The explosive growth of Europe's literary culture in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries was unprecedented as an urban phenomenon. The concentration of aristocratic tastes, mercantile capital, and political power and the presence of civic, ducal, royal, or imperial chanceries accelerated the development of literary production in Europe's cities. Cities began to emerge as literary centres, and clerks and commercial scribes were crucial in this transformation. This course examines how late medieval writers imagined themselves and the towns in which they lived. It explores the relationship between biological writers, social texts, and the material conditions of writing in urban centres in England, France, the Empire, Prussia, and Poland-Lithuania. We will experience through premodern eyes Thomas Hoccleve's London, Margaret Ebner's Nuremberg, Margery Kempe's Lynn, Janko of Czarnków's Cracow, and Christine de Pizan's Paris. This course covers a wide range of literary and non-literary texts (among them pragmatic texts, mystical literature, and autobiographical writings) and material formats, such as letters, books, and rolls. Topics will include female literacy and social scandals, mental illness, and petty politics.