HANDELINGEN VAN DE KONINKLIJKE COMMISSIE VOOR GESCHIEDENIS/BULLETINS, VOL. 191, 2025
Georges Declercq – « De conductu per Zelandiam et per Zoem. Een klacht van Vlaamse handelaars over de Brabantse tolheffingen op de Schelde (vroege dertiende eeuw) » (p. 1-53).
The article wants to draw attention to a hitherto unedited document in the oldest town cartulary of Ghent (1237 or shortly thereafter), which is published here and commented upon. It is a kind of memorandum which consists of two very different parts: on the one hand a tariff of the Brabant tolls on the Scheldt at Antwerp (a transit toll on ships) and to the north of the town (the so-called conductus or geleiden of Zandvliet, Ossendrecht, Borgvliet, Bergen op Zoom and Schakerlo), as they were exacted during the reign of Count Baldwin VIII of Flanders and Hainaut (1191-1194); on the other a complaint about the arbitrary and exorbitant taxes to which Flemish and Hainaut merchants were subjected on this important waterway. The introduction to the edition examines in detail the geleiden on the Scheldt as well as the difficult issue of the Antwerp tolls (Great toll, Small toll or Riddertol). A comparison with the agreement concluded between the Duke of Brabant and the Lord of Breda in 1212 or 1213 allows to date the document in 1211-1212 or 1212-1213. This memorandum probably formed the basis for an oral complaint addressed by Ghent merchants either to Philip of Namur, regent of Flanders and Hainaut between 1206 and 1211, or to Countess Joan of Constantinople (1212-1244) and her husband Ferrand of Portugal.
Jean-Marie Cauchies – «Fermes abbatiales en Hainaut et corvées de charroi : une « déclaration » de 1474» (p. 55-110).
In the spring of 1474, Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, was preparing a military campaign in the Rhine region. He imposed a wartime service of cartage on the religious communities owning farms in the county of Hainaut. The provisional document preserved, structured by districts of judicial officers, lists the farms and the number of carts required for each of them. More than fifty religious houses and nearly three hundred farms are concerned. Although the surface area of the land is never indicated, the document provides a valuable survey of the abbey farms in Hainaut in the second half of the fifteenth century.
