Urban Social and Economic History

Rouen during the Wars of Religion was a work of urban social and economic history as well as of religious history. Although most of my subsequent research took me in the latter direction, I retained an interest in urban history, editing a collective volume on cities in early modern France and publishing several articles and essays in this domain. The most ambitious of these, “French Cities from the Sixteenth Century to the Revolution: An Overview” in Benedict ed., Cities and Social Change in Early Modern France (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989; paperback edition, Routledge, 1992), p. 7-64, seeks to outline the changing place of cities within French society and the principal transformations of urban life and social structure across the Ancien Régime.

Related Publications

“Heurs et malheurs d’un gros bourg drapant: note sur la population de Darnétal aux 16e et 17e siècles,” Annales de Normandie 28 (1978), 195-205.

“Rouen’s Foreign Trade in the Age of the Religious Wars (1560-1600),” The Journal of European Economic History 13 (1984), 29-74.

“Civil War and Natural Disaster in Northern France” in P. Clark, ed., The European Crisis of the 1590s (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1985), p. 84-105

“Late Medieval and Early Modern Urban History à l’Anglaise. A Review Article,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 28 (1986), 169-180.

“French Cities from the Sixteenth Century to the Revolution: An Overview” in Benedict ed., Cities and Social Change in Early Modern France (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989; paperback edition, Routledge, 1992), p. 7-64.

“Was the Eighteenth Century an Era of Urbanization in France?” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 21 (1990), 179-215.

“Urbanization in Eighteenth-century France: A Reply” [to Bernard Lepetit, “Urbanization in Eighteenth-century France: A Comment”], Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23 (1992), 87-95.

“Faith, Fortune and Social Structure in Seventeenth-Century Montpellier,” Past & Present 152 (1996), 46-78, reprinted in The Faith and Fortunes of France’s Huguenots 1600-85.

“More than Market and Manufactory: The Cities of Early Modern France,” French Historical Studies 20 (1997), 511-538. This is a slightly revised version of an essay previously published in Italian translation as “Lo stato, le élite fondiarie e la vita urbana nella Francia degli inizi dell’era moderna” in C. Olmo and B. Lepetit, eds. La città e le sue storie (Turin: Einaudi, 1995).