Where the Middle Ages Begin
I love to read. I also love books depicted in art. I became fascinated with Medieval and Renaissance pictures of women reading or with books. I noticed while I was walking around the National Gallery, Musèe Cluny and the Louvre recently that there are many beautiful images of women reading or with books. Saints, sinners, and laywomen; I wanted to share a few of my favourites. Here are 20 works of art of women and their books
The earliest sources of the history of medieval Flanders do not agree on the origins of the counts. The earliest source, the so-called “Genealogy of Arnold [I],” credibly traces the counts’ origin to Baldwin I “Iron Arm,”…
This chapter discusses identity formation in early modern Flanders. It argues that policy makers and their intellectual agents transformed the perception of a province that had been divided by urban rivalries, civil war and conflicts with the Burgundian and Habsburg overlords, into a bastion of the Catholic Counter Reformation with strong ties to the Spanish King and his representatives.
This chapter focuses on the spatial analysis of intra-urban territories which existed in late medieval and early modern Brussels (Belgium). By studying their morphological characteristics and origins, I seek to understand their functions within urban society.
We are well informed on the life of Stephen of Tournai and some of his work (97). Born in 1128, he grew up in the chapter of Sainte-Croix in Orléans, where he was educated in the artes liberales.
The Pont des Trous, a 13th century bridge in the city of Tournais, could be torn down and replaced as part of large project to create a canal that would link France with the Low Countries.
Dike construction apparently uses simple technology, with slow and gradual change; not the kind of technology that reshaped the material conditions of living, comparable to the spread of electricity or sanitation in the 19th century ‘networked’ city (and linked to the disciplining of society and the rise of domesticity and the modern self-reflexive individual) (often inspired by Latour and Foucault).
The aim of the present article is to report the results of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis on skeletons from a Belgian mediaeval population, and to look at variations in diet that may relate to age and social status.
As I have shown elsewhere, the county of Holland underwent a structural change in the second half of the fourteenth century, when economically the emphasis shifted from agriculture to trade and industry and demographically from the country to the towns. The institutions however did not change.
The study of marginal groups in the late medieval Low Countries is much neglected. The issues of when, where and how homosexuals came to be marginalized, to be regarded as a danger to social order, have not been specifically investigated in this part of Europe.
The Resolution of Commercial Conflicts in Bruges, Antwerp, and Amsterdam (1250-1650) Gelderblom, Oscar (Utrecht University) Merchants in the Low Countries: The Organization of Long-Distance Trade in Bruges, Antwerp, and Amsterdam (1250-1650) (2008) Abstract Even if merchants carefully select their trading partners and closely monitor their behavior, chances remain that the other party walks away with either goods […]
The order of the Clares is generally regarded as the Second Order of Saint Francis of Assisi and was founded by Francis of Assisi himself in 1212 CE at San Damiano near Assisi, and headed by Saint Clare of Assisi (1193/94-1253 CE)
Physical Sight and Spiritual Light in Three Sixteenth-Century Plays of the Low Countries Steenbrugge, Charlotte Marginalia, Vol.3 (2006) Abstract I shall investigate the representation of physical blindness as spiritual blindness and of acquiring the capacity to see light as spiritual rebirth in three sixteenth-century plays of the Low Countries: Tspel van Maria ghecompareirt by de […]
Self-Representation of Court and City in Flanders and Brabant in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries BLOCKMANS, WIM DONCKERS, ESTHER Leiden University (1999) Abstract Medieval society was characterized by a high degree of social inequality. This Situation required a continuous justification so that the lower classes could be persuaded to accept their less attractive lot […]
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