earticle

영어

Weber's city-study began with his questions why the modern captitalism and the modern civil society could have emerged only in europe and why their origins could be found decisively in medieval cities of europe, but not in ancient cities. It was associated naturally with the 19th century historiography which have sought the historical identity of the modern citizenship. In the 󰡔Stadt󰡕 he showed the arguments which depend largely on the his peculiar city concept as a idealtype. Through a idealtypical city concept of macroscopic and static perspectives he informed us of the way which enabled us to understand the city as a universal phenomenon in comparison with different cultural areas or epochs, although it had not originated from his own thinking. From various viewpoints his concept has come in for criticism. Methodologically it has been pointed out that the idealtype could not really comprehend the processes of historical phenomena. One criticized that historical phenomena could not in general be understood by a theoretical scheme. Furthermore, it was stated that all of the city-theories were useless for the city studies, so that they must be abolished. There remains still the controversy on the leading groups of communes who should have acted, according to Weber, appropriate on medieval economy. In recent studies the communes are regarded as social products with historical contexts rather than as political creatures which had been emerged with some events since the 11th century. The city-rural relatioship, in which the rural society should be dependent on th city, would be transferred with the formulation ‘the conquest of the city by the rural society’. Even it is pointed out that the difference between homo politicus and homo oeconomicus is simply a theoretical scheme. In spite of such different criticisms Weber has provided the historical city-study a new horizon of the cultural aspect in contrast to the 19th century urban history which had paid attention to the institutional and regal aspects. In the other hand it is due mainly to his city concept that the 20th century historiography of medieval city have developed in various directions. Therefore it should be continued to investigate his city concept with historical data or in historical contexts.