The Central Town Square in Medieval Towns in the (Southern) Low Countries: Urban Life, Form, and Identity between Social Practice and Iconographic Identity

Abstract

The central town squares of the medieval towns in the Low Countries are considered to be the theatres of late medieval urban identity and are not rarely associated with the origin of the towns, or at least their glory as merchant towns in the past. In reality, these emblematic places have often complex biographies, in which selected memories were attributed to them in different historical contexts. In this paper, we will explore how these changing townscapes interacted with the social agents at their medieval origins. We will use both archaeological data as well as historical writings in order to reconstruct their biographies and show how their development was not path-dependent but followed deliberate strategies and aims by different actors that used this space.