Edelen in de Vlaamse stedelijke samenleving. Een kwantitatieve benadering van de elite van het laatmiddeleeuwse en vroegmoderne Brugge

Abstract

Nobles in the Flemish Urban Network. A Quantitative Analysis of the Urban Nobility of Late Medieval and Early Modern Bruges - In this contribution, a series of lists of Flemish nobles, compiled by the princely administration for military and political purposes, is used to measure the presence of nobles in the Flemish city of Bruges and the surrounding countryside. Diachronological analysis shows that noble involvement increased considerably since the middle of fourteenth century. Next to the presence of several families from the high nobility, the state formation process offered chances to bureaucrats to join the ranks of the local nobility. From the fifteenth century onwards, a growing part of the Bruges urban patriciate also succeeded to attain noble rank. The overlap between those different groups was modest, but the intense cultural life of Bruges provided the high nobility, state officials and urban elites with ample opportunity for social and cultural interaction. While the growing involvement of the late medieval and early modern nobility in urban networks deserves further attention, the concept of ‘urban nobility’ does not do justice to the important differences between various noble groups in Bruges, nor to the intricate interlinking of urban and rural interests of noble families.