Abstracts Conference Urban Historiography
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Towards new thinking in urban historiography. Old texts, new approaches. A reconsideration of urban historical consciousness in Northwest Europe Interdisciplinary Conference, Groeningemuseum Bruges, 20-21 May 2015 ABSTRACTS (IN ALPABETHICAL ORDER) Peter Bakker (VU Amsterdam): Historiography of the urban society in the Northern Netherlands (during the 15 th -16 th century) The main focus of my PhD study are the Town chronicles of the town of Kampen. This is the first complete study on these chronicles. A nineteenth century transcription of the medieval manuscript exists, however it is incomplete and the transcriber randomly rearranged the order of the manuscript. Nowadays, these chronicles can be found in the municipal archive of the town Kampen by inventory number: Oud Archief 11 and 12. It is better known as De Annalibus quaedam nota and the incorrect name Liber Diversorum D . In the current study, the chronicles will be studied in a broad perspective. Today, there are only two town chronicles in the Northern Netherlands that we are aware of: the town chronicles of Kampen and the town chronicle of Den Bosch. Besides these, there are also chronicles in the Northern Netherlands with a clear urban link: chronicles written by citizens or monks with an urban relation. These chronicles will also be studied in comparison. In my lecture I will report on my theses and first conclusions on the town chronicles of Kampen. In order to understand the town clerks’ intentions behind writing a town chronicle, it is of great importance to study the relation between the daily work of the town secretaries and the town chronicles. [email protected] Bram Caers (University of Antwerp): The changing face of Mechelen urban historiography in the long sixteenth century (1477-1630) When compared to other cities in the (southern) Low Countries, the middle-sized town of Mechelen boasts a surprisingly early tradition of urban historiography. There are two independent strands of urban chronicles, both originating in the late fifteenth century. While research in the past – and indeed, cases presented at this conference – points towards alternative forms and faces of urban historical consciousness, it is still remarkable that Mechelen had two independent text traditions of texts explicitly presenting themselves as urban chronicles. This is probably due to the political status of Mechelen as a city-state of sorts. It formed an independent enclave within the duchy of Brabant and a prime motivation for early chroniclers seems to have been to detach Mechelen’s history from the dominant voice of Brabantine regional historiography. The paper presented at the conference provides a bird’s-eye view of my PhD research, which is nearing completion. I will focus on the most important of Mechelen’s two chroncle traditions, starting with the alterations made by the initial author in his (mainly Brabantine) sources. Most attention however, will go to the manuscripts dating from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The Mechelen case provides ideal material to study how the same text evolves in the 1 hands of subsequent scribes and continuators. One would half expect a diachronic evolution from what could be called ‘medieval’ towards ‘modern’ historiography, but in fact, each version presents unique aspects that can be linked to the scribe’s personal context within the city of Mechelen. The overall image is not a steady evolution towards modern historiography, but shows how individuals could deal very differently with the same historiographical material. I will focus on three scribes, showing how far apart their historiographical ambitions could lie. While I believe I have succeeded in sketching the background of the sixteenth-century manuscripts and the historical backdrop against which they should be read, there are still many puzzling aspects surrounding the Mechelen chronicles. A returning issue is that of the intended audience. If we take into account the preliminary state of some of the manuscripts presented, one could ask the question which audience the scribes had in mind for their work. The most plausible answer is to turn away from medieval notions of authorship, with scribes spending years and years writing for wealthy patrons, and embrace the notion of private authorship for limited circles of readers (or indeed, no readers at all). However, the question of authorship can also be asked for the initial authorial stage (c. 1500). Why would a Mechelen author rewrite Brabantine historiography from a Mechelen point of view? Certainly, his intention cannot have been to keep the text to himself? My hope is that the expertise on other cases presented at the Bruges conference, will provide the beginnings of an answer to the questions that still remain, even in the closing stage of my PhD research. [email protected] Laura Crombie (University of York): Writing on the Frontier; Jehan Nicolay and an urban viewpoint on the emotional impact of late fifteenth-century war. Jehan Nicolay’s Kalendrier des guerres de Tournay (1477-1479) is not usually considered as a chronicle, and indeed has received limited attention. Nicolay’s work provides an unparalleled level of detail into life in a medieval warzone, the text does not describe large scale battles or dramatic sieges. Rather the Kalendrier narrates life, day by day, the violence and uncertain that surrounded his town. Tournai witnessed almost daily attacks by various ‘villains, ruffians, cowards and rebels’ and just as often the men of Tournai attacked their neighbours, burning buildings or simply stealing cattle. Tournai had, during the reigns of Philip the Good and Charles the Bold, being moving closer to the Burgundian orbit, but the violence of 1477 wrenched it from its neighbours, transforming Tournai from a node in a prosperous socio-economic networks into a frontier town of violence and mistrust. In analysing Jehan’s representation of war and violence, the changing position of Tournai, and changing perceptions of neighbours become clear. This paper will evaluate Nicolay’s work, in the context of other sources from Tournai, to offer a new urban view on the impact of war and the emotional impact of war on urban culture. In considering Nicolay’s changing ideas about Louis XI and ‘the French’ as well as his (initially) somewhat sympathetic attitude to Mary of Burgundy suggestion will be made concerning the place Nicolay saw for Tournai between these two powers. Nicolay valued loyalty, criticising those who changed sides far more than he criticised his ‘German’ ‘Burgundian’ ‘Flemish’ or ‘Brabant’ enemies, even having some respect for enemy commanders who died heroic deaths. Though little mention is made of the heroic past of Tournai in the Kalendrier, 2 with no elaborate foundation myths or panegyrics on a glorious past, it is clear Nicolay was proud of his town and believe in the possibly of divine aid for his town. This does not, however, mean he was always positive about the French garrisons imposed on his town, indeed a rather more nuanced relationship between the city and the centre appears from Nicolay’s text than has been seen in the registers of the councils of Tournai. In suggesting that Nicolay’s Kalendrier be considered in the context of urban historical consciousness and in comparing his work to traditional chronicles this paper will contribute to broader conversations about urban historiography. [email protected] Mario Damen (University of Amsterdam): An ‘urban’ chronicle in a ‘noble’ armorial? ‘Wapenboek Münster’ and the urban environment of a noble patron. The library collection of the ‘Hoge Raad van Adel’ in The Hague hosts a very interesting manuscript of 43 folia, the so-called ‘Wapenboek Münster’. It is named after the German city where it was kept in the city archives until the second World War, when it was ‘returned’ to the Netherlands with some other manuscripts in exchange for some boxloads of ‘German’ documents. Apart from the provenance of the manuscript, its contents is equally interesting. The manuscript can be divided in two parts. The first half is an armorial with some 400 coats of arms of princes and nobles, mainly from the counties of Holland, Hainaut, Flanders and the duchy of Gueldres. The majority of the coats of arms has a blazon, a formal description. It is striking that the artist who has a strong preference for some specific nobles and lineages; one entire page is dedicated to the lords of Arkel whereas the lords of Asperen pop up no less than three times. The other half of the manuscript contains a chronicle with some 80 entries covering two centuries from 1315 to 1515, and mainly dealing with the history of the city of Delft and the dynastical and institutional history of the county of Holland. In any case the author was both a good heraldic artist and well informed on the history of the county of Holland. Both the chronicle, the coats of arms and the handwriting seem to indicate that the manuscript was made in the first decades of the sixteenth century. Furthermore, the armorial and the chronicle reflect a strong historical awareness. But how do both parts of the manuscript relate to each other? Why was this ‘urban’ chronicle combined with an armorial and what does this tell us about the historical and memorial culture of the patron and the scribe? And finally: what does the contents of both the armorial and the chronicle reveal about the identity of the patron and the scribe? [email protected] 3 Lisa Demets (Ghent University): From regional to urban historiography? Rewriting the ‘Excellente Cronike van Vlaenderen’ during and after the Flemish Revolt in Bruges and Ghent In 1899, Victor Fris published an article on a group of late medieval manuscripts he had discovered in the Ghent University library.