For the first open digital lecture of the 2022-2023 academic year, the Digital Research Network for Medieval Urban History (Queen Mary University London and Pirenne Institute at Ghent University) are happy to welcome Sam Geens (University of Antwerp) who will speak on 'The impact of the urban network on medieval wealth inequality, Flanders and Tuscany compared (1275-1550)'. This will take place on Friday 16th September 2022 (4pm CEST).

Paper

Scholars have stressed how inequality tends to increase in relation to the size of cities, but have been less attentive about how the relationship between communities of varying sizes may have influenced inequality at the macro level. This paper focuses on the distribution of wealth in two leading but highly different urban networks in the late medieval period, namely Flanders and Tuscany, to uncover its impact.

Speaker

Sam Geens is currently writing the final pages of his PhD in economic history at the university of Antwerp, where he works as a researcher and teaching assistant at the Centre for Urban History and AIPRIL (Antwerp Interdisciplinary Platform for Research into Inequality). His academic interests include the evolution of living standards, the economic consequences of disasters, and the distribution of wealth in premodern Europe.

The digital lectures and the network are organised via MS Teams and are open to all. Get in touch if you'd like to join the debate!