When did cities become instead a symbol of protection from a threatening exterior?
Famines and great epidemics in the 14th Century marked a turning point. Death came from the exterior. So the cities were organised so as to control foreigners with quarantine in ports, health regulations, and goods inspections that resulted in a different relationship with those arriving from the exterior. The poor were no longer seen as the figure of Christ but as a threat to the order and the possessions of citizens. The crowds of beggars abandoning the countryside where people died of hunger due to famines or wars, tried to take refuge in the cities where food-rationing laws guaranteed survival. These crowds were frightening and resulted in projects to create institutions where they could be locked-up. These kinds of projects also affected the presence of the Jews, with whom interreligious marriages were strictly forbidden as were relations involving conviviality. The Jews too provided financial activities that helped the economy in cities. The privileges bestowed upon them by princ
