HANDELINGEN VAN DE KONINKLIJKE COMMISSIE VOOR GESCHIEDENIS/BULLETINS, VOL. 189, 2023
Kristiaan Dillen, « Een verdacht laatmiddeleeuws rekenboek van de Wenduinse Vissersgilde » (p. 5-44).
With the monograph Geschiedenis van Wenduine (History of Wenduine) Prudens Verduyn published in 1938 a number of unknown fourteenth- and fifteenth-century texts that the author, by fortuity, had been able to explore and copy. According to the author, the fragments were part of a ‘rekenboek’ (account book) produced by the Wenduine fishermen’s guild. The fragments are exceptional because they shed light on the corporate organizational structure of the Wenduine fishermen and the hunt for marine mammals. Besides exceptional, these source fragments are unique. No other fourteenth-century written sources, produced by a fishermen’s guild within the county of Flanders, are known to have survived. The issue is that Verduyn integrated the source fragments in his discourse and provided only a rather flawed and inconsistent critical apparatus. It is not always clear when he is citing and when not. The texts have mainly triggered a search for the original source but have hardly been researched themselves. This contribution publishes and analyses the bare ‘source text.’ It will be argued that the published excerpts from the so-called account book most likely are a pastiche, a falsification that resembles a model in many respects through imitation, combining features of originals and integrating knowledge from literature. The source fragments mainly served the ambitions of a twentieth-century coastal community whose prosperity no longer depended on fishing but on tourism.
Marc Boone & Thérèse de Hemptinne, « Deux inventaires des biens abandonnés par Jacqueline de Bavière lors de son départ précipité de Gand le 31 août 1425 » (p. 45-82).
On August 31st 1425, Jacqueline of Bavaria, countess of Hainault, Holland and Zealand fled the former comital residence ‘Posteerne’ in Ghent, where she had been held hostage. Following her escape the countess’ nephew, duke Philip the Good of Burgundy, ordered a detailed inventory of the belongings she had left behind to be drawn. The inventory established in presence of her mother, the dowager countess Margaret of Burgundy, allows us to have an impression of the daily life of the princess as it enumerates luxury items, clothing, precious and everyday objects. The officers and dignitaries involved in drawing the inventory reveal the underlying political sensibilities at this crucial moment for the unification of the former Low Countries under Burgundian rule. The inventory has been preserved in a relatively unexpected setting, namely among the archives of the former Chamber of Accounts in Dijon, probably having served to keep the Burgundian chancelor Nicolas Rolin informed concerning developments in the Low Countries.
Jean-Marie Cauchies, « Bois vert, bois mort, chicane et procédure aux portes de Valenciennes. Le chancelier Rolin en sa seigneurie de Raismes (1434-1445) » (p. 83-131).
Having received from Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy and Count of Hainaut, the lordship of Raismes, his chancellor, Nicolas Rolin, faced a long dispute with the neighboring town of Valenciennes. Focusing mainly on rights of use in the seigniorial woods – collection and cutting of wood – the conflict was punctuated by acts of violence. While an « appointement », or amicable agreement, seemed to intervene in 1434 but was not applied, the case was brought before the duke’s Grand Conseil, supreme jurisdiction in the Burgundian countries, because of the chancellor’s personality. The trial ended in 1445 with a voluntary condemnation procedure negotiated between the parties, which was confirmed by the Duke as a final sentence.
