Demets, Dumolyn. Urban Chronicle Writing in Late Medieval Flanders

C Cambridge University Press 2015
Urban History, 43, 1 (2016)

doi:10.1017/S0963926815000152
First published online 25 March 2015
Urban chronicle writing in late

medieval Flanders: the case of
Bruges during the Flemish Revolt
of 14821490
L I S A D E M E T S and J A N D U M O LY N
Ghent University, Department of History, Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 35, 9000 Ghent,
Belgium
abstract: The absence of a real urban chronicle tradition in fifteenth-century

Flanders similar to the Italian or German models has raised questions among
scholars. However, there is also no satisfactory consensus on the exact meaning or
contents of medieval urban historiography. Some were official city chronicles,
while others lauded patrician lineages or took the viewpoint of specific social
groups or corporate organizations and reinforced construction of the groups
collective memories. Some seem to express the literary aspirations of individual city
officials or clerics with strong connections to their towns. We propose an analytical
framework to identify and measure the urbanity of late medieval chronicles,
taking into account the authorship and thematic emphasis of historiographical
texts, but focusing on the social environment of their circulation and the ideological
strategies at work.
Medieval urban historiography

There is no consensus on the exact meaning of the commonly used
phrase medieval urban historiography.1 Although strict dichotomies
between urban and court or noble culture, or between lay and
clerical culture are now generally dismissed, the question of whether
there was a specifically urban form of historical writing is of considerable
importance. We propose an integrated analytical framework to identify
and measure the urbanity of late medieval chronicles, taking into account
the authorship and thematic emphasis of historiographical texts, but
focusing on the social environment of their circulation and the ideological
strategies at work.
Although cities were dominant in medieval Flemish society, there are
few early texts which can be described as urban chronicles, especially in
comparison to the ubiquitous texts surviving in the German and Italian
1
We thank Marc Boone, Andrew Brown, Jelle Haemers, Shennan Hutton and Johan
Oosterman for their comments.
Downloaded from http:/www.cambridge.org/core. Central European University Library, on 29 Sep 2016 at 06:40:11, subject to the Cambridge Core
terms of use, available at http:/www.cambridge.org/core/terms. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0963926815000152
Urban chronicle writing in late medieval Flanders
29
cities.2 The two oldest narrative sources that focus on urban events are
isolated and atypical. Both were written by well-educated clerics who
lived in towns. The chronicle of Galbert of Bruges, a cleric of the collegiate
church of St Donatian, about the political struggle in Flanders after the
murder of Count Charles the Good in 1127, is one of the most well-known
and fascinating historiographical documents of the twelfth century.3
The Annales Gandenses, written by an anonymous Greyfriar in Ghent,
has received less international scholarly attention, but offers an equally
interesting analysis of the political events in the county between 1296 and
1310, a period of French occupation, urban revolts and liberation in 1302.4
Both texts show a thorough familiarity with urban society and politics, thus
demonstrating that clerical authors were not always outsiders hostile to
the worldview, actions and aspirations of city-dwellers. However, neither
of these two chronicles circulated widely, because there are few surviving
manuscripts, and neither had appreciable influence on other historical
narratives. They are exceptions to the Flemish historiographical tradition
of monastic annals and chronicles and national narratives organized
around the genealogies of the counts.5 It initially seems difficult to locate
a specifically urban character, or urban point of view in historical
writing before the fifteenth century. The same is true for the neighbouring
principalities of Brabant, Holland and Hainaut.6
2
E. Lecuppre-Desjardin, La ville des ceremonies. Essai sur la communication politique dans

les anciens Pays-Bas bourguignonnes (Turnhout, 2004), 716. For a more optimist view
on the presence of urban chronicles, see A.-L. Van Bruaene, Lecriture de la memoire
urbaine en Flandre et en Brabant (XIVe XVIe siècles), in E. Crouzet-Pavan and E.
Lecuppre-Desjardin (eds.), Villes de Flandre et dItalie: les enseignements dune comparaison
(Turnhout, 2008), 14964, and in P. Trio, The chronicle attributed to Olivier van
Dixmude: a misunderstood town chronicle of Ypres from late medieval Flanders, in
E. Kooper (ed.), The Medieval Chronicle (Amsterdam, 2005), vol. V, 212; M. Mostert
and A. Adamska (eds.), Writing and the Administration of Medieval Towns (Turnhout,
2014).
J. Rider (ed.), De multro, traditione, et occisione gloriosi Karoli comitis Flandriarum (Turnhout,
1994); J. Rider, Gods Scribe: The Historiographical Art of Galbert of Bruges (Washington, DC,
2001).
F. Funck-Brentano (ed.), Annales Gandenses (Paris, 1896); V. Lambert, Chronicles of Flanders
12001500. Chronicles Written Independently from Flandria Generosa (Ghent, 1993), 4355;
M. Boone, Der anonyme Minorit von Gent Annales Gandenses, in V. Reinhardt (ed.),
Hauptwerke der Geschichtsschreibung (Stuttgart, 1997), 1417.
S. Vanderputten, Libri chronicorum. A structural approach to the transmission of
medieval Benedictine historiography from the southern Low Countries, Revue Benedictine,
115 (2005), 15186; J.-M. Moeglin, Les ducs de Bourgogne et lhistoriographie flamande,
a` la Revolution (Paris,
in C. Grell (ed.), Les historiographes en Europe de la fin du Moyen Age
2006), 2136.
A.-L. Van Bruaene, De Gentse memorieboeken als spiegel van stedelijk historisch bewustzijn (14de
tot 16de eeuw) (Ghent, 1998), 425. Also in German cities, the fifteenth century was the real
starting point for a historiography from a dominantly urban point of view: K. von Wriedt,
Burgerliche
Geschichtsschreibung im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert. Ansatze und Formen, in
P. Johanek (ed.), Stadtische Geschichtsschreibung im Spatmittelalter und in der fruhen

Neuzeit
(Cologne, 2000), 21, and the other contributions in this volume; see also F. du Boulay, The
German town chroniclers, in R. Davis and J. Wallace-Hadrill (eds.), The Writing of History
in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1981), 44569.
30
Urban History
Authorship, worldviews and interpretative communities
There are a number of criteria competing to define the category of urban

medieval historiography. Trio defined it as a genre in which the historys
own town is strongly accentuated and which at the same time strongly
expresses an urban self-consciousness. Trios definition is a useful one
to start with but may perhaps be further elaborated upon.7 One issue
is authorship: was the text written by a burgher or a group of city
residents when the text is a collective work with continuations, additions
or interpolations? Distinguishing among authors, continuators, scribes
and copyists is problematic for medieval texts.8 Chronicles were textual
traditions that included translating a Latin text into the vernacular, or
adding to the previous narrative, often with revisions to suit certain
powerful men, social circles or institutions. When there were multiple
authors of a text, they may have been city residents of various kinds:
clerics, city officials or ordinary burghers.
Of the Flemish towns, Ypres has the clearest urban chronicle tradition
for the fifteenth century. A chronicle traditionally attributed to (pseudo-)
Olivier van Dixmude seems to have been written by several city aldermen
(possibly Olivier himself, Joris de Rijke and Joos Bryde) and was continued
by at least one other author, Pieter van de Letewe.9 Although the
Ypres-tradition versions emphasize the views of the citys patricians and
rulers, they are not as tied to the official point of view as other urban
historical narratives composed by clerks employed by the city council,
10
such as the German town chronicles, the Amtsbucher

or Ratsbucher.
The Diary of Ghent (Dagboek van Ghent) has one hand that narrated
political developments between 1447 and 1470 and a second that covered
1477 through 1515, both periods characterized not coincidentally by
revolts and civic strife. Its hybrid text combines a few historiographical
passages with many official documents and reports from the Collacie,
the great council of the city.11 Since the annalistic Van De Letewe
account from Ypres also contains copies of letters and charters, other
7
8
9
10
11
Trio, The chronicle, 212. The definition by R. Schmid, Town chronicles, in G. Dunphy
(ed.), Encyclopedia of the Medieval Chronicle (Leiden, 2010), vol. II, 1432, seems too narrow
as it only includes official writings.
See also for the Brabantine case of the Brabantse Yeesten: A. Houthuys, Middeleeuws
kladwerk. De autograaf van de Brabantsche yeesten, boek VI (vijftiende eeuw) (Hilversum, 2009).
Trio, The chronicle; J.J. Lambin (ed.), Merkwaerdige gebeurtenissen, vooral in Vlaenderen en
Brabant, en ook in de aengrenzende landstreken: van 1377 tot 1443 (Ypres, 1835); I. Diegerick
(ed.), Vernieuwing der wet van Ypre van het jaer 1443 tot 1480, met het geene daer binnen dezen
tyd geschiet is. Door Pieter Van de Letewe (Ypres, 1863); I. Diegerick (ed.), Episode de lhistoire
dYpres, sous le règne de Marie de Bourgogne, 1477 (Ypres, 1850).
H. Schmidt, Die deutschen Stadtechroniken als Spiegel des burgerlichen

Selbstverstandenisses im
Spatmittelalter (Gottingen,
1958), 1421.
Tineke van Gassen (Ghent University) is currently researching the discourse and origin
context of the Diary of Ghent. V. Fris (ed.), Dagboek van Gent van 1447 tot 1470 met een
vervolg van 1477 tot 1515 (Ghent, 1904); Van Bruaene, Lecriture, 156. Similarly in many
other European town chronicles lists of city officials and charters were inserted in the
text, for instance in the London chronicle tradition: R. Radulescu, London chronicles,
31
combined texts might have existed at one time. An anonymous historical

narrative, the Book of Everything that Happened in Bruges between
1477 and 1491, emphasizes crime and scandal.12 As the writer was
well informed about cases, he may have been a clerk of the criminal
court.
A related text type is the memorieboeken, or memorial books: annalistic
manuscripts organized around the annual lists of urban magistrates, with
comments on the years events. In addition to the carefully studied Ghent
texts, in approximately 40 late medieval and early modern versions, there
are similar manuscripts in Bruges and smaller Flemish towns, and in
fact Van de Letewes chronicle and several other ones also contain such
lists. Because some are linked to elite lineages, they could be categorized
as family rather than urban chronicles, along with the Italian Libri di
Ricordanza, many German Stadtechroniken and some London chronicles.13
Transmitting urban history in Flanders was not a monopoly of the
patrician elites. Forms of collective memory were also maintained by urban
corporate groups, such as craft and shooting guilds, in their membership
registers and cartularies.14 Middle-class artisan families also kept alive the
memories of their forefathers participation in earlier political and social
struggles.15
The most important fifteenth-century Flemish vernacular chronicle
tradition does not initially seem to be urban. The Middle-Dutch
translation of the Flandria Generosa C, a branch of a Latin genealogy
of the Flemish counts beginning around 1160, presents itself as a
12
13
14
15
in Dunphy (ed.), Encyclopedia, vol. II, 1042, or in Florence: E. Cochrane, Historians and
Historiography in the Italian Renaissance (Chicago, 1981), 910.
C. Carton (ed.), Het boeck van al t gene datter gheschiedt is binnen Brugghe sichtent jaer 1477,
14 februarii, tot 1491 (Ghent, 1859).
Van Bruaene, De Gentse memorieboeken; J.-M. Moeglin, Les e lites urbaines et lhistoire
de leur ville en Allemagne (XIVe Xve siècles), in Les elites urbaines au Moyen
Age
(Rome, 1997), 35183; A.F. Sutton and L. Fuchs-Visser, The making of a minor
London chronicle in the household of Sir Thomas Frowyk (died 1485), The Ricardian,
126 (1994), 86103; M.-R. McLaren, The London Chronicles of the Fifteenth Century. A
Revolution in English Writing (Cambridge, 2002); Ch. De La Roncière, Les ricordanze
florentines aux XIVe et XV siècles, Provence Historique, 54 (2004), 28592; Ch. KlapischZuber, Memoire de soi et des autres dans les livres de famille italiens, Annales.
Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 59 (2004), 4, 80526; B. Studt (ed.), Haus- und Familienbucher
in der stadtischen Gesellschaft des Spatmittelalters und der fruhen

Neuzeit (Cologne,
2007).
For instance, the Bruges shearers guild: A. Schouteet, Kroniekachtige aantekeningen
uit het gildeboek van de Brugse droogscheerders, 15191598, Handelingen van het
Genootschap voor Geschiedenis, 94 (1957), 6673; the Bruges crossbow guild: City
Archives of Bruges (CAB), 385 (St-Jorisgilde), register 1321531; the Ghent crossbow
guild: Ghent, City Museum, MS G 3018/3 (we thank Laura Crombie for the latter
reference).
A.L. Van Bruaene, Simaginer le passe et le present: conscience historique et identite
urbaine en Flandre a` la fin du Moyen Age,

in H. Brand, P. Monnet and M. Staub (eds.),
Memoria, communitas, civitas. Memoire et conscience urbaines en occident a` la fin du Moyen Age
(Ostfildern, 2003), 16980; J. Haemers, Social memory and rebellion in fifteenth-century
Ghent, Social History, 36 (2011), 44363.
32
Urban History
chronicle of the entire county.16 The Flandria Generosa, the principal

Latin chronicle tradition circulating in Flanders between the twelfth
and fifteenth centuries, was probably translated into the vernacular
by urban rhetoricians.17 The cultural environments surrounding the
corporately organized rederijkerskamers, or chambers of rhetoricians,
whose members were literate artisans from the upper levels of the
craft guilds, as well as merchants, schoolmasters and urban clerics,
were the sites of production of many copies and adaptations of the
text.18 Although it is not clear who was responsible for the first Dutch
version of the Excellente Cronike van Vlaenderen (Excellent Chronicle of
Flanders), that initial version grew into a sizeable corpus of late medieval
manuscripts, followed by a printed version in 1531. A Bruges cluster
of chronicle texts is attributed to Anthonis de Roovere and one or
more continuators. A master stone mason from Bruges and the most
famous Flemish rhetorician Anthonis de Roovere authored the largest
portion of the Dutch addition to the translated chronicle, from the Calais
siege during the reign of Philip the Good (1436) until the death of
Mary of Burgundy (1482). The narratives that these Bruges continuators
added to the translated segments mainly deal with the events in their
hometown. In several manuscripts, the authors also added rhetorical
poems.19
In addition to authorship, a second accepted criterion for a city
chronicle considers the worldview of the text, including its geographical
scope, topics and ideology. Does the version focus on events in a single
city, on a certain principality or on the wider Christian world? Does it
identify with a set of values typical of urban society? The Ypres chronicle
tradition, for instance, takes a clear partisan, Ypres-centred view, but covers
the county as a whole. Although all versions from the Excellente Cronike
tradition cover the high politics of the Burgundian dynasty, some centre
on the Ghent point of view, and seven manuscripts, similar in content and
16
17
18
19
J.-M. Moeglin, Une première histoire nationale flamande. LAncienne Chronique

de Flandre (XIIeXIIIe siècles), in D. Barthelemy and J.-M. Martin (eds.), Liber
largitorius: etudes dhistoire medievales offertes a` Pierre Toubert par ses elèves (Geneva, 2003),
45576.
See J. Dumolyn, J. Oosterman, T. Snijders and S. Villerius, Rewriting chronicles in an urban
environment. The middle Dutch Excellent chronicle of Flanders tradition, Lias. Journal
of Early Modern Intellectual Culture and its Sources (2015) (forthcoming). Around the same
period, in about 1414, the vernacular London chronicle tradition of the fifteenth century
also developed from a corpus of chronicles in Latin: A. Gransden, Historical Writing in
England, vol. II: c. 1037 to the Early Sixteenth Century (London, 1982), 227; McLaren, The
London Chronicles.
A.-L. Van Bruaene, Om beters wille: Rederijkerskamers en de stedelijke cultuur in de Zuidelijke
Nederlanden (14001650) (Amsterdam, 2008).
W. Vorsterman (ed.), Dits die Excellente Cronike van Vlaenderen (Antwerp, 1531); J.
Oosterman, De Excellente Cronike van Vlaenderen en Anthonis de Roovere, Tijdschrift
voor Nederlandse taal- en letterkunde, 118 (2002), 2237. The Flemish version was based on the
Flandria Generosa C, itself based on the so-called Continuatio Claromariscensis of the Flandria
Generosa A, which usually ends with the events of the year 1423.
33
style and all authored by Anthonis de Roovere, identify strongly with the
city of Bruges.20
Late medieval urban ideologies were systematic political and social
discourses, featuring elements specific to urban life and representing the
balance of power within the city and in the outside world.21 The precise
form of each urban political discourse varied by favouring certain urban
groups. While the Ypres chronicle tradition was written from an elite point
of view and condemned the dangerous populace, the parts of the Excellente
Cronike written by De Roovere show a great deal of sympathy for the
political activities of the Bruges middle classes.22 Political sympathies are
less clear in other manuscripts of the Excellente Cronike. This variance
in ideological content is not exceptional. Transmission of medieval texts
was generally unstable, because writers did not believe that a text was
the intellectual property of one, or even several, authors. Developing new
versions of a historiographical tradition, authors, copyists or scribes
(distinction among these terms is unproductive for the medieval period)
emphasized, enlarged, reduced or omitted specific passages. Different
manuscript versions of the Excellente Cronike clearly show this process
of reecriture or rewriting, a fundamental feature of chronicles as a
genre.23
Local scribes, usually anonymous, adapted the works for the social
milieu in which they were written and circulated. The texts might
have been read in private or aloud to an audience, at official city
government events, in the domestic sphere of important families, or
in literary circles, corporations and religious confraternities.24 For this
reason, the text of an urban chronicle should be considered as a social
product designated for a specific milieu, created and recreated through
the rewriting strategies of the different hands or voices who worked
on the various manuscripts.25 Therefore, the third, and arguably most
important, criterion of a texts urbanity is the extent to which it reveals
20
21
22
23
24
25
Bruges, City Library (CL), 436 and 437; Douai, CL, 1110; Brussels, Royal Library, 130734;
The Hague, Royal Library, 132A13; Paris, National Library of France, Neerl. 106 and New
York, Pierpont Morgan Library, 435.
J. Dumolyn, Urban ideologies in later medieval Flanders. Towards an analytical
framework, in A. Gamberini, J.-Ph. Genet and A. Zorzi (eds.), The Languages of Political
Society. Western Europe, 14th 17th Centuries (Rome, 2011), 6996.
In much of his literary work, Anthonis tended to display the ideology of the independent
master artisan who defended his privileges as a guildsman and burgher: J. Dumolyn and J.
Haemers, Let each man carry on with his trade and remain silent. Middle-class ideology
in the urban literature of the late medieval Low Countries, Cultural and Social History, 10
(2013), 16889.
Dumolyn, Oosterman, Snijders and Villerius, Rewriting chronicles; P. Zumthor, Essai de
poetique medieval (Paris, 1972), 6575; B. Cerquiglini, Eloge

de la variante: histoire critique de
la philologie (Paris, 1989).
J. Coleman, Interactive parchment: the theory and practice of medieval English aurality,
The Yearbook of English Studies, 25 (1995), 64.
The importance of the social environment in which urban chronicles circulated was
first emphasized by J.B. Menke, Geschichtsschreibung und Politik in deutschen Stadten
des Spatmittelalters. Die Entstehung deutscher Geschichtsprosa in Koln,

Braunschweig,
34
Urban History
the intended audience and its expectations.26 Which social milieu was
intended as the interpretative community who shared the text as an
object of interpretation?27 Answering these questions, when the sources
permit, requires combining ideological comparison of specific versions,
material-philologist analysis of the manuscripts and reconstruction of the
social networks in which the texts circulated.
Cultural and political networks in late fifteenth-century Bruges
The manuscript of the Excellente Cronike tradition preserved in the City
Library of Douai is the only one of the Bruges cluster for which the name
of the scribe and continuator, Jacob van Malen, is known. In the epilogue,
after attributing the contemporary part of the text to Anthonis de Roovere,
Jacob van Malen wrote that he had begun writing his manuscript in 1485
in the Tower of Burgundy at Sluis, a fortification which also served as
a prison. He finished the work in Bruges on 25 October 1490.28 Although
nothing was known previously about Jacob van Malen, paleographical
comparison identifies his hand in one of the manuscripts in the City Library
of Bruges as well. This identification directly connects two of the seven
Bruges manuscripts of the Excellente Cronike.29 The Douai manuscript is
particularly interesting because the codex also contains a late sixteenthcentury Middle-Dutch adaptation of another Latin chronicle by Rombout
de Doppere, a member of the Holy Spirit Chamber of Rhetoric, the oldest
in Bruges. This text completes the story of the Excellente Cronike from
the death of Mary of Burgundy (1482) until the death of her son Philip
the Fair (1506).30 This manuscripts scribe also added a De Labye family
tree, from two fifteenth-century brothers, Colaert and Pieter, up to their
late sixteenth-century descendants.31 As members of this family probably
26
27
28
29
30
31
des Kolnischen Geschichtsvereins, 33 (195859),

Lubeck,
Mainz und Magdeburg, Jahrbuch
184, and 34 (1960), 85194.
H.-R. Jauss, Towards an Aesthetic of Reception (Minneapolis, 1982); Schmid, Town
chronicles, 1432, also identifies the main defining element of town chronicles as the
audience, rather than the social status of the author, or the content of form.
S. Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities (Cambridge,
1980).
Douai, CL, 1110, fol. 415v.
Bruges, CL, 436. J. Oosterman, De Excellente Cronike, 29. The content of the manuscripts
Bruges 436, Douai 1110 and The Hague 132A13 is almost identical, while Bruges 437 and
Brussels 130734 are also very similar. However, these two branches were also related
to each other. The scribe of the last section of the Brussels version is the same as the
first scribe of Bruges 436, the manuscript which Jacob van Malen continued. The New
York manuscript, which only narrates the history of the Burgundian dukes, can also be
connected to the same circles (see below).
H. Dussart (ed.), Fragments inedits de Romboudt De Doppere decouverts dans un manuscrit de
Jacques De Meyere: chronique brugeoise de 1491 a` 1498 (Bruges, 1892); H. Callewier, Leven
en werk van Romboud De Doppere (ca. 14321502), Handelingen van het Genootschap voor
Geschiedenis te Brugge, 150 (2013), 21944.
Douai, CL, 1110, fols. 507v508r.
35
owned the book, we have a rare opportunity to reconstruct the production

and consumption contexts of this version.
Archival research produced only a few traces of political, economic and
cultural activities of Jacob van Malen. He sat on the city council of Bruges,
but only once.32 He did not rank, therefore, among the high economic
or political elites. However, as a cloth salesman and the dean of several
commissions charged with inspecting the quality of textiles, he certainly
belonged to the more prosperous burghers of Bruges.33 Since he copied
two manuscripts and added poems, even in the parts of the chronicle
not associated with Anthonis de Roovere, Jacob van Malen was clearly a
rhetorician himself. So were Colaert and Pieter De Labye. The two brothers
founded the second chamber of rhetoric in Bruges, the Drie Santinnen, or
Three Female Saints (Catherine, Mary Magdalene and Barbara). In 1471,
Pieter De Labye was the headman of the Our Lady zestendeel, one of the
six administrative sections of Bruges.34 He was a mercer and several times
appointed dean of the urban control commission overseeing the mercery
market.35 His brother, Colaert, also served as headman of the Our Lady
section.36 Like Pieter, Colaert was a mercer and dean of several qualitycontrol commissions. On various occasions, he sold expensive textiles to
the city government.37 Colaert was appointed alderman of Bruges after
the death of Charles the Bold on 19 April 1477, and again after the death
of Mary of Burgundy on 17 April 1482.38 That year, Colaert De Labye was
one of the deputies who represented Bruges at the Estates General of the
Burgundian lands held in Ghent, along with the notorious Bruges rebel
leader, Willem Moreel.39 The De Labye brothers belonged to the economic
elite of Bruges, and Colaert De Labye held important political offices as
well.
The seven Bruges manuscripts were deeply embedded in the urban
cultural networks of the chambers of rhetoric. The clear link between the
De Labye family and the Douai manuscript suggests that there was also a
connection between the urban circulation of the Excellente Cronike and the
Three Female Saints Chamber. Few sources from this literary guild survive,
but its late fifteenth-century cartulary does list the De Labye brothers and
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
CAB, 144, 14681501, fol. 60v.

E.g. CAB, 216, 2 Sep. 1473 1 Sep. 1474, fol. 18v. He was a member of cloth quality
commissions (Lakenhalle, Grote Ramen, Kleine Ramen) from 1473 until 1495: CAB, 114, 1468
582. Jacob died around 1508: CAB, 208, Our Ladys parish, book 6, fols. 70115.
CAB, 114, RW 14681501, fol. 17v.
CAB, 114, 147184. Pieter died on 11 Nov. 1485: V. Vermeersch, Grafmonumenten te Brugge
voor 1578 (Bruges, 1976), vol. II, 263.
CAB, 114, CS 146569, fol. 53.
L. Gilliodts-Van Severen, Inventaire des archives de la ville de Bruges (Bruges, 184185), 63,
484 and 556. Colaert was paid by the city treasury in 1477 for the hire of a beautiful cloth
that was hung before the windows of the great hall in the house of aldermen at the time
that our lady and our lord swore [their oath], CAB, 216, 1476/77, fol. 143r.
CAB, 114, RW 14681501, fols. 78 and 123v124.
Gilliodts-Van Severen, Inventaire, 224. Colaert De Labye died on 4 Jun. 1493: Vermeersch,
Grafmonumenten, 263.
36
Urban History
a few other members.40 Moreover, Jacob van Malen and Pieter and Colaert
De Labye also belonged to a religious confraternity, the Our Lady of
the Snow guild, which was closely related to the Three Female Saints.41
Palaeographical comparison of the hands who wrote the confraternitys
accounts and the Excellente Cronike manuscripts reveals that the signature
of an overziender or warden, Hendrik Bollekin, matches a signature in the
New York manuscript of the Excellente Cronike.42
The Three Female Saints Chamber of Rhetoric and the devotional
confraternity of Our Lady of the Snow were closely connected. The
foundational charter of the Three Female Saints, containing a clause about
the devotion to Barbara, Mary Magdalene and Catherine at the altar of Our
Lady of the Snow, is one of the first deeds recorded in the confraternitys
cartulary.43 In addition to Pieter and Colaert De Labye, many prominent
members of Our Lady of the Snow were tied in some way to the Three
Female Saints, including Pieter van Muelenbeke who helped found the
confraternity. His funeral inscription contains a poem by Anthonis de
Roovere.44 At the Our Lady of the Snow guild feasts miracle plays
were occasionally performed, usually organized by Aliamus de Groote,
a member of the Holy Spirit, the other Bruges chamber of rhetoric.45
However in 1474, the initial year of Three Female Saints, Anthonis de
Roovere organized the play. He might have been a member of both
chambers. Moreover, from 1495 onwards, the confraternity accounts list
payments to those of the Three Saints for performing plays at the guild
feasts.46
Our Lady of the Snow was a very open confraternity with few
restrictions on membership. As a result, there were several hundred
members from various social backgrounds.47 More than half of the
members were women. The cult of Our Lady of the Snow was not
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
CAB, 390, 1, fols. 36; S. Van de Cappelle, De OLV-broederschap ter Sneeuw te Brugge
gedurende de Late Middeleeuwen (ca. 14671536), Catholic University of Leuven MA
thesis, 1997.
State Archives Bruges (StAB), Our Ladys Church Fabric (OLCF), 91, 1531, fols. 65v, 88v,
104v, 123v, 144r and 162v. Jacob van Malen was a member of the confraternity from 1470
onwards. On confraternities in Flanders, see P. Trio, Les confreries comme expression de
solidarite et de conscience urbaine aux Pays-Bas a` la fin du Moyen Age,

in Brand, Monnet
and Staub (eds.), Memoria, 13141.
StAB, OLCF, 91, 1531, fols. 288v303r.
StAB, OLCF, 91, 1501, fols. 56r57v.
CAB, 390, 1, fols. 36. J. Oosterman, Anthonis de Roovere. Het werk: overlevering,
toeschrijving en plaatsbepaling, Jaarboek de Fonteine, 378 (199596), 945.
A. Brown, Civic Ceremony and Religion in Medieval Bruges (ca. 13001520) (New York, 2011),
1802.
StAB, OLCF, 91, 1531, fols. 290r, 296r; StAB, OLCF, 91, 1532, fol. 31r (etc.); J. Oosterman,
Spelen, goede moraliteiten en eerbare esbattementen. Anthonis de Roovere en het toneel
in Brugge, in H. Van Dijk and B. Ramakers (eds.), Spel en spektakel (Amsterdam, 2001),
1767.
Brown, Civic ceremony, 176. On the relationship between the confraternity and the
Burgundian dukes, see also A. Brown, Bruges and the Burgundian theatre-state: Charles
the Bold and Our Lady of the Snow, History, 84 (1999), 57389.
37
limited to any single parish, craft, or social group.48 Nevertheless, the

most prominent members and leaders of the confraternity came from the
top layer of Bruges society.49 These officials also had strong connections to
city government. Among them were Pieter De Labye, who was overziender,
warden, for five years, until the foundation of the Three Female Saints,50
and Jan de Blasere, dean of the confraternity for more than 13 years
and one of the ghedeputeerde, financial commissioners, of the city after
the death of Duke Charles the Bold.51 Other financial commissioners in
1477 were Pieter van Muelenbeke and Willem Moreel, also members of the
confraternity.52
The Excellente Cronike and the Moreel faction
Four wardens of Our Lady of the Snow confraternity were also aldermen in
the rebellious city government of 1488, during the Flemish revolt against
Maximilian of Austria (148292). After his son Philip the Fair inherited
the Burgundian Netherlands, the Habsburg Prince and future Emperor
Maximilian faced opposition from his subjects and was even taken hostage
by Bruges rebels.53 In the most radical phase of the uprising, between
1488 and 1491, Willem Zoete was appointed clerk of Our Lady of the
Snow.54 Zoete, a Ghent city clerk, pensionary of both Bruges and Ghent
and a principal spokesman of the Flemish rebels, delivered two rousing
speeches at the 1488 Estates General condemning Maximilians regency.55
The association of this Bruges cluster to prominent members of Our Lady
of the Snow connects the Excellente Cronike to the anti-Habsburg faction in
Bruges during the Flemish Revolt of 148292.
After the death of the unpopular Duke Charles the Bold in 1477, a
widespread revolt broke out as his daughter Mary of Burgundy took
power and the king of France invaded the duchy of Burgundy and the
counties of Flanders and Artois. In Bruges, a coalition of artisans, generally
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
Brown, Civic ceremony, 182.

Ibid., 177.
StAB, OLCF, 91, 1531, fols. 17r117r.
He was dean or overziender or zorger of the confraternity in 146871, 147385, 148891 and
149495. StAB, OLCF, 91, 1531, fols. 17r288v; J. Haemers, For the Common Good. State Power
and Urban Revolts in the Reign of Mary of Burgundy (14771482) (Turnhout, 2009), 176.
StAB, OLCF, 91, 1531, fols. 45r and 150r. These financial commissioners are also honoured
by Anthonis de Roovere in one of his poems Het Nieuwe Jaer van Brugghe. A. Viaene,
Nieuwe jaer van Brugghe. Een gelegenheidsgedicht van Anthonis de Roovere 1480,
Biekorf, 60 (1959), 711.
These wardens were Lodewijk Greffin, Marc van de Velde, Boudewijn Heindrix and
Roeland de Vos. CAB, 114, RW 14681501, fol. 172. Roeland de Vos was dean of the
Three Female Saints after the death of Pieter De Labye. CAB, 390, 2.
StAB, OLCF, 91, 1531, fols. 236v267r.
J. Haemers, De strijd om het regentschap over Filips de Schone (Ghent, 2014), 11213. On Zoetes
speeches: J. Dumolyn and J. Haemers, Les bonnes causes du peuple pour se revolter. Le
contrat politique en Flandre medievale daprès Guillaume Zoete (1488), in F. Foronda
(ed.), Avant le contrat social: le contrat politique dans lOccident medieval XIIIe XVe siècle
(Paris, 2008), 32746.
38
Urban History
excluded from power in preceding decades, and the patrician faction of

the wealthy spice merchant Willem Moreel, demanded restoration of city
privileges. Because of her precarious situation, the young duchess had
to comply with these demands.56 However, in 1481, supporters of her
husband Maximilian of Austria tried to increase state influence in urban
government and limit urban autonomy and guild power. In partnership
with the Bruges craft guilds, the Moreel faction plotted to take control of
the city. On 10 December 1481, in order to prevent this coup, Maximilian
had the factions leading members imprisoned.57 When Mary died in a
hunting accident in 1482, her widower assumed guardianship of their son
Philip the Fair, her legal successor as count of Flanders. The Flemish towns
and nobles disputed Maximilians claim and set up a regency council as
guardian of the young Count Philip. The Moreel faction remained in power
in Bruges until 1485, when they were excluded from city government and
a new faction loyal to Maximilian imposed harsh repression under the
leadership of the town sheriff (schout) Pieter Lanchals.58 In 1488, a new
guild revolt broke out and the Bruges rebels imprisoned the Habsburg
prince, who had by then become Holy Roman Emperor. This event shocked
the whole Christian world. Bruges was finally subdued in early 1490, the
peace of Damme was sealed on 6 December of that year. Ghent followed
suit two years later.59
As Haemers has shown, Flemish urban political factions that united
commercial elites and guilds, such as the Moreel faction, were informal and
dynamic phenomena, built by personal relationships and fluid informal
ties.60 The social nucleus of the Moreel faction consisted of a few relatives
and several distinct social networks.61 The core members who governed
Bruges during Marys reign belonged to the commercial elite, but they also
had several strong ties with artisan groups, who supported the faction
because it was in their own class interest. Many of the social, political
and professional ties among members existed before the 1477 revolt, but
the political events during this revolt, Mary of Burgundys reign and the
period after her death consolidated these loosely allied members into a
genuine political faction.62
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
See W. Blockmans (ed.), Le privilège general et les privilèges regionaux de Marie de Bourgogne
pour les Pays-Bas: 1477 (Kortrijk, 1985).
Haemers, For the Common Good, 100.
Haemers, De strijd om het regentschap, 183.
Ibid., 857; J. Haemers, Factionalism and state power in the Flemish Revolt (14771492),
Journal of Social History, 42 (2009), 100939.
Haemers, For the Common Good, 137; Haemers, Factionalism, 100910; R. Wellens, La
revolte brugeoise de 1488, Handelingen van het Genootschap voor Geschiedenis te Brugge, 102
(1965), 4952.
The nucleus of the faction of Willem Moreel consisted of his six relatives
and economic partners, Jan van Riebeke, Jan van Nieuwenhove filius Klaas,
Maarten Lem, Jan de Boot and Jan de Keyt. Haemers, For the Common Good,
1368.
Ibid., 138.
39
The economic and social profiles of the Moreel faction members mirror
those of the core members of the Our Lady of the Snow confraternity. Marc
van de Velde, dean of Our Lady of the Snow from 1486 until 1488, was
related to Jan de Keyt, the brother-in-law of Willem Moreel.63 Colaert De
Labye married Maria, sister of Marc van de Velde.64 As the De Labye family
owned the Douai manuscript and Colaert, who held significant city offices
during both dynastic crises, was directly tied to the rebels, the Three Female
Saints Chamber of Rhetoric may have taken on a political dimension
during this period.65 The connection to the broadly based confraternity
of Our Lady of the Snow offered the new chamber of rhetoric a wide
audience, including the most important urban elites, including the rebel
faction.66
A sentence written by Jacob van Malen in the Douai manuscripts
epilogue, and [this chronicle] was started in the Tower of Burgundy at
Sluis in 1485 and finished the twenty-fifth day of October at Bruges in
1490, adds to our understanding of this political and cultural network.67
In 1485, Maximilian of Austria regained power in Bruges.68 He appointed
Pieter Lanchals, an ambitious and ruthless ducal official, as schout, the
sheriff representing princely authority, of his hometown Bruges.69 Pieter
Lanchals made sure all Maximilians opponents were exiled, imprisoned
or executed. When Jacob of Malen was in the Tower of Sluis in 1485, he
clearly was a political prisoner. Only a few years earlier, in 1481, Willem
Moreel himself had been imprisoned there.70 The exact circumstances
of Jacobs imprisonment were recorded by Rombout de Doppere and
included in the 1531 Vorsterman print of the Excellente Cronike. Under
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
Marc van de Velde was the son of Katrien de Keyt, the sister of Jan de Keyt who was the
brother-in-law of Willem Moreel. Haemers, For the Common Good, 177.
Ibid., 177.
For earlier links between urban literary culture and political factions in Bruges, see J.
Dumolyn, Une ideologie urbaine bricolee en Flandre medievale: les sept portes de
Bruges dans le manuscrit Gruuthuse (debut du XVe siècle), Revue Belge de Phililogie et
dHistoire, 88 (2010), 103984.
For instance: Roeland de Vos, Aliamus de Groote and Jan de Blasere were witnesses to
the testament of Louis of Gruuthuse, the most prominent Bruges nobleman (CAB, 333,
cartulary, fols. 726v). Louis of Gruuthuse and Jan de Baenst, another rich nobleman, were
both members of Our Lady of the Snow: Van de Cappelle, De OLV-broederschap, 138 and
181. They were important cultural benefactors and may also be connected to the circle of
Anthonis de Roovere: Oosterman, Anthonis de Roovere, 935. Louis of Gruuthuse was
a member of the Regency Council of Philip the Fair, which also included delegates from
the Three Members, and was a supporter of Moreels policies. Haemers, De strijd om het
regentschap, 92 and 103.
Haemers, Factionalism, 1014.
On Pieter Lanchals, see M. Boone, La Hollande, source de capital social pour un Flamand
ambitieux? Les interets et les aventures de Pierre Lanchals, grand commis de letat
Burgundo-Habsbourgeois (vers 1441/421488), in P. Hoppenbrouwers, A. Janse and R.
Stein (eds.), Power and Persuasion: Essays on the Art of State Building in Honour of W.P.
Blockmans (Turnhout, 2010), 197223.
Haemers, For the Common Good, 137.
40
Urban History
the Three Members of Flanders government, Jacob had been castellan of

the same tower and was captured by Maximilians troops in May 1485.71
Our Lady of the Snow was a broad-based confraternity, not a single
urban network, for it included members of opposing factions; both Pieter
Lanchals and Willem Moreel were members. However, the core guild
brothers, who monopolized the most important internal offices for some
time, were connected to the anti-Habsburg faction of Willem Moreel, whose
opponents had fled the city at the beginning of the uprising.72 Since the
Bruges manuscripts of the Excellente Cronike apparently circulated within
this small inner group related by familial, economic, political and cultural
ties, analysis of the manuscripts may offer new insights into the ideology
and aspirations of an urban faction that lost the civil war.
The Excellente Cronike and urban political ideologies
Although the lack of a real urban chronicle tradition in fifteenth-century
Flanders similar to the Italian or German models has raised questions
among scholars, the rewriting of the regional Flandria Generosa into a
Middle-Dutch chronicle with a clear focus on Bruges affairs indicates that
by the fifteenth century, Flemish urban chronicles with more continuous
prose than the annalistic memory books were developing from existing
regional texts. This explains the popularity of the Excellente Cronike van
Vlaenderen as a tradition and its rewriting into more than 20 different
surviving versions before it was set into print in 1531. Many more
manuscripts must have been lost.73 Since some manuscripts of the
Bruges cluster were composed during the power struggle between their
political faction and the prince, the manuscript circles used the text
to articulate their political aspirations and ideologies in the regional
history text.74 Even though the text remains situated within the dynastic
framework of the successive counts of Flanders, the Excellente Cronike
takes a clearly urban point of view on the countys history. Stories of
the exemplary or non-exemplary Flemish counts and countesses in the
71
72
73
74
Douai, CL, 1110, fols. 418v419r. Vorsterman (ed.), Dits die Excellente Cronike, fols. 227v
228r. Moreover, the Tower of Burgundy in Sluis is portrayed in the Douai manuscript.
Douai, CL, 1110, fol. 156r.
In 1484, Pieter Lanchals was banished from Bruges. Haemers, De strijd om het regentschap,
147.
See also V. Fris, Essai dune analyse des Commentarii sive annales rerum flandricarum (Annales
Flandriae 1561) de Jacques de Meyere (Ghent, 1908).
The same regional urban tradition can be found in Brabant where in the early sixteenth
century Peter van Os, city clerk of s Hertogenbosch, also wrote his chronicle of Brabant
from an urban point of view: A.M. van Lith-Droogleever Fortuijn, J.G.M. Sanders and
G.A.M. Van Synghel (eds.), Kroniek van Peter van Os. Geschiedenis van s-Hertogenbosch en
Brabant van Adam tot 1523 (The Hague, 1997), XXIIXXV, and a similar point made by
Van Bruaene, Lecriture, 1534. See also P. Monnet, La memoire des e lites urbaines dans
entre e criture de soi et histoire de la cite, in Brand, Monnet
lempire a` la fin du Moyen Age
and Staub (eds.), Memoria, 4970.
41
Bruges versions primarily reflected political problems from the era of their
composition.75
Origin myths in medieval chronicles often refer to contemporary
politics and ideologies of legitimization. The popular legend of the
foundation of the county of Flanders by the first forestier Liederik of Buc,
originally developed for a courtly audience, was first recounted in the Latin
Flandria Generosa C during the reign of Philip the Good (141967). However,
the origin passage was dramatically shortened in some manuscripts of
the Bruges cluster.76 The story in the Excellente Cronike highlights the
encounter between Liederik and his future wife Idonea, the daughter of the
French king, the most courtly part of the story, but also popular among
urban audiences.77 Only one of the Bruges cluster manuscripts kept the
entire Latin original, which traced Liederiks descent and his conquest
of Flanders from the legendary giant Finard.78 The narrative continues
with the people offering the victorious Liederik rulership over Flanders,
and the legendary forester protecting merchants and founding several
cities, including Bruges. While Liederik was portrayed as the ideal prince,
the narrative that the people offered the county to Liederik was more
significant from the late medieval urban perspective. The peoples grant
happened before the French king officially made Liederik a vassal after his
marriage to the kings daughter.
This contract between the prince and his subjects is a recurring theme in
the Excellente Cronike.79 All the Bruges manuscripts, except for the one that
narrated the entire story, labelled Finard a tyrant. In medieval political
thought, tyranny sometimes justified a revolt by subjects against a ruler.80
This dichotomy between the natural prince and the tyrant was also an
important discursive element in the 1488 speeches of Willem Zoete.81 His
speeches focused on a political contract of mutual respect, in which the
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
H.-J. Schmidt, Spatmittelalterliche Furstenspiegel

und ihr Gebrauch in unterschiedlichen
Kontexten, in E.C. Lutz (ed.), Text und Text in lateinischer und volkssprachiger Uberlieferung
des Mittelalters (Berlin, 2006), 37797.
V. Lambert, Oorsprongsmythen en nationale identiteit. De forestiers van Vlaanderen,
De Leiegouw, 49 (2007), 1, 10321; J.-M. Moeglin, Land, Territorium und
Dynastie als Bezugsrahmen regionalen Bewusstseins am Beispiel Flanderns, in M.
Werner (ed.), Spatmittelalterliches Landesbewusstsein in Deutschland (Ostfildern, 2005),
2635.
Lambert, Oorsprongsmythen, 2, 178.
Bruges, CL, 437, fols. 1r10r.
In German urban chronicles, the consensus-relationship between the emperor and the cities
after periods of conflict was also projected on several specific historical events: W. Ehbrecht,
Uppe dat sulck grot vorderffenisse jo nicht meer enscheghe. Konsens und Konflikt als eine
Leitfrage stadtischer Historiographie, nicht nur im Hanseraum, in Johanek (ed.), Stadtische
Geschichtsschreibung, 1079.
The councillors of John the Fearless, an earlier Burgundian duke, had famously used the
same discourse of tyranny to justify the murder of the duke of Orleans. B. Guenee,
Un meurtre, une societe. Lassassinat du duc dOrleans 23 novembre 1407 (Paris, 1992),
23224.
Dumolyn and Haemers, Les bonnes causes, 343.
42
Urban History
peaceful and just ruler took into account the privileges of his subjects.82
Just as Zoete directly attacked the politics of Maximilian, the manuscripts
written by Jacob van Malen, who belonged to the same rebel faction,
conveyed a similar message in his narrative of the countys origins.
Two early dynastic crises, the regency over Flanders by Richilde of
Hainaut (107171), who like Maximilian ruled in the name of her minor
son, and the murder of Charles the Good and installation of the new count,
William Clito, over the opposition of many of his subjects (112728), feature
a similar ideological discourse. The Latin Flandria Generosa tradition gave
a negative cast to Richilde and William, troublesome figures in the history
of the county. However, Middle-Dutch Bruges versions of the Excellente
Cronike cleverly adapted the story to suit the late fifteenth-century context.
The legitimacy of the counts depended on their relationship with the
Flemish people. The Latin Flandria Generosa manuscripts note that Richilde
opposed the clergy,83 but the nature of this opposition was completely
changed in the Excellente Cronike. The Douai manuscript relates: She made
herself very unloved both by the nobles and the commune of Flanders,
and she came to Flanders and ordained new laws as she pleased, and as
for those who had risen against her, she imprisoned them and beheaded
them, because Robert the Frisian wanted to claim the county at the request
of the Three Cities of Flanders.84
The most striking alteration is the appearance of the Three Cities,
Ghent, Bruges and Ypres, in the earliest history, long before these cities
formed the Three Members of Flanders, the representative institution that
negotiated with the counts on matters of taxation, justice and politics.85
Although the Latin Flandria Generosa C often mentioned Bruges, Ypres
and Ghent, the Excellente Cronike anachronistically depicted them as an
institutional entity maintaining a balance between the prince and his
subjects. The Flandria Generosa B (c. 116494) states: and then certain
Flemings complained about Richilda to this Robert the Frisian and sent him
letters about reclaiming his paternal inheritance.86 However, the Bruges
Excellente Cronike reports: These Three Cities, seeing the great excesses and
injustices which the fierce Richilde imposed on the land, wrote to [Robert
in] Holland.87 The Three Cities emerge as a deus ex machina, restoring order
by calling for the rightful prince, a count willing to respect their privileges.
82
83
84
85
86
87
J. Haemers, Geletterd verzet. Diplomatiek, politiek en herinneringscultuur van

opstandelingen in de laatmiddeleeuwse en vroegmoderne stad (casus: Gent en Brugge),
Handelingen van de koninklijke commissie voor geschiedenis, 176 (2010), 38.
J. Rider, Vice, tyranny, violence and the usurpation of Flanders (1071) in Flemish
historiography from 1093 to 1294, in N. Guynn and Z. Stahuljak (eds.), Violence and Writing
of History in the Medieval Francophone World (Cambridge, 2013), 5968.
Douai, CL, 1110, fol. 37r.
Under the Burgundian dynasty, this representative institution was expanded with a rural
district, the Liberty of Bruges, to become the Four Members of Flanders but during the
rebellion of the late fifteenth century, the cities had excluded the Liberty.
Quoted in Rider, Vice, 65.
43
There are similar discursive strategies in the account of the troubles

after the death of Charles the Good in 1127. William Clito, incorrectly
labelled regent in the Excellente Cronike when his actual title was count,
was portrayed as a terrible ruler, for similar reasons as Richilde. The Three
Cities took the lead by sending for the other contender for the throne,
Thierry of Alsace, who became count of Flanders in 1128. A Latin version
of the Flandria Generosa C (written c. 1440) said: William of Normandy did
many evil and burdensome things to Flanders, including destruction and
fire, wars and troubles . . . And when William of Normandy returned from
his travels, the people of Ypres expelled him using armed force and said
that Thierry of Alsace would become their prince, as he was supported
by the whole of Flanders.88 The Bruges version of the Excellente Cronike
added details that resonated with contemporary experience:
This William (of Normandy) was a big spender. He placed great burdens on the
lands of Flanders and he brought a lot of novelties and sold offices, for which
he was not very loved in the whole land in those times . . . The Three Cities and
the common land of Flanders . . . secretly sent messengers to Thierry, the count of
Alsace, who was the rightful heir of the county of Flanders and a noble man of
weapons.89
For William we may clearly read Maximilian of Habsburg, as the

features attributed to William directly reflect the unpopular monetary and
governmental policies of Maximilian.
The discursive strategies condemning the giant Finard, Richilde and
William as unworthy rulers thus echoed the political ideas of the antiHabsburg faction to which Jacob van Malen belonged. They also refer to
the so-called Great and Flemish Privileges of 1477 granted by Mary of
Burgundy at the demand of urban rebels during the succession crisis.90
These charters emphasized respect for security and fair justice and an end
to commercial obstruction by the central government. The discourse of the
Privileges drew on familiar themes of medieval urban political ideology
such as the respect for local autonomy and a balanced relationship between
the prince and his subjects.91 After 1480, Maximilian was again attempting
to limit the cities liberties and ignore the members of Flanders.92
The dynastic framework of the Excellente Cronike may not only derive
from the authoritative tradition of the Flandria Generosa. It might have
been a political choice, reflecting the Moreel factions views on the late
medieval conflict. During the revolt, they remained loyal to their natural
prince, Philip the Fair (descendant of Liederik of Buc, Robert the Frisian
and Thierry of Alsace), and revolted against the usurper Maximilian
88
89
90
91
92
J.J. De Smet (ed.), Catalogus et chronica principum Flandriae tam forestariorum quam
dominorum ac comitum Flandriae, in Corpus chronicorum Flandriae (Brussels, 1865), 94.
Douai, CL, 1110, fols. 58r59r.
Blockmans (ed.), Le privilège general (Kortrijk, 1985); Haemers, For the Common Good, 1638.
Ibid., 156.
Haemers, Factionalism, 1014.
44
Urban History
(equivalent to Finard, Richilde and William Clito).93 Even the choice

to write this dynastic chronicle in Dutch may have been political as
well as practical, because in 1482 the rebels demanded fair justice and
government in Dutch instead of in French.94 There is also a subtext about
factional politics. As Willem Moreel had been involved in the political
troubles of 1477, this conflict was incorporated into the chronicle. Clearly
favouring Moreel, the Excellente Cronike depicts his 1481 arrest, ordered by
Maximilian, as partyelicke (partisan) and bij quader informacie (as a
result of false information).95 The chronicle states that after Marys death,
the archduke freed Willem Moreel and his supporters and cleared them
of all charges, as if the Excellente Cronike Bruges circle wanted to protect
Moreel against future accusations about his influence in the 1477 conflict.96
Even the poems added by Jacob van Malen, with their melancholy themes
of death and true friendship,97 allude to imprisonment and other political
reprisals by Maximilians allies in 1485.
The political participation in the Flemish Revolt of rhetoricians
connected to the Three Female Saints might explain the conflict that
erupted between the two chambers of rhetoric a few months after the
end of the civil war and the severe actions of the new pro-Maximilian city
council against the Three Female Saints.98 Maximilian launched a cultural
and religious propaganda programme after the revolt, devotion to Our
Lady of the Seven Sorrows, which involved many chambers of rhetoric,
especially in the loyal duchy of Brabant.99 This campaign appears to have
been a response to the cultural and religious networks in Bruges and other
rebellious cities in the Low Countries.
Conclusion
As studies of the Italian and German city chronicles have shown, there
were a variety of ways in which chronicles could be urban. Some
were official town chronicles, while others lauded patrician lineages or
took the viewpoint of specific social groups or corporate organizations
and reinforced construction of the groups collective memories. Some
seem to express the literary aspirations of individual city officials or
clerics with strong connections to their urban environment. Flemish
late medieval urban culture was dominated by corporate organizations:
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
Haemers, De strijd om het regentschap, 68.

Ibid., 1212.
Ibid., fol. 414r.
J. Oosterman, Jacob van Malen, in H. Brinkman, J. Jansen and M. Mathijsen, Helden
bestaan! Opstellen voor Herman Pleij (Amsterdam, 2008), 203.
Van Bruaene, Om beters wille, 713.
S. Speakman Sutch and A.-L. Van Bruaene, La devotion des septs douleurs de la vierge
Marie aux Pays-Bas: propagande princière et sensibilite urbaine, in J. Devaux, E. Doudet
and E. Lecuppre-Desjardin (eds.), Jean Molinet et son temps. Actes des recontres internationales
de Dunkerque, Lille et Gand (810 novembre 2007) (Turnhout, 2007), 4557.
45
craft guilds, religious confraternities and rhetorician chambers. As urban

self-consciousness increased in Flemish historiography after the end of
the fourteenth century, these so-called regional writings also reflected
the ideological and political conflicts in Flemish cities. Composed in
Maximilians prison, Jacob van Malens version of the Excellente Cronike
defended the urban freedoms of Flanders as natural demands of longstanding tradition. This specific brand of urban ideology was projected
not only onto the countys distant past, but also onto recent events.
The case-study of the Bruges version of the Excellente Cronike
van Vlaenderen shows that determining the urban character of a
chronicle requires a multi-faceted approach that analyses its production,
circulation and consumption. Our methodology combines new or
material philology (the codicological and paleographical analysis of all
the existing manuscripts as multiple versions of a rewritten text), socialnetwork analysis (prosopographical study of the milieu in which the text
was written, circulated and received) and discourse analysis (focusing on
the ideological messages in the text and how these varied in the process
of rewriting). Although this search for specific links among manuscripts,
texts and historical actors is complex, labour-intensive and limited by the
available sources, such an integrated approach is a necessary and fruitful
method for determining the urban character of a historiographical text.

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C Cambridge University Press 2015

Urban History, 43, 1 (2016)

Urban chronicle writing in late

abstract: The absence of a real urban chronicle tradition in fifteenth-century

Medieval urban historiography

Urban chronicle writing in late medieval Flanders

E. Lecuppre-Desjardin, La ville des ceremonies. Essai sur la communication politique dans

P. Johanek (ed.), Stadtische Geschichtsschreibung im Spatmittelalter und in der fruhen

There are a number of criteria competing to define the category of urban

such as the German town chronicles, the Amtsbucher

H. Schmidt, Die deutschen Stadtechroniken als Spiegel des burgerlichen

Urban chronicle writing in late medieval Flanders

combined texts might have existed at one time. An anonymous historical

in der stadtischen Gesellschaft des Spatmittelalters und der fruhen

urbaine en Flandre a` la fin du Moyen Age,

chronicle of the entire county.16 The Flandria Generosa, the principal

J.-M. Moeglin, Une premi`ere histoire nationale flamande. LAncienne Chronique

Urban chronicle writing in late medieval Flanders

poetique medieval (Paris, 1972), 6575; B. Cerquiglini, Eloge

des Spatmittelalters. Die Entstehung deutscher Geschichtsprosa in Koln,

des Kolnischen Geschichtsvereins, 33 (195859),

Urban chronicle writing in late medieval Flanders

owned the book, we have a rare opportunity to reconstruct the production

CAB, 144, 14681501, fol. 60v.

solidarite et de conscience urbaine aux Pays-Bas a` la fin du Moyen Age,

Urban chronicle writing in late medieval Flanders

limited to any single parish, craft, or social group.48 Nevertheless, the

Brown, Civic ceremony, 182.

excluded from power in preceding decades, and the patrician faction of

Urban chronicle writing in late medieval Flanders

the Three Members of Flanders government, Jacob had been castellan of

Urban chronicle writing in late medieval Flanders

H.-J. Schmidt, Spatmittelalterliche Furstenspiegel

J. Haemers, Geletterd verzet. Diplomatiek, politiek en herinneringscultuur van

Urban chronicle writing in late medieval Flanders

There are similar discursive strategies in the account of the troubles

For William we may clearly read Maximilian of Habsburg, as the

(equivalent to Finard, Richilde and William Clito).93 Even the choice

Haemers, De strijd om het regentschap, 68.

Urban chronicle writing in late medieval Flanders

craft guilds, religious confraternities and rhetorician chambers. As urban

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