This regional study examines the declining fortunes of Freiburg, a craft town on the Upper Rhine, and its relations with the surrounding Breisgau village communities. Here, Scott uses historical and economic geography to examine the town and surrounding villages as a totality rather than as isolated independent communities, focusing on the troubled period from 1450 to 1530 when the territorial expansion of Freiburg threatened the surrounding Breisgau villages and pitted burgher against peasant in a struggle for economic and political survival.