Table Of ContentTHE USE AND ABUSE OF SACRED PLACES
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 XXXVIII
KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
INSTITUUT VOOR MIDDELEEUWSE STUDIES
LEUVEN (BELGIUM)
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THE USE AND ABUSE OF SACRED PLACES
IN LATE MEDIEVAL TOWNS
EDITED BY
Paul TRIO
and
Marjan DE SMET
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 90-5867-519-X
ISBN 978-90-5867-519-4
D/2006/1869/1
NUR: 684-684
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CONTENTS
Introduction
Paul TRIO
Introduction vii
Low Countries
Marjan DE SMET
Heavenly Quiet and the Din of War: Use and Abuse of Reli-
gious Buildings for Purposes of Safety, Defence and Strategy 1
Jan KUYS
Weltliche Funktionen spätmittelalterlicher Pfarrkirchen in den
nördlichen Niederlanden 27
Jacoba VAN LEEUWEN
Praise the Lord for this Peace! The Contribution of Religious
Institutions to the Ceremonial Peace-Proclamations in Late
Medieval Flanders (1450-1550) 47
Brigitte DEKEYZER
For Eternal Glory and Remembrance: On the Representation
of Patrons in Late Medieval Panel Paintings in the Southern
Low Countries 71
German Regions
Jenny Rahel OESTERLE
The Liturgical Dimension of Royal Representation 103
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vi CONTENTS
Gabriela SIGNORI
Sakral oder Profan? Der Kommunikationsraum Kirche 117
British Isles
Jens RÖHRKASTEN
Secular Uses of the Mendicant Priories of Medieval London 135
Emilia JAMROZIAK
St Mary Graces: A Cistercian House in Late Medieval London 153
Sheila SWEETINBURGH
Mayor-Making and Other Ceremonies: Shared Uses of Sacred
Space among the Kentish Cinque Ports 165
Karen STÖBER
The Role of Late Medieval English Monasteries as Expres-
sions of Patronal Authority: Some Case Studies 189
Conclusion
Koen GOUDRIAAN
Conclusion 209
List of contributors 227
Index librorum manu scriptorum 231
Index locorum 232
Index nominum 241
Index operum 246
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INTRODUCTION
by
Paul TRIO
Secular authorities used ecclesiastical buildings and lands for non-reli-
gious or only partly religious purposes from the beginning of the Middle
Ages. One of the many reasons for treating ecclesiastical property in this
way was that in the Middle Ages, religious spaces – and particularly those
outside the closed world of the monasteries – were not always considered
a completely different world, but were often seen as part of the space
where more secular activities and events were commonplace. We need not
look far for an initial explanation of this phenomenon. Ecclesiastical and
secular societies often intertwined and were less strictly separated than is
the case today; secular society in the Middle Ages was permeated by
ecclesiastical and religious acts and customs, as surely as the secular
world had invaded the ecclesiastical and religious world.
During the course of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, there was
already a long tradition of ecclesiastical buildings and lands being used
by urban society as a whole, by specific parts in particular, and by the
central authorities. Indeed, did not church towers, with their donjon-like
structure, often function as the ultimate place of refuge from attacking
enemies? An example of this is the church of St Donatian in Bruges.
Galbert provides us with a realistic description, in which he tells us how
some of the persons involved in the murder of Charles the Good in 1127
had fled there. However, as urbanization took hold, this development
gained momentum, and important changes – in comparison to earlier,
more agrarian society – followed in its wake. Indeed, it would be very
interesting if the present research could help to discover these trends in
medieval towns.
The situation in the Low Countries was quite special, since some of
its regions, such as Flanders, Brabant, Zeeland and Holland, were
among the most urbanized in Europe, equalled only by those in North-
ern Italy. It is likely that the high level of urbanization in some parts of
the Low Countries entailed a very specific interpretation of the role and
use of ecclesiastical spaces and lands in those regions. With the urban-
ization of the Low Countries, came an early and strongly growing econ-
omy that first manifested itself in the textile industry, and later mainly
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viii INTRODUCTION
in the so-called art industries. The use of certain monastic complexes,
by the guilds for instance, as a meeting place is a result of this devel-
opment. Moreover, the Low Countries were the scene of a typical urban
socio-religious civil culture that developed parallel to their economic
expansion. Initially this development was strongest in the South, and
later shifted to the North. The typical ‘burgher culture’ manifested itself
in many ways: plays, pageants, processions, chambers of rhetoric,
etcetera. Ecclesiastical buildings and lands also offered accommoda-
tion to some of these expressions of urban culture. Finally, it should be
clear that the typical political-institutional organization of the late
medieval Low Countries, with its strongly democratic nature and its
vigorous – though rapidly declining – urban autonomy, led to some
very particular developments with regard to the use of religious build-
ings by secular organizations. The fact that some of the following papers
concern towns situated outside the territory of the Low Countries should
enable us to understand better what we believe to be the very specific
nature of the Low Countries.
Those who choose late medieval ecclesiastical buildings as their sub-
ject of research must clearly define what precisely is to be understood as
such. To avoid a too narrow delimitation of the subject, the editors of
this book have opted for a practical definition: all buildings and lands
within the immediate jurisdiction of an ecclesiastical institution. This
institution might be a monastery or abbey, a church fabric, a chapter or
a cathedral. De facto, hospices and hospitals were semi-ecclesiastical
institutions and, theoretically, only their place of worship (church or
chapel), with or without its own graveyard, fell within the competence of
an ecclesiastical institution, while the rest of the buildings or lands of the
urban charitable institutions – with some exceptions – in general ulti-
mately came under the control of the urban government. Indeed, one
should ask oneself whether, because of this special status, these semi-
ecclesiastical institutions were attributed different functions and roles with
regard to the urban and central authorities.
The contributors to this volume try to explain why these ecclesiastical
buildings and lands were used for secular or semi-secular activities. For
the initial stages of urban development and for quite some time after-
wards, the explanation seems to be a very practical one. Indeed, initially,
there were few large public and sturdy – i.e.stone – buildings of a purely
secular nature to be found in the developing towns. As a result, the tower
of the urban parish church often functioned as a watchtower to warn the
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INTRODUCTION ix
population in the event of fire or the attacks of enemies. Later, the typi-
cal belfries assumed this function. Sturdy and large buildings built from
stone could accommodate archives, fire fighting equipment and weapons,
and the population might find protection there from hostile intruders.
When the urban authorities did not have such ‘ideal space’ of a secular
nature at their disposal, they might select an ecclesiastical building, usu-
ally part of one of the many monastic complexes that populated the town.
However, this practical explanation sometimes seems insufficient in
the later Middle Ages, when the town government and all its diverse
hierarchical administrative structures had sufficient accommodations of
its own. Nevertheless, even then, towns continued to make use of eccle-
siastical buildings. This raises the question whether there were any par-
ticular advantages attached to using ecclesiastical space, or whether
there was an additional symbolic meaning present. Was it possible, for
instance, that such an ecclesiastical space stood a better chance of
remaining intact in the event of revolt or invasion, hence offering bet-
ter protection for the town’s archives? It is also quite striking that the
textile trades preferred to have their meetings at the Begards, the male
counterpart of the Beguines, who usually engaged in the textile indus-
try to earn a living. Whenever the ruler visited, and when he had no res-
idence of his own in town, the authorities usually selected the most
important ecclesiastical institution for his accommodation. Undoubt-
edly, this choice was made because of the available space, certainly
when the ruler was travelling with his retinue, and this retinue – or part
of it – also required accommodation. However, there were probably
other reasons of a more political-ecclesiastical nature that influenced
this choice. From this perspective, it would be very interesting to exam-
ine whether the urban authorities had different preferences than the cen-
tral authorities.
Apart from the use of ecclesiastical property for specific meetings
of, for example, the Golden Fleece or a visit to the patron saint’s church
on the occasion of a Joyous Entry, most church buildings – and partic-
ularly places of prayer – regularly played a role in secular society, even
though these places also usually had a religious meaning/function.
Gravestones or tombs, church furniture such as paintings, sculptures,
stained glass windows etcetera could also represent the social position
and status of the donor and his family, for instance by the presence of
coats of arms. Apart from a religious image, commemorative tableaux
usually also contained a representation of the founders or donors and
their immediate family, recognizable by a legend and their armorial
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x INTRODUCTION
bearings. In addition, certain groups within a town, such as guilds (of
merchants, crafts, archers and rhetoricians) and confraternities clearly
manifested their presence within the church building in which they had
their altar or chapel. Beautiful and very clear examples of this are the
group portraits of the members of confraternities of the Holy Sacrament
and of Jerusalem confraternities, several of which were painted in the
sixteenth century by Peter Pourbus and John Scorel. The urban author-
ities might also wish to make their presence visible. The church of St
Martin of Ypres, for example, possessed a tapestry with the names and
coats of arms of the aldermen who had been murdered in 1303. This
valuable piece was displayed every year on St Andrew’s Night (29
November), when a Requiem Mass commemorated the murder.
Throughout the Middle Ages, this was the way in which the town’s
magistrate chose to emphasize the predominance of the urban elite in
the town’s government, the same elite to which the murdered aldermen
had belonged. This manifestation of political representation was clearly
directed against any possible claims by the lower social classes, includ-
ing the urban proletariat. Especially during the reigns of the Burgundian
dukes and their Habsburg successors, the donation of royal stained glass
windows to numerous urban places of worship became a very popular
method of emphasizing the importance of the dynasty and its political
supremacy. The coats of arms of the knights who had been present at
agathering of the Order of the Golden Fleece usually remained in place
in the church where the meeting had been held for a long time after-
ward. The coats of arms of the knights of the Golden Fleece who were
assembled in 1559 can still be admired even now in the cathedral of St
Bavo in Ghent, where the meeting was held.
Numerous series of royal portraits that have decorated many monas-
teries or abbeys indicate that not only the urban authorities, but the rulers
too enjoyed displaying their authority and prestige inside the actual church
buildings. Some remain today: for example, the series of the Counts of
Flanders in the Major Seminary in Bruges dating from 1480 and the fol-
lowing years. This series of portraits was originally part of the important
Cistercian abbey of Ten Duinen (Dunes Abbey, Koksijde).
Apart from the specific temporary or long-lasting adaptations of church
buildings and ecclesiastical lands to more secular activities, the partici-
pation of the clergy – secular as well as regular – in these adaptations will
also be discussed. Were they involved in the adaptation of the building
and in the profane ceremonies that took place there, or did they stay on
the sidelines, merely as passive onlookers?
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