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Death and taxes: mortmain payments and the authority of the Count in fourteenth-century Flanders

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 August 2013

ELLEN E. KITTELL
ELLEN E. KITTELL*
Affiliation:
Department of History, University of Idaho.
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Abstract

In the early 1370s, when serfdom had all but disappeared in Flanders, Count Louis II resumed the collection of mortmain, a death fee usually paid only by those of servile status. In a region with a sophisticated financial system it is striking that rather than accepting payment in cash the Count's bailiffs secured personal items. In this paper it is argued that the Count was thereby taking advantage of a population dazed by the ravages of plague and by the on-going civil war between himself and a number of the towns within his territory. Traditional local bonds such as mortmain, extended and reinterpreted within a new constellation of power, enabled Flemish counts to turn a fee into a tax, highlighting their authority.

Décès et fiscalité: paiements de mainmorte et autorité du comte de flandre au xive siècle

Au début des années 1370, alors que le servage était loin d'avoir disparu en Flandre, le comte Louis II remit en vigueur la collecte de la mainmorte, cette contribution consécutive à un décès, habituellement payée uniquement par ceux qui étaient de condition servile. Alors que la région bénéficiait d'un système financier sophistiqué, il est frappant de constater que, plutôt que de collecter un paiement en espèces, les baillis du comte se garantirent sur des biens personnels. Dans cet essai, on fait valoir que le comte tira ainsi parti d'une population accablée par les ravages de la peste noire et de cette guerre civile qui l'opposait à un certain nombre de ses villes du comté. Elargissant et réinterprétant des obligations locales traditionnelles, telles que la mainmorte, les comtes de Flandre ont pratiqué une politique ajustée à une nouvelle constellation de puissance, et marqué ainsi leur autorité en transformant une contribution en un véritable impôt.

Tod und steuern: mortmain-zahlungen und gräfliche autorität in flandern im 14. jahrhundert

In den frühen 1370er Jahren, als in Flandern die Leibeigenschaft beinahe verschwunden war, bestand Graf Ludwig II. weiterhin auf der Einziehung der mortmain („Tote Hand“), einer Todfallabgabe, die normalerweise nur für Vasallen und Leibeigene zu entrichten war. Dabei akzeptierten die gräflichen Verwalter aber keine Geldzahlung, sondern sicherten Gegenstände des persönliuchen Nachlasses, was sich für eine Region mit einem ausgeklügelten Finanzsystem als ziemlich erstaunlich ausnimmt. Die in diesem Beitrag vertretene Erklärung lautet, dass sich der Graf auf diese Weise gegenüber einer Bevölkerung schadlos halten konnte, die durch die Verwüstungen der Pest und den anhaltenden Bürgerkireg zwischen dem Grafen und einer Reihe von Städten innerhalb seines Territoriums wie gelähmt war. Traditionelle lokale Verpflichtungen wie das mortmain wurden innerhalb einer neuen Machtkonstellation erweitert und umgedeutet und erlaubten es den flämischen Grafen, eine Abgabe in eine Steuer zu verwandeln und so ihre Autorität zu bekräftigen.

Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 28 , Issue 2 , August 2013 , pp. 187 - 211
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

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References

ENDNOTES

1 Niccoló Machiavelli, The prince. Translated and edited by Thomas G. Bergin (Arlington Heights, 1947), 48.

2 Naomi Klein, ‘Interview with Amy Goodman’, Democracy Now, http://www.democracynow.org/2007/9/17/the_shock_doctrine_naomi_klein_on [accessed 30 November 2011]. See also Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism (New York, 2007).

3 Brussels, Algemeen Rijksarchief, Rekenkamer, Rolrekeningen (hereafter RR), Courtrai, no. 1063, membrane 1.

4 RR, Oudenaarde, no. 941, membrane 2.

5 RR, Tielt, no. 1063, membrane 3; Oudburg, no. 2895, membrane 3; David Nicholas and Walter Prevenier eds., Gentse stads- en baljuwsrekeningen (1365–1376) (Brussels, 1999), 308 line no. 42.

6 David Nicholas, Medieval Flanders (London, 1992), 110–11.

7 Erik Thoen, ‘Rechten en plichten van plattelanders als instrumenten van machtspolitieke strijd tussen adel, stedelijke burgerij en grafelijk gezag in het laat-middeleeuwse Vlaanderen: Buitenpoorterij en mortemain-rechten ten persoonlijken titel in de kasselrijen van Aalst en Oudenaarde, vooral toegepast op de periode rond 1400’, in Machtsstructuren in de plattelandsgemeenschappen in België en aangrenzende in gebieden (12de–19de eeuw). Handelingen van het 13de internationaal colloquium gehouden te Spa op 3–5 Sept. 1986 (Brussels, 1988), 482–3.

8 RR, Courtrai, no. 1058, membrane 2; Oudenaarde, no. 938, membrane 3; Aalst, no. 889, membrane 5.

9 Denise Angers, ‘La Normandie à la fin du moyen âge’, in Paul Freedman and Monique Bourin eds., Forms of servitude in northern and central Europe: decline, resistance, and expansion (Turnhout, 2005), 180.

10 Verriest, Léo, ‘La preuve du servage dans le droit coutumier de Tournai’, Bulletin de la commission royale d'histoire=Handelingen van de koninklijke commissie voor geschiedenis 74 (1905), 520–42Google Scholar; Léo Verriest, Le servage dans le comté de Hainaut: les sainteurs. Le meilleur catel (Brussels, 1910); Verriest, Léo, ‘Les faits et la terminologie en matière de condition juridique des personnes au moyen âge’, Revue du Nord 25 (1939), 101–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Léo Verriest, ‘Le servage en Flandre, particulièrement au Pays d'Alost’, Revue d'histoire de droit français et étranger (1950), 35–66.

11 Thoen, ‘Rechten’, 477.

12 Erik Thoen, Landbouwekonomie en bevolking in Vlaanderen gedurende de late middeleeuwen en het begin van de moderne tijden. Testregio: de kasselrijen van Oudenaarde en Aalst (einde 13de–eerste helft 16de eeuw) (Ghent, 1988), particularly 418–45.

13 Philip, Duke of Burgundy, acquired the additional position and title of Count of Flanders upon his marriage to Margaret III, Countess of Flanders. Thoen, ‘Rechten’, 470. See also Jan van Rompaey, Het grafelijk baljuwsambt in Vlaanderen tijdens de Boergondische periode (Brussels, 1967). For an analysis of fiscal administration under the Burgundians, see Marc Boone, Geld en macht: de Gentse stadsfinanciën en de Bourgondische staatsvorming (1374–1453) (Ghent, 1990).

14 Nicholas, Medieval Flanders, 231.

15 Thoen, Landbouwekonomie, 436; Klein, The Shock Doctrine.

16 Michael Bush, Serfdom and slavery: studies in legal bondage (London, 1996), 209.

17 Paul Freedman, The origins of peasant servitude in medieval Catalonia (Cambridge, 1991), 17.

18 Thoen, ‘Rechten’, 486–7.

19 Among the historians who treat Flanders as a coherent state, see Theo Luykx, De grafelijke financiële bestuursinstellingen en het grafelijk patrimonium in Vlaanderen tijdens de regering van Margareta van Constantinopel, 1244–1278 (Brussels, 1961); Ellen Kittell, From ad hoc to routine: a case study in medieval bureaucracy (Philadelphia, 1991); Henri Pirenne, Histoire de Belgique (Brussels, 1900); Nicholas, Medieval Flanders; Robert Stein and Judith Pollmann eds., Networks, regions and nations: shaping identities in the Low Countries, 1300–1650 (Leiden, 2010).

20 Henri Nowé, Les baillis comtaux de Flandre des originesà la fin du XIVe siècle (Brussels, 1929), 81–7, 98, 118–20. No bailiff was allowed to serve in his home district (Nowé, Les baillis comtaux, 100).

21 Freedman, Medieval Catalonia, 13.

22 Nowé, Les baillis comtaux, 59–60.

23 A. Verhulst and M. Gysseling, Le compte général de 1187, connu sous le nom de ‘Gros brief’, et les institutions financières du comté de Flandre au XIIe siècle (Brussels, 1962).

24 Nowé, Les baillis comtaux, 416–26, no. 2.

25 Heyle Symoens 3 s. de mortmemains (Rijksarchief te Gent. Fonds Gaillard, Ghent (hereafter RAGG), no. 83, membrane 3).

26 Aechte Boerles, 11 d. (RR, Oudenarde, no. 923, membrane, 5.)

27 The use of verdinct (‘redeemed’) in an entry, for example, Item vander dood van Grielen sWullefs 1 versekin verdinct 32 s. (RR, Courtrai, no. 1091, membrane 1) suggests that heirs repurchased the item.

28 RR, Courtrai, no. 1089, membrane 2.

29 Citizens of these cities were subject to death taxes, but they were marked in accounts not by references to actual items but rather by cash payments. See, for example, Guillaume Des Marez and E. de Sagher, Comptes de la ville d'Ypres de 1287 à 1329 (Brussels, 1909–1913), vol. 2, 7 line 25.

30 J. J. S. Wharton and J. M. Lely, Wharton's law-lexicon forming an epitome of the law of England as existing in statute law and decided cases, and containing full explanations of technical terms and phrases both ancient, modern, and commercial: with selected titles from the civil, Scots, and Indian law (London, 1902), http://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924021688555/cu31924021688555_djvu.txt [accessed 14 September 2012]; William Chester Jordan, ‘Mortmain’, in Joseph Strayer ed., Dictionary of the Middle Ages (New York, 1985), vol. 8, 488 col. 2. Adding to the confusion, this meaning of ‘mortmain’ can also be found in French legal texts, spelled mainmorte. The English, for their part, used the term heriot for what many places on the continent called mainmorte.

31 As Philippe Godding points out, the influence of Roman law was not felt in Flanders until the fifteenth century, at which point its terminology began to appear in legal texts, but then only among jurists with university educations (Godding, Le droit privé dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux du 12e au 18e siècle (Brussels, 1987), 143, no. 192).

32 Godding, for example, devotes two and a half pages to mainmorte. All of his sources come from the era of the Burgundian dukes, who, being French, not surprisingly used the French term mainmorte. It is clear that the term used in these sources meant what it did in France and in England. See Philippe Godding, ‘La législation sur la mainmorte', in Le droit privé, 93–5, sec. 91–94.

33 It is worth noting here the recurrence of words ultimately meaning the best ‘head’ (Flemish hoofd, Picard French kief) or ‘cattle/chattel’ (kateel). The use of all such terms no doubt reflects their origin in rural and feudal property relationships, where livestock constituted the prototypical movable property.

34 Note the use of the plural: ‘This is the account of Coel, the mayor, of what he has received from mortmains since the accounting that took place in 1295 the month of August.’ (RAGG, no. 83, membrane 1), suggesting an attempt to encompass all expressions of this particular death tax into a single word.

35 Michel Parisse, ‘Histoire et sémantique: de servus homo’, in Freedman and Bourin, Forms of servitude, 19–20.

36 William Chester Jordan, ‘Mainmort’, in Strayer, Dictionary of the Middle Ages, vol. 8, 50 col. 2.

37 Thoen, Landbouwekonomie, 432–5; E. Warlop, The Flemish nobility before 1300 (Courtrai, 1975), 252–4.

38 Thoen, Landbouwekonomie, 427–8, 434. There was a similar practice in Laon (Ghislain Brunel, ‘Les hommes de corps du chapitre cathédral de Laon (1200–1460: continuité et crises de la servitude dans une seigneurie ecclésiastique’, in Freedman and Bourin, Forms of servitude, 156–7). Elsewhere, such levies were not seen as mitigation, but rather as ‘bad customs’ (mals usos) (Freedman, The origins of peasant servitude, 17, 80).

39 Warlop, The Flemish nobility, 254, 276.

40 For ‘living nobly’ as a defining characteristic of noble status in Flanders, see the work of Jan Dumolyn, particularly Wim De Clercq, Dumolyn, Jan and Haemers, Jelle, ‘Vivre Noblement: material culture and elite identity in late Medieval Flanders’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 38, 1 (2007), 1–31Google Scholar.

41 Robert Jacob, Les époux, le seigneur et la cité (Brussels, 1990), 377.

42 Verriest, ‘Les faits et la terminologie’, 121; Warlop, The Flemish nobility, 254.

43 RAGG, no. 83, membrane 1.

44 RR, Courtrai, no. 1060, membrane 2.

45 RR, Oudenaarde, no. 923, membrane 1; no. 924, membrane 1.

46 For example, Item Ontfaen van de Moertemeine (RR, Oudenaarde, no. 935, membrane 4).

47 Bruges: Ontfaen van bastarden en incommelincghen binder tyte voerseit (RR, Bruges, no. 1017, membrane 10); Ypres: Item vanden goede van Griele vander Donnye die bastaerde was ontfaen boven costen 6 lib par (RR, Ypres, no. 1709, membrane 3). For a discussion of the terms for foreigner – aubains in French and incommeling in Flemish – see Verriest, Le servage; M. Poulet-Sautel, ‘L'aubain dans la France coutumière du moyen âge’, in Recueils de la Société Jean Bodin 10: l'étranger (Brussels, 1958), 65–100; as well as Thoen, Landbouwekonomie, 422, note 2.

48 Courtrai, Tielt (September 1372), Courtrai (May 1376): Item heft de vorseid bailliu ontfaen van der besten haven gheheeten de mortemeyn binder termine van deser rekeninghen miin here alloene toe behorende (RR, Courtrai, no. 1058, membrane 2). Tielt, September 1372 (RR, Tielt, no. 1058, membrane 3). (My emphasis.)

49 Oudenaarde (May 1373, 1375), Courtrai (January 1376).

50 Item van Beelen de Bels van 1 kalve Ontfaen 40 s. (RR, Tielt, no. 1063, membrane 3).

51 Item vander dood van Lisbetten Jans wive van Monden 1 rendekin verdinct 40 s (RR, Courtrai, no. 1091, membrane 2).

52 Encore rechoite le dite bailliu des sers et de chiaus qui fist a millieur kief et del alluet en le chastelrie dont on avoit de c lib xxx s – En Huerne – Le femme Jehan Salemon xxiii l. (RR, Oudenaarde, no. 923, membrane 2). Such entries were typical of the period before 1370.

53 The worth of an item was probably tied directly to what the bailiff could get for it, either from the heirs who wanted it back or even, perhaps, on the open market. In 1384, small beds (beddekins) yielded from as little as 20 s. to as much as 36 s. (RR, Courtrai, no. 1091, membrane 3 [for 20 s] and membrane 2 [for 36 s]).

54 RR, Courtrai, no. 1091, membrane 1.

55 Blockmans, Wim, ‘The social and economic effects of plague in the Low Countries’, Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire 58 (1980), 835–83Google Scholar, here 850, 860.

56 All of the entries in the account of Ghent for the period 1376–1389, for example, were rendered in cash (Julius Vuylsteke ed., De rekeningen der stad Gent – Tijdvak van Philips van Artevelde, 1376–1389 (Gent, 1893).

57 RR, Courtrai, no. 1079, membranes 1 [for Willem Heile] and 3 [for Cateline Stacx].

58 Item vander dood van Neesen Wrengen 1 coe vercocht 44 s. (RR, Courtrai, no. 1090, membrane 6); Item vander dood van Cateline Oliviers wijf vander Weeden 1 coe verdinct 3 lb. (RR, Courtrai, no. 1091, membrane 1). My thanks to Walter Simons for this point.

59 Kittell, From ad hoc to routine, 81–3. Although spellings might vary, the entries themselves developed formulas referencing someone dying.

60 For example, Item heeft de vorseid bailliu ontfaen van der bester have gheheeten de mortemaine. …miin heere aleene toe behoorende (RR, Courtrai, no. 1059, membrane 2), or even more explicitly, minen geduchten [‘redoubtable’] heere alleene toebehoren (RR, Courtrai, no. 1080, membrane 2).

61 Myriam Carlier, Kinderen van minne? Bastaarden in het vijftiende-eeuwse Vlaanderen (Brussels, 2001), 25–37.

62 J. van Herwaarden, Opgelegde bedevaarten (Assen and Amsterdam, 1978), 8.

63 According to Carlier, when it was rumoured that a person who died without legitimate heirs was a bastard, the bailiff began an inquest to see if this was so (Carlier, Kinderen van minne?, 141).

64 Nowé, Les baillis comtaux, 158.

65 RR, Zomerghem, no. 1365, membrane 8; Nicholas and Prevenier, Gentse stads- en baljuwsrekeningen, 202 line 35; RR, Waes, no. 1369, membrane 12; Nicholas and Prevenier, Gentse stads- en baljuwsrekeningen, 282 line 31.

66 Figure 1 shows that mortmain exactions made up virtually all of the income the bailiff collected in Tielt in both May and September 1384.

67 RR, Courtrai, no. 1054.

68 Jan Bonin (RR, Courtrai, no. 1057–1061, no. 1063), Jan Mathets (no. 1064), Jan van der Vesten (no. 1065), Gheeraerds Piers (no. 1066–1068), Pierre van de Wulpen (no. 1071–1075), Inghelman Ammans (no. 1076–1080), Mahiu van den Nokerstocke (no. 1083), Jaqueman vanden Doel (no. 1084), Philip Jonghen (no. 1085–1088) and Philip van Poelvoerde (no. 1089–1091).

69 Nowé, Les baillis comtaux, 160.

70 The count, for example, was entitled to only one-third of Courtrai's customs (keurrecht) (RR, Courtrai, no. 1060, membrane 1) and to only one half of the fines from quarrels and penalties (twisten ende boeten: no. 1066, membrane 2).

71 For example, RR, Bruges, no. 1011, membrane 14.

72 RR, Courtrai, no. 1076; no. 1058, no. 1067.

73 Kittell, From ad hoc to routine, 81–6.

74 For examples in Courtrai, see RR, no. 1058, membrane 1, no. 1064, membrane 2, no. 1074, membrane 2. For Tielt, see RR., no. 1058, membrane 2, no. 1064, membrane 3; no. 1074, membrane 4.

75 For example, for Courtrai: RR, no. 1058, membrane 1 and no. 1064, membrane 2; For Tielt, RR, no. 1058, membrane 2 and no. 1064, membrane 3.

76 RR, Courtrai, no. 1090, no. 1091, no. 1094.

77 Josiah Cox Russell, Late ancient and medieval population (Philadelphia, 1958), 21; David Nicholas, Town and countryside (Bruges, 1971), 225.

78 RR, Courtrai, no. 1084, membrane 2.

79 RR, Courtrai, no. 1086, membrane 1.

80 RR, Courtrai, no. 1094, membrane 2.

81 The ‘circumscription’ stood for ‘Castellany’ in the case of Courtrai, and ‘bailiwick’ (baillie) for Tielt, RR., no. 1091, membranes 1, 5.

82 RR, Tielt, no. 1091, membranes 1–3; 5–7.

83 Int eerste in de vierscare van Lokeren, daer mijn heere van Vlaendren heeft de tweedeel ende de scoutheete terde, sonder up leen – Van Alaerds wive, die bastaerde was, ontfaen van eenen bedde 48 s. (RR, Waes, no. 1367, membrane 17; Nicholas and Prevenier, Gentse stads- en baljuwsrekeningen, 246 line 50).

84 RR, Aalst, no. 889, membrane 5.

85 See above the ‘beste {hoofd / kateil}, gheheeten [‘called’] mortmaine' formula exemplified in footnote 49 above and discussed in the corresponding text.

86 See John Baldwin's seminal The Government of Philip Augustus: foundations of French royal power in the Middle Ages (Berkeley, 1986).

87 This is one of the reasons, no doubt, behind the claim that death fees – be they called mainmorte, heriot or best hoofd – defined or were at least among the major defining elements of serfdom.

88 Tom Scott, ‘South-west German serfdom reconsidered’, in Freedman and Bourin, Forms of servitude, 115–30; Freeman, Medieval Catalonia, 80; Bush, Serfdom and slavery, 201; Giovanni Cherubini, ‘The peasant and agriculture’, in Jacques Le Goff ed., The medieval world (London, 1990), 130–1.