Coping on the Edge: Disaster, Conflict, and Frontier in Premodern Central Europe

Nada Zečević is Assistant Professor of Central and South-East Europe and the Mediterranean at the Department of History, University of Zagreb, Croatia. An alumna of the Central European University in Budapest (Ph.D. in Medieval Studies, 2004), she focuses on the region’s historical societies, migrations and interpretation of its premodern past.Suzana Simon (née Miljan) is Senior Researcher with the Institute of Historical and Social Sciences, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Art. With a PhD from the University of Zagreb (2015), her research focus is on social, political and legal history and source editions of medieval Slavonia and Hungary.Gerhard Jaritz is Professor Emeritus of Medieval Studies at Central European University, Vienna. His research is focused on social and cultural history as well as on history of daily life of the late Middle Ages.

• Table of ContentsList of FiguresPrefaceIntroductionNada Zečević, Suzana Simon and Gerhard JaritzChapter 1Perceiving and Disseminating God’s Wrath in Late Medieval SocietyGerhard JaritzChapter 2Threatened by Nature and Humans: Social Response to Disasters in Medieval Zagreb and Its CountySuzana Simon2.1. Introduction2.2. The Borderland: Space, Nature, and Society2.2.1 Geography and Borders2.2.2 The Ottoman Factor2.2.3 Social Composition2.2.4 Nature as Both an Asset and a Threat2.3. Urban Disasters and Social Responses2.3.1 Fortifications as Protection Against War and Epidemic2.3.2 Fire: Accident, Crime and Political Weapon2.3.3 Public Health, Hospitals, and Disease Control2.3.4 Cemeteries and Places of Remembrance2.4. Rural and Noble Responses to Disaster2.4.1. Poor’s Plots2.4.2. Deserted and Desolated Plots2.4.3. Plots under Water2.4.4. Plots Deserted Due to Famine2.4.5. Newcomers in the County2.5. Management of Disasters before the Early Modern PeriodChapter 3Disaster on the Move: Émigré Communities and Disaster Management on Premodern Hungarian Border (15th –18th c.)Nada Zečević3.1. Introduction: People, Environment and Migration on Hungary’s Southern Border in Late Medieval and Early Modern Period (15th – 18th c.)3.2. The Turks, the Plague and Other Agents of Disaster: Ideologies and Hierarchies of Disaster at Hungary’s Southern Border in Late Medieval and Early Modern Period (15th–18th c.)3.3. Between Coping and Management: Mutual and Divergent Anti-Disaster Practices of Balkan Émigrés and Their Hosts in Premodern Hungary3. 4. Calamity as a Common Ground?: Disasters and Social Relations of Balkan Émigrés in Premodern Hungary3.5. Disaster on the Move: ConclusionConclusionNada Zečević, Suzana Simon and Gerhard JaritzSelected BibliographyIndex