For the reader not yet fluent in several European languages, such summaries offer welcome insights into otherwise inaccessible scholarship. Further, many of the authors do a commendable job of summarizing their respective national historiographical debates, making much specialist literature available to a broader audience. It is not often one sees collections of conference presentations that are so thematically coherent. 'Overall, this is a valuable collection of essays. Finally, there is an excellent and consistent focus on the surviving written word: its production, use, destruction, storage, survival, and how it has been and can be studied.' (Nicolas Brodie, in: Parergon, 31.2, 2014, p. Thirdly, the researchers present many methodological propositions that will have broader application beyond their own particular studies. Secondly, this volume puts a wide range of research on European archives, towns, and literacy into English. Firstly, the very particularity of the contributions goes some way to helping the reader spot what is geographically or chronologically particular, and what is more commonly European. 'Several areas of contribution to scholarship stand out. die vergleichende Untersuchung von europaweit auftretenden Erscheinungen wie der Gewichtsverlagerung der städtischen Schriftlichkeit von überwiegend dem Klerus angehörenden ✾xperten« hin zu weltlichen Schreibern, Kanzleien und Notaren und die Entwicklung der unterschiedlichen Beglaubigungsmöglichkeiten.' (Gisela Naegle, in: Francia Recensio, 2015/1) Die einzelnen in jeder Beziehung sehr heterogenen Artikel stehen nebeneinander, einige Autoren sprechen mitunter jedoch auch vergleichende Gesichtspunkte an. 'Insgesamt gesehen ist der Charakter der vorgelegten Artikel und der präsentierten Regionen sehr verschieden. Adamska (eds.), Brepols Publishers, ISBN 978-0-6) These essays will be particularly helpful to specialists in medieval history who do not otherwise have access to scholarship in Dutch, Hungarian, and Polish, as well as the Scandinavian languages.' (David Bachrach, in: The Medieval Review, January 2015, - reviewed at the same time: Uses of the Written Word in Medieval Towns: Medieval Urban Literacy II, M. 'Indeed, these two volumes represent a remarkable achievement, offering readers a sens of the state of the question regarding important aspects of urban literacy across a vast swath of Europe over a period of three centuries.

Medieval town