The city is one of the central factors that shaped human existence in the pre-modern era. It is a component of historical reality and at the same time an object of cultural knowledge. Accordingly, the city in pre-modern epochs is negotiated in various media formats that bear, above all, witness to the cultural and social imaginaries that were associated with the city. These imaginations of the pre-modern city are addressed in the recently published volume "Mentale Konzepte der Stadt in Bild und Textmedien der Vormoderne" edited by Margit Dahm and Timo Felber. It is the third volume of ROOTS Studies, the scholarly book series of the Cluster of Excellence ROOTS.

This volume brings together contributions from different academic disciplines that are dedicated to mental concepts, i.e. notions, ideas or imaginings of the western European medieval city, which appear across epochs in different discursive and visual representations. The papers discuss the city not only as a component of the historical reality of pre-modernity but also as a part of the fixed inventory of cultural knowledge and memory. In an interdisciplinary exchange between specialists of German studies, theology, archaeology, history and art history, mental concepts of the city are examined in different media formats, including city chronicles, secular painting, biblical texts, medieval city plans and courtly novels.
Through the diversity of the examined formats and hermeneutical confrontations, it becomes apparent that the cultural ideas associated with the city and urbanity are not only shaped by historical specifics but also by supertemporal constants, which are frequently rooted in antiquity and Christian traditions.

Editor Margit Dahm is Junior Professor of German Literature of the High and Late Middle Ages at the Institute for German Studies at Kiel University. Editor Dr. Timo Felber is Full Professor of German Literature of the High and Late Middle Ages at the Institute of German Studies at Kiel University. Both are members of the Cluster of Excellence ROOTS.

The volume is open access and freely available online.
Margit Dahm & Timo Felber (eds.): Mentale Konzepte der Stadt in Bild- und Textmedien der Vormoderne. Leiden 2023.

Paperback ISBN: 9789464270570 | Hardback ISBN: 9789464270587 | https://doi.org/10.59641/7xb7940z