Comunicación política y poder político en la Edad Media: un viaje conceptual

El concepto de comunicación es tan amplio que finalmente podría abarcar casi toda la actividad humana. La comunicación es un rasgo esencial de todas las formas de vida social y todas las acciones sociales poseen necesariamente aspectos comunicativos. La "comunicación política" se define aquí como las formas de comunicación que tratan cuestiones publicas en el marco de relaciones desiguales de poder. Después de la segunda guerra mundial la comunicación se convirtió en un tema de investigación cada vez más popular y, después de los setenta, ha influido también en los estudios medievales. Este artículo revisa una serie de conceptos claves usados por los medievalistas que estudian la comunicación política y el modo en que los aplican.The concept of communication is such a broad one that in the end it might encompass almost every human activity in the course of history. Communication is an essential feature of all forms of social life and all social actions necessarily have communicative aspects. "Political communication" refers to forms of communication dealing with public matters under unequal power relations. After World War Il, communication became an ever more popular subject of research, and since the 1970s it has also influenced medieval studies. This article surveys a number of key concepts used by medievalists who study political communication and the way in which these notions are applied

Political poems and subversive songs: the circulation of 'public poetry' in the Later Medieval Low Countries

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Studying rulers and states across fifteenth century Western Eurasia

This second chapter presents a theoretical contextualization of the volume’s specific case studies, and of the generalizing historical presentation in chapter one. This chapter reconstructs the modern study of 15th-century rulers and states in each of Muslim West-Asia’s dynastic research traditions. This is pitched against a wider background of state studies, describing the entanglements and particularities of those West-Asian research traditions as well as trends in the modern historiography of the Latin Far West. In general, the chapter offers a more explicit understanding of how studying the 15th-century state has happened in diverging ways, not just for the Latin West and Muslim West-Asia in general, but also for many of the different dynastic and proto-nationalist constituents of each. It argues at the same time that that divergence also harbors within itself many opportunities for an enriching exchange of ideas, given that searching for shared conceptual tools is not just about identifying parallels and connections, but rather more about comprehending divergence from a shared model. The chapter ends by suggesting that such a model may well be found in a very practical approach and may be usefully constructed around the returning suggestions that states do not make history, but history makes states, as and when successful social practices of exclusion, integration, reproduction, and appropriation start appearing, and presenting themselves, as pertaining to a coherent apparatus of coercion, distinction, differentiation and hegemony, or to the central state

Population et structures professionelles à Bruges au XIVe et XVe siècles

Population and Professional Structures in Bruges in the XIVth and XVth centuries. It has been widely recognized that, with regard to the Flemish urban economies, the Lower Middle-Ages were an age of disturbance. The indications that we possess about the number of inhabitants in Bruges, the major European market, fort three precise periods (1338/1340, 1440, 1447), suggest a relative stability through the XIVth and XVth centuries, the population fluctuating between 30,000 and 40,000 people. The demographic movement followed more or less closely the circumstancial variation of the «Burgundian economic model». Periods of high death rates were followed by periods of recovery, in which immigration played a dominant part. The comparison between the military data regarding the years 1338 and 1436, which gives us an idea of the socio-professional structures, confirms the general picture of the industrial restructurations taking place in Bruges in the Lower Middle- Ages. The growth of the luxury and garment-making industries was not however sufficient to compensate the jobs lost in the cloth-making industry.Il est bien connu que, pour les économies urbaines flamandes, le Bas Moyen Age fut une période turbulente. Les indications du nombre d'habitants de Bruges, premier marché européen, dont on dispose à trois moments précis (1338-1340, 1440, 1477), suggèrent une stabilité relative aux XIVe et XVe siècles, fluctuant entre environ 30000 et 40000 habitants. Le mouvement démographique suivait plus ou moins le mouvement conjoncturel du « modèle économique bourguignon ». Des crises de mortalité étaient suivies par des périodes de redressement, dans lesquelles l'immigration était le facteur principal. La comparaison entre les données militaires des années 1338-1340 et 1436, qui nous donne une idée des structures socioprofessionnelles, confirme l'image générale de restructurations industrielles à Bruges au Bas Moyen Age. La croissance de l'industrie de luxe et de la confection ne pouvait cependant pas compenser les pertes d'emploi dans la draperie.Bevolking en beroepstructuur te Brugge in de 14de en 15de eeuw. Zoals algemeen geweten vormden de late middeleeuwen een turbulente periode voor de stedelijke economieen in Vlaanderen. De aanwijzingen over het bevolkingsaantal van de wereeldmarkt Brugge, waarover we op drie precieze momenten beschikken (1338-1340, 1440, 1477), suggereren een relatieve stabiliteit tijdens de 14de en 15de eeuw. Dit aantal fluctueerde tussen ongeveer 30 000 tot 40 000 inwoners. De demografische beweging volgde ongeveer de conjunctuur eigen aan het «Bourgondisch model». Mortaliteitscrissisen werden afgewisseld met periodes van heropbloei, waarbij de immigratie de voornaamste factor was. De vergelijking tussen militaire gegevens voor de jaren 1338-1340 en 1436 geeft ons een idee over de socio-professionele structuren en bevestigt het algemeen beeld van de industriele herstructureringen in het laatmiddeleeuwse Brugge. De groei van de luxe-industrie en de confectienijverheid konden het verlies aan werkgelegenheid in de textielnijverheid echter niet compenseren.Dumolyn Jan. Population et structures professionnelles à Bruges aux XIVe et XVe siècles. In: Revue du Nord, tome 91, n°329, Janvier-mars 1999. pp. 43-64