Journal of Interdisciplinary History, xxxii:4 (Spring, 2002), 621–640.
Marc Boone
Urban Space and Political Conºict in Late
Medieval Flanders
editors’ introduction This essay investigates political claims over
space in Ghent, urban Flanders’ largest city during the late Middle Ages.
Distancing itself from the long tradition in which the Low Countries’ urban history deciphered city life principally through market relations, it argues for the independent importance of political culture. Political contests
were enacted through rituals of rulership and authority performed, ªrst, by
members of the commune in the high Middle Ages and then by the politically enfranchised urban members and the Burgundian princes. Ritual
space—iconic spaces—were not just the site of the contests but also the
prizes. The goal was possession of these spaces and the symbols of power
they bequeathed. The late medieval period was a key crucible for the formation of urban space. As important as economic life was to Low Country
cities like Ghent, the market did not determine spatial arrangements so
much as intersect with a set of political valences forged out of political contests between urban factions and the emerging composite state of the
Burgundian Netherlands.
When considering urban history in medieval Flanders, just as in
adjoining areas such as the Duchy of Brabant and the Bishopric of
Liège, it is tempting to paraphrase the Gospel of John: In the beginning was the word, and the word was Pirenne. Indeed, Henri
Pirenne’s scholarship on urban history has long dominated urban
historiography throughout the Low Countries, and inspired a
strong body of work in economic and political history. Pirenne
was fascinated with questions of state formation, national identity,
and the urban locus of early capitalism. Markets and the urban
economy, he argued, were the engine behind urban development
URBAN SPACE IN LATE MEDIEVAL FLANDERS
Marc Boone is Professor of History, University of Ghent. He is the author of Gent in de
Bourgondische hertogen. ca. 1384–ca. 1453: Een social-politieke studie van een staatsvormingsprocess
(Brussels, 1990); co-author, with Maarten Prak, of “Rulers, Patricians, and Burghers: The
Great and the Little Tradition of Urban Revolt in the Low Countries,” in Karel Davids and
Jan Lucassen (eds.), A Miracle Mirrored: The Dutch Revolt in European Perspective (Cambridge,
1995), 99–134.
© 2002 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the editors of The Journal of
Interdisciplinary History.
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MA R C B O O N E
in the Low Countries. Strongly inºuenced by German historiography at the turn of the century, Pirenne read cities as market enclaves—creations of merchants and entrepreneurs organized to
serve these particular interests.1
A recent survey of the Low Countries’ urban networks illustrates just how long Pirenne cast his shadow over historiography
in this region. Economic and social topics such as population, rent
markets, social structures, ªnance, work and guilds, foreign merchants’ colonies, production and output, and urban budgets are especially prevalent, with particular attention to the relationship of
cities to regional markets and state authority. Historians still credit
pragmatic economic interest as the rationale for the built environment of the medieval Low Country city—that is, for the location,
design, and construction of docks, marketplaces, inns, guild
houses, etc. Recently, Blockmans wrote that “the urban space in
the most urbanized regions of the Low Countries was a direct
reºection of the needs of merchants and of the artisans.”
Blockmans arrived at this conclusion after having noted that two
important peculiarities of the social structure in the Flemish and
Brabantine cities make them clearly distinct from their better
known Italian counterparts: the absence of the nobility (and hence
of the magniªcent private residences that they constructed in cities) and the absence of a court—except perhaps in Brussels—that
would have imposed its imprint on internal urban space. The
“ªeld” was free for merchants and artisans to ªll up open space according to their tastes and ªnancial possibilities, reºecting their
burgher values.2
This essay departs from this strict economic understanding of
space to explore how urban groups and institutions in late medieval Flanders managed space in ways that blended economics with
other political concerns. Space is part of a larger construction; it is
not an unchanging part of the stage that reºects the structural imperative of the urban economy and its institutions. Moreover, the
absence of key groups and institutions, such as the nobility or the
1 For this historigraphical tradition, see Martha Howell, “The Spaces of Late Medieval Urbanity, in Boone and Peter Stabel (eds.), Shaping Urban Identity in Late-Medieval Europe: The
Use of Space and Images (Louvain, 2000), 3–23. On Pirenne and urban history, see Walter
Prevenier, “Henri Pirenne et les villes des anciens Pays-Bas au bas moyen âge,” in La fortune
historiographique des thèses d’Henri Pirenne (Brussels, 1986), 27–50.
2 Wim Pieter Blockmans, “Urban Space in the Low Countries 13th–16th Centuries,”
Annali della Facoltà di Scienze Politiche, XXIX (1993/94), 166.
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| 623
princely court, does not imply that political power and the struggle for such power was without inºuence on the shaping of urban
space. The relations among social and political groups, and the political culture of the various civic regimes, played itself out in public and, as a consequence, shaped space. Urban space offered urban
factions concrete sites for consolidating power relations among
themselves and staging, often theatrically, the conºicts between
the city and its princely rivals. In other words, the ideas of Geertz
and Tilly join those of Pirenne in a polyphonic chorus. “Fare
città,” as the cry went in Florentine chronicles of the fourteenth
century, typically the result of “correre la città” running through
the city streets to conquer its space.3
The point of departure herein for teasing out issues of spatial
power is the conºict between late medieval Flemish urban regimes and the princely authorities. Applying spatial analysis to a
chronology of events well known to Low Country historians, and
often attributed to the rise and fall of guild-based civic regimes, reveals that much of what animated change and conºict is the remarkable jockeying for power that centered on speciªc places rich
in symbols of economic, cultural, and political prestige. Economic
interests were indispensable, but they were realized only in the act
of seizing and marking such public and private places as buildings,
town halls, belfries, market squares, parish churches, and the like.
the legacy of the commune: staging flemish cities in the
thirteenth century
During the thirteenth century, principal Flemish cities, notably Bruges and Ghent, underwent important changes in their spatial design. Some forces for change, such
as the mendicant orders and beguinages that arrived in that period,
3 On space as part of a larger whole, see also the remarks by Stabel, “Stedelijke instellingen
en stedelijke economie: ambachten en marktreguleringen in de laatmiddeleeuwse en
vroegmoderne steden van het graafschap Vlaanderen,” in Prevenier and Beatrijs Augustyn
(eds.), De Vlaamse instellingen tijdens het Ancien Régime: recent onderzoek in nieuw perspectief
(Brussels, 1999), 11–25. For a discussion of the various terms used to describe political change
in Italian cities—not unlike the situation in the Low Countries, as shown by the similar terminology used by, for instance, the Liège chronicler Jean de Hocsem—Ulrich Meier, “Molte
rivoluzioni, molte novità. Gesellschaftlicher Wandel im Spiegel der politischen Philosophie
und im Urteil von Städtischen Chronisten des späten Mittelalters,” in Jürgen Miethke and
Klaus Schreiner (eds.), Sozialer Wandel im Mittelalter. Wahrnehmungsformen, Erklärungsmuster,
Regelungsmechanismen (Sigmaringen, 1994), 148–149, 159–160 (about Hocsen). Clifford
Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York, 1973); Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and
European States, AD 990–1992 (Cambridge, Mass., 1992).
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MA R C B O O N E
came largely from the outside; others, however, were generated
internally. Of special interest to historians is how cities marshaled
public space as an act of economic domination over the countryside. The best examples are the canals that both Ghent and Bruges
ªnanced to make a direct link to the sea and to international trade,
along with the network of little harbors and towns along the Zwin
(Sint-Anna-Ter-Muide, Hoeke, Monnikerede, and Lamminsvliet)
controlled by Bruges. Space inside the city was also reorganized
and reshufºed. The big Flemish cities grew impressively during
the course of the thirteenth century. The need to house all newcomers inspired municipal authorities to acquire, often through
outright purchase, open spaces still available within the cities’
walls, many of which were relics of old seigniorial possessions.
Thanks to abundant documentation, this transfer of property is
relatively well known. The demolition of part of Bruges around
1200 to redirect the city toward its Zwin-harbors gave birth to
speculative ground sales and the development of suburbs outside
4
the old walls.
In addition, as urban archaeology in particular has revealed,
internal changes point to a deliberate political choice to “stage”
the city. The cases of Ghent and Lille best illustrate this phenomenon. Lille’s central square (now the Place Charles de Gaulle) and
Ghent’s Friday Market seem to have been constructed in the thirteenth century on a previously inhabited location. The same phenomenon occurred in Ypres and smaller cities like Diksmuide,
Damme, or Veurne. Moreover, in Ghent, Lille, and Ypres, local
authorities redirected the rivers and created docks as a result of important building in the surrounding area.5
4 Boone, “Brügge und Gent um 1250: die Entstehung der ºämischen Städtelandschaff,” in
Wilfried Hartmann (ed.), Europas Städte zwischen Zwang und Freiheit. Die europäische Stadt um
die Mitte des 13. Jahrhunderts (Regensburg, 1995), 97–110. On the oldest history of Damme,
the central point where both the canal dug by Ghent and the canal linking Damme with
Bruges came together, see Adriaan Verhulst, Thérèse de Hemptinne, and Lieve de Mey, “Un
tarif de tonlieu inconnu institué par le comte de Flandre Thierry d’Alsace (1128–1168) pour le
port de Littersuerua, précurseur du port de Damme,” Bulletin de la Commission Royale
d’Histoire, CLXIV (1998), 160–162. Marc Ryckaert, Brugge: Historische stedenatlas van België
(Brussels, 1991), 68–82; Hans van Werveke, Kritische studiën betreffende de geschiedenis van de stad
Gent (Antwerp, 1933), 67–76.
5 For Lille, see G. Bliek and A. Guiffray, “Genèse et évolution d’une place publique.
L’exemple de Lille,” in P. Demolon (ed.), Archéologie des villes dans le Nord-Ouest de l’Europe
(VIIe–XIIIe siècle) (Douai, 1994), 219–221. For Ghent, see Marie Christine Laleman, “Espaces
U R B A N S PAC E I N LAT E M E DI E VA L F L A N DE RS
| 625
These interventions are linked to the prolonged economic
growth that attained its climax during the second half of the thirteenth century. This “Indian summer” of medieval economic
growth, together with demographic pressure, surely accounts for
the funding of these important public works. But as Crouzet-Pavan has made clear in her comparative study of space in Venice
and Genoa, similar factors do not necessarily produce the same
outcome. Whereas Venice at the end of the thirteenth century,
because of the emergence of a centralized political power, had a
central public space upon which the republic could stage its political rituals of unity, Genoa, by contrast, remained an extremely
compartmentalized city. This difference is a reminder that economic rationale alone does not explain a chronologically similar
trajectory of urban development; political calculation weighs
heavily, too.6
The history of late thirteenth-century Flemish cities has been
written all too often with regard to the “democratic revolution”
of 1302 and the takeover of political power within the cities by artisans and guild representatives. The relative ease with which the
governing elite, or “patriciate,” was eliminated has tempted historians to assume that this group was already exhausted in the thirteenth century and that its regime was then as weak as it was in
1302. Accordingly, the numerous manifestations of social unrest
from the 1250s onward have been—too easily—interpreted as
forebodings of what was to come in 1302. Among its many problems, this view both underestimates the vigor of the patrician regimes and fails to appreciate the nuances at work in the collective
social actions of protest. During the thirteenth century, for example, the members of the cities’ patriciate, as scabini Flandriae, served
publics dans les villes ºamandes au moyen âge: l’apport de l’archéologie urbaine,” in Boone
and Stabel (eds.), Shaping Urban Identity, 25–41. Most of the results of these excavations have
not yet been published. I am grateful to Marc Dewilde at the Instituut Archeologisch
Patrimonium for the information. See also a report by Anton Ervynck for the “Archaologica
Medievaelis” conference, Ghent, 1999 (forthcoming). Concerning Ypres, see Verhulst, “Les
origines de la ville d’Ypres (XIe–XIIIe siècles),” Revue du Nord, LXXXI (1999), 12. In Ypres,
the Ieperleet, a canal linking Ypres with Bruges, was doubled in size c. 1270 to join the new
industrial suburb, the “verdronken weiden,” to the existing waterways.
6 Elisabeth Crouzet-Pavan, “Cultures et contre-cultures: à propos des logiques spatiales de
l’espace public Vénitien, “in Boone and Stabel (eds.), Shaping Urban identity, 89–108. In more
general terms about northern Italian towns, see idem, “Politique urbaine et stratégie de
pouvoir dans l’Italie urbaine, “in Denis Menjot and Jean-Luc Pinol (eds.), Enjeux et expressions
de la politique municipale (XIIe–XXe siècles) (Paris, 1997), 7–20.
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MA R C B O O N E
as aldermen not just for their own city but also for the whole
county. In that capacity, their authority rivaled that of the ruling
comital dynasty, empowering them even to conclude commercial
treaties with foreign dignitaries—one such being the king of England, in 1208.7
The formal college of the scabini Flandriae is better documented from 1240 onward. Its members make it clear to the outside world that the interests of their class dovetailed with the
interests of city and county. Archeological discoveries point to a
deliberate policy on their part to embellish the built environment
to reºect that their social capital bespoke the possession of land
and houses—all the more reason to investigate a link between the
political actions of this elite and Flemish urban design. After all,
the patricians time and again posed as defenders of le bien commun,
as they had done since the ªrst documented conºict in which urban interests were at stake in 1127/28.8
The early urban institutions of twelfth- and thirteenthcentury Flanders were greatly indebted to the “communal” movement, which swept over northern France and subsequently
inºuenced the great cities of Flanders. Traditional historiography
has read these communes as political failures, ignoring their
achievement in forging urban identities and expressing social values. These older studies often mimicked the original ecclesiastical
opponents of the communes by perpetuating their moral and political condemnation. Recent research corrects this view, however, by revealing how the urban elites, brought to power by the
7 Much of the established view concerning 1302 is anchored in nineteenth-century historiography. See Veronique Lambert, “De Guldensporenslag van faits-divers tot ankerpunt van
de Vlaamse identiteit (1302–1838): de natievormende functionaliteit van historiograªsche
mythen,” Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, CXV (2000),
365–392. The basic study of the representative institutions remains Jan Dhondt, “Les origines
des Etats de Flandre,” in Anciens Pays et Assemblées d’Etat, Standen en Landen, I, (1950), 20–27.
8 For a strong, but not convincing, attack on the notion of the patriciate, see Alain Derville,
“Les élites urbaines en Flandre et en Artois,” in Les élites urbaines au moyen âge. XXVIIe congrès
de la S.H.M.E.S. (Paris, 1997), 126–127. A much more nuanced view is defended by Philippe
Braunstein, “Pour une histoire des élites urbaines: vocabulaire, réalités et représentations,” in
ibid., 30. In general, members of this patriciate belonged to a family of proprietors of the original hereditas inside the town (as in Ghent, Douai, or Saint-Omer), or were “men” in the feudal sense of an ecclesiastical institution such as Saint-Vaast in Arras or the cathedral in
Tournai. In other cases, membership in the local Hanse was the ultimate proof of patriciate
status (as in Bruges or Aardenburg). See, in particular, Blockmans, “Patriziat. II Niederlande,”
in Lexikon des Mittelalters (Münich, 1993), 1, col. 1800; Prevenier, “La bourgeoisie in Flandre
au XIIIe siècle,” in Revue de l’Université de Bruxelles (1978), 412.
U R B A N S PAC E I N LAT E M E DI E VA L F L A N DE RS
| 627
communal movements, seized upon urban space to serve their political needs. Communes often emerged in cities characterized by
a strong ecclesiastical presence, literally in the shadow of a cathedral. Burghers’ right to judge the private use of space within the
city—as represented by the droit d’abatis (the ritual destruction of
the house of an evildoer)—was one of the cornerstones of the
commune’s spatial expression. So too was the capacity to issue legal instruments concerning the rule of private properties. The
building of belfries and the organization of markets, halls, and
walls afªrmed communal identity. Key buildings ªgured as iconic
markers on civic seals. This representational strategy was highly effective since seals accompanied legal instruments the contents of
which tended to validate communal power.9
Drawing on a different historiographical tradition, that of the
German Begriffsgeschichte, Oexle recently pleaded for a more equitable approach to the medieval communal movement. He maintains that the sworn unity of a medieval city was expressed
through such social units as guilds and confraternities, which inevitably had a spatial dimension. Oexle sees the commune as a seedbed for a culture of rebelliousness that was only beginning to
develop. The communal moment was a formative chapter of
Western development, though long obscured, since its history has
been subsumed under the heading of modernization, in which its
manifestations are treated as embryonic and ultimately fruitless efforts. Essential to this political culture was the existence of institutionalized delegation and representation, which was capable of
resolving conºicts in the interest of consensus and order. Communal action, often motivated by the search for equilibrium as a guarantee of the original coniuratio, thus put into action a powerful
process with space as its indispensable arena. Urban development
9 It is striking that the communal movement in northern France and Flanders is totally absent from Peter Blickle (ed.), Résistance, représentation et communauté (Paris, 1988). Having been
decried by traditional bourgeois historiography, the communal movement’s fate seems to
have been simply forgotten. The Parisian Commune set the context for the ªrst wave of studies and source editions about the communal movements. Written by French bourgeois historians, for whom the reminder of the commune must have been nothing less than a nightmare,
they had little good to say about the medieval movements. See Christian Amalvi, Le goût du
moyen âge (Paris, 1996), 131–132, 200. See the remarks and critical observations concerning
older literature about the commune by Alain Saint-Denis, “L’apparition d’une identité
urbaine dans les villes de commune de France du Nord aux XIIe et XIIIe siècles,” in Boone
and Stabel (eds.), Shaping Urban Identity, 65–87. See the corpus of French urban seals in
Brigitte Bedos-Rezak, Corpus des sceaux français du moyen âge. I. Sceaux des villes (Paris, 1982).
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MA R C B O O N E
undertaken in the major Flemish cities of the thirteenth century
may well capture this political dynamic.10
The social process behind the communal movement did not
come to a halt once the commune was ªrmly established under
the control of the civic patriciate. The commune’s power was
subject to regular popular appraisal. Beginning in the middle of
the thirteenth century, manifestations of social and political unrest,
often inspired by larger waves of discontent that swept over northern France (the old playground of the communal movement),
afºicted Flemish cities. A renewed reading of the standard scholarship brings spatial elements to the foreground. Movements such as
the Moerlemaye in Bruges or the Cockerulle in Ypres (both dating from 1280) indicate how, instead of being revolutionary developments as the Pirennian tradition would have had it, followed
a relatively ªxed pattern that reveals how political and social demands were formulated in and through space by collective protest
and public written grievances.11
corporative and political space in the fourteenth century
When the laborers of the great drapery industries of the cities of
Flanders were mobilized in opposition to the count of Flanders,
the king of France, and the urban elites, they did not have to invent a new vocabulary to express their aims. They could draw on
a long tradition of collective action and rebelliousness, known to
scholars of the region as the “little tradition” of revolt, as distinguished from the great tradition that opposed cities to princes
throughout the late Middle Ages and sixteenth century. It is revealing that in the ªrst description of a strike in Ghent, occurring
in 1302, the author—an anonymous friar—recalled how the strik10 Otto Gerhard Oexle, “Die Kultur der Rebellion: Schwureinung und Verschwörung im
früh- und hochmittelalterlichen Okzident,” in Marie Theres Fögen (ed.), Ordnung und
Aufruhr im Mittelalter. Historische und juristische Studien zur Rebellion (Frankfurt am Main, 1995),
119–137; idem, “Gilde und Kommune. Über die Entstehung von ‘Einung’ und ‘Gemeinde’
als Grundformen des Zusammenlebens in Europa,” in Blickle (ed.), Theorien kommunaler
Ordnung (forthcoming).
11 See the new interpretation of the Bruges’ Moerlemaye by Thomas A. Boogaart II,
“Evolution of a Communal Milieu: An Ethnography of Late Medieval Bruges, 1280–1349,”
unpub. Ph.D. diss. (Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, 2000). Concerning the contemporary
movement in Ypres, see Boone, “Social Conºicts in the Cloth Industry of Ypres (Late 13th–
Early 14th Centuries): The ‘Cockerulle’ Reconsidered,” in Marc Dewilde, Ervynck, and
Alexis Wielemans (eds.), Ypres and the Medieval Cloth Industry in Flanders: Archaeological and
Historical Contributions (Asse-Zellik,1999), 147–155.
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| 629
ers took care to occupy the streets and markets of the city using
their banners and war-time insignia. Signiªcantly, in this instance,
as well as in other rebellions against princely repression, the belfry
itself was not a target, only the bells, which would be used to start
or sustain the commotion. Many of these bells bore inscriptions
that referred to their mobilizing power. The strikers of Ghent
demonstrated their mastery of all of the mobilizing tools that subsequent generations of artisans would employ to express their po12
litical discontent.
The ascension of the artisans to political power was the biggest novelty of the early fourteenth century. Their ªrst decades of
power leave a strong but superªcial image of confusion, violence,
and incessant turmoil. It is clear, however, that many of the descriptions in narrative sources reºect the “ofªcial transcript” of the
dominant political culture, to borrow Scott’s term. The way that
contemporary (often clerical) observers depicted the protagonists
of the Flemish revolt of 1323–1328 illustrates this point. The enmity of these witnesses toward the popular movements and their
partisans heavily inºuenced nineteenth-century historiography,
setting the tone for decades of historical writing about collective
action and violence. The movements in which violence originated may, however, be interpreted differently, as a tool in an ongoing process of bargaining. As Oexle has so aptly remarked,
medieval collective movements (indeed premodern social movements in general) should not necessarily be judged by their ultimate ends and means, as modern social movements are. Their
principal aim was often to bring issues to the foreground of discussion and make them subject to political bargaining. Flemish artisans and merchants knew this sort of bargaining all too well. It was
a distinct activity that took place on concrete grounds, within a
given space. In his recent study of popular politics in early modern
12 Boone and Maarten Prak, “Rulers, Patricians and Burghers: The Great and the Little
Traditions of Urban Revolt in the Low Countries, in Karel Davids and Jan Lucassen (eds.), A
Mirracle Mirrored: The Dutch Revolt in European Perspective (Cambridge, 1995), 99–134. The
anonymous friar’s description can be found in Fritz Funck-Brentano (ed.), Annales Gandenses
(Paris, 1896), 19. On the source, see Boone, “Der anonyme Minorit von Gent Annales
Gandenses,” in Volker Reinhardt (ed.), Hauptwerke der Geschichtsschreibung (Stuttgart, 1997),
14–17. On the importance of the bells, see Raymond Van Uytven, “Flämische Belfriede und
südniederländische städtische Bauwerke im Mittelalter: Symbol und Mythos,” in Alfred
Havekamp (ed.), Information, Kommunikation und Selbstdarstellung in mittelalterlichen Gemeinden
(Munich, 1998), 132–135.
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Europe, TeBrake developed the notion of “political space” as
“an arena, bounded in terms of both authority and territory,
within which political bargaining can occur. In the late Middle
Ages, the Flemish cities perfectly ªt TeBrake’s formulation. Urban
townspeople had developed a highly articulated political space,
marked by the presence of such symbolic buildings as city halls
and belfries in and around which political statements could be
made.13
The city halls in which the aldermen convened to act as
judges reºect a similar need to tie the locus of power within the
city to the power to exercise organized violence. When artisans
began to share the benches of aldermen with the old patrician lineages, the newly fashioned councils gave concrete form to their
authority by constructing important city halls. Since the power of
the new aldermen was in theory and often in practice sanctioned
by the prince, statutes of the members of the reigning dynasty often adorned the façades of these halls. The relationship between
those in ofªce and the mass of city dwellers that they were supposed to govern was dialectically expressed by the bretesche, or bay
window, from which ofªcial ordinances were made public. It captured both the need to communicate and the desire to keep a certain distance between ofªcials and lay people. The newly
composed benches of aldermen had a strong grip on the exercise
of criminal justice, as signiªed by the symbols of execution (axes,
swords, and chains) that hung from the façade of city halls (in 1305
Bruges, for instance). The city hall was also a central spot of
contestation and rebellion: Pamphlets calling for the overthrow of
the sitting magistrate were often distributed in its neighborhood or
13 James C. Scott, Domination and the Art of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven,
1990); Wayne TeBrake, Shaping History: Ordinary People in European Politics, 1500–1700 (Berkeley, 1998), 11–13; William TeBrake, A Plague of Insurrection: Popular Politics and Peasant Revolt
in Flanders, 1323–1328 (Philadelphia, 1993), 1, 116–117 (which discusses the principle source of
the Flemish revolt and the anonymous Chronicon comitum Flandrensium). See the introductory
remarks in Boone, “‘Armes, coursses, assemblees et commocions.’ Les gens de métiers et
l’usage de la violence dans la société urbaine ºamande à la ªn du moyen âge,” in Neithard
Bulst (ed.), Gewalt. Ausprägung, Wahrnehmung und Regulierung von Gewalt in der Vormoderne (in
press), concerning the historiography based on such ofªcial views. For a successful example of
the idea that collective violence in medieval urban conºicts can be seen as a pattern of communication and bargaining, see David Nirenberg, Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton, 1996), 3–17. Oexle, Die Kultur der Rebellion, 137; Wayne
TeBrake, Shaping History, 9.
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| 631
nailed to its doors, as during the Ghent rebellion of 1451–1453
(church doors also came into play).14
The newly empowered guilds also took care to acquire a hall
or house of their own, to meet, to organize elections, and to show
their wealth and prestige. Forty-three out of the ªfty-eight ofªcial
guilds in Ghent had their own structures. An overwhelming majority of these guild houses were concentrated in the town center.
The care shown in exterior design and internal furnishings, as well
as in the cultivation of social capital, underscores how guild houses
were constructed with public relations and politics in mind. Their
spatial visibility, however, was not limited to material goods and
elements.15
The guilds maintained a high proªle in the processions so important to the city’s public life. The guilds of Ghent took part in
these processions in an order established shortly after their rise to
power in the fourteenth century. The guilds and their symbols
played a decisive role not only in conºicts with forces inside and
outside the city but also in quotidian ritual activity. Arnade
pointed out how the procession of St. Lievin, which yearly offered Ghent’s principal guilds a way to demonstrate corporative
unity, could easily become a manifestation of urban particularism.
Charles the Bold’s inaugural entry in 1467 is a case in point. The
duke’s ceremony collided with the translation of St. Lieven’s relic,
resulting in a riot. The struggle between the saint and the duke for
14 The new constitution of Ghent, subject to the 1301 Ordinance of Senlis as decreed by
Philip IV, is now considered related to the building of a new city hall and the prior elaboration of the urban theater (belfry, marketplace, or parade ground, as the old denomination
goes); see Laleman, “Espaces publics.” Van Uytven, “Flämische Belfriede,” 154. For the Low
Countries, with references to older literature, see Jean-Marie Cauchies, “La bretèche dans les
villes des anciens Pays-Bas. Contribution à l’étude de la publication des lois et règlements au
moyen âge et aux temps modernes,” Revue du Nord, LXIV (1982), 233–234. Paul De Win, De
schandstraffen in het wereldlijk strafrecht in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden van de middeleeuwen tot de
Franse tijd (Brussels, 1991), 43, 116, 130. Prevenier and Boone, “The City-State Dream
(1300–1500),” in Johan Decavele (ed.), Ghent. In Defence of a Rebellious City: History, Art, Culture (Antwerp, 1989), 105. In Bruges, pamphlets were also hung at the economic center, the
beurse (the stock exchange), located amid the Italian colonies. See Boone, “State Power and
Illicit Sexuality: The Persecution of Sodomy in Late-Medieval Bruges,” Journal of Medieval
History, XXII (1996), 137–138.
15 On Ghent’s guild houses, see Johan Dambruyne, “Rijkdom, materiële cultuur en sociaal
aanzien. De bezitspatronen en investeringstrategieën van de Gentse ambachten omstreeks
1540,” in Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly (eds.), Werelden van verschil: Ambachtsgilden in de Lage
Landen (Brussels, 1997), 151–211.
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the same urban space reveals how a peaceful procession and a traditional entry could lose their normal function in a clash of identities.16
Religious solidarities among artisans, typically involving important relics and the spatial manifestations of their role in urban
politics, often went hand in hand, even in the post-medieval corporative period. In the case of Bruges, the establishment of a
guild-based government after 1302 spurred the insertion of civic
symbols and themes in the procession of the Holy Blood, including the city’s most important relic. The procession gained a corporative dimension from the moment that artisans entered the ranks
of aldermen and became co-responsible for the common good.
Guilds became the basic ceremonial unit of the procession, the
itinerary of which incorporated more artisanal quarters than before
and ended with a march around the city’s perimeter. The urban
landscape served as the procession’s frame and focus. By the time
the Valois dukes of Burgundy became counts of Flanders, Bruges
had enjoyed a well-developed tradition of civic liberties and celebrations. Although the dukes shrewdly commandeered the relic of
the Holy Blood for general processions (during campaigns against
the French king), the relic remained a strong civic symbol.17
16 With reference to older literature and to conºicts concerning the order in which guilds
took part in processions, see Boone, Gent en de Bourgondische hertogen, ca. 1384–ca. 1455. Een
sociaal-politieke studie van een staatsvormingsproces (Brussels, 1990), 74–81. Peter Arnade,
“Crowds, Banners and the Marketplace: Symbols of Deªance and Defeat during the Ghent
War of 1452–1453,” Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, XXIV (1994), 471–497. The
topic has gained importance ever since. See Thomas Lentes, “Symbole du pouvoir, pouvoir
du symbole. A la recherche des bannières et des porte-bannières dans les villes du moyen âge
tardif,” unpub. paper (Paris, 1999). Arnade, “Secular Charisma, Sacred Power: Rites of Rebellion in the Ghent Entry of 1467,” Handelingen der Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en
Oudheidkunde te Gent, XLV (1991), 69–94.
17 Alfons K. L. Thijs, “Religieuze rituelen in het emancipatieproces van Vlaamse en
Brabantse handwerksgezellen (zestiende-negentiende eeuw),” in Lis and Soly (eds.), Werken
volgens de regels: Ambachten in Brabant en Vlaanderen, 1500–1800 (Brussels, 1994), 231–281; Van
Uytven, “Flämische Belfriede,” 158. See the re-reading of the meanings of the Bruges’ procession by Thomas A. Boogaart II, “Our Saviour’s Blood: Procession and Community in
Late-Medieval Bruges” (forthcoming). I am grateful to the author for allowing me to quote
his unpublished material. The Bruges procession remains one of the most important examples
of how medieval traditions were established. See Boone, “Van Heilig Bloed en Blanke
Zwanen: omgaan met het middeleeuws verleden in het Brugge van de 19de en 20e eeuw, een
historiograªsche wandeling,” in Jan Art and Luc François (eds.), Docendo discimus. Liber
amicorum Romain Van Eenoo (Gent, 1999), I, 122–124. Andrew Brown, “Civic Ritual: Bruges
and the Counts of Flanders in the Later Middle Ages,” English Historical Review, CXII (1997),
293.
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Purely secular manifestations of guild power through street
processions were rare. Such a retinue was the Ghent auweet, a pageant of the guild militia in mid-Lent that had aldermen and their
guild associates feasting and marching side by side. This example
of local boosterism was timed to coincide with an important
spring fair to showcase local political and economic muscle. It was,
together with the weavers’ procession of Our Lady, the St. Lievin
procession, and all armed collective manifestations, strictly forbidden by Charles V in his attempt to dismantle the corporative regime in 1540.18
urban space as the battlefield between urban particularism
and princely absolutism
The possession of Flanders in 1384
by the ambitious Valois dukes of Burgundy, and their French royal
ideology, marked the beginning of incessant conºict between cities and state in which princes and townspeople used political space
to test their boundaries of power. The conºicts clearly reveal the
meaning of urban space, since parties routinely wrestled upon the
civic stage to defend their interests.
Diplomatic negotiation between city and state was routine, a
safety valve against outright war. In Flanders, the dukes confronted a political culture of urban elites, institutionalized as the
“Four Members,” with a strong tradition of bargaining. The
county was one of those places in Europe where a robust civic
sphere had developed, allowing the city to share authority with
the growing monarchial state. To promote their state, the dukes
participated personally, or by proxies from the dynasty or the ducal household, in the rituals and celebrations that celebrated urban
power and legitimacy. In Bruges, the dukes wisely chose issues
and events that bespoke their ultimate monopoly on the exercise
of authority. One of their strategies was to execute a large number
of people for the crime of sodomy so as to express their mastery
over the social body and public space. Another was to commemorate with strategic ritual care their victories over urban rebels. The
practice was already established by 1409 when Duke John the
Fearless ordered the foundation of a service in Bruges to celebrate
his victory over the city of Liège. After the renewed punishment
18 For the text of the Concessio Carolina in which these measures are promulgated, see
A. du Bois and L. de Hondt (eds.), Les coutumes de la ville de Gand (Brussels, 1887), II, 172.
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of the same city in 1467, Duke Charles the Bold ordered the
“perron,” a highly symbolic monument representing the commune of Liège and its judicial autonomy, transferred to Bruges.
There it would stay until after the duke’s death in 1477, to be publicly viewed both as a punishment of the people of Liège and as a
clear warning to any Flemish subjects who might be tempted to
question the duke’s authority.19
A more detailed analysis of the social and political unrest in
Ghent during the 1430s shows the extent to which the duke and
his administration, the rebels, and the urban elite understood the
usefulness of space to negotiate and manage conºict. On three occasions, 1432, 1436, and 1440, guild unrest necessitated the duke’s
personal intervention. The ªrst incident started a few days before
the annual renewal of the aldermen. The previous day, members
of the Council of Flanders—the central ducal court in the
county—had written to the duke, the chancellor, and other highranking ofªcials that disturbances were expected to occur in
Ghent. The next day, armed members of the guilds occupied the
grain market, and next the Friday-market, Ghent’s central public
square. They also opened the jails, pillaged dwellings of ducal representatives and urban tax receivers, and killed representatives of
their own organizations held responsible for the monetary policy
that had triggered the uprising.20
Both sides in the struggle deployed urban space to win points
in the ongoing bargaining. With banners unfurled, the rebels oc19 Wim Blockmans and Esther Doncker, “Self-Representation of Court and City in Flanders and Brabant in the Fifteenth and early Sixteenth Centuries,” in Blockmans and Antheun
Janse (eds.), Showing Status: Representation of Social Positions in the Late Middle Age (Turnhout,
1999), 83–111. In a more general context, see Blockmans, “Voracious States and Obstructing
Cities: An Aspect of State Formation in Preindustrial Europe,” in Tilly and idem (eds.), Cities
and the Rise of States in Europe, A.D. 1000 to 1800 (Boulder, 1989), 233. Brown, “Civil Ritual,”
292–96; Boone, “State Power and Illicit Sexuality”; idem, “Destroying and Reconstructing
the City: The Inculcation and Arrogation of Princely Power in the Burgundian-Habsburg
Netherlands (14th–16th Centuries),” in Martin Gosman, Arjo Vanderjagt, and J. Veenstra
(eds.), The Propagation of Power in the Medieval West (Groningen, 1997), 23. On the perrons in
general, see Van Uytven, “Flämische Belªede,” 155. For a soldier’s song that makes clear
what the perron represented, see A. J. V. Le Roux de Lincy, Chants historiques et populaires du
temps de Charles VII et de Louis XI (Paris, 1857), 142.
20 Letter by maître Gillis van de Woestijne to the duke and the bishop of Tournai in
Bruges, Chambres des Comptes, no 21805, f o20ro, Archives General du Royaume, Brussels
(hereinafter agr). The facts of the violent outburst are related by two contemporary narrative
sources; additional information comes from ducal correspondence. The looting of the houses
had a charivari-like character. See C. P. Serrure and Philippe Blommaert (eds.), Kronyk van
U R B A N S PAC E I N LAT E M E DI E VA L F L A N DE RS
| 635
cupied the marketplace. The duke kept his newly born son, heir
to the throne (who, as it happened, died at four months) in his
Ghent residence as a signal of his willingness to negotiate. New
deans and aldermen were chosen the day after the rebellion
started, while the guilds were occupying the marketplace. They
were still there the next day, when the aldermen came to the
council to declare they had everything under control. The trouble, in their words, occurred “For the common good, peace, and
tranquility of the aforementioned city. They were willing and eager to serve and obey their natural lord in all possible ways as good
and loyal subjects are obliged to do.” A week later, the duke pardoned his city during a great ofªcial meeting of the three estates in
Courtrai. The ofªcial charter given to the city on this occasion,
and read afterward in Ghent in the duke’s presence, emphasized
the way that the confrontation had involved the ritual occupation
of space. The same scenario occurred in 1436, when the guilds
again in arms, stormed the marketplace even as elaborate written
negotiations were underway between them and the duke’s representative. Eventually, the armed artisans left the marketplace and
returned home, and the duke granted a general pardon to the
city.21
At ªrst sight, the scenario seems to have been repeated in
1440, ending with the duke pardoning the city for “armes,
coursses, assemblees et commocions faictes en notre dicte ville de
Gand.” But his “lettre de remission” contained one new element.
The duke’s councilors labeled the event as a “very grave contempt
and offense against us undertaken against our majesty and lordship
with the crime of lese majesté.” This last notion of “lese-majesté”
Vlaenderen (Ghent, 1940), II 33. The other narrative source is written by an Ypres alderman,
Olivier van Dixmude (ed. J. J. Lambin), Merkwaerdige gebeurtenissen (Ypres, 1835), 137.
21 The correspondence by the Council of Flanders kept the duke well informed: Chambres
des Comptes. no 21805, f o20ro-vo,, f o 20bis ro-vo, agr. Monique Sommé, “Le cérémonial de la
naissance et de la mort de l’enfant princier à la cour de Bourgogne au XVe siècle,” Publications
du Centre Européen d’Etudes Bourguignonnes (XIVe–XVIe s.) (Neuchâtel, 1994), 87, 93–97;
Chambres des Comptes, no 21805, f o 20bis ro-vo, agr. Van Dixmude’s chronicle, which leaves
no doubt about the presence of representatives of the three orders alongside the duke, the
duchess, and the lord chancellor-bishop of Tournai, corrects Blockmans, Handelingen van de
Leden en van de Staten van Vlaanderen. Regering van Filips de Goede (1419–1467). I. Tot de
onderwerping van Brugge (4 maart 1438) (Brussels, 1990), 558–559, who counts the meeting of
Courtrai as a mere meeting of the Leden van Vlaanderen. Charters no 550, Municipal Archives
o
o
o
o
of Ghent; Chambres des Comptes, n 21807, f 11v , agr; charters n 572, Municipal Archives
of Ghent.
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MA R C B O O N E
is redolent with secular and ecclesiastical concepts. Although most
fully visible in speeches during the reign of Charles the Bold, this
language had its precedent during his father’s reign.22
The context behind this inºation in political vocabulary is
clear. The peace negotiations between France, England, and Burgundy—held in Arras beginning in 1435—the aborted Calais
campaign, and the subsequent rebellion of Bruges in 1436 all indicate that the future of Burgundian state-making resided in the
Netherlands. A confrontation with urban power was inevitable,
and the battleªeld had to be, above all, urban space. The 1430s
and 1440s witnessed several examples of this tension, most notably, the exemplary public punishment of Bruges after the revolt of
1436–1438 and the effort to charm the Ghent elite by involving
them in the gradual upgrading of the city’s ducal residences. The
strategy failed, thanks, in part, to the weakness of Ghent’s elite,
crushed as they were between the ªscal demands of the duke and
the claims made by the city’s artisans. The Ghent war of 1451–
1453 was the inevitable outcome.23
In a last-ditch attempt to reach a diplomatic settlement, the
French king sent his ambassadors to Flanders with a text that cunningly reviewed the range of actions open to them to instill fear
and bolster their authority. In principle, they accorded the duke—
who had started to dream more or less openly of kingship—the
right to destroy any city in open revolt against his authority. They
drew their inspiration for such a threat from classical and biblical
texts, from Roman law, from the rules of war, and even from urban customary law. To press the point, the duke destroyed Liège
in 1468 on the heels of a violent and audacious rebellion. The ducal propaganda delivered to Ghent and other major Flemish cities
made deliberate use of the spectacular case of Liège. Ghent
showed its deference to the duke by surrendering its guild banners
and closing several of its gates—accommodations that he had long
22 Charters n 582, Municipal Archives of Ghent. On the context of this pardon, see
Boone, Gent en de Bourgondische hertogen, 224–225. On the precedent for Charles the Bold’s
language, see Blockmans, “Crisme de leze majesté. Les idées politiques de Charles le
Téméraire,” in Jean-Marie Duvosquel, Jacque Nazet, and André Vanrie (eds.), Les Pays-Bas
Bourguignons. Histoire et institutions. Mélanges André Uyttebrouck (Brussels 1996), 71–81.
23 On the Bruges’ revolt and repression, see Dumoyn, De Brugse opstand van 1436–1438
(Kortrijk, 1997), 267–295. Concerning the upgrading of the Ghent residents, see Boone and
de Hemptinne, “Espace urbain et ambitions princières: les présences matérielles de l’autorité
princière dans le Gand médiéval (12e siècle-1540),” in Werner Paravicini (ed.), Zeremoniell
und Raum (Sigmaringen, 1997), 288–295.
o
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| 637
sought. That the German cities of Nuremberg and Frankfurt-AmMain went so far as to ask the aldermen of Aachen and Colonge
for reports about the fate of Liège underlines how strongly Charles
the Bold’s handling of the crises reverberated in the region. The
reply told of church looting, the slaughter and drowning of inhabitants, and acts of rape and pillage. Burgundian and surrounding
cities scrambled to adopt postures of submission.24
Destroying or altering functions belonging to the urban patrimony were not the only ways Burgundian and Habsburg rulers
dealt with potentially rebellious cities. The destruction or submission of Ghent and Liège were good publicity for the Burgundian
dynasty; these cities also had a reputation, a judicial system, and
collective identity vulnerable to state power. Charles V’s punishment of Ghent in 1540 following its ill-fated revolt is a classic example. The jurist Louis van Schore, after having found Ghent
guilty of lese-majesté, ªrst proposed to inºict the kind of destruction on the city that Rome had inºicted on Carthage, but since
this project encountered serious opposition, Charles resorted to
the old recipes. His settlement, known as the Caroline Concession, was nothing less than a plan to remodel Ghent by remaking
its public life. The old abbey of St. Baafs was to be transformed
into a military citadel according to an Italian model (it eventually
became the so-called Spaniards’ castle). In a symbolic gesture, the
emperor ordered many of the city’s old gates and walls torn down
to provide stones for the new construction. Nor was the intervention in Ghent the ªrst one during Duke Charles’ reign. Shortly after the destruction of Liège, a similar stronghold symbolizing
princely power was erected there, too.25
24 Both parties, ducal councillors and Gentenars, referred to the case of Bruges during the
ªnal negotiations (Lille in 1452) before military strength decided the outcome of the conºict.
See Boone, “Diplomatie et violence d’état. La sentence rendue par les ambassadeurs et
conseillers du roi de France, Charles VII, concernant le conªt entre Philippe le Bon, duc de
Bourgogne, et Gand en 1452,” Bulletin de la commission royale d’histoire, CLVI (1990), 35. Idem,
“Destroying and Reconstructing the City.” For the ducal propaganda, see the correspondence of the duke with the great cities in Paravicini, Der Briefwechsel Karls des Kühnen (1433–
1477) (Frankfurt am Main, 1995), I, 335–339. For Ghent’s submission, see the events related
by Victor Fris (ed.), Dagboek van Gent van 1447 tot 1470 met een vervolg van 1477 tot 1515 (Ghent,
1904), II, 217–220; idem, “La restriction de Gand (13 juillet 1468),” Bulletijn der Maatschappij
van Geschied-en Oudheidkunde te Gent, XXXI (1923), 59–142. The letters from Nuremberg
and Frankfurt-Am-Main appear, edited, in E. Fairon, Régestes de la Cité de Liège. IV. 1456 à
1482 (Liège, 1939), 307–312.
25 Audiëntie, 16273, under the title “declaration des abuz commis par ceulx de Gand en l’an
c
o
o
XV XXXIX,” f 9v , agr. The list of accusations leveled by van Schore against Ghent served
as inspiration for the policy adopted by the duke of Alva against the city of Antwerp in 1567.
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MA R C B O O N E
Charles V, however, was not an innovator. His great-grandfather Charles the Bold, whose entry of 1467 had interrupted the
procession of St. Lievin, had conceived a plan to punish Ghent not
only by imposing a ªne and remodeling the city’s institutions but
equally by erecting a citadel on the site of the abbey of St. Bavo.
This operation involved de Brimeu, his close councilor and advisor, who shortly before had set up a similar operation in Liège.
Why Charles the Bold chose the site of St. Bavo is not known.
Given his negative experience with the procession of St. Lieven,
he may taken aim at this saint’s cult, since the abbey was home to
its relics.26
The reconstruction of a city was equally as important to ducal
politics as its destruction, insofar as it promoted the prince as protector of the bien publique. In addition to economic motives, the
opportunity to communicate a political message was extremely
valuable. Charles rearranged Liège’s urban space just enough to
express his political aims. Its ecclesiastical buildings, especially
churches, were looted but not destroyed. The city’s reconstruction was organized and centered around these ecclesiastical buildings. The perron, symbol of urban resistance par excellence, was
reconstructed only after 1477, when the sudden death of Duke
See the reference in the letters of Cardinal de Granvelle in E. Poullet (ed.), Correspondence du
cardinal de Granvelle 1563–1583 (Brussels, 1880), II, 45. See also Guido Marnef, Antwerpen in de
tijd van de Reformatie. Ondergronds protestantisme in een handelsmetropool 1550–1577 (Antwerp,
1996), 153. Recently the importance of St. Baaf ’s transformation has been illustrated by
Laleman, “Woord, beeld en materie. Het Sint-Baafsdorp in Gent,” in Joris de Zutter, Leen
Charles, and André Capiteyn (eds.), Qui valet ingenio. Liber amicorum Johan Decavele (Ghent,
1996), 289–317. The Italian example is the castle built by Francesco Sforza shortly after 1450
in Milan (critically judged by Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. 20). See Patrick
Boucheron, “Les expressions monumentales du pouvoir princier à Milan au temps de
Francesco Sforza (1450–1466),” Les princes et le pouvoir au moyen âge. XXIIIe (Paris, 1993), 122–
123. Among the Italian engineers put to work in Ghent was Donato Buoni di Pellezuoli from
Bergamo, who designed the new walls of Antwerp, approved by Charles V in 1540. See Soly,
Urbanisme et kapitalisme te Antwerpen in de 16de eeuw. De stedebouwkundige en industriële
ondernemingen van Gilbert van Schoonbeke (Brussels, 1997), 198. Charles Steur, Mémoire sur les
troubles de Gand de 1540 (Brussels, 1834), 151–152. For an eyewitness account of how the emperor chose the abbey as the site for the citadel, see Louis Prosper Gachard (ed.), Relation des
troubles de Gand sous Charles-Quint par un anonyme, suivie de trois cent trente documents inédits sur
cet événement (Brussels, 1846), 101. Paravicini, Guy de Brimeu. Der burgundische Staat und seine
adlige Führungsschicht unter Karl dem Kühnen (Bonn, 1975), 302–307: In 1469, Guy de Brimeu,
governor of Liège, took possession of the island in the Meuse, known as the Ile de la cité, and
rebaptized it for the occasion as Isle le duc lez Liege. On the island a citadel was constructed.
26 On the incidents of 1467, see Arnade, “Secular Charisma,” 69–94. De Brimeu stayed in
Ghent when the plan to punish the city was discussed. See Paravicini, Guy de Brimeu, 461.
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Charles triggered a panic among Burgundian ofªcials. Duke
Charles had positioned himself as forgiving father, offering to the
cathedral St. Lambert in Liège a golden reliquary representing St.
George and Charles the Bold. The accounts of Charles’ household
reveal that in the aftermath of the ªrst victory over Liège in 1467,
the duke visited the cathedral to venerate the relics of St. Lambert,
the patron saint of Liège. During the dramatic days of the sacking
of the city in 1468, the duke is said to have personally protected
the relics of St. Lambert, though the contents of the church’s treasury were allotted to his half-brother Antoine. The duke ªnally
returned the statue containing the relics in 1471, thus emphasizing
his role as protector of the saint, the church, and of the city and
imposing his authority and his order. By giving back to Liège its
most precious relic, Charles dangled his almost divine will over
the city’s fate.27
Deliberate intervention in the urban landscape, as part of a larger
punitive strategy, was a standard prop deployed by the state to
communicate its political will. The state’s destruction of a city’s
symbolic physical structures, and/or interference with its law, its
religious tradition, or even its name could serve as a signal that
henceforth the prince ruled the city.
The Flemish cities of the high Middle Ages were largely a
spatial realm of locations inºected with economic, political, and
cultural importance. Urban social groups vied with one another
and with regional and state authorities by making these spaces as
theirs. The original geographical core of the commune was constantly refashioned as patricians, guildsmen, and representatives of
the state crafted their ritual statements of power. Newly empowered elites did not so much redraw the spatial map as appropriate
the established sites and symbols of authority. What historians
working in the Pirennean tradition classiªed as class warfare between patricians and guildsmen during the fourteenth century indeed involved fundamental economic issues, but it was more
generally tied up with broader issues of power and authority.
27 See the lengthy description of Liège’s rearrangement in Paravicini, Guy de Brimeau, 198–
207. The statue given by Duke Charles depicts him kneeling on a cushion and wearing a full
suit of armor. The saint, also in a suit of armor, is raising his helmet in salutation; his features
strikingly resemble the duke’s. See Hugo Van Der Velden, The Donor’s Image: Gerard Loyet
and the Votive Portraits of Charles the Bold (Turhout, 2000).
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More than market enclaves, cities were complex built environments comprised of zones rich in meaning and material.
In the ªfteenth century, urban space became an even sharper
element of division and strife because of the increasing interference of princely power in the ªnancial and spatial core of the city.
The Burgundian and Habsburg princes were no longer content
with such standard rituals as the processional entries in which they
merely embellished urban space but instead actively sought to redraw the cities’ boundaries. They betrayed their imperial ambitions in the process. The ªrst duke of Burgundy—or “Fils du roy
de France,” as he called himself—and the subsequent members of
his dynasty, managed urban space as if they were “roy, empereur
en son royaume.” Eventually, Philip the Good, posed as “non roy,
mais de courage empereur.” This appeal to sovereign power had
great consequences for the relationship between prince and city
and for the way urban space was invoked to sustain this relation.
From the Burgundian dukes emerged a direct line to the absolutist
politics of the Habsburg rulers. Charles the Bold’s demolition of
Liège and his punishment of Ghent directly inspired the duke of
Alva’s attempt to retain the cities of the Netherlands for Philip II.
That this same king was ªnally rejected by his subjects is proof that
the communal ideal was strong enough to withstand such ªerce
attacks.