This regional study examines the declining fortunes of Freiburg, a craft town on the Upper Rhine, and its relations with the surrounding Breisgau village communities. Here, Scott uses historical and economic geography to examine the town and surrounding villages as a totality rather than as isolated independent communities, focusing on the troubled period from 1450 to 1530 when the territorial expansion of Freiburg threatened the surrounding Breisgau villages and pitted burgher against peasant in a struggle for economic and political survival.

This collection of essays covers relations between town and country, regional economic systems, and historical regional studies in late medieval and early modern Germany, in particular how these bear upon social and religious change in the age of the Reformation. Starting from case-studies of South-West Germany, Switzerland and Alsace, the essays broaden out to consider the formation of economic landscapes, the development of urban territories, and the survival of forms of serfdom throughout Germany as a whole. While issues of economic and social structure take pride of place, they are...