In the half millennium of their existence, guilds in the Low Countries played a highly significant role in shaping the societies of which they were a part. One key aspect that has been identified in recent historical research to explain the survival of the guilds for such a long time is the guilds' continued adaptability to changing circumstances. This idea of flexibility is the point of departure for the essays in this volume, which sheds new light on the corporate system and identifies its various features and regional variances. The contributors explore the interrelations between economic organisations and political power in late medieval and early modern towns, and address issues of gender, religion and social welfare in the context of the guilds. This cohesive and focussed volume will provide a stimulus for renewed interest and further research in this area. It will appeal to scholars and students with an interest in early modern economic, social and cultural history in particular, but will also be valuable to those researching into political, religious and gender history.

In the half millennium of their existence, guilds in the Low Countries played a highly significant role in shaping the societies of which they were a part. One key aspect that has been identified in recent historical research to explain the survival of the guilds for such a long time is the guilds' continued adaptability to changing circumstances. This idea of flexibility is the point of departure for the essays in this volume, which sheds new light on the corporate system and identifies its various features and regional variances. The contributors explore the interrelations between economic organisations and political power in late medieval and early modern towns, and address issues of gender, religion and social welfare in the context of the guilds. This cohesive and focussed volume will provide a stimulus for renewed interest and further research in this area. It will appeal to scholars and students with an interest in early modern economic, social and cultural history in particular, but will also be valuable to those researching into political, religious and gender history.

Apprenticeship or vocational training is a subject of lively debate. Economic historians tend to see apprenticeship as a purely economic phenomenon, as an 'incomplete contract' in need of legal and institutional enforcement mechanisms. The contributors to this volume have adopted a broader perspective. They regard learning on the shop floor as a complex social and cultural process, to be situated in an ever-changing historical context. The results are surprising. The authors convincingly show that research on apprenticeship and learning on the shop floor is intimately associated with migration patterns, family economy and household strategies, gender perspectives, urban identities and general educational and pedagogical contexts.

About This Book Create most diverse apps and learn how to distribute them with the help of the Kivy framework Explore Kivy API to develop user interfaces and control multi-touch events Step-by-step recipes that provide deeper understanding of the Kivy 1.9.0 framework Build and use your own events, widgets and gestures using features and tools in Kivy Who This Book Is ForThis book is intended for developers who want to use features of the Kivy framework and develop multitouch applications. Prior experience with Kivy is not required although familiarity with Python is expected. What You Will Learn Access widgets defined inside the Kv language in your Python code Handle Kivy events to control widgets, touches, the mouse, the keyboard, and animations Recognize touch shapes and detect multitapping Organize your layouts while working with the action bar Store and retrieve the coordinate space context Create your own shader and render in a Framebuffer Leverage factory objects, multitouch in iOS, and multitouch in Android In DetailKivy is an open source Python library for the rapid development of applications that make use of innovative user interfaces, such as multitouch apps, and develops UI and UX apps in a cross-platform environment. You will start off by installing Kivy and building your interfaces. You will learn how to work the accelerometer and create custom events. Then, you will use the basics, buttons, labels, and text inputs and manipulate the widget tree. Next, you will work with manipulating instructions, create Atlas and layouts, and learn packaging for Windows and iOS. By the end of this book, you will have learned the features and tools in Kivy and will be able to create portable packages to distribute your apps on the most popular platforms.