Our corporeality and immersion in the material world make us inherently spatial beings, and the fact that we all share everyday experiences in the global physical environment means that community is also spatial by nature. This book explores the relationship between the seventeenth-century townspeople of Turku, Sweden, and their urban surroundings. Riitta Laitinen offers a novel account of civil and social order in this early modern town, highlighting the central importance of materiality and spatiality and breaking down the dichotomy of public versus private life that has dominated traditional studies of the time period.

Riitta Laitinen is a research fellow in the Department of Cultural History at the University of Turku.

Introduction Part I: Setting the Stage: The Kingdom of Sweden and Its Towns Part II: Coming, Going and Staying - The Town and the CommunityThe Town and Its Space 1. Ordering Everyday Mobility Marking and Crossing Boundaries Stopping at the Town Gate The Extent and the Centre of the Town Regulating Burgher Mobility with Detention in Town Townspeople on the Move Controlling Incoming Strangers 2. The Undesirable Vagrants - Exclusion or Inclusion? Timethieves and Beggars Inspecting, Banishing and Housing Vagrants Loose or Settled: Sailors and Soldiers and the Town Ordering Women in the Margins 3. Banishing Lawbreakers Banishment, Law and Crime Spatial Exclusion and Rehabilitation of Thieves Getting Rid of Miscreants? The Banished and the Town Community That Banishes Part III: Living Together - Urban Home, Urban SpaceSpace and the Urban home 1. Organizing Urban Dwelling Urban Turku Space - Small Houses and Central Yards Household and Holding House Tenancy and Control over Space The Order and Disorder of Lodging The Servants' Place in Town 2. Spatial Rules of the Urban Home Closed and Porous Boundaries Violent Invasion of a Home Public, Private and the Protected Home Open House and Intimacy Entering and Exiting: Male Sociability and Transactions Conclusions