Wine as a Urban Cultural Phenomenon from the Middle Ages up the 19th Century

The 42nd international conference on Urban History is jointly organized by the Prague City Archives, Faculty of Arts of J. E. Purkyně University in Ústí nad Labem, the Institute of History of the Czech Academy of Sciences, and Faculty of Humanities of Charles University. The conference, entitled "Wine as a Urban Cultural Phenomenon from the Middle Ages up the 19th Century", will take place on 10th to 11th October 2023 at the Academy of Sciences, Národní 3, Prague 1.

Programme

Wine in connection with the urban history of Bohemian towns has not been one of the main historiographical topics. Taking into account the results of earlier research, we would like to concentrate the theme of our conference in an interdisciplinary scope in a number of social science disciplines. We are interested not only in the question of wine and its perception as a foodstuff, but also in its function in the economy of towns and burghers or what place it occupied in the tax system. The trade in wine and its possible regulation, both in local markets and in its import and export, is also an important topic. There were many people involved in the wine industry and in the vineyards – winemakers, merchants or wine-bar owners, but on the other hand also vineyard workers. Related to these is the question how these people were organised and what position and place they occupied in medieval and early modern burghers society. A number of other topics can also be mentioned – the regulation of the vineyard sphere in towns, the competition of the urban and burgher vineyard economy with the business of the nobility and the church, the reflection of wine-growing in contemporary printed and manuscript literature, rituals and festivals associated in towns with winemaking, its reflection in the toponymy of towns, and the specific architecture of buildings that were part of vineyards in the suburbs.

The registration for the conference is possible at the email address marketa.ruckova@praha.eu until 4 October 2023.

Conference languages: Czech and German, with simultaneous interpretation, or English