One of the most widespread stereotypes about modern urban life claims that it is more dangerous and crime-ridden than life in the country. Journalists use the evidence of delinquency-rates in big cities to argue for the presence of contemporary crime waves. The police apply new methods of crime prevention such as the so-called ‘zero tolerance’ strategy first in large metropolises. The tabloid press detects ‘murder capitals’. The film industry loves scenes from urban life in their thrillers and we love to watch them. Evidence used in the popular press seems to prove an almost natural link between urban life and crime. This connection, however, is not a contemporary phenomenon. In his famous Enquiry into the Causes of the Late Increase of Robbers Henry Fielding described the streets of London in 1751 as places of crime and insecurity. Archives of towns and cities are full of court proceedings and criminal records dating from the late middle ages, when town magistrates started to take measures against so-called delinquency – a contemporary legal term. Violence, in particular, seems to have been endemic in towns and cities. It could be tempting, therefore, to conclude that the link between urban life and crime is self-evident, if not to say timeless. However, historical statutes and town records can also be read in a rather different way. In both normative sources and court proceedings we can discern a clear will to ensure peace and stability in towns and cities. Without this will, our sources would simply not exist, for crime and conflict would have gone by unnoticed and unrecorded.

In the free towns of Germany we can observe a fundamental shift in the maintenance of urban stability. Whereas in late medieval towns the burghers themselves were responsible for the settlement of conflicts, the town council took over control in a long-ranging process. Burghers lost their traditional right to bear arms in public. Burghers and other town dwellers could henceforth call upon the guards of the council or take a case to law in order to settle a dispute. As a consequence petty conflicts in the public sphere became less ritualized.

Oaths of office are generally well preserved for many English towns and cities and they can tell us a great deal about the theoretical and (perhaps to a lesser extent) practical duties of office-holders. In the light of recent scholarly interest in oaths in the context of investiture ceremonies, this article examines the rhetoric of oath texts to highlight some aspects of the political cultures of urban office-holding elites and their attempts to maintain stability.

In the history of crime and criminal justice, the city of Goerlitz represents a rather special case. The city magistracy did not feel politically responsible towards the burghers and therefore did not strive to legitimize its rule by administering efficient social control. As a consequence, the formal and inefficient procedures of archaic Saxon law were largely kept intact. Due to this, the level of violence seems to have been higher than in other cities.

Aside from the early modern tension between self-governance and the nascent institutions of state administration, towns were also marked by the tension between council and burghers; only the town council could guarantee urban stability. In conflicts between burghers, council mediation was usually concluded with the ritualistic shaking of hands and the threat of punishment in case of a repeat offence. Punishment of burghers was in all cases less important than mediation between offenders. The councils followed on the other hand a multi-layered, participatory model in their attempt to involve all resident burghers in government.

The article looks at urban stability and crime control in cities with large immigrant communities in sixteenth-century England. It outlines the strategies of shared authority between urban magistrates and leaders of refugee communities to tackle conflict and crime. It argues that the Strangers were able to present themselves as useful and welcome members of their host community, which profited from their arrival. At the same time they managed to keep their specific alien networks within their new places of residence over several generations intact.

This article analyses different aspects of illicit artisan work, especially in early modern Lübeck. It was a significant political problem especially for the guilds, because in their view it was a severe encroachment on their corporate liberties. In particular, the social control of clandestine artisans was a controversial issue: while the guilds regarded the right to carry out visitations as a central part of their privileges, this practice clashed with other civic liberties for example the protection of the ‘house-peace’ (Hausfriede).

This article examines the delicate relationship between the civic privilege of wine retailing and the constitutional emphasis on order in a city republic. Burghers appreciated the revenues from beverage sales, while urban authorities worried about destabilizing effects. In the context of state formation, Bern claimed control over public houses throughout its territory, but closer analysis suggests that socio-economic and political interests were constantly renegotiated, not only within the capital but also between centre and periphery.

The regulation of public space was fundamental to the achievement of ‘urban stability’ in the early modern period. As such, this article analyses the resolution of two tavern conflicts in eighteenth-century Lyon. Although the city council as well as royal representatives had an interest in administering peace within the city walls, the case studies demonstrate that public order depended upon a complex process of negotiation between different institutions and that townspeople themselves played prominent roles in the regulation of public affairs.

During the 1730s, Bristol acquired an unenviable reputation as a city in which sodomy was endemic and rarely punished by the civil power. Although the cause lay partly in difficulties experienced in securing convictions, the resolve of magistrates was exposed to fierce scrutiny. Taking an effusive curate's moral vindication of the city as a starting point, this article examines the social production of sodomy in eighteenth-century Bristol, analyses prosecution patterns and considers the importance of collective moral reputation in the forging of civic history.

In recent years considerable scholarly attention has been given to the nature and significance of the ceremonial entries into important cities by kings and other great people. A prevalent interpretation of these entries sees them essentially as a ‘monarchical institution’ with little significance attached to the role the citizens played in these spectacles. Yet other views are slowly ‘catching up’. A useful – though more descriptive than analytical – contribution to these civic oriented approaches is made by Neil Murphy in his ‘Receiving royals in later medieval York: civic ceremony and the municipal elite, 1478–1503’, Northern History, 43 (2006), 241–55. York was a city that received considerable royal attention, and unlike most English provincial centres, York's civic records are such that information about the pageants, programmes and performances can be obtained. Murphy essentially only considers three royal visits to the city: Richard III in 1483, Henry VII in 1486 and Princess Margaret en route to Scotland in 1503. The most prominent elements which he emphasizes and illustrates are as follows. The organization and control of the procession rested strongly with the merchant elite. The procession was organized to pass through streets largely inhabited by merchants and past the churches specially connected with them. Major episodes were scheduled at sites associated with civic authority: at Micklegate Bar, the Ouse Bridge and the Common Hall, yet Murphy also stresses the relevance of ‘public space’ within these entries. A particularly interesting observation is that considerable trouble was taken to associate ceremonial entries with the city's play cycles. Thus for Henry VII's visit in 1486 the city paid the weavers to put on their Corpus Christi Day pageant. When it was learned that the king planed another visit to York in August of the following year, the Corpus Christi play was delayed until then. Murphy highlights several interesting details, for example the way in which the city was notified of royal intentions to visit; the importance of the scarlet robes worn by all the city's rulers; the means adopted to keep a procession under mobile illumination. Special importance attaches to the gifts normally made to the king, especially a new monarch, or other royal entrants. Thus in 1483 Richard III was given 500 marks, his queen 100 ‘gold shillings’. These were very large sums in relation to the York municipal revenue and reflect Richard III's popularity in the city. Henry VII on his visit in 1486 – several months after Bosworth – agreed to do without a gift. Murphy pays little attention to the possible implications of this point. It is somewhat astonishing that he also fails to analyse the political contents of the pageants staged by the city on this occasion: York went to considerable trouble to stress the city's mythological past.