Low Countries Archive
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Urban Jousts in the Later Middle Ages: The White Bear of Bruges
Posted on July 18, 2014 | No CommentsJousting competitions between towns excited passions which, far from releasing citizens into some escapist unreality, could plunge them instead into violence. -
Were Medieval Prostitutes Marginals? Evidence from Sluis, 1387-1440
Posted on July 4, 2014 | No CommentsHow convincing is the idea that all prostitutes had common, inalienable characteristics? How convincing is the view that prostitutes formed a distinct and clearly identifiable group? -
How Destructive were the Vikings?
Posted on May 21, 2014 | No CommentsDanielle Trynoski reports on the paper “How Much Material Damage Did the Northmen Do in Northern Europe?” given by Lesley Anne Morden -
Medieval Dutch Charlemagne Romances: An Overview
Posted on April 1, 2014 | No CommentsThe great majority of the Middle Dutch Charlemagne romances are adaptations of Old French chansons de geste. -
Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy and Regent of the Netherlands
Posted on February 20, 2014 | No CommentsMargaret’s Motto: Fortune, Infortune, Fortune pretty much sums up her extraordinary life. -
How Charles the Bold dispensed justice
Posted on February 5, 2014 | No CommentsShortly before his visit to Middelburg, the governor, a nobleman and knight, fell in love with a married woman. She indignantly spurned his advances. The governor took revenge against the woman by having her husband arrested and imprisoned on a charge of high treason. -
Late medieval choir stalls and the search for their maker
Posted on January 17, 2014 | No CommentsChristel Theunissen, a graduate student at Radboud University, has created this video introducing the research she is doing on medieval choir stalls. -
Famous medieval bridge in Belgium under threat from canal project
Posted on December 18, 2013 | No CommentsThe 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. -
Learning by doing or expert knowledge? Technological innovations in dike-building in coastal Flanders (13th-18th centuries AD)
Posted on December 10, 2013 | No CommentsDike 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). -
New Insights from the Metal Detected Brooches of Early Medieval Frisia
Posted on December 5, 2013 | No CommentsMy research undertook the bulk analysis of over 600 copper alloy brooches by hhXRF and onsite morphological analysis at repositories in the north of Holland. -
Medieval Proverbs from The Well-Laden Ship
Posted on November 12, 2013 | No CommentsHere is a list of some of our favourite medieval proverbs from The Well-Laden Ship, including a few that are very similar to modern ones. -
Defense, Honor and Community: The Military and Social Bonds of the Dukes of Burgundy and the Flemish Shooting Guilds
Posted on October 7, 2013 | No CommentsArchery and crossbow guilds are first documented in Flanders in the early fourteenth century, and grew from military origins to become some of the leading cultural and festive groups in late medieval towns. -
Into the frontier: medieval land reclamation and the creation of new societies. Comparing Holland and the Po Valley, 800-1500
Posted on September 29, 2013 | No CommentsIn the paper it is shown that medieval land reclamation led to the emergence of two very divergent societies, characterised by a number of different configurations; (a) power and property structure, (b) modes of exploitation, (c) economic portfolios, and (d) commodity markets. -
Medieval Books of Hours in the Public Library of Bruges
Posted on July 11, 2013 | No CommentsA documentary created by the Public Library of Bruges about their collection -
The God of History: The Concept of God in the Works of Galbert of Bruges and Walter of Thérouanne
Posted on June 16, 2013 | No CommentsCharles the Good, count of Flanders, was surrounded by assassins and killed by a sword blow to the forehead while praying in an upper chapel of his castral church of Saint Donation in Bruges on March 2, 1127. -
Female brewers in Holland and England
Posted on May 7, 2013 | No CommentsI also want to know why women worked in those professions, what the background of these women was and if changes occurred over time. -
The Hidden Masters of the Middle Ages: the Limbourg Brothers
Posted on March 13, 2013 | No CommentsTheir best known work is the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, which is called the 'most valuable book in the world.' -
Urban Space and Political Conflict in Late Medieval Flanders
Posted on March 10, 2013 | No CommentsThis essay investigates political claims over space in Ghent, urban Flanders’ largest city during the late Middle Ages. -
The Assassination of Godfrey the Hunchback
Posted on January 27, 2013 | No CommentsOne of the earliest reports comes from Lambert of Hersfeld. Around 1078, he wrote a rather extensive account of the assassination, with several details: the assault took place in the city of Antwerp, in the night, when the duke had retired 'because of a natural need'. -
Handspinners of the Later Middle Ages and Renaissance
Posted on January 6, 2013 | No CommentsThe Handspinners of Paris, France: In 1270, a royal judge, Etienne Boileau, compiled “Le Livre de Metiers” (The Book of Trades) which contained the ordinances of 100 Parisian craft guilds. By consulting the surviving tax rolls of 1292, 1300, and 1313, it is possible to determine the extent to which these crafts were practiced. -
Tournament Culture in the Low Countries and England
Posted on January 6, 2013 | No CommentsIn England and the Low Countries towards the end of the thirteenth century, a common chivalric culture had emerged which permitted exchanges and mutual participation in tournaments on both sides of the Channel. -
Tolling the Rhine in 1254: Complementary Monopoly Revisited
Posted on December 16, 2012 | No CommentsGiven a demand for Rhine travel, an Emperor faced a classic complementary monopoly problem: how many toll stations to have, where to site them, and what toll to charge at each. -
Flemings in the Peasants’ Revolt, 1381
Posted on November 14, 2012 | No CommentsWhile the Peasants’ Revolt has been studied in depth by generations of medieval historians, the same cannot be said of England’s foreign-born inhabitants, and the largest group among these, the so-called Flemings (a term which was also applied to those from other principalities in the Low Countries besides Flanders). -
Shifting Experiences: The Changing Roles of Women in the Italian, Lowland, and German Regions of Western Europe from the Middle Ages to the Early Modern Period
Posted on November 12, 2012 | No CommentsSpecifically, the thesis compares and analyzes the changing roles that women could employ economically, politically, socially, and religiously. -
One World under the Sun: Cosmography and Cartography in the Liber Floridus
Posted on September 2, 2012 | No CommentsTo a modern cartographer a map should represent geographic reality by means of coordinates such as latitude and longitude. Not one of the cartographic images in the Liber Floridus corresponds to this definition, yet not a single work on historical cartography omits the early-twelfth-century encyclopaedia
