The Rise and Decline of an Iberian Bourgeoisie

Jeff Fynn-Paul is a Lecturer in History at Universiteit Leiden. His research interests include the economic and social history of Europe and the Mediterranean from 1300 to the present, and urban institutions, state formation, public debt, class and slavery in relation to economic growth.

• 1. Introduction: Catalan urban institutions, the Catalan Bourgeoise and the late medieval crisis; Part I. Politics: 2. The creation of a regional capital: town government and Royal policy; 3. A portrait of the Manresan Partricate; 4. Plague, war and calamity: the makings of the fourteenth-century crisis at Manresa; 5. The practice of government at Manresa during the fourteenth-century crisis; Part II. Economy: 6. The Aragonese financial revolution: a nexus of state formation and personal investment; 7. Demography, wages and prices in the age of the Black Death; 8. Fruits of the urban system: equality, inequality and quality of life; 9. Conclusion: the rise and decline of Manresan civic vitality as a function of the city's 'Bourgeois system', 1250–1500; Bibliography; Index.

'I suspect that Fynn-Paul's book will become a model study that will shape future work on medieval urban history. His diligence in capitalising on this underutilised treasure trove of documentation will surely influence the ongoing scholarly conversation regarding the broad political and economic trends of the later Middle Ages.' Thomas W. Barton, Continuity and Change