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‘How one shall govern a city’: the polyphony of urban political thought in the fourteenth-century duchy of Brabant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2019

MINNE DE BOODT
MINNE DE BOODT*
Affiliation:
Department of Medieval History, University of Leuven, Blijde-Inkomststraat 21 - box 3307, BE-3000 Leuven, Belgium
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Abstract:

This article examines late medieval urban political thought. By means of an intertextual methodology that combines the efforts of continental scholars and English literary historians, it provides new insights into the political ideas that circulated within the towns of the fourteenth-century duchy of Brabant. A qualitative analysis between different source types, that originated amongst socially diverse groups, will indicate that political ideas had a polyphonic character. Indeed, ideas were constantly reconstructed and reshaped by the social groups that used them and the context in which they were uttered. During the fourteenth century, the Brabantine citizenry was involved in an ideological battle that was fought with similar, but adaptable, weapons.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 46 , Issue 4 , November 2019 , pp. 578 - 596
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

*

I would like to express my gratitude to Jelle Haemers, Valerie Vrancken, Mireille Pardon, the anonymous reviewers and the editorial board of Urban History for their indispensable advice and detailed critique. Thanks are also due to Geert Claassens for his help during the English translation of ‘How one shall govern a city’. This research was financed by the OT-project: Women and peaceful subversion in late medieval Brabant.

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