Introduction

In early modern and modern Europe, towns were often the motivators for economic change, controlling trade and capital formation; and the disseminators of culture, resources and information. Commercial cities flourished and developed complex manufacturing practices, while articulating systems of exchange – involving goods as well as people – with their immediate hinterlands and with wider regions. At the same time, in many areas of Europe, standards of living for the majority improved dramatically, leading to new practices of consumption. Towns greatly contributed to material and cultural exchange across the whole of Europe, thus playing a central role in the rise of modern Western capitalism and in the economic integration of the continent. ¹