A reassessment of fundamental scholarship on the Middle Ages, based on previously unknown medieval written source material.

Medieval peasantry represents a particularly attractive unknown for historians, as it is crucial for understanding both later economic growth and the surprising stagnation of some European regions. Our existing knowledge about the social structures and institutions of the medieval peasantry is incomplete, existing only in rough outlines. Almost nothing is known about their real inner dynamics and demographic aspects. This monograph takes on this challenge, taking advantage of the previously unnoticed preserved written sources of the Cheb city-state, a place unique in the European context. Drawing from this material, the book presents a remarkably detailed view of social mobility, migration, and the method of social reproduction of peasantry in the late Middle Ages, including new perspectives on the phenomenon of the disintegration of country settlements during that period.

This volume studies the movements of visual artists from the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, where a lack of opportunities makes migration necessary for career progression. Faced with such barriers, how do artists from the Baltic States break into the global art market? Emma Duester argues that these artists form an artistic diaspora of practice, forming communities across geographic and ethnic borders.

Offering a fresh perspective on art and the working lives of those who create it, this multidisciplinary work investigates patterns of migration and mobile working practices across Europe and discusses the implications of artists’ movements on conventional notions of home, mobility, and diaspora. Amid a global refugee crisis, a resurgence in negative portrayals of Eastern Europeans in mainstream media, and increasing anti-immigrant sentiment fueled by Brexit and the rise of protectionism, this is a vital work that shines important new light on diaspora, displacement, and what it means to belong.