Flemish Cities Research Articles

THE COUNTER-REFORMATION AND MUSIC IN DOUAI

This is a first investigation of musical life in the city of Douai (flemish: Dowaai) in the second half of the sixteenth century. The study of music and musical activity in the earlier Flemish cities of the present-day Northern France is in its infancy, because only Cambrai (flemish: Kamerijk) has received any attention thus far, and this primarily due to Guillaume Dufay's presence there1. Douai only became French territory around the middle of the seventeenth century, after Louis XIV moved the border between France and the Netherlands to the north. In the Middle Ages, the famed and widely distributed Flemish cloth made Douai one of the most flourishing cities in the county of Flanders. Economic decline followed, and com merce was then restricted mainly to grain. At the end of the fourteenth century, Douai became the property of the Burgundi?n dukes, who used astute politics of matrimony and conquest to acquire the medieval principalities of present-day Belgium and then to weld them into a whole. After the death of Charles the Bold, duke of

In Praise of Spurious Saints: The Missae Floruit egregiis by Pipelare and La Rue

The cult of saints exerted a profound influence on the liturgy and plainsong of the Roman Catholic church in the later Middle Ages, as individual churches evolved local traditions of liturgy and plainsong to celebrate saints held dear by certain communities. Sacred polyphonic composition during this period also reflects the stimulation to musical creativity engendered by the veneration of special saints. This study explores a particularly fine example of the intersection of liturgy, chant, and polyphony inspired by the adoration of saints in the late Middle Ages. The introduction of a new local saint, Livinus, to the liturgy of the Flemish city of Ghent during the eleventh century provides the starting point for the investigation, which introduces a newly-discovered body of plainsong in his honor, notably a rhymed Office, preserved in manuscripts spanning the twelfth through the sixteenth centuries. From this corpus of plainsong the composer Mattheus Pipelare (c. 1450-c. 1515?) selected no fewer than sixteen chants for inclusion in his four-voiced Missa Floruit egregiis infans Livinus; the identification of these heretofore unknown cantus firmi prompts a fresh look at the provenance, style and structure of this remarkable Mass, which proves to be a musical historia akin to other multiple cantus firmus Masses of the period, notably those by Jacob Obrecht. The essay concludes with an examination of the Missa de Sancto Job by Pierre de la Rue, whose debt to Pipelare's Missa de Sancto Livino is elucidated through a discussion of its background and compositional technique.

Fertility in twins.

From the 474 twins born in 1950 in 100 Flemish cities and towns in Belgium, 85% reached the age of 20 yr, against 37% in Austria a hundred years ago. More female than male twins are married (P = 0.03), in particular nonidentical female twins (P = 0.02). Fertility seems to be lower in male, especially male-male twins (P less than 0.03), and most strikingly so in identical male twins (P = 0.05). There seems to be no influence of premature birth or low birthweight.

Structures du peuplement, fonctions urbaines et formation du capital dans la Flandre médiévale

L'hypothèse de l'origine marchande des villes médiévales a été rendue célèbre par Henri Pirenne et ses disciples. Elle s'appuyait sur l'exemple de la Flandre et particulièrement de Gand, sa plus grande ville. Pirenne voyait les villes se développer, après les invasions Scandinaves, en tant qu'agglomérations marchandes, centrées sur un ouvrage fortifié et appuyant leur essor sur le commerce européen de textiles de laine, d'une qualité remarquable. La prospérité des villes déterminait, selon lui, un développement précoce de l'agriculture flamande en offrant un débouché aux paysans, à des prix inflationnistes qui leur permettaient de s'affranchir de leurs obligations serviles. La prospérité des Flandres aux XIe et XIIe siècles fut encore favorisée par une succession de comtes avisés, hommes d'État assez perspicaces qui fondèrent, sur leurs domaines, des « villes neuves » ou des bourgades d'agriculteurs et s'entendirent avec d'autres seigneurs qui agissaient de même. Une de ces fondations, Ypres, devait devenir la troisième grande cité industrielle flamande.

An aspect of the question of continuity between antiquity and middle ages: the origin of the Flemish cities between the North Sea and the Scheldt

Most historians of the Flemish cities have argued that there was no significant Roman habitation north of the civitates of Belgica secunda. Urban development in Flanders was thus seen essentially as a creation of the Carolingian period and after. But recent archaeological excavations have shown a substantial Roman presence at six cites which later were towns of medium or considerable importance. Although the buildings were evidently abandoned in the fifth century, settlement and political and ecclesiastical organization developed around them in the Merovingian age. The Roman background thus had a considerable effect on the development of town life in medieval Flanders.