Summary The oeuvre of Marc Boone (Ghent, 1955) has become standard reading for specialists of medieval European towns and cities, as well as for those interested in the history of state building - most notably that of the Burgundian polity. Honoring Ghent University's venerable tradition of medieval studies begun by Henri Pirenne and building upon the work of his Doktorvater Walter Prevenier, Marc Boone also investigated taxation and the history of government spending, popular protest, and the persecution of "deviant" sexuality. Over the course of his rich career, he served as president of the European Association of Urban History and as dean of the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy of Ghent University. For more than twenty years, he taught the introductory course on historical criticism to every first-year student of the faculty, and thus had a major impact on the pens e critique of generations of young minds. Upon the occasion of his retirement in 2021, his former students have compiled this collection of some of his best historical essays, half of which have been translated from French and Dutch into English. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements Marc Boone, Man and Historian Bibliography of Marc Boone (1977-2021) List of Coinages and Abbreviations Finance and Fiscality Triumphant Private Initiative versus Hesitant Government Action? On Indirect Tax Farming in Late-Medieval Cities Gifts and Bribes, Aspects of Urban Sociability in the Late Middle Ages The Case of Ghent during the Burgundian Period Fiscal and Financial strategies of the Urban Elites and the Nascent Burgundian State in the Ancient County of Flanders(from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Centuries) In Defence of a Medieval Banker Tommaso Portinari and the Burgundian State Modernity, Space, and Conflict Rulers, Patricians and Burghers The Great and the Little Traditions of Urban Revolt in the Low Countries (co-authored with Maarten Prak) Destroying and Reconstructing the City The Inculcation and Arrogation of Princely Power in the Burgundian-Habsburg Netherlands (Fourteenth-Sixteenth Centuries) Cities in Late Medieval Europe The Promise and Curse of Modernity Urban Space and Political Conflict in Late Medieval Flanders Private Life and Sexuality The Discreet Charms of the Bourgeoisie in Ghent around the Mid-Fifteenth Century Simon Borluut's Financial Account Book (1450-63) State Power and Illicit Sexuality The Persecution of Sodomy in Late Medieval Bruges Tabula Gratulatoria