Table Of Content8112-05_Van Leeuwen_vrw 27-06-2006 15:45 Pagina i
SYMBOLIC COMMUNICATION
IN LATE MEDIEVAL TOWNS
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MEDIAEVALIA LOVANIENSIA
Editorial Board
Geert H.M. Claassens – Jean Goossens
Carlos Steel – Werner Verbeke
SERIES I/ STUDIA XXXVII
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
INSTITUUT VOOR MIDDELEEUWSE STUDIES
LEUVEN (BELGIUM)
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8112-05_Van Leeuwen_vrw 27-06-2006 15:45 Pagina iii
SYMBOLIC COMMUNICATION
IN LATE MEDIEVAL TOWNS
Edited by
Jacoba VAN LEEUWEN
LEUVEN UNIVERSITY PRESS
2006
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©2006 Leuven University Press / Presses Universitaires de Louvain / Universitaire Pers
Leuven, Blijde-Inkomststraat 5, B-3000 Leuven/Louvain (Belgium).
All rights reserved. Except in those cases expressly determined by law, no part of this
publication may be multiplied, saved in an automated data file or made public in any way
whatsoever without the express prior written consent of the publishers.
ISBN 90 5867 522 X
ISBN 978-90-5867-522-4
D/2006/1869/5
NUR: 684, 694
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CONTENTS
Introduction by Jacoba VAN LEEUWEN vii
Andrew BROWN
Ritual and State-Building: Ceremonies in Late Medieval
Bruges 1
Christoph Friedrich WEBER
Public Encounters between the City Council and the Episcopal
Lord in Late Medieval Basel: Routine Jobs or Transitions in
Symbolic Communication? 29
Katell LAVÉANT
Le roi et son double: a Royal Entry to Late-Medieval Abbe-
ville 43
Jacoba VAN LEEUWEN
Balancing Tradition and Rites of Rebellion: The Ritual
Transfer of Power in Bruges on 12 February 1488 65
Mario DAMEN
Giving by Pouring: The Function of Gifts of Wine in the City
of Leiden (14th-16th Centuries) 83
Michael JUCKER
Negotiating and Establishing Peace between Gestures and
Written Documents: The Waldmann-Process in Late Medieval
Zurich (1489) 101
Register 125
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INTRODUCTION
by
Jacoba VAN LEEUWEN
Symbolic communication in medieval studies
In Moderne Mediävistik (1999), Hans-Werner Goetz pointed out that
during the previous decade historians had paid increasing attention to the
communication of medieval power. It was not power itself that was
analysed. Rather, the emphasis was placed on the representation: the per-
formance or the staging of power. Rituals, ceremonies, gestures, symbols
and signs were the material the historian had to work with; sociology and
anthropology provided the methodology to interpret these phenomena.1
This recent interest in symbolic communication cannot be labelled a
true turn, be a cultural, symbolic or performative one. Research in this
field is indeed rooted in the work of much older scholars such as
Huizinga and Burckhart.2 Moreover, in the fifties, Schramm and Kan-
torowicz approached coronations and other royal ceremonies as forms of
symbolic performances of royal power.3 In France, members of the
Annales school applied anthropological research to a medieval context;
Bloch, for example, analysed the symbolic power of French kings4 and
Le Goff studied feudal rituals.5 Quite often anthropology inspired the
historian to explore new questions. The rite de passage, defined by Van
Gennep6 and elaborated by Turner,7 is just one example of such a suc-
1. Hans-Werner Goetz, Moderne Mediävistik. Stand und Perspektiven der Mittel-
alterforschung(Darmstadt, 1999), pp. 212-216.
2. Johan Huizinga,Herfsttij der middeleeuwen. Studie over levens- en gedachtenvor-
men der veertiende en vijftiende eeuw in Frankrijk en de Nederlanden, 21st edition (Am-
sterdam, 1997); Jacob Burckhardt, Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien (1860).
3. Ernst Kantorowicz,The Kings two Bodies. A Study in Medieval Political Theology
(Princeton, 1957); Percy Ernst Schramm, Herrschaftszeichen und Staatssymbolik:
Beiträge zu ihrer Geschichte vom dritten bis zum sechzehnten Jahrhundert, Monumenta
Germaniae Historica, Schriften 13, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1954-1956).
4. Marc Bloch, Les rois thaumaturges. Étude sur le caractère surnaturel attribué à la
puissance royale particulièrement en France et en Angleterre, Bibliothèque des Histoires
(Paris, 1983).
5. Jaques Le Goff, ‘Le rituel symbolique de la vassalité’, in Jacques Le Goff ed., Pour
un autre moyen âge (Paris, 1977), pp. 349-420.
6. Arnold Van Gennep, Les rites de passage. Etude systematique des rites (Paris,
1909).
7. Victor Turner, The Ritual Process. Structure and Antistructure (Chicago, 1975);
Victor Turner, Dramas, Fields and Metaphors. Symbolic Action in Human Society (Lon-
don, 1990).
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viii INTRODUCTION
cessful theory. The thesis of Geertz on the Theatre State in nineteenth-
century Bali8 was also adopted by many medievalists. The studies writ-
ten by Davis,9 Trexler10 and Gurevic11 were forerunners of the present
interest in ritual studies.
In short, research into the medieval uses of symbols and rituals is not
new. However, during the last decade this domain has indeed been
addressed more systematically.
Firstly, the theoretical backgrounds of ritual behaviour were explored
more intensively. Buc, Alhoff, Muir and others pointed out that the
methodology used in sociology and anthropology cannot easily be
applied to medieval source material. Therefore, they developed a spe-
cific set of questions and methods that the medievalist should employ
when studying past forms of symbolic communication.12In this volume,
Brown also explores the use of models from anthropology and their pos-
sible application to the study of late medieval urban rituals.
Secondly, the research in this domain was institutionalised into sev-
eral research units. In Münster, theGraduiertenkolleg ‘Gesellschaftliche
Symbolik im Mittelalter’ and the Sonderforschungsbereich ‘Symbolische
Kommunikation und gesellschaftliche Wertesysteme’” study these phe-
nomena in a truly interdisciplinary way. In Zurich, the use of different
media of communication is being studied in a large project entitled
‘Medienwandel in vorindustriellen Zeit’. Recently, the Sonderfor-
schungsbereich ‘Kulturen des performativen’ at the Freie Universität
Berlin has begun analysing rituals as performances: staged arrangements
of power.
In addition to these projects, many researchers have been inspired by
this rediscovery of ritual behaviour. Since almost every human action
has symbolic implications, a wide range of subjects has been studied.
8. Clifford Geertz, Negara. The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali(Princeton,
1980). In this volume, Andrew Brown analyses the use of this theory for medieval stud-
ies.
9. Natalie Davis Zemon, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (London,
1975); Natalie Davis Zemon, The gift in sixteenth-century France, The Curti lectures
(Madison, Wisc., 2000).
10. Richard Trexler, Public Life in Renaissance Florence (New York, 1980); Richard
Trexler, ‘Follow the Flag. The Ciompi Revolt Seen from the Streets’, in Bibliothèque
d’Humanisme et Renaissance, 46 (1984), pp. 357-392.
11. Aron Guerevic, Historical Anthropology of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1992).
12. Philippe Buc, The Dangers of Ritual. Between Early Medieval Texts and Social
Scientific Theory (Princeton, 2002); Gerd Althoff, ‘Zur Bedeutung symbolischer Kom-
munikation für das Verständnis des Mittelalters’, in Frühmittelalterliche Studien, 31
(1997), pp. 370-389; Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice(Princeton, 1981).
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INTRODUCTION ix
This introduction, however, does not seek to provide an overview of the
large number of publications in this field. What we wish to do is to
explore a number of methodological problems the medievalist is faced
with: the definition of symbolic communication, the interaction between
tradition and innovation, and the perception of medieval rituals.
The definitions of symbolic communication
Communication can be defined quite easily as every form of mutual
exchange of information in consciously encoded messages. These mes-
sages can be communicated with varying degrees of directness. More-
over, several media can be used, both verbal and non-verbal. Communi-
cation thus presupposes a sender, a receiver and a code.13
According to Althoff, one can discern three types of communication
in the Middle Ages: oral, written and symbolic. The latter is defined as
those forms of communication in which the message is expressed in an
indirect way: the meaning surpasses the immediate recognition; the
message is ambiguous and hidden. This symbolic communication
employs signs and symbols with a specific meaning; it demonstrates the
message as opposed to other forms of communication that provide and
explain information.14
I doubt whether it is necessary to clearly discern such a specific form
of communication, since almost every exchange of information has sym-
bolic implications: a code is used to transmit a message each time, and
it is up to the receiver to decode it. Can one truly speak of a meaningful
difference between immediate and indirect communication? Perhaps the
visual demonstration of social order was in a way more direct than a
written treatise on these relationships: an image can say more than many
words.
13. Marco Mostert, ‘New Approaches to Medieval Communication?’, in Marco
Mostert ed., New approaches to medieval Communication, Utrecht Studies in Medieval
Literacy, I (Turnhout, 1999), pp. 18-21; Gerd Althoff and Ludwig Siep, ‘Symbolische
Kommunikation und gesellschaftliche Wertesysteme vom Mittelalter bis zur französis-
chen Revolution. Der neue Münsterer Sonderforschungsbereich 496’, in Frühmittelalter-
liche Studien,34 (2000) p. 395.
14. Gerd Althoff, ‘Zur Bedeutung’, p. 373: ‘Vielmehr scheint es sinnvoll zu sein, drei
Bereiche mittelalterlicher Kommunikation zu unterscheiden: die verbale, die schriftliche
und die symbolische, die zumeist nonverbal durch Zeichen aller art Nachrichten und
Informationen vermittelt.’
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x INTRODUCTION
In addition, can one truly discern a separate verbal and a non-verbal
form of communication? Are not both aspects always closely connected,
especially in medieval times? The concept of ‘symbolic communication’
suggests that every element of this communication is symbolic, which,
in most cases, is not true. Rituals and ceremonies often combine statu-
tory acts and the communication about these formal events.15 Moreover,
several media are combined to communicate a message, but not all of
them can be labelled a symbol or an ‘indirect’ form of communication.
Althoff indeed mentions that the three forms of communication he
cites sometimes overlap, and that words and texts can be used in rituals
as well. He tries to circumvent this question by arguing that symbolic
communication was dominant in the Middle Ages,16a statement that – in
my view – again shows that one might question the existence of an iso-
lated form of symbolic communication in which all elements are sym-
bolic.
Althoff and Siep also state that a strict definition of symbolic com-
munication should not be given, and they therefore also speak of ‘sym-
bolic components of communication’.17 Perhaps it is indeed better to
speak of communication that uses symbols and thus places the emphasis
on the media that are used. However, this poses a new problem, since
the concept of a symbol is not clear. Historians speak of symbols and
signs, acts and gestures, without clearly defining these concepts. The
word ‘ritual’ is used to describe many phenomena. However, it is usu-
ally defined as a ‘chain of symbolic actions’, and thus is just as unclear.
Philippe Buc even called it a dangerous word that is better forgotten.
The reason why these concepts are not strictly determined is that histo-
rians usually do not want to paste a modern theory onto the medieval
past. This results in the concepts they use being rather vague and impre-
cise. Moreover, as Buc has clearly demonstrated, the use of a word like
‘ritual’ implies hidden associations.18Of course, one cannot truly escape
these problems and create a completely new terminology. We will con-
tinue to speak of symbols, signs and rituals, but should be aware of the
vagueness inherent in these concepts. One should be more careful about
15. Wim Blockmans and Esther Donckers, ‘Self-Representation of Court and City in
Flanders and Brabant in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Centuries’, in Wim Blockmans
and Anteun Janse, eds., Showing Status. Representation of Social Positions in the Late
Middle Ages, Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe, 2 (Turnhout, 1999),
pp. 87-89.
16. Gerd Althoff, ‘Zur Bedeutung’, p. 373.
17. Gerd Althoff and Ludwig Siep, ‘Symbolische Kommunikation', p. 396.
18. Philippe Buc, The Dangers of Ritual, p. 247.
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