sterile and sink into decay.
Bax, E. B. German Culture, Past and Present (London, 1915).
Traces the development of the medieval German city. (II, 3).
Benson, E. Life in a Medieval City, Illustrated by York in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1920).
Consentius, Ernst. Alt-Berlin, Anno 1740 (2d ed.; Berlin, 1911).
One of a great number of special studies in the early history of German towns and cities. (III, 6.)
Coulton, George Gordon. Social Life in Britain from the Conquest to the Reformation (Cambridge, 1918).
Green, Alice S. A. (Mrs. J. R.) Town Life in the Fifteenth Century (2 vols., New York, 1894). (III, 5.)