Nineteenth-century Belgium Research Articles

Catholic Charity and Public Poor Relief in Nineteenth-century Belgium: Reconquest, Competition, Complementarity, Superiority

Abstract The compatibility of public poor relief with private, in particular faith-based, charity is a long-debated issue. Our contribution offers a historical reflection by analysing the evolving discourses of Catholic charity in nineteenth-century Belgium. We highlight its somewhat ambiguous self-imagery and evaluate its (un)willingness to cooperate with official provisions. Belgian Catholics at first sought to complement and even to infiltrate the public structures created under French rule, but rising ideological tensions on the issue in Belgian society from 1850 onwards made them realise that the clock couldn’t be turned back. A further expansion or more pronounced agency of public provisions, however, was considered unwanted and unnecessary. The Belgian Church eagerly defended the pre-eminence of private charity provisions, considering them to be more community-embedded, encompassing, efficient, flexible and innovative. Religious charity was portrayed as morally pre-eminent, much more committed and interpersonal, with strong connotations of vocation, pastorate, penance and salvation emerging from its transcendental perspective. Given this mindset, it was far from self-evident that a division of tasks with public poor relief should be sought. While nineteenth-century Belgian Catholics repeatedly made public appeals for pragmatism and cooperation, the continued expansion of their charitable networks and the associated discourses reveal an inherently competitive strategy and a continuous, even growing conviction that upheld the superiority of private initiative.

‘Les douceurs de l’intimité’: Men and the Making of Domesticity in Belgian Architecture Magazines (1890-1914)

ABSTRACT This article uses intimacy and architecture as a way to tell the lesser-known story of men and the domestic in late nineteenth and early twentieth century Belgium. Drawing upon little-known interior design and architecture magazines, domestic manuals and photographs, I highlight how male architects and critics of architecture contributed to the making of domesticity. I show how ‘intimacy’ was used as a deceptive concept to frame the home as a restful refuge, as well as a catalyst for creative experimentation.

Franciscan Women Religious in Nineteenth-Century Belgium : Gender, Identity and Material Recovery

Abstract This article examines the revival of female Franciscan religious communities in the nineteenth-century as a platform for analyzing the mechanisms and networks behind the restoration and renewal of female convent life in Belgium. The analysis is conducted from a threefold perspective: the specific role of male and female protagonists, the struggle with old and new identities, and the material backgrounds of the revival. The diverse landscape of old and new, contemplative and apostolic, and urban and rural Franciscan convents and congregations offers an interesting platform for research. The interaction between secular clergy, lay and religious women and the male Friars Minor is examined within the context of changing political regimes, social changes, religious revival and diocesan centralization. Mechanisms of material recovery and the (re-)constructions of gendered, canonical and religious identities are used as a framework for evaluating the importance of old and new models and examining to what extent this nineteenth-century history was a genuine Franciscan revival.

Famine-related mortality in early life and accelerated life histories in nineteenth-century Belgium.

Density-dependent and extrinsic mortality are predicted to accelerate reproductive maturation. The first 5 years of life is a proposed sensitive period for life-history regulation. This study examines the ways in which local mortality during this sensitive period was related to subsequent marriage timing in nineteenth-century Belgium (n women = 11 892; n men = 14 140). Local mortality during the sensitive period was inversely associated with age at first marriage for men and women controlling for literacy, occupational status, population growth and migration. Cox regression indicated decreased time to marriage for women (HR = 1.661, 95% CI: 1.542-1.789) and men (HR = 1.327, 95% CI: 1.238-1.422) from high mortality municipalities. Rising population growth rates were associated with earlier marriage for men and women. Migration in general was associated with later marriage for men and women. Consistent with life-history predictions, harsh ecological conditions during early life such as famine coincided with earlier marriage.

Medical Compromise and Its Limits: Religious Concerns and the Postmortem Caesarean Section in Nineteenth-Century Belgium.

Situated on the intersection of medicine and religion, postmortem caesarean sections exposed ideological boundaries in nineteenth-century medicine. According to clerical guidelines circulating in Catholic territories, Catholics who had not necessarily received medical training had to perform operations on deceased women in the absence of medical staff. Most doctors, on the other hand, objected to surgical interventions by unqualified Catholics. This article uses the Belgian debates about the postmortem caesarean section as a means to investigate methods of negotiation between liberal and Catholic doctors. The article analyzes, first, how doctors incorporated religious concerns such as baptism in the medical profession. Second, physicians' strategies to come to a compromise in ideologically diverse settings are examined. Overall, this article casts light on the dynamics of medical debate in times of both ideological rapprochement and polarization.

Domestic and Interior Space in Nineteenth-Century Belgium

Walter Benjamin famously declared that ‘the nineteenth century was more fervently addicted to the dwelling place than any other century’ (1999, 220). The interior has, over the last few decades, at...

Fernand Khnopff and the Aesthetics of Intimacy

ABSTRACTThe work of artist Fernand Khnopff (1858–1921) is deeply embedded in the interior. On the one hand, unlike contemporaries such as Ensor, Rodenbach or Verhaeren, Khnopff was fascinated with the aesthetics of architecture, as evidenced in the careful design of his studio/home. On the other hand, his own work betrays an obsession with interiors expressed in still-lifes and portraits, many of which depict his sister, Marguerite, in a series of elaborate poses. This article explores the role of intimacy in Khnopff’s interior scenes and artist’s house in light of the aesthetic ideals of Symbolism, together with the artistic and social context of nineteenth-century Belgium. It argues that the interior for Khnopff not only provided a platform upon which familial relationships and the place of the artist in society could be interrogated but more radically, the intimacy of home life also emerges as a place to negotiate and question interactions between the observer and observed, painter and subject, artist and viewer. This article proposes that Khnopff is not simply a Symbolist, but must also be seen as an Intimate Modernist, firmly rooted in nineteenth-century life and where, in a rapidly changing society, the home and its representation, serve to challenge aesthetic boundaries and pave a way forward for modern art.

Social Policy by Other Means from a Comparative Historical Perspective Continuity and Change in Nineteenth-Century Belgium (1800 ‒1920)

ABSTRACTWhile social policies in the past are “by other means” if compared to traditional welfare states, historians have successfully established that they were much more conventional in their own time. Moreover, welfare states are historically grown constructs often still containing many pre-existing elements of precisely such social policies by other means, for example non-state provision. Belgium is an excellent example. Historically both nineteenth-century poor relief and early twentieth-century social insurance were mixed private/public forms of provision and funding. Today the Belgian welfare state still retains fundamental aspects of non-state provision not usually associated with “conventional” welfare states in the core OECD.

Translation space in nineteenth-century Belgium: rethinking translation and transfer directions

ABSTRACT‘Landscape’, ‘space’ and ‘directionality’ are metaphors that have become widely accepted in the humanities, including translation studies. This contribution focuses on translation and transfer directionality, a metaphor that covers a broad and complex range of techniques, actions, places and policies, beyond the supposed one-way process of bridging languages. It provides building blocks for a comprehensive study of translation and transfer directions and presents the results of a pilot study devoted to nineteenth-century Belgium, a young, multilingual entity that has elaborated a sophisticated and influential network of translation and transfer directions in the legal and administrative domains. The detailed account of these directions reveals that translation issues have penetrated to the core of social, political and cultural life, addressing questions of representative democracy, language standardization, language equality, cultural identity and citizenship.

Notes on Contributors

Notes on Contributors

‘By What Right does the Scalpel Enter the Pauper’s Corpse?’ Dissections and Consent in Late Nineteenth-Century Belgium

‘By What Right does the Scalpel Enter the Pauper’s Corpse?’ Dissections and Consent in Late Nineteenth-Century Belgium

From transnational to regional magnetic fevers: The making of a law on hypnotism in late nineteenth-century Belgium.

In May 1892, Belgium adopted a law on the exercise of hypnotism. The signing of the law constituted a temporary endpoint to six years of debate on the dangers and promises of hypnotism, a process of negotiation between medical doctors, members of parliament, legal professionals and lay practitioners. The terms of the debate were not very different from what happened elsewhere in Europe, where, since the mid 1880s, hypnotism had become an object of public concern. The Belgian law was nevertheless unique in its combined effort to regulate the use of hypnosis in public and private, for purposes of entertainment, research and therapy. My analysis shows how the making of the law was a process of negotiation in which local, national and transnational networks and allegiances each played a part. While the transnational atmosphere of moral panic had created a seedbed for the law, its eventual outlook owed much to the powerful lobby work of an essentially local network of lay magnetizers, and to the renown of Joseph Delbœuf, professor at the University of Liège, whose work in the field of hypnotism stimulated several liberal doctors and members of Parliament from the Liège region to defend a more lenient law.

Secularizing funerary culture in nineteenth-century Belgium: A product of political and religious controversy

ABSTRACTModern historiography of collective attitudes, practices, and conflicts surrounding death often focuses on the institutional history of cemeteries and nonreligious funerals in 19th-century France. Institutional and cultural discussions concerning funerals and cemeteries also divided nineteenth-century Belgium. This article explores emblematic civil burials and the secularization of cemeteries in major Belgian cities. The article distinguishes different dimensions of the secularization of death and highlights the particular nature of Belgian funerary conflicts and burial reform within a broader European context.

The amateur and the public sphere

In nineteenth-century Belgium, private collections were visited by an interested local and international public; they formed popular topics in travel literature. Travellers such as Johanna Schopenhauer even characterized Belgium as the ‘country of private collectors’, suggesting that collectors were important actors in the public sphere. How precisely was their position perceived in the Belgian cities, and how was it communicated beyond the country’s borders? Based on the analysis of contemporary travel literature, this article aims to explore the public life of private collectors in the artistic centres of Brussels, Antwerp and Ghent over the course of the nineteenth century. It argues that collectors played a prominent role in urban cultural life especially between 1780 and 1860, while major societal and cultural-political changes – mainly related to the growing importance and shifting function of public museums – resulted in the gradual withdrawal of private collectors from the public sphere later in the century.

Deaf and unwanted? Marriage characteristics of deaf people in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Belgium: a comparative and cross-regional approach

AbstractIn this article, the marriage characteristics of deaf men and women born in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Belgium are compared to each other, as well as to a group of non-deaf siblings and a group of Swedish deaf persons. The aim is to determine the extent to which the marriage pattern of deaf persons lined up with that of non-disabled persons and to see how experiences of disablement interacted with the environment in which persons dwelt. This article challenges the belief in a universal disability experience by arguing that although deaf individuals generally encountered more difficulties in finding a marriage partner, marriage chances were significantly dependent on personal characteristics such as gender, living environment and birth date. As such, we demonstrate that the relationship between being deaf and being vulnerable on the marriage market was not an inescapable one, but the product of specific environments.

Setting scientific standards: publishing in medical societies in nineteenth-century Belgium.

This article examines the publishing procedures of nineteenth-century medical societies, using the Medical Society of Ghent (Belgium) as a case study. It argues, more precisely, that the introduction of formalized review procedures in medical societies can be considered part of the emergence of a professional scientific culture in the first half of the nineteenth century. First, by participating in these procedures physicians took on different stylized roles, for example of the contributing author, the righteous judge, or the punctual secretary, and articulated new professional values such as contributing to science. Second, the publishing procedures of medical societies also provide insight into the mechanisms of reaching consensus in nineteenth-century medicine. By developing new scientific genres, such as the published meeting report, medical societies aimed to extend the community of peers beyond the group of society members and establish trust and agreement throughout the medical community.

A Collection of Concertos by Giuseppe Tartini in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz

The concertos by Tartini as well as several indexes to his concertos and sonatas, today preserved in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, are the chosen focus of this article, especial attention being given to their provenance. All the concertos (38 manuscripts) and indexes (7) seem to belong to a collection whose provenance has not yet been clarified. The manuscripts can be traced back to Padua, the heart of Tartini’s domain, and possibly also to Venice, with links to France as well as to nineteenth-century Belgium.

Cooking up a culinary identity for Belgium. Gastrolinguistics in two Belgian cookbooks (19th century)

The notion of cookbooks as socio-historic markers in a society is generally accepted within food studies. As both representations and prescriptions of food practices, perceived habits and attitudes towards food, they represent a certain identity for their readers. This paper investigates the nature of the identity that Belgian cookbooks constructed through their rhetoric. An important part of this study is to explore how and to what extent explicit reference to Belgium was made. To this end recipe titles/labels and recipe comments used in two leading bourgeois cookbooks from nineteenth-century Belgium were subjected to a quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The analysis showed that clear attention was paid to national culinary preferences. In terms of a domestic culinary corpus, it became apparent that both the Dutch and French editions of these cookbooks promoted dishes that were ascribed a Belgian origin. Internationality, however, was also an important building block of Belgian culinary identity. It was part of the desire of Belgian bourgeoisie to connect with an international elite. It fit into the ‘search for sophistication’, which was also expressed through the high representation of the more costly meats and sweet dishes.In addition, other references associated with bourgeois norms and values, such as family, convenience and frugality, were additional building blocks of Belgian culinary identity. Other issues such as tradition, innovation and health, were also matters of concerns to these Belgian cookbooks.

Engineering institutions and networking in nineteenth-century Belgium and Britain

The paper provides a comparative analysis of two engineering institutions in nineteenth-century Belgium and Britain, the pioneer nations of the industrial revolution situated on each side of the North Sea. The Association des ingénieurs sortis de l'école de Liège is examined in parallel with the pioneer engineering association, the Institution of Civil Engineers. The authors look at the key issues involved in running a flourishing engineering society in a Western capitalist industrial nation during the nineteenth century. They conclude that they depend, to a large extent, on the national context in which the engineering profession was allowed to develop. Although there were clearly major national divergences in the fields of education, institutional proliferation and membership, there were similarities regarding their mission statement, chairmanship, field of expertise and internationalisation.

A study on juridification

Juridification is a complex and ambiguous concept, which legal history can help to understand. The present article discusses the transitions regarding industrial accidents in nineteenth century Belgium as processes of juridification. It shows the need to distinguish between several semi-autonomous social fields of juridification (administration, parliament, justice), each of which is characterized by autonomous evolutions and mutual interferences.