Bruges was undoubtedly one of the most important cities in medieval Europe. Bringing together specialists from both archaeology and history, this 'total' history presents an integrated view of the city's history from its very beginnings, tracing its astonishing expansion through to its subsequent decline in the sixteenth century. The authors' analysis of its commercial growth, industrial production, socio-political changes, and cultural creativity is grounded in an understanding of the city's structure, its landscape and its built environment. More than just a biography of a city, this book places Bruges within a wider network of urban and rural development and its history in a comparative framework, thereby offering new insights into the nature of a metropolis.

'A team of the best specialists presents an up-to-date overview of medieval Bruges, the metropolis of North-Western Europe, linking the Mediterranean and the Northern markets, innovative in commercial techniques as well as in the production of refined arts-and-crafts. All aspects are integrated in a social framework explaining the city's exceptional creativity.' Wim Blockmans, University of Leiden
'Within these pages, the urban biography of a metropolis unfolds: in the Middle Ages, Bruges was a powerful, lively and seductive city which positioned itself at the heart of networks of power between the cities of Europe, and also in their collective imagination. A total history was the only way to do this story justice. This is what the authors of this book, with passion and precision, are offering us today.' Patrick Boucheron, Collège de France

Andrew Brown is Associate Professor at Massey University in New Zealand and a historian of late medieval religion and society. His books include Popular Piety in Late Medieval England (1995) and Civic Ceremony and Religion in Medieval Bruges, c.1300–1520 (Cambridge, 2010). Jan Dumolyn is a senior lecturer at Ghent University and historian of the political, social and cultural history of the medieval county of Flanders. He has published widely on late medieval popular politics.