It is surprising that we had to wait for so long for a general overview of the history of medieval Bruges, given its importance for studies of medieval urban history, but it was worth the wait. Andrew Brown and Jan Dumolyn have taken on the monumental task of putting together an excellent collection of essays which cover numerous aspects of research on the city of Bruges over several centuries. This large and complex volume provides a wealth of information from both archaeological and historical points of view.

Following an introduction, the book takes a chronological approach. Apart from the first chapter on the origins and the history of Bruges before 1000, the volume is divided into two separate chronological sections: roughly high medieval (1100–1300) and late medieval (1300–1500). Three chapters deal with urban landscape, production markets and political structure between 1100 and 1300, and another three with the same topics for the period between 1300 and 1500. Given the number of contributors and a variety of sources used throughout this work, this format is understandable and welcome to the reader. The final three chapters focus on the cultural aspects developed throughout the whole period of the volume, such as religious practices, literacy and the medieval legacy in Bruges.

Bruges was the inadvertent beneficiary of an extensive drainage programme, which saw new lands being reclaimed from the sea along the coast of Holland and Flanders. By the end of the tenth century, its strategic location – set inland with an easy access to the sea through a navigable gully – made Bruges attractive to further settlement and allowed it to become one of the comital political and economic strongholds. In the following centuries, the urban landscape of Bruges witnessed a marked development of its space, both in terms of architecture and infrastructure, as a result of a steady rise in its population and commercial activity. Inevitably, these developments led to the creation of new visible landmarks and administrative structures in the city, such as churches, markets, quarters, housing and sanitation. The authors do an excellent job here of showing how and why these changes in the urban landscape shaped the identity of various social and political groups, all of which led eventually to the establishment of Bruges as an international trading hub. Anyone with some background in medieval history is familiar with this story, but the chapters (3 and 6) on production, markets and socio-economic structures provide an ample addition to this discussion by pulling together and challenging the existing scholarship. Another important feature that has been fully explained in these chapters is the way in which the economic development of Bruges was led by the higher specialization of crafts unrelated to the textile industry, which markedly distinguished it from other Flemish cities.

Of course, shifts in urban landscape, the economic structure and social fabric also induced political transformations. The main change over the period covered by this volume was that, from the fourteenth century onwards, the urban manufacturers participated in the urban government, which had previously been monopolized by the mercantile elites. This change in the nature of the urban political structure was achieved through the organization of manufacturers into formal associations (guilds) around particular crafts. There is a convincing argument that this created a sense of cohesive unity amongst craft guilds, making it easier for them to act as corporate bodies, and so to make political demands or organize collective action in order to challenge the existing political structures.

To sum up, all contributors make their case that by the standards of the Middle Ages, Bruges was a veritable metropolis, as argued in the introduction. An incredible urban landscape with a highly functional infrastructure allowed southern Europe to meet with northern Europe, not only for economic but for cultural exchange. One particularly useful feature is that the book contains a variety of quantitative data, such as numbers of new burghers, numbers of families providing urban officers, occupational structure from tax records and tables of imported and exported goods, which are presented in a very coherent way.

The book is a very compact and comprehensive survey of the literature and debates, as well as the extant sources relating to medieval Bruges. However, it should not be considered only as a discussion of this particular city. Its main strength is that although the main focus is on Bruges, the authors of all chapters have taken care to present the broader themes and interpretations of the city's political and socio-economic development within the whole county of Flanders. As such, the book should present a starting point for all those interested in any aspect of the medieval history of the Low Countries.