Editing Max Weber (section)

===''The City''===
{{Main|The City (Weber book)}}

{{quote box
| width = 30em
| quote = The origin of a rational and inner-worldly ethic is associated in the Occident with the appearance of thinkers and prophets{{spaces}}… who developed in a social context that was alien to the Asiatic cultures. This context consisted of the political problems engendered by the bourgeois status-group of the city, without which neither Judaism, nor Christianity, nor the development of Hellenistic thinking are conceivable.
| source = —Max Weber in ''The City'', 1921.{{sfn|Bendix|Roth|1977|pp=79}}
}}

As part of his overarching effort to understand the Western world's unique development, Weber wrote a general study of the European city and its development in [[Classical antiquity|antiquity]] and the [[Middle Ages]] titled ''The City''.{{sfnm|1a1=Zubaida|1y=2005–2006|1p=112|2a1=Kaesler|2y=1988|2pp=42–43|3a1=Bendix|3a2=Roth|3y=1977|3pp=70–73}} According to him, Christianity served to break the traditional bonds of [[kinship]] by causing its believers to participate in the religion as individuals. However, the institutions that formed as a result of this process were secular in nature.{{sfnm|1a1=Bendix|1a2=Roth|1y=1977|1pp=72–79|2a1=Zubaida|2y=2005–2006|2pp=112–113}} He also saw the rise of a unique form of non-legitimate domination in medieval European cities that successfully challenged the existing forms of legitimate domination{{snd}}traditional, charismatic, and rational-legal{{snd}}that had prevailed until then in the medieval world.{{sfnm|1a1=Swedberg|1a2=Agevall|1y=2016|1pp=88–89|2a1=Kaesler|2y=1988|2pp=44–46}} These cities were previously under the jurisdiction of several different entities that were removed as they became autonomous. That process was caused by the granting of privileges to newer cities and the usurpation of authority in older ones.{{sfn|Bendix|Roth|1977|pp=75–76}}