Medieval Cologne

Book excerpt: In Anglophone literature, historical questions about urban, socio-economic, political, religious, and cultural development have often been answered using Anglo-French, Anglo-Low Countries, and Anglo-Italian paradigms and sources. Medieval Germany has been largely overlooked, seen as a peripheral and irrelevant anomaly. Conversely, scholars from the German Rhineland have mostly remained within the traditions of civic public history and Landesgeschichte. As a result, they rarely engage with the historical questions raised in wider European discourses. This volume challenges these historiographical propensities by offering a fresh perspective on medieval urban Germany. It aims to integrate Cologne and the Rhineland more accurately and equitably into the wider histories of medieval Europe. The book engages with historical questions of wider relevance across both German and European medieval histories. It invites all scholars and students of medieval Europe to utilize Cologne as a key source for their research and writing.