We are happy to announce that our edited volume has just come out with Amsterdam University Press. It is open access and for free accessible via OAPEN or JSTOR where the separate chapters can be accessed more easily. The hardback copy is also available with a 20% discount until 8 February with the code “Pub_CRTLMEME” on the publsher’s site here.
In recent political and legal history, scholars seldom specify how and why they use the concept of territory. In research on state-formation processes and nation building, for instance, the term mostly designates an enclosed geographical area ruled by a central government. Inspired by ideas from political geographers, this book explores the layered and constantly changing meanings of territory in late medieval and early modern Europe before cartography and state formation turned boundaries and territories into more fixed (but still changeable) geographical entities. Its central thesis is that assessing the notion of territory in a pre-modern setting involves analysing territorial practices: practices that relate people and power to space(s). The essays in this book not only examine the construction and spatial structure of pre-modern territories but also explore their perception and representation through the use of a broad range of sources: from administrative texts to maps, from stained-glass windows to chronicles.
Imagined territories 