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It is generally believed that concern for the common good and a civic mindset emerged in the late medieval city. These had a distinctly pre-modern form and became a type of civil religion. However, do such oft-cited theories hold up in practice? Was the bond between citizens and the urban community really that close? Is the “civic mindset” not the product of the imaginations of early 20th-century historians that has been constantly repeated ever since? This paper attempts to answer these questions.