Chapter Two. An Urban Network In The Low Countries. A Cultural Approach

Abstract

The commemoration of the eleventh-century epidemic of ergotism is one of the earliest indications for the existence of a cultural network that developed in the southern Low Countries and Northern France during the high Middle Ages, and that would later extend further to the north. A shared culture is oft en seen as one of the key elements of a collective identity. By taking a cultural network as a point of departure, this chapter explores a possible approach, concentrating on a series of interurban meetings, military contests, religious and urban festivals. The ethnic roots of the inhabitants of the Low Countries diverge, the people in the north boasting their Frisian origin and those in the south pointing to their Frankish ancestry. The chambers of rhetoric developed a culture of interurban cultural rivalry and exchange in the form of the so called landjuwelen , drama festivals. Keywords: cultural network; interurban exchange; medieval low countries