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From periphery to centre and back again: elite transformations in Mechelen (fourteenth to sixteenth centuries)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 October 2019

Frederik Buylaert
Frederik Buylaert*
Affiliation:
Ghent University, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 35, UFO, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article explores the social history of the political elites of Mechelen, a town that evolved from a seigneurial enclave within the duchy of Brabant to the de facto capital of the Burgundian–Habsburg Low Countries between the 1470s and 1530. Proceeding from a quantitative analysis of lists of aldermen, fiscal registers and epitaphs, the article argues that the short-lived functioning of Mechelen as a capital city had great impact on its ruling classes. Mechelen was traditionally ruled by a coalition of craft guilds and prominent citizens, but the latter reoriented their social networks to the court elite, as the latter's presence supercharged pre-existing trends towards ennoblement among the urban elite.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , November 2020 , pp. 610 - 631
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

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Footnotes

†

The research for this article is financially supported by the ERC Starting Grant nr 677502: STATE – Lordship and the Rise of States in Western Europe, 1300–1600.

References

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10 It would be erroneous to attribute this development exclusively to the coming of Habsburg government to Mechelen, as this process was common to many towns (see Van der Wee, H., ‘Industrial dynamics and the process of urbanization and de-urbanization in the Low Countries from the late Middle Ages to the eighteenth century. A synthesis’, in idem (ed.), The Rise and Decline of Urban Industries in Italy and in the Low Countries (Louvain, 1988), 307–81Google Scholar. For a critical discussion of the economic impact of itinerant courts on urban economies, see Stabel, P., ‘For mutual benefit? Court and city in the Burgundian Low Countries’, in Gunn, S. and Janse, A. (eds.), The Court as a Stage. England and the Low Countries in the Later Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 2006), 101–17Google Scholar.

11 Van Uytven (ed.), De geschiedenis van Mechelen, 88, 92, 95, 105, 107.

12 See respectively Roux, Paris au Moyen Âge, 101–6, 117–26, and Coss, P., The Knight in Medieval England, 1000–1400 (Stroud, 1993), 169Google Scholar.

13 Van Uytven (ed.), De geschiedenis van Mechelen, 58–9.

14 Trouvé, R., ‘Mechelen op bestuurlijk en rechterlijk gebied, tijdens de regeringen van Filips de Goede en Karel de Stoute, hertogen van Bourgondië (1419–1477)’, Publications du centre européen d’études bourguignonnes (XIVe–XVIe s.), 16 (1974), 57–9, 17 (1976), 48–58Google Scholar, claims that the ordinance's stipulation that the number of aldermen was to be reduced from 12 to 6 was never put into effect, despite surviving correspondence between Mechelen and the duke concerning this procedure. This is based on an erroneous reading of the charter, which states in effect that each year, 6 aldermen were to be appointed who would remain in office for two years. As only half of the bench of aldermen was replaced per year, the number of aldermen remained fixed at 12. See Stadsarchief Mechelen, stadscharters, nr. 160.

15 Analysed in C. Derboven, ‘Sociale status en politieke organisatie van de schepenen binnen een plutocratisch stadsbestuur. Mechelen, 1426–1476’, Ghent University MA thesis, 1983, 123–34, 140.

16 M. Mast, ‘Politiek, prestige en vermogen: de Mechelse magistraat, 1520–1577’, Leuven University MA thesis, 1990, 1–3, 10–11.

17 For an introduction, see Blockmans, W., Emperor Charles V: 1500–1558 (London, 2002)Google Scholar.

18 Haemers, J., ‘Ad petitionem burgensium. Petitions and peaceful resistance of craftsmen in Flanders and Mechelen (13th–16th centuries)’, in Telechea, J. Solórzano et al. (eds.), Los grupos populares en la ciudad medieval Europea (Lonogro, 2014), 371–3Google Scholar. For the bailiff of Mechelen, see Maes, L. Th., Vijf eeuwen stedelijk strafrecht. Bijdrage tot de rechts- en cultuurgeschiedenis der Nederlanden (Antwerp, 1947), 43–7Google Scholar: the bailiff was prohibited from serving simultaneously as an alderman, but the office was often exercised by members of some of the town's most powerful lineages (Van der Aa, De Clercq, Kerman, Van Cortenbach, Van Oyenbrugghe and so on).

19 The city council had to submit 4 candidates for the two positions of burgomaster, and 18 candidates for the 6 positions of aldermen. See Marnef, G., Het Calvinistisch bewind te Mechelen 1580–1585 (Kortrijk and Heule, 1987), 52–4Google Scholar, and also Mast, ‘De Mechelse magistraat’, 19–28, who points out that as a rule, the central administration appointed those individuals who were recommended by the bailiff of Mechelen. For the other members of the city council, the previous system of co-optation remained in place.

20 An overview in Prak, M., ‘Corporate politics’, in idem (ed.), Craft Guilds in the Early Modern Low Countries. Work, Power, and Representation (Aldershot, 2006), 84–5Google Scholar.

21 For important case-studies, see Brand, A.J., Over macht en overwicht. Stedelijke elites in Leiden (1420–1510) (Leuven, 1996)Google Scholar, and Ryckbosch, W., Tusen Gavere en Cadzand. De Gentse stadsfinancien op het einde van de Middeleeuwen (1460–1495) (Ghent, 2007)Google Scholar. In Bruges too, the craft guilds were ousted from power (1490).

22 For the fourteenth century, see D. Wouters, ‘De sociaal-economische status van de schepenen te Mechelen in de tweede helft van de veertiende eeuw’, Ghent University MA thesis, 1982, 34–7, 40–4, and Van Uytven (ed.), De geschiedenis van Mechelen, 60–2. The best discussion of the poorterij is provided in Marnef, Het Calvinistisch bewind te Mechelen, 54–5, 59.

23 For a more extensive discussion, see Buylaert, F., Camp, J. Van and Verwerft, B., ‘Urban militias, nobles and mercenaries. The organisation of the Antwerp army in the Flemish–Brabantine revolt of the 1480s’, Journal of Medieval Military History, 9 (2011), 146–66Google Scholar.

24 Caers, ‘“In fide constans”’, 241.

25 The broad council was briefly abolished in the repression of the Mechelen uprising of 1467 by Charles the Bold, but re-established in that same year. Caers, ‘A message in silence’, 116–17.

26 Derboven, ‘Sociale status en politieke organisatie te Mechelen’, 13, 83–7, 96, and Mast, ‘De Mechelse magistraat’, 12–17, provide a detailed discussion.

27 I used the surveys published in Hermans, V., ‘Le magistrat de Malines. Listes annuelles des membres’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Kring voor Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Kunst van Mechelen, 18 (1908), 27–112, 19 (1909), 2–92, 85–104Google Scholar, and Joosen, H., ‘Dekens en Gezworenen van de Mechelse ambachten. Aanvullende lijsten’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Kring voor Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Kunst van Mechelen, 64 (1960), 54–107Google Scholar, 65 (1961), 145–87, 66 (1962), 177–236, 67 (1963), 157–202, 83 (1979), 115–31. Comparison with original sources confirmed that these surveys are reliable: see Wouters, ‘De sociaal-economische status van de schepenen te Mechelen’, 37–9 and annex 1–2; Derboven, ‘Sociale status en politieke organisatie te Mechelen’, 43–4.

28 This suggests that about half of the male heads of the households of the town's economic elite became an alderman, but as this source lists voluntary donations, the economic elite may have been much larger than 23 individuals. In the tax list of 1544, only about 5 per cent of the economic elite became an alderman. Despite the economic transformation of Mechelen between 1366 and 1544, it is unlikely that the economic elite had grown so radically in size.

29 Wouters, ‘De sociaal-economische status van de schepenen te Mechelen’, 47–61, 130.

30 Mast, ‘De Mechelse magistraat’, 62–93.

31 Marnef, Het Calvinistisch bewind te Mechelen, 62–3.

32 Mast, ‘De Mechelse magistraat’, 12–17. For the Brabantine city of ’s Hertogenbosch, for example, Bruno Blondé has shown that the median value attributed to butchers, dyers and tanners for tax purposes was well above the median value for the entire corporate community (Blondé, B., ‘Bossche bouwvakkers en belastingen: nadenken over economische groei, levensstandaard en sociale ongelijkheid in de zestiende eeuw’, in Blondé, B. (ed.), Doodgewoon: mensen en hun dagelijks leven in de geschiedenis: liber amicorum Alfons K.L. Thijs (Antwerp, 2004), 45–62Google Scholar).

33 For a general discussion, see Stabel, P., ‘Guilds in late medieval Flanders: myths and realities of guild life in an export-oriented environment’, Journal of Medieval History, 30 (2004), 187–212CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Caers, ‘A message in silence’, 122. This discourse is also attested for Bruges, a town that was also co-ruled by a commercial elite and representatives of the craft guilds: Dumolyn, J., De Brugse opstand van 1436–1438 (Kortrijk and Heule, 1997), 162, 216Google Scholar.

35 Mast, ‘De Mechelse magistraat’, 43–52: this estimate deserves considerable caution, as the tendency among families to pass on first names from father to son makes it very difficult to reconstruct individual careers.

36 See the analysis in Buylaert, F. et al. , ‘Households, communities, status and class’, in Brown, A. and Dumolyn, J. (eds.), Bruges. A Medieval Metropolis (ca. 850–1550) (Cambridge, 2018)Google Scholar.

37 The lacunae in the data are not biased towards the craft guilds, as among the 41 missing office-holders, there are 14 jurors of the poorterij and 7 deans of the drapers’ guild (an office reserved for the poorterij).

38 Marnef, Het Calvinistisch bewind te Mechelen, 78, 155–6, 159, 314–21, 334, 337.

39 Mast, ‘De Mechelse magistraat’, 92. The classic discussion of how processes of economic decline could lead to social polarization among early modern craft guilds is Friedrichs, C., ‘Capitalism, mobility and class formation in the early modern German city’, Past and Present, 69 (1975), 24–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Marnef, Het Calvinistisch bewind te Mechelen, 59–60, 64.

41 The only craft guild representatives with considerable rural properties belonged to the wealthy and powerful guilds of the bakers, the butchers and the fishmongers (see Wouters, ‘De sociaal-economische status van de schepenen te Mechelen’, 82–110, 119 and annex 5).

42 For this family, see P. De Win, ‘De adel in het hertogdom Brabant in de vijftiende eeuw (inzonderheid de periode 1430–1482)’, Ghent University MA thesis, 1979, 241–5; Derboven, ‘Sociale status en politieke organisatie te Mechelen’, 103, 109, 138; Coenen, J., Baanderheren, boeren en burgers. Een overzicht van de geschiedenis van Boxtel, Lierde en Gemonde (Boxtel, 2004), 79–81Google Scholar, and Génard, P. (ed.), Verzameling der graf- en gedenkschriften van de provincie Antwerpen. VIII. Arrondissement Mechelen. Mechelen. Parochiekerken (Antwerp, 1903), 257, 300–1Google Scholar.

43 Wouters, ‘De sociaal-economische status van de schepenen te Mechelen’, 120–6, 138; Marnef, Het Calvinistisch bewind te Mechelen, 61–2, 103–4.

44 De Win, ‘De adel in het hertogdom Brabant’, 410–16, and Génard (ed.), Mechelse grafschriften, 63.

45 There is one possible exception: the Van Beringen family, which owned the seigneurie of Hollaken around 1395, served in 1477–85 as representatives of the shearers’ guild of Mechelen. In 1555–63, the family is listed as poorterij. It was not impossible for members of the corporate elite to become noble in the Southern Low Countries, but since 1440, the members of the Mechelen poorterij had also acquired the right to enrol in a craft guild on the condition that those individuals did not engage in manual labour, which made it possible for poorterij members to represent a craft guild in the city council (Derboven, ‘Sociale status en politieke organisatie te Mechelen’, 74–82, and Mast, ‘De Mechelse magistraat’, 149).

46 This genealogical discussion is based on Stroobant, L., ‘La famille Bau de Malines aux XIVe et XVe siècles’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Kring voor Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Kunst van Mechelen, 19 (1909), 217–32Google Scholar; idem, ‘La famille Bau’, Mechlinia, 6 (1927), 88–129, 152–66Google Scholar; and De Win, ‘De adel in het hertogdom Brabant’, 410–16 (this also provides a discussion of the families De Herbais (370–1), Van Ranst (436–9), Van der Meeren (397–406), Edingen (326–7), Berchem (247–51) and De Merode (410–16)).

47 For a genealogical reconstruction, see Steurs, V., ‘Mechelen en de familie van Merode’, Mechelse Bijdragen, 4 (1937), 16–20Google Scholar. For the Van den Werve family, see Wouters, K., ‘De invloed van verwantschap op de machtsstrijd binnen de Antwerpse politieke elite (1520–1555)’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Geschiedenis, 28 (2002), 35Google Scholar. For Frans van Busleyden, see Roggen, D. and Dhanens, E., ‘De humanist Busleyden en de oorsprong van het Italianisme in de Nederlandse kunst’, Gentse bijdragen tot de kunstgeschiedenis, 13 (1951), 127–52Google Scholar.

48 Other examples are provided in Marnef, Het Calvinistisch bewind te Mechelen, 61–2, 103–4.

49 For an extensive analysis, see Wouters, ‘De sociaal-economische status van de schepenen te Mechelen’, 120–6, 138, who noted only one marriage to the nobility in 1350–1400, and Derboven, ‘Sociale status en politieke organisatie te Mechelen’, 101.

50 Discussed in Rompaey, J. Van, De Grote Raad van de hertogen van Boergondië en het Parlement van Mechelen (Brussels, 1973), 62–3Google Scholar, and Hey, E. Kerckhoffs-De, De Grote Raad en zijn functionarissen 1477–1531 (Amsterdam, 1980), vol. I, 10, 74–5Google Scholar.

51 Mast, ‘De Mechelse magistraat’, 61.

52 Steurs, V., ‘Het geslacht van der Aa’, Mechelse Bijdragen, 1 (1934), 56–7Google Scholar.

53 See Buylaert, F., Clercq, W. De and Dumolyn, J., ‘Sumptuary legislation, material culture and the semiotics of “vivre noblement” in the county of Flanders (14th – 16th centuries)’, Social History, 36 (2011), 393–417CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54 De Win, ‘De adel in het hertogdom Brabant’, 301.

55 I have little information on the circumstances in which many members of the Mechelen elite became knighted. In at least two cases, the individuals received the special title of ‘golden knight’ (eques auratus), which could only be granted by the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (see Génard (ed.), Mechelse grafschriften, 52 (Lancelot de Gottignies: d. 1565), 232 (Engelbert van den Dale: d. 1556)). For a discussion of this title, see Damen, M., ‘Patricians, knights, or nobles? Historiography and social status in late medieval Antwerp’, Medieval Low Countries, 1 (2014), 188CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Guardians of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem could also grant a knighthood to pilgrims with sufficient status. This must have been a popular practice in Mechelen. It is attested for at least two scions of leading political dynasties, namely Karel Bau and Jan van der Aa (see Stroobant, ‘La famille Bau’, passim; Steurs, ‘Het geslacht van der Aa’, 56) and it is also possible that Antoon van Adegem had received his title in Jerusalem (Steurs, V., geslacht, ‘Het Mechelse “Van Aedeghem”’, Mechelse Bijdragen, 2 (1935), 18–22Google Scholar passim). In addition, there were also four knights of Jerusalem that did not belong to the town's most prominent lineages (see Génard (ed.), Mechelse grafschriften, 48 (Jan Oem, d. 1522), 165 (Jan Ysewyn, d. after 1565), 166 (Peter and Lodewijk Vranx, resp. d. 15?? and 1555)). For a discussion of this title, see Van Herwaarden, J., ‘Pilgrimages and social prestige. Some reflections on a theme’, in Jaritz, G. and Shuh, B. (eds.), Wallfahrt und Alltag in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit. Internationales Round-Table-Gespräch, Krems an der Donau 8. Oktober 1990 (Vienna, 1992), 68–70Google Scholar.

56 For reasons of space, I do not provide a full survey. For the acquisition of seigneuries by inhabitants of Mechelen, see especially Mast, ‘De Mechelse magistraat’, 95–100, who lists 11 families with in total 23 seigneuries for 1520–77. This must be complemented with scattered information in Wouters, ‘De sociaal-economische status van de Mechelse schepenen’, annex 6; Marnef, Het Calvinistisch bewind te Mechelen, 59–61, 333–4; Trouvé, ‘Mechelen op bestuurlijk en rechterlijk gebied’, 146–7; Steurs, ‘Het geslacht van der Aa’, 56; idem, ‘De heerlijkheid en de heren van Milse’, Mechelse Bijdragen, 4 (1937), 78–92Google Scholar; idem, ‘Het Mechelse geslacht “Van Aedeghem”’; De Raadt, J.Th., ‘Itegem et ses seigneurs. Notice historique sur la commune d'Itegem’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Kring voor Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Kunst van Mechelen, 4 (1893), 135, 150–1, 159, 169Google Scholar, 5 (1894), 83–4; and Reydams, A., ‘Les pleins fiefs de la ville et de la seigneurie de Malines’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Kring voor Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Kunst van Mechelen, 14 (1904), 164Google Scholar. Caution is in order with Van den Wijngaert, F.L., ‘Het feodale Mechelen. Een niet gekende bladzijde uit het verleden van onze stad’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Kring voor Oudheidkunde, Letteren en Kunst van Mechelen, 70 (1966), 31–112Google Scholar, which lists many seigneurial rents that did not include the banal jurisdiction that endowed seigneurial lordship with an aura of nobility (Swivegem near Muizen is an exception). Many noble titles are also listed in the epitaphs for the families discussed: Génard (ed.), Mechelse grafschriften, 46, 75, 402 (Van der Aa), 257, 300–1 (Bau), 284 (Van den Broecke), 68, 429 (De Clercq), 253, 257, 300–1 (Van Cortenbach), 80, 427, 493 (De Croeser), 104–5, 232 (Van den Dale), 52 (Van Diest), 52 (De Gottignies), 82 (Van Heelt), 327–8 (Kerman), 63 (De Merode), 251 (Van Oyenbrugghe), 79, 285, 333–4, 431, 440, 491 (Schooff).

57 For each of the urban churches of Mechelen, epitaphs are known for nobles who were buried here long before the Habsburg state settled in Mechelen (Génard (ed.), Mechelse grafschriften, 15, 116, 135, 487, 503). Also, several nobles purchased burgher's rights in Mechelen between 1400 and 1470 (see M. Kocken, De gekochte poorters van Mechelen (1400–1795) (Handzame, 1975), 3, 6, 16, 27, 90).

58 On the issue of political identities, see Duke, A., ‘The elusive Netherlands. The question of national identity in the early modern Low Countries on the eve of the revolt’, Low Countries Historical Review, 119 (2004), 10–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 For a comparative discussion of the changing relations between noble and urban elites in England, France and the Low Countries, see Buylaert, F., ‘Lordship, urbanisation and social change in late medieval Flanders’, Past and Present, 227 (2015), 66–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.