Pro Memorie - Volume 27, Issue 2, 2025

Seigneurial reactions in the County of Flanders (ca. 1350 – ca. 1795)

‘The seigneurial reaction’ is a concept originally conceived as one of the major causes for the French Revolution: lords who fiercely reimposed long forgotten dues from the 1750s onward. Historians of old regime lordships throughout Western Europe however discern similar ‘seigneurial reactions’ as early as the fourteenth century. The county of Flanders saw such reactions by lords from 1350 onward. The incentive for such measures was however oftenmost not financial gain, but the protection or reinstatement of social status and symbolic capital.

Unlimited power. The lordship of Enghien between Brabant and Hainaut (12^th–16^th c.)

In this article we explore the complex feudal status and territorial scope of the prominent lordship of Enghien (Dutch: Edingen) in the border region between the Duchy of Brabant and the County of Hainaut. From the High Middle Ages onwards, Enghien’s lords and ladies cultivated their dual status by actively maintaining feudal and political ties with both Count and Duke. By combining source material from both principalities and creating GIS-maps we were able to visualise the impressive scope of the territory that the successive lords were able to acquire on both sides of the border. Taken together, Enghien had the size of a small principality. Due to strategic importance of the border region and its relative distance from princely administrative centres, both princes mostly supported the creation and perpetuation of this enormous power base, thus effectively recognizing the essential role of the lords of Enghien in maintaining the territorial status quo in the Hainaut-Brabant border region.

Labour Services in the County of Flanders during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

This article examines practical aspects associated with the enforcement and execution of servile works in the County of Flanders during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a feudal right that required peasants to perform labour for their lord. Although this ‘corvée’ labour largely fell into disuse from the late Middle Ages onwards, archival sources from Poeke and Boelare show that the system was still actively applied locally. Analysis of corvée records reveals remarkable flexibility in implementation, differentiation according to socio-economic status and a gradual transition to optional redemption systems – all of which mainly benefited the peasantries. The administration of servile works was therefore complex and reflected demographic changes within the seigneuries. The downside was a particularly high administrative burden for the lord, raising the question of whether this indirect cost was not one of the causes of the system’s decline. Finally, this study nuances the image of early modern corvée labour as inherently conflictual as most subjects of the lords executed their labour duties without clear signs of protest or contention.

The Police Regulations of Sint-Annaland from 1569: a Glimpse into Sixteenth-Century Village Life in the County of Zeeland

From the late Middle Ages onwards, many seigneuries in the Low Countries began compiling local law. One notable example is the compilation (Dutch: voorgeboden en keuren) of Sint-Annaland from 1569, a small village in the county of Zeeland. This contribution provides an edition and an analysis of these rules, preserved in three manuscripts. These rules offer valuable insights into the socio-economic daily life of this village in Zeeland. When integrated into a broader corpus from several seigneuries, such texts can illustrate aspects of late medieval and early modern village life in the Low Countries, an area of research that remains relatively underexplored by both legal scholars and historians.

Herzele (1444-1502): the seigneurie as a space of negotiation

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the role of seigneuries by examining the nature of social relations within the lay seigneurie of Herzele between 1444 and 1502. Drawing on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of domain and bailiff accounts, the research is structured around four case studies: the ‘beste kateil’, the ‘wandelkoop’, a financial assessment, and criminal justice. Across all these domains, a consistent pattern emerges: while the rules were applied uniformly, they were interpreted with a sensitivity to context. A structural space for negotiation was typically embedded in the system, allowing compromises to be reached between those who were entitled to receive—the lord and his officials—and those who were expected to give—the local inhabitants. When punishments were imposed, it was ensured they were enforceable. After all, all parties had a shared interest in the smooth functioning of the seigneurie.

Seigneurial courts and the rural population in the eastern Netherlands (c. 1480-1570)

This article studies the impact of seigneurial lordship on rural communities through an analysis of the litigants active in a seigneurial court of the lords of Bergh (van Bergh) in the eastern Netherlands. The results show that the rural population barely made use of the court but was often charged before it. Meanwhile, inhabitants of the small town of ‘s-Heerenberg figure prominently among the plaintiffs. This finding fits within the development of the court, being both permanently located within the town and dominated by its inhabitants. Given the wide variety of options for conflict resolution mechanisms open to the rural inhabitants of premodern Europe, these results suggest that the seigneurial court in this case did not serve the interests of the rural population, but rather those of the citizens of ‘s-Heerenberg. This conclusion is surprising in light of recent research and testifies to the widely different effects seigneurial lordship could have on rural societies within the Netherlands.