Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T23:01:27.640Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Making space for resistance: the spatiality of popular protest in the late medieval Southern Low Countries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 April 2021

Hannah Serneels Open the ORCID record for Hannah Serneels [Opens in a new window]
Hannah Serneels*
Affiliation:
Blijde-Inkomststraat 21 – box 3307, 3000 Leuven, Belgium
*
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Using several cities in the late medieval Southern Low Countries as a case-study, this article deals with the relation between urban space and different forms of political protest. Urban commoners were aware of the powerful symbolism of certain places in the late medieval city and used that to their advantage during large-scale revolts. Yet the use of space was not limited to the dramatic occupations during these revolts. This article uncovers a wide range of strategies and tactics that common people used to act within given spaces to make their resistance possible. A spatial analysis of several instances of large- and smaller-scale resistance shows that space was intrinsically connected with how and when any form of resistance developed in late medieval cities. As such, the article aims to contribute to the literature on the importance of space in late medieval urban politics, in which attention to smaller-scale practices has been very limited.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 49 , Issue 4 , November 2022 , pp. 709 - 724
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I would like to thank Jelle Haemers for his invaluable advice and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions.

References

1 Cohn, S., ‘The topography of medieval popular protest’, Social History, 44 (2019), 389–411CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 M. Boone, ‘Urban space and social protest: the long tradition of social unrest in Flemish cities during the late Middle Ages (late thirteenth to early sixteenth century)’, in G. Fouquet et al. (eds.), Social Functions of Urban Spaces through the Ages (Ostfildern, 2018), 111–25; an exception is the recent volume: M. van Gelder and C. Judde de Larivière (eds.), Popular Politics in an Aristocratic Republic: Political Conflict and Social Contestation in Late Medieval and Early Modern Venice (London and New York, 2020), especially the chapter by M. van Gelder, ‘Protest in the piazza: contested space in early modern Venice’, 129–57.

3 Lefebvre, H., La production de l'espace (Paris, 1974)Google Scholar; for a theoretical reflection on Lefebvre in historical research, see Arnade, P., Howell, M. and Simons, W., ‘Fertile spaces: the productivity of urban space in northern Europe’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 32 (2002), 515–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Navickas, K., Protest and the Politics of Space and Place, 1789–1848 (Manchester, 2016), 15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 ‘L'espace est un lieu pratiqué’ (space is a practised place), M. de Certeau, L'invention du quotidian, vol. I: Arts de faire (Paris, 1990), 173.

6 Rau, S., ‘Street life in early modern Europe: urban form, representation, discourse, and perception’, Journal of Urban History, 38 (2012), 369–401CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 400.

7 An inspiring case of such a micro-approach is H. Hermant, ‘Les lieux de la révolte des Barretines: de la place publique à l'espace public?’, in J.C. d'Amico and P. Bravo (eds.), Territoires, lieux et espaces de la révolte: XIVe–XVIIIe siècle (Dijon, 2017), 191–206.

8 For instance, P. Lantschner, ‘Voices of the people in a city without revolts: Lille in the later Middle Ages’, in J. Dumolyn et al. (eds.), The Voices of the People in Late Medieval Europe: Communication and Popular Politics (Turnhout, 2014), 73–88; C. Judde de Larivière, ‘L'ordre contesté. Formes, objets et discours de l'action politique des gens ordinaires à Venise (XVe–XVIe siècles), in ibid., 215–32.

9 Scott, J.C., Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, 1985)Google Scholar.

10 Scott, J.C., Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven, 1990)Google Scholar.

11 Lantschner, ‘Voices of the people’, 76–7; J. Watts, ‘Popular voices in England's wars of the roses, c. 1445–c. 1485’, in Dumolyn et al. (eds.), The Voices of the People, 107–22, at 114–15.

12 Watts, ‘Popular voices’, 115.

13 Lantschner, ‘Voices of the people’, 77.

14 Scott, Domination, 120.

15 B. Blondé, M. Boone and A. van Bruaene (eds.), City and Society in the Low Countries, 1100–1600 (Cambridge, 2018).

16 Dumolyn, J. and Haemers, J., ‘Patterns of urban rebellion in medieval Flanders’, Journal of Medieval History, 31 (2005), 369–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Ibid.

18 M. Boone and M. Prak, ‘Patricians and burghers: the great and the little tradition of urban revolt in the Low Countries’, in K. Davids and J. Lucassen (eds.), A Miracle Mirrored. The Dutch Republic in European Perspective (Cambridge, 1995), 99–134.

19 P. Lantschner, ‘Revolts and the political order of cities in the late Middle Ages’, Past & Present, 225 (2014), 3–46, at 11.

20 V. Challet, ‘Violence as a political language. The uses and misuses of violence in late medieval French and English popular rebellions’, in J. Firnhaber-Baker and D. Schoenaers (eds.), The Routledge History Handbook of Medieval Revolt (London, 2017), 279–91, at 283.

21 Dumolyn and Haemers, ‘Patterns of urban rebellion’, 375.

22 A. Stella, ‘Les Ciompi à l'assaut des beaux quartiers’, in d'Amico and Bravo (eds.), Territoires, 191–206.

23 Cohn, ‘The topography’, 389.

24 M. Boone and M. Howell (eds.), The Power of Space in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe: The Cities of Italy, Northern France and the Low Countries (Turnhout, 2013).

25 P. Arnade, ‘Crowds, banners, and the market place: symbols of defiance and defeat during the Ghent War of 1452–1453’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 24 (1994), 471–97, at 474.

26 C. Billen, ‘Dire le bien commun dans l'espace public: matérialité épigraphique et monumentale du bien commun dans les villes des Pays-Bas, à la fin du Moyen Âge’, in E. Lecuppre-Desjardin and A. Van Bruaene (eds.), De Bono Communi. The Discourse and Practice of the Common Good in the European City (13th–16th c.) (Turnhout, 2010), 71–88.

27 J. Haemers, ‘Governing and gathering about the common welfare of the town: the petitions of the craft guilds of Leuven, 1378’, in R. Oliva Herrer et al. (eds.), La comunidad medieval como esfera pública (Seville, 2014), 153–69, at 159.

28 J. Haemers, ‘A moody community? Emotion and ritual in late medieval urban revolts’, in E. Lecuppre-Desjardin and A. Van Bruaene, Emotions in the Heart of the City (14th–16th Century) (Turnhout, 2005), 63–81, at 68–74.

29 M. Boone, ‘Urban space and political conflict in late medieval Flanders’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 32 (2002), 621–40, at 621.

30 E. Lecuppre-Desjardin and J. Haemers, ‘Conquérir et reconquérir l'espace urbain. Le triomphe de la collectivité sur l'individu dans le cadre de la révolte brugeoise de 1488’, in C. Deligne and C. Billen (eds.), Voisinages, coexistences, appropriations. Groupes sociaux et territoires urbains du Moyen Âge au 16e siècle (Turnhout, 2007), 119–42.

31 K. Overlaet, ‘The “joyous entry” of Archduke Maximilian into Antwerp (13 January 1478): an analysis of a “most elegant and dignified” dialogue’, Journal of Medieval History, 44 (2018), 231–49.

32 E. Lecuppre-Desjardin, ‘Parcours festifs et enjeux de pouvoirs dans les villes des anciens Pays-Bas bourguignons au XVe siècle’, Histoire urbaine, 9 (2004), 29–45.

33 V. Fris (ed.), Dagboek van Gent van 1447 tot 1470 (pt 1) (Ghent, 1901), 23.

34 Dumolyn and Haemers, ‘Patterns of urban rebellion’, 374, 379.

35 B. Blondé et al., ‘Living together in the city: social relationships between norm and practice’, in Blondé, Boone and Bruaenel (eds.), City and Society, 70.

36 City Archives Mechelen (CAM), Judicature des échevins (JDE), no. 1, fols. 117r–118r, 22 May 1469; see also ibid., fol. 66r, 8 Apr. 1448; Felix Archives Antwerp (FAA), Correctieboeken (CB), no. 234, fol. 3r, 11 Feb. 1416.

37 FAA, CB, no. 234, fol. 81r, 18 Jun. 1445.

38 J. Haemers, ‘Injury and remedy: the language of contention in the southern Low Countries, 13–16th centuries’, in B. Eersels and J. Haemers (eds.), Words and Deeds: Shaping Urban Politics from below in Late Medieval Europe (Turnhout 2020), 141–62, at 143.

39 J. Justice, ‘La répression à Ypres après la révolte de 1477: documents faisant suite à l’épisode de l'histoire d'Ypres sous le règne de Marie de Bourgogne’, Annales de la Société d’Émulation de Bruges, 41 (1891), 7–68, at 24–6.

40 Charters proclaimed after a revolt in Leuven in 1378 explicitly stated the condition that meetings happened according to custom, meaning with the approval of the guild leaders: Haemers, ‘Governing and gathering’, 166.

41 Justice, ‘La répression’, 47.

42 Ibid., 26–7.

43 N.H.L. Van den Heuvel, De Ambachtsgilden van ‘s-Hertogenbosch voor 1629: Rechtsbronnen van het Bedrijfsleven en het Gildewezen (Utrecht, 1946), 473.

44 Lantschner, ‘Voices of the people’, 80–1.

45 B.H. Rosenwein, Negotiating Space: Power, Restraint, and Privileges of Immunity in Early Medieval Europe (Ithaca, 1999); S. McSheffrey, Seeking Sanctuary: Crime, Mercy, and Politics in English Courts, 1400–1550 (Oxford, 2017).

46 In Ghent, for example: H. Serneels, ‘“Dat elc ghehouden es ter maerct te gane”: politieke participatie in de stedelijke ruimte van vijftiende-eeuws Gent’, Stadsgeschiedenis, 14 (2019), 87–103, at 93–4.

47 J.R. Brown, ‘Drinking houses and the politics of surveillance in pre-industrial Southampton’, in B.A. Kümin and J.R. Brown (eds.), Political Space in Pre-Industrial Europe (Aldershot, 2009), 61–80; C.D. Liddy, ‘Cultures of surveillance in late medieval English towns: the monitoring of speech and the fear of revolt’, in Firnhaber-Baker and Schoenaers (eds.), The Routledge History Handbook, 311–29. For the tavern as space of intersection, see B.A. Hanawalt, ‘The host, the law, and the ambiguous space of medieval London taverns’, in B.A. Hanawalt and D. Wallace (eds.), Medieval Crime and Social Control (Minneapolis, 1999), 204–23, at 204–5.

48 Justice, ‘La répression’, 39–41.

49 L. Verriest, Les luttes sociales et le contrat d'apprentissage à Tournai jusqu'en 1424 (Brussels, 1913), 22.

50 CAM, JDE, no. 1, fol. 16r, 11 Oct. 1441.

51 FAA, CB, no. 234, fol. 177r, 13 Dec. 1488.

52 See J. Haemers, De Strijd om het Regentschap over Filips de Schone. Opstand, Facties en Geweld in Brugge, Gent en Ieper (1482–1488) (Ghent, 2014).

53 J. Nicolay, Kalendrier des guerres de Tournay (1477–1479), ed. F. Hennebert (Tournai, 1853), 393.

54 Ibid., 390, 401–3.

55 Van Den Branden, J., ‘Clementeynboeck’, Antwerpsch Archievenblad, 25 (1888), 101–465Google Scholar, at 396.

56 The terminology used to describe protest is discussed in Haemers, ‘Injury and remedy’, 144–8.

57 De Certeau, L'invention du quotidien; translated into English as M. De Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley, 1988).

58 F. Tonkiss, Space, the City and Social Theory: Social Relations and Urban Forms (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 138.

59 De Certeau, L'invention du quotidien, 57–61; see also Tonkiss, Space, the City, 138–9.

60 ‘La tactique n'a pour lieu que celui de l'autre’, De Certeau, L'invention du quotidien, 60.

61 Justice, ‘La répression’, 20–1.

62 Ibid.

63 Fris (ed.), Dagboek, 184.

64 Peter Arnade noted the instance in Arnade, ‘Crowds, banners’, 486.

65 ‘Tien, je te jetteroie plus volentiers d'une pière, si je l'avoie’, J. Borgnet and S. Bormans (eds.), Cartulaire de la commune de Namur: période des comtés particuliers, 1118–1430 (Namur, 1873), 79.

66 ‘Alons querre les fèvres et les charliers, car nous ne ferons riens sens eauz’, ibid., 80.

67 De Certeau, L'invention du quotidien, 60.

68 H. Moore, ‘Bodies on the move: gender, power and material culture’, in H. Moore (ed.), A Passion for Difference (Bloomington, 1994), 71–85, 83.

69 CAM, JDE, no. 1, fol. 34r, 24 Jan. 1443.

70 FAA, CB, no. 234, fol. 13v, 12 Jun. 1421.

71 Ibid., fol. 95r, 12 Nov. 1450; CAM, JDE, no. 1, fol. 66v, 12 May 1449.

72 CAM, JDE, no. 1, fol. 124r, Jun. 1453.

73 E. Frankot, ‘Legal business outside the courts: private and public houses as spaces of law in the fifteenth century’, in J.W. Armstrong and E. Frankot (eds.), Cultures of Law in Urban Northern Europe, Scotland and its Neighbours c. 1350–c. 1650 (London, 2021), 173–91; for England, see Kawana, Y., ‘Trade, sociability and governance in an English incorporated borough: “formal” and “informal” worlds in Leicester, c. 1570–1640’, Urban History, 33 (2006), 324–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

74 Haemers, J. and Delameillieure, C., ‘Women and contentious speech in fifteenth-century Brabant’, Continuity and Change, 32 (2017), 323–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 334.

75 CAM, JDE, no. 1, fol. 66v, 12 May 1449; FAA, CB, no. 234, fol. 74v, 22 Jan. 1442.

76 Judde de Larivière, C., La révolte des boules de neige: Murano face à Venise, 1511 (Paris, 2014), 10Google Scholar.

77 Haemers, J. and Vrancken, V., ‘Libels in the city: bill casting in fifteenth-century Flanders and Brabant’, Medieval Low Countries, 4 (2017), 165–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 Fris (ed.), Dagboek, 129.

79 C. Judde de Larivière, ‘Du broglio à rialto: cris et chuchotements dans l'espace public à Venise (XVIe siècle)’, in P. Boucheron and N. Offenstadt (eds.), L'espace public au Moyen Âge: débats autour de Jürgen Habermas (Paris, 2011), 119–30.

80 C.D. Liddy, ‘Bill casting and political communication: a public sphere in late medieval English towns?’, in J.A. Solórzano and B. Bolomburu Arízaga (eds.), La gobernanza de la ciudad europea en la Edad Media (Logroño, 2011), 447–61, 455–6.

81 FAA, Privilegiekamer (Pk), no. 913, fol. 46r, 17 Feb. 1470.

82 D. Lett and N. Offenstadt, ‘Les pratiques du cri au Moyen Âge’, in D. Lett and N. Offenstadt (eds.), Haro! Noël! Oyé! Pratiques du cri au Moyen Âge (Paris, 2003), 5–41, at 35.

83 Haemers, J. and Meyer, A. De, ‘Le cri du rebelle, le cri du criminel: slogans, insultes et langage des “malfaiteurs” dans les villes des Pays-Bas Méridionaux (XIVe–XVIe siècles)’, Histoire, économie & société, 38 (2019), 15–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 24.

84 ‘dat hier mede alle wapeningen, die een iegen den anderen, alle banieren dragen,…beckergeslach ende aweyte te nuyte syn ende altemale afgeleght’, Schayes, A., Analectes archéologiques, historiques, géographiques et statistiques concernant principalement la Belgique (Antwerp, 1857), 364Google Scholar.

85 ‘noch dairtoe eenighe clocken te trecken, trommen te slaen off eenighe andere teyken te doene’, Van den Heuvel, Rechtsbronnen, 477–8.

86 FAA, Pk, no. 93, fol. 6v, 6 Sep. 1485.

87 Van den Branden, ‘Clementynboeck’, 465.

88 CAM, JDE, no. 1, fol. 135v, 22 May 1482.

89 Hamon, P., ‘Le tocsin de la révolte: comment l'entendre? (France, XIVe – début XIXe siècle)’, Histoire, économie & société, 38 (2019), 101–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.