, ed. Ben Eersels and Jelle Haemers. Studies in European Urban History, 48. Turnhout: Brepols, 2020, 224 pp.

This volume of essays continues the welcome trend in recent years to uncover the crucial role that popular politics played in late medieval societies. This scholarship has convincingly shown that non-elites were frequently engaged in peaceful efforts to participate in government and power relations, and not just in violent and extra-legal activities such as revolt. The volume covers urban communities, largely due to available sources and a focus on institutions such as assemblies and councils, and includes Southern France, Spain, the Low Countries, Germany, Sweden, and England. This expands the geographic range of the argument that non-elites were central players in political action, showing it was pervasive in urban areas throughout Western Europe and also highlights the variety of forms popular politics could take. This scholarship has been excellent in properly placing popular politics – and not just periodic revolts – at the center of the consideration of larger political history of the late Middle Ages, and with this volume of essays this story expands in its detail and specificity. Editors Ben Eersels and Jelle Haemers have been at the forefront of this recent trend in scholarship, and have chosen a series of essays for this volume that are remarkably consistent in quality.