Southern Low Countries Research Articles

Eavesdropping on the Correspondence between the Strangers, Chiefly in Norwich, and their Families in the Low Countries 1567–70

Alba’s repression of Calvinism in the Low Countries provoked an exodus to London and other towns in south-east England, notably Norwich. Erratic communication between the fugitives and their families was carried on across the North Sea by word of mouth and by letter. The correspondence examined here throws light on religious concerns as well as on humdrum domestic matters. The survival of these letters also suggests that literacy among craftsmen in the southern Low Countries was relatively high, possibl­y higher than in south-east England in the later sixteenth century.

Eljas Oksanen. Flanders and the Anglo-Norman World, 1066–1216.

In Flanders and the Anglo-Norman World, 1066–1216, Eljas Oksanen adopts a transnational approach, paying particular attention to cultural and military practices, economic interactions, the movement of peoples, and diplomatic interactions. He argues that Flanders was a linchpin between France, Germany, and the Anglo-Norman regnum. The book is organized topically in seven chapters: “Power and Politics in Flanders and the Anglo-Norman Regnum,” “Military Treaties and Diplomatic Culture,” “Anglo-Flemish Diplomacy,” “Tournaments in Anglo-Flemish Society,” “The Politics of Cross-Channel Commerce,” “Flemish Immigration to England,” and “Social Identity and the Image of Flemings in England.” The first chapter is an excellent summary of English-Flemish-French politics from the ninth through the early thirteenth century. Oksanen demonstrates a thorough knowledge of the secondary literature and provides a nice overview of the political history. This chapter sets the stage for the heart of this book, chapters two through four. Oksanen argues that the Anglo-Norman-Flemish treaties were primarily military agreements that provided the Anglo-Norman kings stipendiaries (paid military men rather than vassals) who were drawn primarily from Artois and southern Flanders. The annual money fief paid by the Anglo-Norman king was the equivalent of the daily wage for the stipulated number of stipendiaries the Flemish count promised to provide. Three themes—fidelity, friendship alliance, and an inequality of power—dominate these military-diplomatic agreements of the twelfth century, which started out as pragmatic and flexible and became more symbolic over time. The treaties themselves were the formal outcomes of extended discussions conducted by trusted envoys who carried gifts and messages between the two rulers. These envoys were noble men and women who had land and family ties in each region. An important argument in this chapter is that the money fiefs provided the recurring gain that sustained political friendship and were “the principal diplomatic mechanism by which the kings of England attempted to consolidate their influence in the southern Low Countries, among the comital rulers and baronial aristocracy alike” (p. 92).

‘Obtulisti libellum de vita domni Remacli’: The Evolution of Patron Saint Libelli as Propagandist Instruments in the Monastery of Stavelot-Malmedy, 938-1247

The functionality of a hagiographical text in the High Middle Ages depended on the codex in which it was incorporated. As a result, a manuscript perspective is indispensable to assess the communicative function of a medieval saint’s life. This article analyses five codices concerning Saint Remaclus from the monastery of Stavelot-Malmedy as a way to study the changing strategies of hagiographic propaganda. The community of Stavelot-Malmedy experienced a growing need to increase the propagandist user-friendliness of their manuscripts between the tenth and the thirteenth century. A tenth-century manuscript consisted of a jumble of texts about Remaclus and Stavelot-Malmedy intended for a very broad audience. A second generation of codices consisted of a collection of texts better tailored to a more narrowly defined audience, while the third generation focuses almost exclusively on very specific, contemporary problems. An analysis of these manuscripts shows that these ‘generations’ or general types of manuscripts were representative of the Benedictine Southern Low Countries, and that an abbey’s choice for a specific type of manuscript can often be linked to its institutional position.This article won the first Low Countries History Award in 2016 (for the best article in BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review over the years 2013-2014-2015).

Trusteeship and Cooperation in the Flemish merchants community in Cadiz: The brotherhood of “San Andrés de los Flamencos” (17th-18th centuries)

This article presents information on the development, over the centuries, of a little known aspect of the communities of foreign Merchants who settled in Spanish cities during the Modern Age. Using previously unpublished documents, relating to the “ Ilustre y Antigua Nacion Flamenca ” of Seville and Cadiz, the article aims to give a description of the charitable activities carried out by the colony of merchants in Seville and, especially, in Cadiz, who were natives of the Southern Low Countries and the Dutch Republic. This merchant community had assigned the administration of a “ Patronato” to their brotherhood, which included the control of numerous items of furniture and properties of great value. The description of this religious and benevolent activity gives a no less interesting view, when compared with the purely economic one, of its importance on the integration of these communities into the Spanish society of the 17 th and 18 th centuries. This research has been made with historical documents from Spanish Archives (Cadiz, Madrid and Alcala de Henares).

Migration, Poor Relief and Local Autonomy: Settlement Policies in England and the Southern Low Countries in the Eighteenth Century

Migration, Poor Relief and Local Autonomy: Settlement Policies in England and the Southern Low Countries in the Eighteenth Century

Réformer une abbaye au xve siècle : l’exemple de Florennes

After having been ransacked by the troops of the Count of Hainaut in 1408, the abbey of Florennes was restored by the monks of St-James in Liège. The abbey then became one of the most significant Benedictine reformation centers in the Southern Low Countries. This paper examines the various aspects of this restoration : the rebuilding of the cloister, the economic reorganization, the consolidation of the community through the writing of several works on the history of the monastery, the implementation of the Observance with the support of normative and ad hoc texts, the resumption of the manuscript production stimulated by the Modern Devotion, the involvement of the community in several reformation networks (such as the Benedictine abbeys of the ecclesiastical Province’s or the reformed Cistercian monasteries’ ones). Despite the lack of information, the Florennes case contributes to shed light on the holistic nature of the reform. The case also reveals the importance of literacy in such reform processes.

Voor vorst voor vrijheid en voor recht. Een comparatieve analyse van het stedelijke fiscale en financiële beleid in de zeventiende eeuw

TSEG (Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis) - The Low Countries Journal of Social and Economic History, is het Nederlands-Vlaamse vaktijdschrift op het gebied van de sociale en economische geschiedenis

Penitential Discourse and Conflict Management in the Late-Eleventh- and Early-Twelfth-Century Southern Low Countries

This paper looks at evidence from ecclesiastical institutions situated in the Southern Low Countries to argue that, during the final decades of the eleventh century, ecclesiastical discourse in conflicts with their enemies of the middle and lower groups of the secular elite shifted from a culpabilizing to a one. While the effects of this shift are difficult to assess, the authors argue that there are indications that it may have been helpful in at least two respects. On the one hand, it allowed religious institutions to create new amicitiae with individuals and communities who had previously been refused such privileged relations. On the other, the instrumentalization of a penitential discourse in contemporary politics provided opportunities for lay people to demonstrate their ability to participate in the peaceful management of society. This in turn allowed the established ecclesiastical and lay elites to adapt themselves to the rapidly changing political, social, and economic realities of their time.

Bread provisioning and retail dynamics in the southern Low Countries: the bakers of Leuven, 1600–1800

ABSTRACTThe central argument of this article is that current historical research into early modern retail growth and practices has focused too narrowly on the retail of durables (perhaps with the exception of colonial groceries) and on retailers' guilds. The role of food-producing and/or food-retailing guilds hitherto has received less attention. Research into retail practices has not connected to an older (but still lively) research tradition in which the consumption of basic foodstuffs received the bulk of attention. We argue that if selling bread is approached as a ‘system of provision’, competing retail circuits and the different ways in which subsequent subsistence crises affected each of those circuits offer an additional explanation (next to well-documented changes in demand) for the inclusion of other basic provisions, colonial groceries, clothing, and even durables in the assortment of traditional food-producing and food-retailing guild masters, in this case the Leuven bakers.

The absence of public exchange banks in medieval and early modern Flanders and Brabant (1400–1800): a historical anomaly to be explained

The article aims to present an explanation for the complete absence of public municipal banks in the Southern Low Countries, and particularly in its two main principalities Flanders and Brabant, between 1400 and 1800. The reasons were complex, lying in a combination of the presence of adequate substitutes such as money changers, cashiers and town exchange offices (stadswissels) and countervailing factors (adverse economic conditions, insufficient financial resources, special interests of persons and lobbies). It is also argued that strong government control of the Antwerp urban debt prevented the local authorities from experimenting with a municipal bank.

Military Uniforms in the Southern Low Countries and in Belgium before 1915: Institutional History and Socio-Economic Approaches

The study of military dress has long been marginalized, but the time is now right to absorb the subject into a rejuvenated historiographical current, taking into account the new dimensions of military history. The study of military dress is not popular in the academic world; combining as it does the failings long associated with both costume and military history. Until recently it could be argued that costume is a mere object of contemplation for fashion fanatics more interested in aesthetics than in historical criticism, and military history a speciality limited to the erudition of fanatics of strategic and tactical evolution.

The Court Architect as Artist in the Southern Low Countries 1520-1560

The Court Architect as Artist in the Southern Low Countries 1520-1560

Medieval coin models and piéforts of the Southern Low Countries kept in the coin cabinet of Brussels

Medieval coin models and piéforts of the Southern Low Countries kept in the coin cabinet of Brussels

Margit Thøfner. Review of "Unity and Discontinuity: Architectural Relationships between the Southern and Northern Low Countries (1530–1700)" by Krista de Jonge and Konrad Ottenheym.

Margit Thøfner. Review of "Unity and Discontinuity: Architectural Relationships between the Southern and Northern Low Countries (1530–1700)" by Krista de Jonge and Konrad Ottenheym.

Caught between Law and Practice: Migrants and Settlement Legislation in the Southern Low Countries in a Comparative Perspective, c. 1700–1900

AbstractHistoriographical debates on the causes and implications of early modern and early industrial settlement legislation, which determined the locality where one could apply for poor relief, have so far focused mainly on England and Wales. These regions are deemed exceptional for the national character and universality of their Poor Laws (1601), associated Act of Settlement (1662) and later amendments. However, if the focus is shifted from the national legislative framework to actual practice, several continental regions had relief and settlement arrangements that bore many resemblances to those in England and Wales. This article draws on existing literature and archival research to explore the evolution of settlement law and practice in the Southern Netherlands, i.e. present-day Belgium, from the seventeenth to the late nineteenth centuries, and compares its main features with the situation in England and Wales. This comparative exercise brings to the fore a number of striking resemblances and remarkable differences, which question the precise nature of the British exception. While further research is needed to gauge fully the causes and consequences of the observed similarities and differences, this article aims to demonstrate how a comparative approach towards issues of settlement and relief not only elucidates our understanding of the particularities and generalities of the English/Welsh case, but also widens our insight into the social, economic, and cultural implications of settlement arrangements in general.

Entre Flandre et Hainaut : Godefroid de Naste († 1337) et ses livres

<titre>In between Flanders and Hainaut : Godefroid de Naste (died 1337) and his books </titre> The inventory of personal effects made after the death of Godefroid de Naste contains a list of 24 books constituting one of the oldest aristocratic libraries of the Southern Low Countries. This well documented lord owned property in Imperial Flanders (the domain of Rode, until 1320) as well as in Hainaut (Naste, Hansuelles, Biévène, a mansion in Mons) and assiduously frequented the court of Hainaut. Delicate problems of interpretation arise in the reading of this document, especially in the identification of the works listed. It also raises more general questions. Does such an inventory represent all of its owner’s books ? How was this library formed ? Is it a reflection of the tastes of one individual or rather of an era or a milieu ? To what extent does accessibility – used books, models that could be copied – play a role in the formation of such a collection ?

The Development and Dissemination of the Walloon Method of Ironworking

The use of iron cannon and cast-iron shot developed significantly during the protracted conflict between France and England known as the Hundred Years' War. Within the context of the demand for iron for artillery, important technological developments in ironworking occurred in Wallonia, the French-speaking part of the southern Low Countries (present-day Belgium). These were of particular importance in the county of Namur (annexed to Burgundy in 1429) and made that county, together with Hainaut (annexed to Burgundy in 1433) and the principality of Liege, important suppliers of munitions to combatants in the war. Through his marriage to Margaret de Male, Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy became the son-in-law of Count Louis of Flanders, brother-inlaw of Count Willem I of Namur, and uncle to the count's son Willem II who served Philip in military capacities in the Low Countries.1 On the death of Count Louis in 1384 Philip inherited Flanders and other lands in the north, as well as the counties of Nevers and Burgundy that flanked his own duchy of Burgundy in the south. In 1388, the town walls of Namur had been remodeled to deploy cannon, probably the earliest in Europe to be reconfigured in that way. The first known manufacture of cast-iron shot in Europe came in the county of Namur in 1414, when Danekin Le Feron cast sixty-eight cannon balls at

Una escultura de alabastro producida en los talleres del maestro de Rímini: la Vírgen de la Peña, en Betancuria (Fuerteventura)

During the first decades of the 15th century excellent alabaster sculptures were produced in highly active European workshops located in the frontier region between northern France and the southern Low Countries, in a geographical area comprised by the cities of Lille, Arras and Tournai, and in the lower and middle Rhine. They were small-scale pieces appropriate for distribution to a wide market thanks to continuous mercantile activities. In these workshops sculptures with very similar characteristics were carried out which have been attributed to the so-called “Master of Rimini.” One of the most frequent types was the “Virgin Seated with the Christ Child,” adapted to the International Gothic or “beautiful style” between 1400 and 1440. The Virgin of the Rock in the Sanctuary of Betancuria (Fuerteventura Island, Canaries), corresponds to the prolific workshops of the “Master of Rimini.”

Notes on Contributors

[Throughout his scholarly career Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) always entrusted the manuscripts of his works to the Officina Plantiniana; first to its founder, Christopher Plantin, either in Antwerp or in Leiden, then to his oldest son-in-law, Franciscus Raphelengius, Sr., who became Plantin's successor in Leiden, and finally, after Lipsius returned to the Southern Low Countries, to Plantin's second son-in-law, Johannes Moretus, who from the late 1590s on, could count upon the assistance of his son Balthasar. Because all of Plantin's publications were protected by privileges granted by Emperor Maximilian II (1565) and King Henry III of France (1582), he never had to worry about unauthorized editions of his work within these realms. Since Raphelengius continued the press founded by his father-in-law in Leiden, the privileges applied to his publications as well. They ended, however, when Plantin died on I July 1589 and indeed the first German editions of Lipsius's works, printed without his knowledge, were available at the next spring book fair in Frankfurt. Lipsius soon realized that these cheaper and sloppier editions not only threatened his fame as a humanist; he was afraid that works which he never intended to publish might appear as well. As soon as he had settled in Liege after his final farewell to Leiden, he appealed to Emperor Rudolph II. Thanks to the support of influential friends at court, Lipsius was granted his own privilege (I August 1592), valid for thirty years, to be passed to the printer of his choice (in his case always Moretus). What in Plantin's day had been an economic measure had now chiefly become an intellectual one, with added financial guarantees for Moretus thanks to Lipsius's faith. Hardly five years later a similar privilege, using Rudolph's as its model, was granted to him by the Spanish king., Throughout his scholarly career Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) always entrusted the manuscripts of his works to the Officina Plantiniana; first to its founder, Christopher Plantin, either in Antwerp or in Leiden, then to his oldest son-in-law, Franciscus Raphelengius, Sr., who became Plantin's successor in Leiden, and finally, after Lipsius returned to the Southern Low Countries, to Plantin's second son-in-law, Johannes Moretus, who from the late 1590s on, could count upon the assistance of his son Balthasar. Because all of Plantin's publications were protected by privileges granted by Emperor Maximilian II (1565) and King Henry III of France (1582), he never had to worry about unauthorized editions of his work within these realms. Since Raphelengius continued the press founded by his father-in-law in Leiden, the privileges applied to his publications as well. They ended, however, when Plantin died on I July 1589 and indeed the first German editions of Lipsius's works, printed without his knowledge, were available at the next spring book fair in Frankfurt. Lipsius soon realized that these cheaper and sloppier editions not only threatened his fame as a humanist; he was afraid that works which he never intended to publish might appear as well. As soon as he had settled in Liege after his final farewell to Leiden, he appealed to Emperor Rudolph II. Thanks to the support of influential friends at court, Lipsius was granted his own privilege (I August 1592), valid for thirty years, to be passed to the printer of his choice (in his case always Moretus). What in Plantin's day had been an economic measure had now chiefly become an intellectual one, with added financial guarantees for Moretus thanks to Lipsius's faith. Hardly five years later a similar privilege, using Rudolph's as its model, was granted to him by the Spanish king., ]

Spectacle and Spin for a Spurned Prince. Civic Strategies in the Entry Ceremonies of the Duke of Anjou in Antwerp, Bruges and Ghent (1582)

AbstractIn 1582, the Catholic duke of Anjou toured the Southern Low Countries in order to be recognised by the major rebel cities as the new sovereign of the Netherlands. The obligation of an entry ceremony, the first organised for a sovereign since 1549, burdened the Calvinist urban governments with a very difficult task. At the same time, the ceremonies offered a great opportunity for local propaganda. In this article, the local agendas and varying strategies of the city governments of Antwerp, Bruges and Ghent are compared. Special attention is paid to the printed accounts of these entry ceremonies. From a methodological point of view, it is argued that it is crucial to consider these accounts as cultural objects—from pamphlets to luxury commemoration books—that themselves played an essential role in the construction of the events, often in a very subtle way.