Inequality and the City in the Low Countries (1200-2020)

412 Pages·2020·4.385 MB·English

by  Tim Soens, Peter Stabel

Inequality and the City in the Low Countries (1200-2020)
SEUH
StUdiES in EUropEan Urban HiStory (1100-1800)
Volume 50
Series Editors
Marc Boone
Anne-Laure Van Bruaene
Ghent University
Inequality and the City
in the Low Countries (1200-2020)
Edited by
Bruno Blondé, Sam Geens, Hilde Greefs,
Wouter Ryckbosch, Tim Soens & Peter Stabel
F
Cover illustration: J. P. Filedt Kok, ‘Master of Alkmaar, Panel of a
Polyptych with the Seven Works of Charity: Feeding the Hungry, 1504’,
in J. P. Filedt Kok (ed.), Early Netherlandish Paintings, online coll. cat.
Amsterdam 2009: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.362369
(accessed 6 January 2020).

© 2020, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium.

All righ ts reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a re trieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, m echanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without
the prior permission of the publisher.

D/2020/0095/122

ISBN 978-2-503-58868-1

eISBN 978-2-503-58869-8
DOI 10.1484/M.SEUH-EB.5.119604

ISSN 1780-3241
eISSN 2294-8368

Printed on acid-free paper.

This is an open access publication distributed under a CC BY-NC 4.0
International License.
In memory of Raymond van Uytven (1933-2018), founder of the Urban History Workshop
at the University of Antwerp

Contents
Acknowledgments 11
Part I
Introduction
The Low Countries’ Paradox 15
Historical Perspectives on Inequality and the City
Bruno Blondé, Sam Geens, Hilde Greefs, Wouter Ryckbosch,
Tim Soens and Peter Stabel
Part II
The Urbanisation of Inequality
Get Rich and Try Dyeing 45
Cloth Production and Social Inequality in Town and Countryside
(Sixteenth Century)
Jim van der Meulen
Did Urban Manure Nourish the Country? 63
Social Consequences of Fertiliser Improvement in Eighteenth-Century
Flemish Farming
Pieter De Graef
Cities in Motion 79
Mobility, Migration Selectivity and Demographic Change in Belgian Cities,
1846-1910
Hilde Greefs and Anne Winter
Organising the Work-Home Split by the Urban-Rural Link 101
Transport Networks, Mobility and Urbanisation in Early Twentieth-Century
Belgium
Ingrid Schepers, Janet Polasky, Ann Verhetsel and Greet De Block
The City and the Parking Lot 123
Movement and Standstill on the 21st-century Urban Labour Market
Ann Coenen
8 contents
Part III
Politics of Inequality
The Impact of Urban Elites’ Political Participation on Economic Policy
in the Low Countries 1100-1600 141
Wim Blockmans
Si grant inégalité? 153
Town, Countryside and Taxation in Flanders, c. 1350 – c. 1500
Thijs Lambrecht
The Rise of the Fiscal State? 169
Urban Finances, Politics and Social Inequality in Sixteenth-Century ’s-
Hertogenbosch
Bruno Blondé, Jord Hanus and Wouter Ryckbosch
An Experiment of Social Equality? 183
The Case of the Calvinist Republic in Antwerp (1577-1585)
Guido Marnef
Law Courts and Social Inequality in the Cities of the Eighteenth-Century
Low Countries 199
Griet Vermeesch
Part IV
Shocks, Crises and Inequality
The Great Destruction of People and Wealth 213
The Impact of the Ghent Revolt on Wealth Inequality in the Last Quarter
of the Fourteenth Century
Sam Geens
Levelling Through Space? 231
The Redistributive Capacity of Demographic Decline in Antwerp’s Darkest
Hour (1584-1586)
Rogier van Kooten
Real Property, Speculation and Housing Inequality 251
Bruges, 1550-1670
Heidi Deneweth
contents 9
Part V
Cultural and Consumer Dynamics of Inequality
Craft Guilds as Vectors of Middle-Class Values 271
Peter Stabel and Anke De Meyer
In Haste for Better Taste? 289
The Social Effects of Changing Dining Cultures in Fifteenth- and
Sixteenth-Century Bruges
Inneke Baatsen
Comforts of Difference 309
Social Inequality and the Material Culture of Energy in Eighteenth-Century
Ghent
Wout Saelens
Violent classes? 329
Interpersonal Violence and Social Inequality in Mechelen, 1350-1700
Maarten F. Van Dijck
The New Police as Agents of Class Control? 343
Urban Policing and its Socio-Geographical Focus in Nineteenth-Century
Antwerp
Margo De Koster and Antoon Vrints
Part VI
Methodological, Theoretical and Contemporary Perspectives
How was City Life? 359
Moving beyond GDP and Real Income to Measure Pre-modern Welfare
and Inequality Levels
Maïka De Keyzer
Diachrony, Synchrony and Modernity 377
How to Contribute to the Debate on Economic Inequality from
an Historical Perspective?
Bert De Munck
Different systems and inequalities? 397
Comparing education in the Low Countries
Noel Clycq , Lore Van Praag and François Levrau
Aipril 411