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CAERS Bram (ed.), DEMETS Lisa (ed.), VAN GASSEN Tineke (ed.)Urban history writing in the North-Western Europe (15th-16th centuries)Turnhout : Brepols, 2019, 231 p.Collection Studies in European urban history (110-1800) ; 47ISBN 978-2-503-58376-1EUR 1023Résumé éditeur :In the densely populised Low Countries, with their powerful and self-conscious cities, historical consciousness was expressed in various ways. Cases of regional historiography have been well-studied, but more local instances of historiographical production have remained more or less unnoticed. In ten articles with an extensive introduction, this volume places the local historiography in this region in a European perspective. It brings to the attention new material from a wide variety of cities and sets the standard for future research.This volume aims at taking the first steps towards a revaluation of urban historiography in Northwest Europe, including rather than excluding texts that do not fit common definitions. It confronts examples from the Low Countries to well-studied cases abroad, in order to develop new approaches to urban historiography in general. In the authors' view, there are no fixed textual formats, social or political categories, or material forms that exclusively define ‘the urban chronicle’. Urban historiography in pre-modern Western Europe came in many guises, from the dry and modest historical notes in a guild register, to the elaborate heraldic images in a luxury manuscript made on commission for a patrician family, to the legally founded political narrative of a professional scribe in an official town chronicle. The contributions in this volume attest to the diversity of the ‘genre’ and look more closely at these texts from a broader, comparative perspective, unrestrained by typologies and genre definitions. It is mainly because of these hybrid guises, that many examples of urban historiography from the Low Countries for instance succeeded in going unnoticed for a considerable amount of time. (4e de couv.) Bram Caers studied Englis and Dutch Literature at Antwerp University, and finished his PhD research in 2015, entitled 'Rewriting history in Early Modern Mechelen (1500-1650)'. His doctoral dissertation will be published by Verloren (Hilversum). He now works for Leiden University and his research interests are Middle Dutch literature, medieval urban historiographies, and the political and cultural history of late medieval and ealry modern Mechelen and Brabant. Lisa Demets studied history at Ghent University. She is a PhD fellow of the Research Foundation Flanders - FWO stationed at Ghent University. Her doctoral research deals with the late medieval Chronicles of Flanders, particularly focusing on the Middle Dtch manuscript branch: the so-called 'Excellente Cronicke van Vlaenderen'. Her main research interest are urban history, gender history, medieval (urban) history writing, and the political and cultural history of the medieval Low Countries. Tineke Van Gassen studied history at Ghent University and finished her PhD Research en 2017. Her doctoral research project was entitled: 'The documentary memory of a medieval city: the development and signification of the Ghent city archives.' Her research interests are urban history, the history of the craft guilds, medieval diplomatics and the political history of late medieval Ghent.