Studies on the urban history of medieval Iberia by Anglo-American scholars appear infrequently, especially those that seek to integrate serious economic analysis rather than focusing largely on political or social matters. Now-classic works by Stephen Bensch and Philip Daileader on Barcelona and Perpignan, for example, shied away from the later medieval period (Bensch) or the computational acrobatics (Daileader) that Jeff Fynn-Paul has featured in this sophisticated and deeply perceptive study of Manresa, a medium-sized town located about 60 kilometres to the northwest of Barcelona. There are several good reasons for this trend that are observable throughout this book. The sheer volume of dizzyingly complex documentation that must be surveyed and analysed to reconstruct and assess the delicate economic patterns experienced by a town such as Manresa over more than a century, especially one that has such unparalleled archival riches (most importantly, the Libri Manifesti), is often sufficient to drive Anglo-American doctoral students to run for cover among more friendly topics. Fynn-Paul's hard-earned mastery of diverse archival sources is palpable throughout this study. Urban economic history, furthermore, features a complex, international historiography that is difficult to navigate, much less contribute to. Fynn-Paul's deep understanding of the key historiographical patterns and debates over the past generations enhances his ability to integrate Manresa's case into the economic and political landscape of the Crown of Aragon, and then to compare that scenario with the broader European narrative (while engaging with fundamental comparative resources such as the Florentine Catasto of 1427). Finally, it is unfortunately the case that medieval urban history, particularly the sophisticated sort Fynn-Paul has conducted here, can be a tough sell, and it is hard to blame young doctoral students and their advisors for opting to pursue what might seem to be more marketable dissertation topics.

The fact that Fynn-Paul has accomplished such a well-crafted, thorough, and compelling work (and pieced together a forthcoming companion study on Manresa's social history at the same time) that is so clearly based on countless hours spent winding his way through Manresa's dense archival forests without the constant support of a home institution is all the more impressive. Even though his subject is arguably narrow, focused as it is on a single town, and his subject matter highly detailed, Fynn-Paul crafts a narrative that is readable and highly informative. I have studied the urban history of the Crown of Aragon for well over a decade and now understand better than ever before many important institutions and concepts that Fynn-Paul has been able to explain clearly yet without over-simplification.

The book has a sensible organisational structure that enhances its accessibility. A thorough introduction surveys the range of evidence, establishes the historical and historiographical context, and proposes a new typology of class to which Fynn-Paul appeals throughout his study. Part I presents a tour through Manresa's fourteenth-century socio-political history, and seamlessly integrates a progressively more detailed picture of local governmental institutions and their manner of interaction with extra-local entities. What is most notable about these four chapters is their ability to treat, in a finely-grained fashion, how the late medieval crises affected the town and its various inhabitants. Fynn-Paul is able to show the impact of demographic crises that have loomed large in the historiography, such as the famines of the 1330s and the Black Death, as well as how shifts within the monarchy influenced town administration and the manner of office-holding by local families. With the rhythms and lay of the land of Manresa's (and, to some degree, the greater Crown of Aragon's) history thus mapped out, Fynn-Paul is then poised to take a deep dive into the nuances of its economic history in Part II. Chapter 6 explores in a sophisticated fashion what Fynn-Paul terms ‘The Aragonese Financial Revolution’: namely, the shift from violaris to censals and the implications of this shift in the credit market for families, office-holding, and the overall economic well-being of the town. Here also, Fynn-Paul takes the time to pan out and view these local and regional phenomena within the broader European context. Chapter 7 examines the influence of the most important fourteenth-century demographic crisis, the Black Death and its aftershocks, on wages, prices, and the local economy within Manresa. Chapter 8 tackles the important remaining question of what the lives of the town's inhabitants were like as the fourteenth century came to a close by engaging heavily with the Libri Manifesti, and thus serves to begin to wrap up this segment on Manresa's economic history. Through further careful analysis Fynn-Paul is able to show, somewhat surprisingly, that Manresa's lower and middle classes emerged from this century of crisis with a considerable level of prosperity. Fynn-Paul finishes his study with a thorough conclusion that helpfully presents an integrated overview of the narrative presented by the different parts of his monograph. Here he reminds his readers how his findings recommend his new class typology. While I can appreciate his justification for utilising baggage-laden and seemingly anachronistic terms such as ‘class’ and ‘bourgeoisie’ in his study, I at times wished that Fynn-Paul had adopted a new, more neutral and less distracting terminology.

In sum, I suspect that Fynn-Paul's book will become a model study that will shape future work on medieval urban history. His diligence in capitalising on this underutilised treasure trove of documentation will surely influence the ongoing scholarly conversation regarding the broad political and economic trends of the later Middle Ages. Furthermore, since Manresa was a typical royal town, scholars working on the social history of the Crown of Aragon now have a valuable guide for measuring regional urban economic and political trends. While it is unlikely that Manresa's Libri Manifesti will ever be as famous as Florence's Catasto, it is fair to say that no-one interested in Iberian or southern European urban history in future will be able to afford to overlook this book.