How do we explain the fact that certain areas had many large cities, while other areas were studded with large numbers of small towns and yet other areas had very few urban agglomerations of any kind?

This project uses archaeological, literary and epigraphic evidence to investigate urban development in Roman-period North Africa, compiling this in a GIS-linked database in order to analyse the development of urban settlement spatially over time.

To what extent did the street patterns in urban districts influence crime patterns?

The first objective is to create a catalogue raisonée, i.e. a structured database that will store the main attributes of each town in a standardized format database, which will be freely accessible when completed; the second objective is to exploit theories and methods that can help us to understand…

This seminal volume covers the entire global history of urbanization since the rise of cities in Mesopotamia in the 6th millennium BC. Leiden historians Wim Blockmans, Leonard Blussé, Luuk de Ligt and Leo Lucassen contributed survey and thematic chapters.

My research project focuses on the development of a popular national agency in late nineteenth century Amsterdam and the question how ‘ordinary’ citizens imagined ‘the Netherlands’ through the experience and use of their urban surroundings.

The rise and fall of the cesspit in an urban context

Ariadne Schmidt, Isabelle Devos and Julie de Groot provide you with refreshing insights concerning the study on urban singles in the period between 1200 and 1900.

This research investigates the impact of socioeconomic developments on the physical condition of medieval populations in Holland and Zeeland between AD 1000 and 1600 through the analysis of human skeletal remains from three archaeological sites.

The Effects of the 1881 Liquor Act on the Leiden Alcohol Trade

This PhD research aims to trace the impact of the Arab conquest, both immediate and long-term, on the material and social organization of Central Asia from 651 to 821 through an “urban change” perspective in four cities: Merv, Paikent, Balkh and Samarkand.

The central aims of this project are to establish the shapes of the various urban hierarchies existing in the provinces of the Roman Empire and (especially) to use the quantitative properties of these hierarchies to shed new light on levels of economic integration.

The Uses of Justice in Global Perspective, 1600–1900 presents a new perspective on the uses of justice between 1600 and 1900 and confronts prevailing Eurocentric historiography in its examination of how people of this period made use of the law.

Bringing together the most current research on the relationship between crime and gender in the West between 1600 and 1914, this authoritative volume places female criminality within its everyday context.

Considering the ways in which the ‘global turn’ is changing the theory and practice of historical disciplines, Explorations in History and Globalization engages with the concept and methodology of globalization, challenging traditional divisions of space and time to offer a range of perspectives on…

This project focuses on urban commercial space in Roman Italy and deals with the impact of economic growth on urban communities in the late Republic and the Imperial period (200 BCE – 300 CE).

The main objective of this research is to map out the cities of the Roman Near East in the imperial period, with a focus on location, city size and urban features, in order to study the form the urban system and its levels of integration.

The main research objective is to map the cities of Roman Asia Minor in terms of location, size, urban amenities and juridical status, with the specific aim to understand the reasons how this urban settlement pattern arose.

Roos van Oosten's research on medieval cesspits stood on the basis of an article on this subject in Quest Historie, a Dutch magazine about history.

Ariadne Schmidt will be appointed professor by special appointment of the Magdalena Moons chair at Leiden University. From 1 September 2018 she will carry out academic research and teach on the cultural history of the city, in particular of Leiden.

The central aim is to systematically study differences in gendered crime patterns in the records of different types of courts in various Dutch cities in the early modern period.

Crime is men’s business, isn’t it? Women are responsible for 10 percent of crime in Europe. Yet, if we look at the Dutch Republic in the early modern period, we find that in the towns of Holland women played a much larger role in crime.

The central aim is to systematically study differences in gendered crime patterns in the records of different types of courts in various English and Dutch cities in the early modern period.

Margarida Borges has been working as a PhD candidate at the Leiden Institute for History since September 2011.

To what extent was labour-induced migration important to the functioning of the towns and cities of Roman Italy?

They existed and were important, but for too long they have remained invisible in historiography: women. Ariadne Schmidt, the Magdalena Moons endowed professor, researches the history of urban culture in Leiden. Women take pride of place in her research. Inaugural lecture on 28 February.

The Leiden Ancient History specialization concentrates on the study of the economies, societies and cultures of the large empires of the Graeco-Roman world, starting with the empires of Alexander the Great and his successors. The appearance of these empires led to the development of an interaction network…

Systematisch geordend naslagwerk voor alle stadsrechten in Nederland

How many cities were there actually in the Roman Empire? And why did some regions only have a few cities, while others consisted of a tight urban network? Luuk de Ligt, Professor of Ancient History, wants to know the answer to all these questions. With the ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million awarded to…

In this project diverse aspects of the duchesses’ roles in the complex and dynamic relations between town and crown are studied on the basis of systematic research in the account books of four cities (Ghent, Bruges, Leuven and Mechelen) in the Burgundian Netherlands (ca. 1430-1503).

How many cities were there actually in the Roman Empire? And why did some regions only have a few cities, while others consisted of a tight urban network? Luuk de Ligt, Professor of Ancient History, wants to know the answer to all these questions. With the ERC Advanced Grant of 2.5 million awarded to…

Jeff Fynn-Paul, lecturer at Leiden University’s Institute for History, was recently awarded the European History Quarterly’s 2016 Prize for his article “Occupation, Family, and Inheritance in Fourteenth-Century Barcelona: A Socio-Economic Profile of One of Europe’s Earliest Investing Publics.”

City dwellers in the Middle Ages were probably no worse off than people living in villages. Both groups had very different health risks, is Rachel Schats' conclusion from her research on bone material. PhD defence 3 November.

Alicia Schrikker doesn't usually get involved in urban history. As a senior lecturer, her research field is generally the colonial history of Asia and partly South Africa. So, the fact that she is going to carry out an urban history research project together with colleagues, is something that even she…

This summer, Jeffrey Fynn-Paul started as a lecturer at the Institute's Social and Economic History section.

Louis Sicking's Maritime Conflict Management in Atlantic Europe was awarded an 'Internationalisation in the Humanities' grant from NWO. What can we learn from how maritime conflicts were managed in the past?

Every year, an NWO PhD in the Humanities grant is awarded to a prospective PhD candidate at the Faculty of Archaeology. This year, the grant went to Maia Casna, enabling her to study respiratory disease in the past. ‘My hypothesis is that the rapid formation of cities in the medieval Netherlands, must…