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'Joyous Entry' of Archduke Maximilian Into Antwerp (13 January 1478)

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Journal of Medieval History ISSN: 0304-4181 (Print) 1873-1279 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rmed20 The ‘joyous entry’ of Archduke Maximilian into Antwerp (13 January 1478): an analysis of a ‘most elegant and dignified’ dialogue Kim Overlaet To cite this article: Kim Overlaet (2018) The ‘joyous entry’ of Archduke Maximilian into Antwerp (13 January 1478): an analysis of a ‘most elegant and dignified’ dialogue, Journal of Medieval History, 44:2, 231-249, DOI: 10.1080/03044181.2018.1440622 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/03044181.2018.1440622 © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group Published online: 07 Mar 2018. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 1004 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rmed20 JOURNAL OF MEDIEVAL HISTORY, 2018 VOL. 44, NO. 2, 231–249 https://doi.org/10.1080/03044181.2018.1440622 The ‘joyous entry’ of Archduke Maximilian into Antwerp (13 January 1478): an analysis of a ‘most elegant and dignified’ dialogue Kim Overlaet History, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY In the historiography of ‘joyous entries’ in the medieval Low Received 30 December 2016 Countries, much attention has been paid to the ways in which the Accepted 19 March 2017 iconographic programmes of these inauguration ceremonies KEYWORDS served the dialogue between the Burgundian dukes and their Joyous entries; Low subjects on the one hand, and between urban interest groups on Countries; Maximilian of the other. Analyses of the various theatrical performances Austria; urban spaces; organised on town squares and other public urban spaces allow Antwerp us a glimpse of the balance of power and of the participants’ ambitions and strategies in a certain historical and geographical context. An in-depth analysis of a contemporary account of Maximilian’s joyous entry into Antwerp (13 January 1478) adds a new perspective to historiography by showing how the public urban spaces functioned as complex social products, which gave extra meaning to the interaction between the duke and urban groups while simultaneously mirroring the socio-economic and political structure of urban society. On 13 January 1478, five months after his marriage to Mary of Burgundy (1457‒82), Arch- duke Maximilian of Austria (1459–1519) made his ‘joyous entry’ into the city of Antwerp. According to a remarkably detailed contemporary account,1 the city’s government offered cash payments to groups of at least 18 men to ride out to welcome the duke in ‘the most elegant and dignified’ way (sierlijckst en statelijckst).2 Following civic and courtly tradition, CONTACT Kim Overlaet [email protected] History, Universiteit van Amsterdam – Kloveniersburgwal 48 (C1.06B), 1012CX, Amsterdam, Netherlands 1 This account forms part of a register containing diverse institutional documents drawn up in Brabant in the period 1451–9. The register was recently moved to the family archive Mercy-Argenteau, which is kept in the State Archive of Liège, Receuil des textes normatifs XVI siècle: FMA 4026. For more information about this register, see Mario Damen, ‘Prelaten, edelen en steden. De samenstelling van de Staten van Brabant in de vijftiende eeuw’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Commissie voor Geschiedenis 182 (2016): 5‒274. The account is briefly mentioned in Walter Pre- venier and Wim Blockmans, eds., Prinsen en poorters: beelden van de saatmiddeleeuwse samenleving in de Bourgon- dische Nederlanden, 1384–1530 (Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 1998), 330–2; Wim Blockmans and Esther Donckers, ‘Self-Representation of Court and City in Flanders and Brabant in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries’,in Showing Status: Representations of Social Positions in the Late Middle Ages, eds. Wim Blockmans and Antheun Janse (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 99. An edition of the description of Maximilian’s entry by Mario Damen and myself has been submitted to BMGN ‒ Low Countries Historical Review (December 2017). 2 Prizes might also be won by the nations, guilds and companies which had shown the most beautiful and dignified tableaux and had organised the most enjoyable evening entertainments. FMA 4026, f. 1. © 2018 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. 232 K. OVERLAET Maximilian was met by a ceremonial parade outside the city walls.3 In his account of the ceremonies, the author carefully noted the procession’s order: first came ‘many noblemen’ (vele eelder sciltboirteghe manne)4 and the city’s aldermen, then the representatives of the Antwerp guilds and corporations, with their colourful, ‘honourable and worthy’ (eerlijck en statelijck) uniforms. The city’s canons and members of the lower clergy, monks, nuns and beguines closed the parade. Immediately after this first formal encounter with the urban community, Maximilian was escorted to the city gates, where he was invited to swear an oath to respect the local privileges. After this ritual the duke finally entered the city, where many tableaux vivants and triumphal arches had been erected along the route to the heart of Antwerp: the Great Market Square. In the historiography of joyous entries in the late medieval Low Countries, much atten- tion has been paid to how the iconographic and theatrical programmes of these inaugu- ration ceremonies served the dialogue between the dukes and their subjects on the one hand, and between urban interest groups on the other. It has become generally accepted that the theatrical performances organised on town squares and other urban spaces were not meant for the sole purpose of entertainment. The deliberate choice for the perform- ance of specific Christian, ancient and urban exempla allowed the organising town coun- cils and urban interest groups to convey their own messages. Therefore joyous entries allow us a glimpse of the idealised balance of power and of the participants’ ambitions and strategies in a specific historical and geographical context.5 According to Andrew Brown and Graeme Small, a general distinction can be made between the joyous entries of new rulers and entries following an urban rebellion. Central to the first category was the swearing of oaths by the new ruler and his subjects, establishing a kind of government contract, whereas the second category of entries tried to restore, symbolically, the broken 3 Peter Arnade, Realms of Ritual: Burgundian Ceremony and Civic Life in Late Medieval Ghent (New York: Cornell University Press, 1996); Jesse Hurlbut, ‘The Duke’s First Entry: Burgundian Inauguration and Gift’,inMoving Sub- jects. Processional Performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, eds. Kathleen Ashley and Wim Hüsken (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001), 155–87. 4 Sciltboirteghe manne were ‘men who had inherited the right to wear coats of arms’. They probably belonged to the powerful socio-economic elite, whose members traditionally occupied the most important positions in the town administration. Yet, their social positions clearly were higher than those of the aldermen who were not entitled to wear coats of arms. This confirms research by Mario Damen and Frederick Buylaert, who have both argued that political office-holders in late medieval towns in Brabant and Flanders cannot be considered as a homogenous social group, and that the use of general terms such as urban nobility or patricians should be avoided. Mario Damen, ‘Patricians, Knights, or Nobles? Historiography and Social Status in Late Medieval Antwerp’, Medieval Low Countries 1 (2014): 173–203; Frederik Buylaert, ‘Memory, Social Mobility and Historiography. Shaping Noble Identity in the Bruges Chronicle of Nicholas Despars († 1597)’, Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 88, no. 2 (2010): 377–408. 5 See, among others, Arnade, Realms of Ritual; Wim Blockmans, ‘Le dialogue imaginaire entre princes et sujets: les joyeuses entrées en Brabant en 1494 et en 1496’, Publications du Centre Européen d’Études Bourguignonnes 4 (1994): 37–53; Andrew Brown, ‘Liturgical Memory and Civic Conflict: the Entry of Emperor Frederick III and Max- imilian, King of the Romans, into Bruges on 1 August 1486’, Publications du Centre Européen d’Études Bour- guignonnes 52 (2012): 129–48; Mario Damen, ‘Princely Entries and Gift Exchange in the Burgundian Low Countries: a Crucial Link in Late Medieval Political Culture’, Journal of Medieval History 33 (2007): 233–49; Elodie Lecuppre-Desjardin, La ville des cérémonies: essai sur la communication politique dans les anciens Pays-Bas bourguignons (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004); David Nicholas, ‘In the Pit of the Burgundian Theater State. Urban tra- ditions and Princely Ambitions in Ghent, 1360–1420’,inCity and Spectacle in Medieval Europe, eds. Barbara Hana- walt and Kathryn L. Reyerson (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), 271–96; Bart Ramakers, ‘Multifaceted and Ambiguous: the Tableaux vivants in the Bruges Entry of 1440’,inThe Mediation of Symbol in Late Medieval and Early Modern Times, eds. Rudolf Suntrup, Jan R. Veenstra, and Anne Bollmann (Frankfurt
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