Description
By exploring the uniquely dense urban network of the Low Countries, Janna Coomans debunks the myth of medieval cities as apathetic towards filth and disease. Based on new archival research and adopting a bio-political and spatial-material approach, Coomans traces how cities developed a broad range of practices to protect themselves and fight disease. Urban societies negotiated challenges to their collective health in the face of social, political and environmental change, transforming ideas on civic duties and the common good. Tasks were divided among different groups, including town governments, neighbours and guilds, and affected a wide range of areas, from water, fire and food, to pigs, prostitutes and plague. By studying these efforts in the round, Coomans offers new comparative insights and bolsters our understanding of the importance of population health and the physical world - infrastructures, flora and fauna - in governing medieval cities.
Explores how preventative health practices shaped urban communities, social ties and living environments in the medieval Low Countries.
About the Author
Janna Coomans is a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC project 'Healthscaping Urban Europe'. She obtained her PhD on public health in the medieval Low Countries cum laude, which received the Praemium Erasmianum and Pro Civitate prizes. Her main research interests are the history of cities, health and environments, as well as gender, crime and daily politics.
Reviews
'It is thoughtfully and inventively theorized, with an original interpretation solidly grounded in primary sources ... Coomans provides a useful demonstration of how public health initiatives and principles could be implemented in places with different sociopolitical realities. The book is a regional case study rooted in a range of primary source genres but should be valuable to urban historians of other regions and periods as well. Coomans explicitly avoids facile comparisons with the failures and successes of contemporary public health strategies. She engages thoughtfully, however, with the conspicuously relevant questions of how multifaceted and decentralized public health strategies can be effective and the implications of conceptualizing public health as a common good.' Lucy C. Barnhouse, H-Sci-Med-Tech
Book Information
ISBN 9781108831772
Author Janna Coomans
Format Hardback
Page Count 350
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 660g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 155mm * 24mm
Explores how preventative health practices shaped urban communities, social ties and living environments in the medieval Low Countries.
About the Author
Janna Coomans is a postdoctoral researcher in the ERC project 'Healthscaping Urban Europe'. She obtained her PhD on public health in the medieval Low Countries cum laude, which received the Praemium Erasmianum and Pro Civitate prizes. Her main research interests are the history of cities, health and environments, as well as gender, crime and daily politics.
Reviews
'It is thoughtfully and inventively theorized, with an original interpretation solidly grounded in primary sources ... Coomans provides a useful demonstration of how public health initiatives and principles could be implemented in places with different sociopolitical realities. The book is a regional case study rooted in a range of primary source genres but should be valuable to urban historians of other regions and periods as well. Coomans explicitly avoids facile comparisons with the failures and successes of contemporary public health strategies. She engages thoughtfully, however, with the conspicuously relevant questions of how multifaceted and decentralized public health strategies can be effective and the implications of conceptualizing public health as a common good.' Lucy C. Barnhouse, H-Sci-Med-Tech
Book Information
ISBN 9781108831772
Author Janna Coomans
Format Hardback
Page Count 350
Imprint Cambridge University Press
Publisher Cambridge University Press
Weight(grams) 660g
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 155mm * 24mm
