Civic Ritual: Bruges and the Counts of Flanders in the Later Middle Ages

Civic Ritual: Bruges and the Counts of Flanders in the Later Middle AgesAuthor(s): Andrew BrownSource: The English Historical Review, Vol. 112, No. 446 (Apr., 1997), pp. 277-299Published by: Oxford University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/578178 .

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English Historical Review ? Addison Wesley Longman Limited 1997 oo 3-8266/97/2520/0277/$03.oo

Civic Ritual: Bruges and the Counts of Flanders in the Later Middle Ages'

IN I475 Duke Charles the Bold of Burgundy instructed the towns of Flanders to make solemn processions for the prosperity of his person and for the peace of his lands. A treaty struck between France and

England threatened to undermine his ambitions; hostile processions and offensive preaching had been mounted against him in France. In retal- iation, Charles was determined that during his own processions notable

preachers, secretly and suitably instructed, would assure Flemish citizens of their prince's great desire for peace - an assurance that, after a decade of ducal aggression, no doubt stretched credulity.1

The use of ritual by rulers as propaganda is a familiar theme. Familiar too are the sumptuous displays of power, the gargantuan feasts and festivals, conducted by the Valois dukes of Burgundy to promote their dynastic ambitions (and to satisfy, as Huizinga judged, their spectacular bad taste2). As one of the favoured princely residences, Bruges was frequently the scene of courtly extravagance: the meetings of the ducal Order of the Golden Fleece, the Entry ceremonies and other festivities dazzled citizens and visitors with their princely magnificence. So struck was John Paston by the wedding celebrations of Duke Charles and Margaret of York at Bruges in 1468, that he famously likened the ducal court to King Arthur's.3 Displays of comital power in themselves, however, do not form the main theme of this article. More central here, and hitherto less well documented, are the ways in which these displays were related to ceremonies conducted and paid for by the citizens themselves. What was the ceremonial relationship between Bruges and its rulers ? How far were the counts of Flanders able to harness traditions and rituals in Bruges for their own ends?

Several clarifications are required before these questions can be answered. Is it possible, first of all, to distinguish clearly between 'civic' and 'courtly' ritual? Certain traditions in Bruges were already closely bound up with those of the counts whose deeds, some more legendary than others, had helped to fashion the early history of the city. Some- time in the tenth century, the counts had established a fortified place (the burg) next to a settlement already developing as a market and port. The

: I am very grateful to Drs Ian Archer, Michael Hawcroft, Christine Peters, Mark Philpott and Malcolm Vale for their comments on previous drafts.

I. Gilliodts-van Severen, Inventaire des archives de la ville de Bruges (Bruges, 1871-85), vi.io8. The treaty of Picquigny between Edward IV and Louis XI was made in August 1475.

2. C. A. J. Armstrong, 'The Golden Age of Burgundy: Dukes that Outdid Kings', in The Courts of Europe I400-800o, ed. A. G. Dickens (London, I977), pp. 55-75; J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages (I924; repr. London, I982), p. 239.

3. The Paston Letters, ed. J. Gairdner (6 vols., London I904), iv.298.

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278 BRUGES AND THE COUNTS OF FLANDERS April

burg contained comital castle, residence (the Steen and Love), the Ghi- selhuus and, later, a private chapel of St Basil.1 It also contained the principal church, St Donatian's (modestly modelled on Charlemagne's chapel at Aachen), which was reputedly founded by the first count of Flanders, Baldwin 'the Iron Arm' (867-79).2 Later counts raised the status of the church: it became a college in 1089 and crusading counts in the twelfth century enriched it with relics of the Holy Cross and St Basil.3 In I 127 the church also became the mausoleum of the martyred Count Charles the Good, scandalously killed by his own vassals while at prayer there.4 Such was the traditional association between collegiate church and count that in April II27 the new count William, with his feudal lord King Louis VI of France, was met by the canons of St Donatian bearing the church's relics on, which he swore to uphold their collegiate privileges.5

Early traditions provided natural points of contact between citizens and count: civic interests could be identified with those of the counts. A further question therefore presents itself: how far could these traditions be modified under the pressures of change? By the fourteenth century, it was becoming more difficult for the rulers of Flanders to square dynastic ambitions with the particularist concerns of a Flemish city. Count Louis de Male's attempt in 355 to acquire the duchy of Brabant in the

Empire, outside the kingdom of France, foreshadowed the expanding aims and ambitions of the Valois dukes of Burgundy who married into the comital family in 1369 and who became counts of Flanders after I384.6 During Valois rule the county was drawn into the power games of a dynasty which, under John the Fearless (I404-I9) and for a time under Philip the Good (1419-67), sought to dominate the French Crown. Duke Philip also increased the number of his territories notably eastwards at the expense of the Empire. It was Charles the Bold (I467- 77) who sought deliberately to break from dependence on France and subsume Flanders and his other territories into a new 'middle kingdom'. The failure of his ambitions in I477 eventually brought Flanders, de-

spite French efforts, into the even wider political orbit of the Habsburg dynasty. How far could traditional ties with Bruges be channelled into the changing course of comital ambitions?

A further difficulty for rulers of Flanders, moreover, was the changing nature of civic ambitions themselves. Even in the twelfth century

I. M. Ryckhaert, Brugge: historische stedenatlas van Belgie (Brussels, i991), pp. 56-60; A. E.

Verhulst, 'Les origines et l'histoire ancienne de la ville de Bruges (ixc-xiiie siecle)', Le Moyen Age, Ixvi

(1960), 37-63. 2. G. Declercq, 'Waneer onstand het Sint-Donaaskapittel te Brugge?', Handelingen van het genoot-

schap voor geschiedenis, cxxii ( 98 ), 147-57. 3. J. A. Van Houtte, De geschiedenis van Brugge (Tielt, 1982), pp. 228-9, and references cited there.

4. Galbert of Bruges, The Murder of Charles the Good, ed. J. B. Ross (New York, 1959; repr. Toronto, I967), passim.

5. Ibid., c. 5 (p. 201).

6. For the following see W. Prevenier and W. Blockmans, The Burgundian Netherlands (Cam- bridge, 1986); D. Nicholas, Medieval Flanders (London, I992); R. Vaughan: Philip the Bold. The

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comital authority over the city had been diminishing. Count William in I 27 had also been required to uphold the citizens' liberties contained in 'a little charter'. The urban settlement expanded rapidly around the

burg: its sprawling houses and market places had to be encompassed by new walls in I 127 and an even wider ring of gates and fortifications by I297. In the thirteenth century, an emerging town government had also

begun to encroach into the burg, taking over the Steen, St Basil's chapel, and the Ghiselhuus.1 The counts and their feudal lords, the kings of France, made significant concessions to town privileges, and the ejection on i8 May 1302, by members of the commonalty, of the French

governor who had threatened to raze the new city walls, came to be commemorated as a landmark in civic history. A new charter of liberties in 1304 established two colleges of magistrates over which the count exercised little overt authority.2 When, much later, John the Fearless tried to foist a hand-picked bench of magistrates on the city in April 1407, his attempt was seen as offensive to communal liberties.3

Developing traditions of civic independence could also express themselves in ceremonial forms. As a port, a producer of luxury goods, a commercial and international market, and with a population of over 40,000, Bruges had become a city quite capable of matching princely splendour. If John Paston could liken the Burgundian court to King Arthur's in 1468, he also reckoned the pageants put on for the ducal

wedding by the civic authorities themselves to be the best he had heard of or seen. The question here, however, is how far any of these pageants and ceremonies erected barriers against counts of Flanders: did they form part of a distinctive 'civic' culture independent of princely influence? D. Nicholas argues that 'it is best to conclude that if there was a theater state in Flanders, it was Burgundian, or ... comital, rather than Flemish or urban'. In Ghent, the accession of the Valois to the comital seat actually saw a decline in traditions of urban ceremony until Duke Philip the Good after the I430s made an effort to conciliate Ghent with a series of spectacles.4 But in Bruges, as we shall see, the ceremonial relationship between dukes and city was more subtle and fruitful.

Formation of the Burgundian State (London, 1962); John the Fearless. The Growth of Burgundian Power (London, 1966); Philip the Good. The Apogee of Burgundy (London, 1970); Charles the Bold. The Last Valois Duke of Burgundy (London, 1973); also Het algemene en de gewestelijke privilegien van Maria van Bourgogne voor de Nederlanden I477, ed. W. Blockmans (Courtrai-Heule, 1985); W. Blockmans, 'Autocratie ou polyarchie? La lutte pour le pouvoir politique en Flandre de 1482 a 1492,

d'apres des documents inedits', Bulletin de la commission royale d'histoire, xcl (i974), 257-368. 1. Ryckhaert, Brugge, pp. 90-I. 2. Van Houtte, Brugge, pp. 65-76, 315-17. The new great seal of the city bore the legend 'sigillum

communitatis ville Brugensis': A. Duclos, Bruges. Histoire et souvenirs (Bruges, 1910), p. 122.

3. Vaughan,John the Fearless, pp. 20-8. The count retained the right to fill the offices of bailli and ecoutete, who exercised some judicial functions within the city.

4. D. Nicholas, 'In the Pit of the Burgundian Theater State; Urban Traditions and Princely Ambitions in Ghent, 1360-I420', in City and Spectacle in Medieval Europe, eds. B. A. Hanawalt and K. L. Reyerson (Minneapolis, 1994), pp. 271-95.

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I997 IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 279



280 BRUGES AND THE COUNTS OF FLANDERS April There is one final problem in the use of the phrase 'civic ritual'. It

should not be assumed that festivities in the city were the expression simply of some united communal will. Particular interest groups could find themselves in opposition to each other, for or against the count. The nobility in the town, like the lords of the Gruuthuse, and also the clergy of St Donatian, tended to be more closely identified with the princely household than the urban patriciate or burghers (the 'poorters') - who, for their part, might be factionally split or faced with demands and dissension from their social inferiors. There are implications here for the ceremonial relationship between count and city: did ritual or propaganda by rulers exploit divisions as well as more collective urban traditions? Moreover, 'civic ritual' could reflect the power relationships between different groups within the city. Although craft guilds acquired more influence in the city after the I302 uprising, they were never to have the same powers as their counterparts in Ghent. Dominating the city government was the patriciate of Bruges, which - it is important to recognize - was often not clearly distinguishable from the nobility, and tended to favour princely power. So 'civic ritual' arguably reflected patrician interests. The relationship between ritual and power is, in any case, a vexed question: ritual might be regarded as an antidote to political weakness and social disorder as much as an affirmation of confidence,1 and in Ghent, once more, Nicholas relates the dearth of ceremony to the absence of any need by the city government to use ritual as an in- strument of social control. Did the more patrician government of Bruges require more theatrical machinery to hold on to power?

The nature of civic ceremony and the intricacies of the ceremonial relationship between ruler and city are the concerns of this article. The civic funding of certain processions and guilds, the engagement of the counts with this ritual activity, and Entry ceremonies, when city and count were in most obvious 'dialogue', will be explored in turn. Of particular interest are the tensions that the ceremonial relationship threw up. Ritual might be exploited to emphasize the community of interest between ruler and ruled and perhaps to encourage the harmless release of any inherent strains. But could it create stresses or reveal frictions that might have remained buried?2 How awkward, after all, was the tension between the interests of a Flemish city (or of groups within it) and the dynastic ambitions of a Valois, and then Habsburg, dynasty which reached far beyond the boundaries of Flanders?

The development of certain civic festivals is partially revealed by the city accounts, extant from 1280 onwards. The most important ceremony by

I. Rituals of Royalty: Powerand Ceremonial in Traditional Societies, eds. D. Cannadine and S. Price

(Cambridge, I987), pp. 1 5-6. 2. Compare C. Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (London, 1973), pp.412-53, with M. Rubin,

Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge, 199 ), pp. 265-7 , and references cited there.

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the mid-fourteenth century was the procession of the Holy Blood on 3 May, and in its most established form, it provided an occasion for the civic dignitaries and guilds, in a carefully ordered hierarchy, to process through the city streets. But the precise origins of the festivity are unclear. Although the civic accounts first refer to a procession of the Holy Blood in the early fourteenth century, it may not have begun, as was once believed, as a thanksgiving for the May uprising and the battle of Courtrai in 1302, in which the civic militia of Flemish towns inflicted its famous defeat on the French cavalry.1 The festivity was the city's own reworking of processions undertaken in numerous towns on the feast day of the Invention of the Holy Cross (3 May) since the end of the eleventh century.2 But the Holy Blood procession certainly came, very quickly, to enshrine a sense of civic pride: the new seal that marked the acquisition of privileges in I 304 depicted the image of a Holy Cross, and by 1304, the relic of the Holy Blood was being carried on Holy Cross day.3 The relic itself, housed in St Basil's chapel since at least 1256, had already become a focus of town pride, and a protector of civic liberties: in 1297 the city echevins asked Philip the Fair of France not to interfere with their relic to which 'a multitude of faithful' were accustomed to flock.4 Moreover, the processional route made explicit the association between the Holy Blood and civic liberties: the procession was the only one in Bruges ever to follow the line of the new city walls which Philip the Fair had sought to tear down. The procession itself perhaps orig- inated as a celebration of the new ring of fortifications which protected the citizens from external threats.5

Expenses for the festivities swiftly increased. Between I 307 and 1309 the town paid for a new reliquary, and in 13 10 a papal bull, expensively acquired, credited the relic with powers of liquefaction.6 In the ensuing few years, restorations to St Basil were made, a new baldaquin to cover the relic was bought7; bells, candles and trumpets began to mark the occasion; messengers were sent out to draw in the inhabitants of neigh-

I. The papal bull of 13 10 made the claim that the procession had begun around I303, but this is not corroborated in the city accounts: cf. C. Verschelde, 'Les Matines Brugeoises et la Procession du St Sang', Annales de la societe d'emulation de Bruges, xxxi ( 88o), I 9-24.

2. Compare with the Holy Cross procession at Tournai, believed to have been undertaken since around io090o: La grande procession de Tournai (o1090-1992), eds. J. Dumoulin and J. Pycke (Tournai, 1992). The Holy Blood at Bruges was surely also a substitute for processions on Corpus Christi day, which began in the nearby diocese of Liege, became a feast in 1264 and a universal one between 1311 and 13I7, just after the Holy Blood of Bruges had received papal recognition (Rubin, Corpus Christi, 164-85). Corpus Christi did not become a civic festivity in Bruges.

3. Stadsarchief, Bruges [henceforward SAB], 216, 1304, fo. 20o; and see Van Houtte, Brugge, p. 250o. 4. N. Huyghebaert, 'Iperius et la translation de la relique du Saint Sang a Bruges', Annales de la

societe d'emulation de Bruges, c (I963), I I0-87.

5. Compare with Mechelen, where the Easter procession seems to have begun anew in 1302 after the local saint Rombout miraculously delivered the town from the besieging forces of Duke John of Brabant: E. van Autenboer, Volksfeesten en rederijkers te Mechelen, I400-1600 (Ghent, I962), p. 30o.

6. SAB, 96 (2) Rodenboek, fo. 29. For the expenses for obtaining the papal bull, see SAB, 216, I309-io0, fos. 37, 54-5.

7. SAB, 216: I3o6, fo. 2ov; 1307, fos. 26, 29v; I3o8, fo. 24, I3o9, fo. I4, 3 II, fo. 48; 1312, fo. 79.

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28i I 997 IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES



BRUGES AND THE COUNTS OF FLANDERS

bouring towns.1 By the I350s, the procession also inaugurated the fifteen days of the May Fair, during which the clergy of the three main colleges, the four orders of the friars, the Eekhout canons and the beguines processed on successive days.2 Among the guilds who partici- pated in the processional cortege, the crossbow guild of St George, the core element of the civic militia, enjoyed a special place, flanking the relic itself. From at least the I340s onwards the guild was paid by the civic authorities for attending the procession and wearing their uniform.3

Besides the Holy Blood procession, other festivities began to enjoy civic patronage. By the I330s, if not before, the civic authorities also subsidized the crossbow guild's shootings of the 'papagai' (parrot or popinjay) on Holy Trinity day, as well as expeditions to competitions in other towns.4 More flamboyant still were the festivities involving tournaments, already a distinctive feature of civic culture and competition throughout the Low Countries.5 In the fourteenth century jousters from Bruges were regularly sponsored to attend the Epinette of Lille which took place in Lent.6 Within Bruges, by the I33os jousts tended to take place for two or three days in early May7 and signs of a specialized jousting fraternity, organized by members of the town nobility and the patriciate, are already apparent.8 By the i 35os, moreover, expenditure on these May festivities was increasing: in I 355, the city paid a 'king of the feast of May' 330 livres parisis towards the costs of the joust.9

Thus by the time the Valois dukes became counts of Flanders in 13 84, Bruges enjoyed a well-developed tradition of civic liberties and celebrations. Moreover, shortly after this period, the civic authorities began to spend more than ever before on all its festivities. The dis- ruptions caused by the war of 1379-85 between Ghent and the Count, allied with the French, had for a time affected expenditure. No jousting fellowship is mentioned in the civic accounts from 1379 to I386. There were modest Shrovetide jousts in 1387 and 1389, but none in I 390o.1? But

I. SAB, 216: I315, fo. 28; I334-5, fo. 85v (trumpets in the procession). 2. SAB, 2i6: 1333-4, fo. 103; 1352-3, fo. 127.

3. SAB, 216, 134I-2, fo. 146. The membership of the guild was restricted to city 'poorters': A.

Vanhoutryve, De Brugse kruisboogilde van sint-Joris (i968).

4. SAB, 2I6, I339-40, fo. I Io. See also ibid., 1371-2, fo. 44v.

5. For the earliest example (1284) from the Bruges city accounts, see C. Wyffels and J. de Smet, De rekeningen van de stad van Brugge I280-1319 (Brussels, I965) i, p. 73. See J. Vale, Edward III and

English Chivalry: Chivalric Society and its Context (Woodbridge, I982).

6. For an early example: SAB, 216, 1355-6, fo. I26; L. de Rosny, L'Epervier d'or, (Paris, 1839).

7. Gilliodts-van Severen, Inventaire, ii.434; see also Wyffels and de Smet, Rekeningen, i, 1299 (p. 705), 1300 (pp. Iooo, Ioo8) and 130I (pp. 1014, 1029, 1030).

8. Stadsbibliotheek, Bruges, Handschriften, 574, J. P. van de Maele Beschryvinge van Brugge, (c. 172 i), p. IOI; SAB, 539, Handschriften 3, 'Beschreving van den oorsprong van de Ridderlyke steekspelen en van het ridderlyck Gezelschap van de Witte Beer binner der stadt van Brugge ... 621-1 788', fo. 9. See also a late fifteenth-century source in Lille: Rosny, L'Epervier, pp. 97-8.

9. SAB, 2I6: I333-4, fo. 95v; I337-8, fo. 100; I354-5, fo. I I 5v. io. SAB, 216: 1386-7, fos. 132, I33V; 1388-9, fo. i Iov.

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282 April



in I39I two members of the patriciate, Jan Osten and Jan Bouts, and their fellows, were paid 200 livres parisis for a joust and a feast later referred to as the 'White Bear'.1 The new, or revamped, fraternity may well have received an added boost from the local aristocracy when, in March 1392, John III of the Gruuthuse held a tournament in the Market

place of Bruges in which he pitted fifty of his men against fifty of the lord of Ghistel.2 The Gruuthuse family continued to be associated with the White Bear in the fifteenth century,3 but it was the civic authorities who made the greatest efforts to ensure its survival.4 Indeed, the 'foresters', or leaders, of the fraternity, were often selected as military captains of the town. One of the May songs, by Jan van Hulst, associated with the Gruuthuse in the early fifteenth century, describes a 'forester': he is hailed as the Lord of Bruges and entrusted, by a hermit, with a model of the town showing the walls and city gates, each labelled with special virtues, such as brotherhood, hope and power.5 Like the Holy Blood procession, the activities of the foresters provided an additional cordon of protection around the city. From about the same time more civic funds also began to be diverted to the shooting feasts of the crossbow guild. In 1389 a 'papagai' shooting was arranged for the visit of the Lord of Nevers; the guild was also sent to a competition at Lille. In 1394 the archers won the prize for the best costume at a contest in Tournai.6 By I390, their attendance at the Holy Blood procession had been made more pronounced: trumpeters began to be paid specifically to herald their progress. A new archery guild, the 'young archers', similarly heralded, also began to be paid to attend the procession.7

The Holy Blood festivities as a whole were blossoming too. The expenditure on the main procession day rose from around 200 livres parisis in the 1370s, and '8os (excluding the bleaker years of the Ghent war) to just under 400 livres in the I 390os, and to a figure nearer 5 00oo livres

i. SAB, 2I6: I390-I, fo. I09v; 1395-6, fo. 83v. Jan Osten was an echevin by I397 (SAB, 14, Wetsvernieuwingen, I397-I42I, fo. i); both he and Jan Bouts were treasurers in I399 (ibid., fo. i6).

2. SAB, 539, Handschriften, 3, fos. Iov-2IV. See M. Vale, War and Chivalry (London, I981), p. 84, and M. P. J. Martens, Lodewijck van Gruuthuse. Mecenas en europees diplomat c. I427-I492 (Bruges, 1992), pp. 89-92. The 'White Bear' looks very much like the old jousting society revamped rather than a completely new foundation by local aristocrats (as is sometimes suggested): see B. H. Erne, 'De Forestier van de Witte Beer in het Gruuthuse-handschrift', Tijdschrift voor nederlandse tall- en letterkunde, lxxxvii/2 (1972), 107-21.

3. Cf. theirinvolvement in tournaments in I443, I1446, I1448, I1472, I1483 (SAB: 539, Handschriften, 3, fo. 42v, 46; SAB, 2i6: I446-7, fo. 42v; I447-8, fo. 45; I472-3, fo. I27v; 1482-3, fos. 157v-8). See also a tournament in August I470, SAB, 216, 1469-70, fo. I I8.

4. For their efforts in 1418 see Nicolaes Despars, Cronycke van Vlaenderen ende graefscepe van Vlaenderen ... van de jaeren 1405-1492, ed. J. de Jonghe (Bruges, 1829-40), iii.248.

5. Oudvlamesche liederen en anderen gedichten der XIV' en XV' eeuwen (Ghent, I848-9), ii.479-88; see K. Heeroma, Liederen en gedichten uit het Gruuthuse-handschrift (Leiden, I966), pp.45-66; also Ern6, 'Forestier', 107-2I and K. Heeroma, 'Andermaal 'Die Blomkin van Brucghe', Tijdschrift voor Nederlandse Tall- en Letterkunde, lxxviii (i973), 216-35.

6. SAB, 216, i388-9, fo. 112; I393-4, fo. 69; I40o-I, fo. I04'.

7. Ibid., 1390-I, fo. I Iov. The earliest surviving rules of this guild, which seems to have been the junior partner of the guild of St George, are dated I435: SAB, 96 (i I) Groenenboek A, fo. 24.

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283 IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES I997




in the first decades of the fifteenth century.1 New spectacles were being introduced. Between 1396 and 1400, plays or tableaux vivants of the Twelve Apostles, Four Evangelists, the Annunciation, the Three Kings, King Herod and the city of Jerusalem began to be financed; guards were paid in 1398 to protect the tableaux from the press of people.2 By 4I4 the plays were costing the town some 70 livres, by 1419 over I 50 livres. The painters' guild began to be paid for their work on these scenes and on representations of the Tree of Jesse, 36 livres in 1400, 48 livres by I414. From 1386 onwards too, more musicians, trumpeters and pipers, were paid to accompany the Holy Blood cortege. An exclusive fraternity of the Holy Blood is first mentioned in 1406, when the city paid for a large iron grille placed before the relic in the chapel of St Basil.3 Finally in I4I9 the bishop of Tournai, no doubt after some civic

lobbying, elevated Holy Blood day to the rank of triple feast, and the

clergy of St Donatian's were prevailed upon to celebrate more elaborate services of vespers and matins on the day itself.4

Other rituals and celebrations associated with the civic authorities also began to develop. In I395 John de Waghenare endowed a foundation for the celebration of a Holy Ghost mass in St Donatian's on the

day of renewal of the magistracy (2 September).5 By 1428 Jan van Hulst had helped found a fraternity of the Holy Ghost (later one of the city's chambers of rhetoric) which became important in directing plays for the town.6 Indeed, Jan van Hulst's career is significant. He had already directed a Shrove Tuesday parody of a tournament in 394,7 composed songs for the Gruuthuse, and arranged plays for the Holy Blood procession in 1396. He was also paid by the city burghers in 14 Io for singing on behalf of the exclusive fraternity of the Dry Tree, in existence since 1396, and one which, too, became important as an organizer of public spectacles.8 Jan's career, then, encapsulates the connections between a

large number of civic festivities that were expanding from the end of the fourteenth century.

The growth in expenditure on all these festivities should be set in the context of the general state of city finances. The overall income of civic funds (rents, taxes on wine and beer forming the bulk of the receipts)

I. These figures exclude substantial payments for wax and wine which are difficult to calculate as

they are often included under the annual expenditure on these items. But it does seem that from 1385 onwards there was extra provision made for I20 torches (costing some I70 livres) carried in the

procession. 2. SAB, 216, 1395-6, fo. 83; 1396-7, fo. 90; I400/I fo. o05; 1397-8, fo. 95v. 3. SAB, 216, 1405-6, fo. I2Iv. I hope to discuss the membership of this guild elsewhere.

4. Bisschoppelijk Archief, Bruges (BAB): Acta Capituli Sint Donaas A5o, 1414-38, fos. 63, 64-65; SAB, 96 (I I) Groenenboek A, fos. 92v-93.

5. BAB, Acta Capituli Sint Donaas A49, I395-1414, fos. 9-I0. 6. For Jan van Hulst, see Hieroma, Liederen, pp. 58 f.; Strohm, Music, pp. 68-9. 7. SAB, 216, i394, fo. 77v. 8. SAB, 26: I396-7,f. 92; 140o-I I,fo. o7.;SAB, 505 (GildeDrogenboom);formembershipof this

guild see further on, and see R. Strohm. 'Muzikaal en artistiek beschermeerschap in het Brugse Ghilde vanden Droghen Boome', Biekorf, Ixxxiii (I983), 5- 8. Jan van Hulst also appears in 1426 as a member of another prestigious civic guild, the Holy Trinity: SAB, 96 (I I), Groenenboek A, fos. I66'-7.

EHR Apr. 97



was not increasing dramatically in the early fifteenth century. There had been a substantial increase after the Ghent war, during which income had slumped severely, and from 1385 to 1396, receipts averaged around 20,000 livres parisis more than the 65,ooo average of the I370S. The growth in expenditure on civic festivities in the decade or so after the Ghent war may reflect a general increase in available civic funds. But income in the first two decades of the fifteenth century was smaller, on

average only 6000 livres more than it had been in the I370s. After I405, and indeed for much of the fifteenth century, the city funds often ran at a deficit. Yet the amount spent on the Holy Blood festivities, in absolute terms and as a percentage of total incomes, was increasing.1 So too was the expenditure on civic festivities as a whole.2 Such investment may have been partly a reflection of an initial increase in available funds, but the continued expansion of festivities when civic receipts were not substantially increasing, may also indicate a shift in priorities. Such an increase, especially in the funding of the Holy Blood procession and of jousts, contrasts significantly with the experience of Ghent.3

Thus the early years of Valois rule saw a substantial increase in the civic funding of ritual: was this increase a threat to the dynastic interests of the counts? In many ways it did represent an extension of civic auton- omy. For what had also taken place by the end of the fourteenth century had been a further encroachment by the civic elite upon territory once exclusively under comital control. St Donatian's, formerly the count's collegiate church in the old castrum, was finding itself at the service of the town in new masses and foundations. St Basil's, once the comital chapel, was the site of the Holy Blood relic which, since at least the early fourteenth century, had become the symbol of civic liberties. By 1384, moreover, the town had begun building a new stadhuis in the very heart of the burg itself. The burg had become as much a civic space as a comital one.4

Moreover, the Valois dukes inherited pre-existing tensions between count and Flemish cities. In the fourteenth century dependence on English wool was one powerful reason why cities often resisted French

I. The following figures exclude expenditure on wine during the festivities (see supra, p. 286, n.i): money paid out for the Holy Blood procession accounts for about 0.2 per cent of total city income in the 1370os, 0.3 per cent in the i38os (after the Ghent war), 0.7 per cent in the I390s, o.8 per cent in the

I40os and I4 0os. Another substantial expense may have been the liveries and other perks for aldermen paid in the season of May, but the accounts do not make it clear if these expenses were directly linked to the Holy Blood procession. In Ghent the connection between the liveries and the Tournai procession appears to be more explicit: Nicholas, 'Burgundian Theater State', p. 288.

2. Figures for total expenditure on 'festivals' are again hard to calculate. If all expenditure on presents of wine, on wax, on uniforms and liveries, on the Holy Blood and other processions, on jousts, archery contests and entries of princes can be included, the amounts spent as percentage of civic receipts rose, on average, from to per cent in the 1370s to over 5 per cent in the early I40os.

3. Nicholas, 'Burgundian Theater State', pp. 271-95. 4. For a slightly different emphasis on this change, see the very helpful article by J. M. Murray, 'The

Liturgy of the Count's Advent in Bruges, from Galbert to Van Eyck', in City and Spectacle, ed. Hanawalt and Reyerson, pp. 137-52. He speaks of the burg becoming a 'ceremonial' space rather than,

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285 IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES I997




encroachments or armies, sometimes against the count.1 The victory at Courtrai in 1302 also confirmed a strong anti-French tendency in Flanders which continued after the accession of the Valois dukes of Burgundy to the county in 1384. The French origins of the Valois remained a source of suspicion. The Four Members of Flanders in- veighed in I398 against Philip the Bold's frequent absences from Flan- ders. John the Fearless initially took more care to ingratiate himself by promising to reside more often in the county, and although after No- vember 1407 he spent more time pursuing his ambitions in France, the need for money and men continued to make his attitude more placatory. For what the counts required from Flanders above all, especially when their dynastic interests became wider still, was financial aid. During most of the Burgundian period, such was the economic wealth of the county that it provided the dukes with more extraordinary revenue than any of their other territories.2 Notably it was John the Fearless, with his ambitions in Paris, who secured more aides from the Four Members of Flanders than his predecessors. In return for money the counts were continually required to respect the privileges of the county and the towns.

The Valois dukes of Burgundy were also each faced with serious uprisings within Bruges, which, as we shall see, had consequences for rituals within the city. John the Fearless found the city reluctant to contribute troops for his expeditions in France and for his effort to quell a rebellion at Liege in I407. An uprising occurred in 411I when a

disgruntled civic militia refused to enter the city gates until certain guild privileges were restored. In May 1437 John's successor, Philip, was faced with more personal danger. Once again a contingent of civic militia had seized the city and arrested citizens who had been civic officials. When Philip attempted a show of force he became trapped in a riot. Warned by one of the burgomasters, Morissis van Varsenare, that the people were in mutinous mood, he attempted to slip out of the city through the Bouverie gate only to find it barred, and in a skirmish outside the hospital of St Julian, from which Philip barely escaped, one of his most trusted captains, Jean de Villiers, lord l'Isle Adam, knight of the Golden Fleece, was killed.3

Bruges did not find itself in serious defiance of its count during the rest of Philip's reign, although a mass meeting was held in the Market

place in I45 I, during the Ghent war (I449-53), against ducal partisans. Under Charles the Bold, the example of the Duke's brutal treatment of

Liege in 1467 helped to cow the citizens of Bruges into subservience.

as here, a space encroached upon and appropriated by the town. It should also be noted that this encroachment had been taking place since at least the thirteenth century: see supra, p. 28 .

I. For the following details, except when indicated, see supra, p. 280, n. 6. 2. W. Prevenier, 'Financien en boekhouding in de Bourgondische periode. Nieuwe bronnen en

resultaten', Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis, lxxxii ( 969), 469-8 I. 3. Kronyk van Jan van Dixmude, in Receuil de chronique de Flandre, ed. J.-J. De Smet (Brussels,

I856), iii.55-8o.

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April 286



Resentments, however, spilled over after Charles's death at Nancy, and when his wife Mary died in 1482 the city of Ghent upheld the rights of her son Philip to the county against the claims of Mary's second husband, the Archduke Maximilian. Unusually, Ghent found itself allied to the king of France in resisting the Archduke's German troops, and the citizens of Bruges, although wary of Ghent, became alienated from Maximilian by his demands for subsidies and soldiers. When he tried to leave Bruges on 3 January 1488, he was stopped at the gates and spent the next three months in virtual imprisonment. His release was secured on I6 May by his oath (one swiftly broken) to renounce his regency of Flanders.1

The defiance of the Estates of Flanders, the rebellions of townsmen and the developing traditions of civic pride and privilege were thus potential barriers to princely ambitions. But it is essential to emphasize that there were cracks in these barriers. Flemish towns did not by any means always present a united patriotic front, and Bruges could resent Ghent's hegemonic ambitions. During the Ghent war of I379-85 Bruges was only reluctantly under the control of Ghent and was only partially involved in the civic army crushed by Louis de Male and the French at Westrozebeke in November 1382. On that occasion Bruges was spared a sacking through the intercession of the future Philip the Bold, the Valois heir to the county. Moreover, rebellions revealed divisions in Bruges within the patriciate and between the patriciate and guilds or lower groups in urban society: the counts were rarely pitted against the whole city. Rebellions were not by any means always an expression of 'civic pride' against comital oppression. To some extent the count could crush revolts and exploit these divisions; but there were other ways too in which the counts influenced and directed these forces and tensions.

One way was to ensure the perpetual commemoration of the counts' victories against rebels. In 1409 John the Fearless ordered the foundation of a service in Bruges to commemorate his victory (in which Bruges had helped) over his rebellious citizens of Liege on 23 September I408. A mass of Holy Ghost was to be celebrated on the Sunday before St Michael's day (29 September), not in the collegiate church of St Donatian, but in the parish church of St Giles. During mass two burgomasters were to offer candles, and distributions of bread, wine and meat were made to the poor on the Monday.2 The citizens of Bruges were to be perpetually reminded of their help in a victory won by their count against another city.3

I. R. Wellens, 'La Revolte Brugeoise de I488', Annales de la societe d'emulation de Bruges, cii (i966), 5-36.

2. SAB: 96 (4), Oude Wittenboek, fo. 94; 96 (i i), Groenenboek A, fos. I8v-I9. 3. A certain absence of urban solidarity was on display once more when Liege was sacked by Charles

the Bold in 1467: the Duke removed the perron, Liege's symbol of civic liberties, and the Bruges authorities actually paid for its transport and erection within their own city: SAB, 216, 1467-8, fos. 34, 67.

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287 I997 IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES




When the counts punished rebellions in Bruges, they were able to exploit urban divisions as well as reminding the whole city of its collective obligations of loyalty. Louis de Male's victory in 1382 (which released Flanders from 'Ghentish servitude'l) was commemorated by the foundation of a fraternity probably set up in the church of the friars minor at Bruges by I396.2 A later endowment in I452, partly founded

by the ducal courtier Jean de Wavrin, seems to have established an annual pilgrimage to Our Lady chapel of Westrozebeke, a pilgrimage attended by other Flemish towns with the notable exception of Ghent.3 The fraternity was sponsored particularly by the nobility and higher patriciate of the town: it was this social group that had tended to remain loyal to the Count in 1382. The processions, fraternity and pilgrimage commemorated a victory which had seen the Count in alliance with the college of St Donatian and the nobility of Bruges, once again against another city.

The uprising in May I437 and the death of Jean de Villiers were also commemorated as well as punished. Once more, not all the citizens had been involved in the rebellion: some like Morissis van Varsenare, burgo- master in I431 and bailli in 1436, had been killed supporting the Duke. The reconciliation between city and prince required a penitential commemoration. The town authorities were made to pay for the celebration of a daily mass for the soul of Jean de Villiers in St Donatian's church, and for another mass in the painters' chapel, housed in the Bouverie gate which had remained shut when the Duke had attempted to leave the city.4 The choice of chapel was perhaps intended to strike other reso- nances. It may have represented an intrusion, deliberate or not, by the Count into a gate that had become a symbol of the strength and

independence of the city: the Bouverie gate was also the point of entry and exit of the citizens' Holy Blood procession.

Ducal victories and needs were also advertised by other more immediate and transitory methods. On 28 September 1408, the town authorities

paid a friar four livres for delivering two sermons in a thanksgiving procession for Duke John's expedition against 'the rebels of Flanders', the Liegeois. In December 141I, a sermon was preached in a general procession to the Eekhout priory, and a mass was said in St Donatian's to give thanks for news of Duke John's success against the Armagnacs in Paris.5 These were the first occasions (mentioned in the city accounts) of 'general processions' in which relics were carried, usually by the collegiate clergy of St Donatian, at the request of the count's official, the ecouete, and of the burgomasters. The parading of relics in propitiatory

i. As a later chronicler in Bruges put it: Despars, Chronyke, iii.7I. 2. SAB, 5o9, (Gilde Roosebeke).

3. Strohm, Music, pp. 103-4. 4. SAB, 96 (II), Groenenboek A, fo. 326; Gilliodts, Inventaire, v.364-5. The expense appears

annually in all subsequent town accounts.

5. SAB, 2i6: I408-9, fos. 8v, 86; 141 1-2, fos. 97v, 99v (and a mass of the Holy Ghost for the

prince's success against his enemies in Paris, ibid., fo. 94v); see also 14I3-14, fos. 86, 9o.

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288 April



processions was a time-honoured custom,' but the appearance of these particular processions was very much associated with the counts' needs and ambitions.

Besides victories or military needs, these same processions could also be organized to celebrate the birth of an heir or a ducal marriage, to alert the townspeople to ducal crusading projets,2 or to ask for prayers when the dukes were ill.3 They were also used with growing frequency, particularly during Charles the Bold's rule and the decade or so after his death when Maximilian was attempting to assert his authority in Flan- ders.4 In the accounts of 1474-5, when, as we have seen, Duke Charles felt particularly vulnerable after the accord between England and France, twenty-two processions were organised. In I485, at a delicate point in relations between Maximilian and Bruges, the city paid not just for eight general processions but also for an unprecedented 59 sermons preached between February to May.5 The general procession, then, was a flexible ceremony that could serve the needs and ambitions of the counts.

As well as founding new ceremonies, the Burgundian dukes could also tap into older civic traditions in which the counts of Flanders had been involved. The college of St Donatian as the old castral church, despite the growing use made of it by the citizens, remained a source of comital influence, not least because the counts retained extensive rights of collation to its prebends. The college could often be loyal to the count in times of crisis: after Louis de Male's victory in 1382 it arranged celebrations and thanksgiving processions.6 The use of the collegiate clergy in the general processions was an extension of this traditional link. Indeed, the preferred destination of these processions was to and from the collegiate church itself; the route most often chosen was, perhaps significantly, around the old burg, the heart of former comital power, or just outside it as far as the line of the old twelfth-century walls. General processions never went as far as the second walling which was the territory of the Holy Blood procession, the symbol of essen- tially civic pride rather than comital authority. It is also significant that the relics most often paraded on these processions were ones with which the counts were particularly associated. The relics of the Holy Cross and of SS Basil, Boniface and Donatian had all been given to the collegiate

I. In 1127 the clergy of St Donatian can be found processing with relics to encourage peace and reconciliation: Galbert, Murder, 44.

2. 1458-9 (when the king of Portugal was journeying against the Saracens): Gilliodts, Inventaire, v.446-7, 508-9.

3. Gilliodts, Inventaire, v.434-5; SAB, 216, Sept. 1474 to Sept. 1475. 4. The town accounts show that the average number of general processions per year rose from 3 or 4

a year from c. I420-50, to 7 in the I45os, 9 in the I46os, I I in the 1470s, i 1 in the I48os, before slowly dropping to 9 in the 149os, 8 in the I5oos and 3 in the Isios.

5- SAB, 216, Sept. I484 to Sept. 1485. 6. Strohm, Music, pp. 68, 103-4; SAB, MS 436, Cronike van Vlanderen, fos. I49g-50.

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289 I997 IN TH)-E LAT~ER MIDDLE AGES




church by former counts: these were paraded far more frequently than the relics of other city churches.1

Other civic festivities also bore the mark of courtly influence. Tour- naments in the city, before the advent of the Valois dukes, had been more lavishly celebrated when the counts visited the city: Philip the Bold and his successors continued comital traditions.2 The revival of the tourneying society under the name of the White Bear in the I39os had special associations with the legendary history of the counts. Chronicles of Flanders put the origins of the county back to the sixth century when Liederic de Buc, the son of a Frankish nobleman, was raised by a hermit and grew up to defeat the giant who had killed his father. From his family came the first counts of Flanders: the first count, Baldwin 'Iron Arm', earned the title 'forester' for supposedly clearing Flemish forests of savage polar bears.3 The customary celebrations of the White Bear may also have struck chords with other comital traditions. On the eve of the May tournament, the fraternity would gather at the Eekhout priory: the priory was founded in I 130 when a group, calling itself the 'poor of Christ', had been given land by the count.4 Occasionally, the fraternity celebrated mass in the town church of St Christopher5 which also had special connections with the count: this was the church to which the uncorrupted body of the martyred Charles the Good had been brought in I 127, after seven weeks of burial, for further funeral rites.6

The revival of tournaments in the i39os can also be linked to the new Valois counts. The city had already begun to spend more on jousting, but on Shrove Tuesday of 1394, after Duke Philip had entered the city, the outlay on the tournament was heavier still. A courtly atmosphere pervaded these celebrations: a falcon was awarded to the best knight; the 'forester' and his fellows were paid for gathering maidens to attend the tournament and the banquet. The total costs were over 170 livres in a financial year that also paid out the 200 livres for the activities of the

I. The city accounts do not always reveal which relics were carried on general processions: later sources are more forthcoming. From 1470 to 1491 the relics mentioned above were carried in more than 70 per cent of the 90o general processions recorded in the chronicle Het boeck van al 't gene datter geschiet es binnen Brugge sichent Jaer 1477, 14 Februarii, tot 1491, ed. C. Carton (Ghent, I859); from I490 to 1530, they were carried in 46 per cent of the 92 processions ordered in the Hallegeboden (SAB, I20, i-iv) and the Holy Sacrament in St Donatian was carried in a further 39 per cent.

2. During Lent in I364 the city entertained the Count as well as the duke of Berry and the King of Cyprus in some style: SAB, 216, 1363-4, fos. 50, 97-97V, 99-I100.

3. Kronyk van Vlanderen van 58o tot 1467, eds. C. P. Serrure and P. Brolmmaert (Ghent, I839), i. I -9; H. Demarest, Bertje van Brugge 't beertje van de Loge (Bruges, 1973), pp. io-I I; Beschreving van den oorsprong van de ridderlyke steekspelen en van het ridderlyck gezelschap van de Witte Beer binner der stadt van Brugge ... 621-1788, SAB, 539, Handschriften 3, fos. 4-10.

4. Here again the connection of counts with hermits was strengthened: the community claimed to be followers of one Everelmus who had taken up the eremitical life: Ryckhaert, Brugge, p. I65.

5. In 1483 when a singing mass was held in St George's chapel inside the church on the day of the 'vespereye': SAB, 216, 1482/3, fo. I6Iv. In the tournament organized to celebrate the wedding of Charles the Bold and Margaret of York in May 1468, one of the two golden gates to mark the entrance to the tournament was set up by St Christopher's church: Jehan de Haynin, Memoires, 1465-77, ed. D. D. Brouwers (Leie, 1905-6), ii.35-40.

6. Galbert, Murder, c. 77 and 78 (pp. 247-8), and see c. 23 (p. 141).

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April 290



White Bear.1 The feasting and dancing with ladies (mentioned once

again in the accounts of I4082 and from then on more regularly) encouraged an atmosphere of courtly love which the Duke was busy cultivating, noticeably in the 'cour d'amour' arranged in I40I.3 The

participation of the Duke at these chivalrous gatherings was eagerly sought. In 1409 the town paid the forester, Jorisse van den Ecke, to

petition Duke Philip, then at a tournament in Ghent, to attend the feast of the White Bear in Bruges.4 Later on, ducal courtiers often desported themselves at the May jousts: Jean de la Tremouille and the Count of St Pol (later knights of the Golden Fleece) won prizes in 1421, Jean de Villiers (murdered by townspeople in I437) in I429. In the I45os, '6os and '70s, Anthony, the 'grand bastard' of Burgundy, was often in attendance. Moreover, membership of the jousting fraternity was ap- parently drawn from the civic patriciate and nobility who often had close connections with the count: Jacop Breydel, involved in the efforts to re-establish the fraternity in I4I8, had supported the prince against the mutinous militia in 141I; Morissis van Varsenare, killed for his

support of Philip the Good in 1437, had taken part in the jousts of I434.5 The fraternity of the White Bear, with its courtly connections, was a natural source of support to which the counts could turn - not least

against rebels within Bruges itself. Other guilds in the town were intertwined with the ducal court. The

festivities of the crossbow guilds were drawn into princely celebrations:

Philip the Bold was present at a 'papagai' shooting in February 1394.6 The founding member of the Holy Ghost fraternity, Jan van Hulst, had connections with the town, with the Gruuthuse family but also with the ducal household. As well as directing a play for the Holy Blood procession in 1396, he had also directed plays for Duchess Margaret in 1394. Moreover, his payment for singing on behalf of the Dry Tree fraternity in I4I0 was for the benefit of the Duke.7 In fact the Dry Tree fraternity enjoyed strong connections with the court and courtiers who, judging from later membership lists, made up an important element of the guild, along with other nobility, leading patricians and some of the town's foreign merchants. Philip the Good himself was a member. Such was the fraternity's connection with the ducal court that a tradition emerged linking its foundation to a pilgrimage made by Duke Philip to Our Lady

i. SAB, 216, I393-4, fo. 64. 2. Ibid., I407-8, fo. Ioov.

3. Strohm, Music, p. Ioo. For the immense expense that the city went to when Duke Philip entered the city in I398, see SAB, I397-8, fos. 9Iv-94v, and Gilliodts, Inventaire, iii.398-9.

4. SAB, 216, I408-9, fo. 99v. In 1416 ladies and maidens were required to watch a joust ordered by the Count of Charolais: ibid., 141 5-i6, fo. I04V.

5. See SAB, 539, Handschriften, 3, passim. For the involvement of the Gruuthuse family see supra, p.285.

6. SAB, 216, 1393-4, fo. 64. The archers of Bruges were needed shortly afterwards for a ducal expedition against the Zeelanders: ibid., I400-1, fo. 95.

7. See supra, p. 286.

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I997 IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 29I




of Hal as thanks for a victory in i422.1 Both the Holy Ghost and Dry Tree guilds, furthermore, had responsibilities in the organisation of

spectacles, especially when the dukes entered the city.2 Thus there was considerable ducal involvement in festivities paid for

by the city: the expansion of festivities from the end of the fourteenth

century was not a purely 'civic' phenomenon. Moreover, we also find the counts involved in rituals that had become symbols of civic independence. The Holy Blood procession and relic may have been a focus of civic pride, but it could still be harnessed by the counts. Occasionally, when they were in Bruges, the counts could process near the Holy Blood itself,3 but their presence was represented every year by proxy, from at least the I330s, by the count's officials, the ecoutete and bailli.4 More important, the relic seems to have acquired associations with the count. A tradition, first recorded in the later fourteenth century by a monk at the abbey of St Bertin (Saint-Omer), claimed that the Holy Blood had been brought back to Bruges by Count Thierry d'Alsace after the Second Crusade in the mid-twelfth century. The relic was housed in the chapel of St Basil in the burg, which Thierry had indeed built.5 So

although the relic became a symbol of civic pride, it had also become associated with the crusading past of the counts.

In 1465, according to Nicolaes Despars, a general procession took

place to celebrate the 'victory' of the Count of Charolais, the future Charles the Bold, against the French at Montlhery: in it the Holy Blood was carried for the first time.6 From I470 onwards the relic began to be used in this manner more frequently.7 The occasions for its use are

significant: more often than not it was employed in celebrations or

prayers for a comital victory against the French. On Mary Magdalen day in 1472, for instance, the relic was carried to the convent of St Clare in

support of the prince in his war against the King of France. The relic was

similarly paraded as late as 1525 on the occasion of Charles V's victory at

I. For references see supra, p. 286, n. 8. 2. J. Van Mierlo, Geschiedenis van de oud- en middelnederlandsche letterkunde (Antwerp, 1928),

pp. 324, 338. Anthony de Roovere, of the Dry Tree fraternity and one of the organizers of Charles the

Bold's wedding spectacles, was regularly paid an additional emolument by the city at the special request of the Duke: e.g. SAB, 216, 1469-70, fo. I I2.

3. 1405: SAB, 216, I404-5, fo. 103 (a messenger was sent to Sluis to invite the Duke to the

procession). See also 1470 when the city paid to transport Duke Charles from Sluis to Bruges for the

procession: ibid., 1469-70, fo. I 5.

4. SAB, 216, 1332-3, fo. i02.

5. Huyghebaert, 'Iperius', Io-87. The tradition is not mentioned, however, in all contemporary chronicles. Compare also with Fumes, where a similar procession on 3 May carried a piece of the True

Cross later believed to have been brought back from the Holy Land by Count Robert II of Jerusalem: A. van de Welde, 'Histoire de la procession de Fumes', Annales de la societe d'emulation de Bruges, x

(I885-6), I43-228. 6. Despars, Cronyke, iii. 68. The earliest reference in the city accounts to this use of the relic is in

1471 (SAB, 216, 1470-I, fo. 122).

7. In the I470S it was used nine times, in the I480s seven times, in the I49os (I490 and 1491), twice:

SAB, 2 6; Archief van het Heiligbloed, H. Bloedbasiliek, Brugge, i8; SAB, 120, Hallegeboden.

EHR Apr. 97



Pavia against Francis I.1 Such a use of the relic represented a neat dovetailing of the needs and traditions of both count and city. For the townspeople, the relic and procession had acquired anti-French associations in their defence of civic liberties against royal encroachment in the early fourteenth century.2 It served the counts' ambitions equally well to have this particular relic, with which they too had developed 'traditional' associations, paraded at times when they needed support against the king of France. Charles the Bold's extended use of the relic also shows a skill in the handling of civic traditions with which he is not usually credited.3

Nevertheless, the exploitation of civic traditions and festivities had its limits. The Holy Blood procession remained firmly linked to the protection of civic liberties, and although the relic began to be used by the Burgundian dukes in general processions, its use could only be effective when ducal needs (particularly in campaigns against the French king) merged with civic inclinations. After I49 , when hostilities between the Habsburgs and Valois were scaled down, the relic was used far less.4 The main Holy Blood procession on 3 May continued to mark civic needs, and its route around the city walls was never appropriated by the general processions when organized to advertise princely concerns. Other ceremonies, likewise, were not always adaptable to princely needs. General processions may have been stimulated by the political requirements of the Burgundian dukes but they also catered to civic ends. They might ward off natural disasters: in September I422 a friar was paid to preach in a procession to protect the city against plague. The canons of St Dona- tian could be asked by the civic authorities to process, as in October I488, shortly after the troubled period of Maximilian's captivity, so that 'unanimity' might be restored within the city.5 General processions were made to serve civic as much as princely needs.

There was a limit, furthermore, to the ability of counts to exploit the city's fraternities. The jousting fraternity of the White Bear might have included nobles and members of the patriciate who had close connections with the ducal court, but in certain circumstances the identification of fraternity with court was unhelpful. Although the fraternity could be seen as protectors of civic liberties, its courtly links sometimes alienated

I. Bruges, Archief van het Heilig Bloed, 18 'Rekeningen', fos. 13v, 48; Het boeck, Carton, 12; SAB 216: 1461-2, fo. 122; 1478-9, fos. I7Iv, 177, 178v; SAB, 120, Hallegeboden, iii (I 5 I13-30), fos. 419-19v.

2. One pro-French chronicler at the abbey of St Martin of Tournai, writing in 1348, claimed that Bruges' treachery against the French in May 1302 had caused the Holy Blood relic's miracle of liquefaction to cease: Gilles li Muisis, Chronique, ed. H. Lemaitre (Paris, I9o5), p. 65.

3. For the other view of Charles the Bold, see Vaughan, Charles the Bold, p. 40. 4. For 1491, see Archief van het Heilig Bloed, Bruges, 18: Rekeningen 1469-1 5 I6, fo. 96; Het Boek,

ed. Carton, p. 437. It was paraded in a general procession in 1505 (in prayers for the prince in his war in Guelders), but was not used again until 1519: Archief van het Heilig Bloed, 18, Rekeningen, fo. 165; SAB, 120, Hallegeboden iii, (1513-30), fo. 175v.

5. SAB, 2i6, I422-3, fo. 72; BAB, A56, Acta Capituli, I1483-92, fo. 170. For a procession to mark the

attempted clearance of the city's silted-up canal to Sluis in 1505, see SAB, I20, Hallegeboden, ii, (0 503-I3), fo. 55. -

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other townspeople. Morissis van Varsenare's assistance of Philip the Good in I437 was clearly seen as a betrayal of certain civic interests: he was killed because 'he worked with the prince to keep down the common people of Bruges.'l Moreover, the eventual disappearance of the White Bear fraternity can partly be explained by its loyalty to the prince.2 In 1487 Aernoud Breydel was elected forester, and then to one of the two city colleges of magistrates. But in the new elections of February I488, after a radical town government had imprisoned Maxi- milian in Bruges, his name disappears from the lists.3 Instead of supporting the city government, he had taken up arms, pillaging the surrounding countryside in support of the duke with a group that included Charles van Halewijn, lord of Utrecht, and Pieter Metteneye, both of whom had been involved with the White Bear.4 For his 'abominable and execrable abuses', Aernoud was put to a 'shameful death' by the city in the

following year.5 The incident seems to have finished the guild. The last

joust of the White Bear was in 1487, and although the occasional tournament was staged to please passing dignitaries,6 the jousting fra-

ternity was not revived. Its close identification with the prince, at a time when the city had been in rebellion against him, had perhaps ensured its demise.

The ceremonial relationship between Bruges and the count was thrown into its sharpest relief whenever the ruler entered the city, particularly for the first time. The 'Joyeuses Entrees' (Blijden Inkomsten) reveal the traditions that bound city to count and the ways in which they were used, as well as the changes and limitations of their use. For the counts

they offered an arena to display authority and stimulate loyalty: even

though the tableaux that attended the ruler's progress were orchestrated and paid for by the citizens, they could mirror and flatter princely ambition. Flemish towns might strive to outstrip each other in displays of loyalty.7 The ruler's arrival was the advent of a saviour, but the theme of Advent could be played out in a variety of ways. Dr James Murray has clearly shown how Philip the Bold's Entry in 1384, to mark the arrival of the new dynasty, was presented as the coming of Christ and

I. Kronyk van Jan van Dixmude, iii.76. 2. The fraternity also faced financial difficulties like the Epinette of Lille: Rosny, L'Epervier d'or,

pp. 46-55. I hope to develop this point elsewhere.

3. SAB, 216, 1486-7 fo. I6I; SAB, I I4, Wetswernieuwingen I468-I 500, fos. I65v, I72.

4. The links of Charles van Halewijn and Pieter Metteneye to the White Bear can be traced back to

1468: SAB, 539, Handschriften 3, Beschryvyng, fos. 53-53v. In 1470 Charles van Halewijn was sent to a tournament at Lille: SAB, 216, 1469-70, fo. I 13.

5. Despars, Chronyke, iv.433; Stadsbibliotheek, Bruges, Handschriftens, 574, J. P. Van Maele,

Beschryvinge van Brugge, p. 104; SAB, 539, Handschriften 3, Beschryvyng, 58V-59. 6. Cf. 1497, when a tournament was put on for the prince's entry to the city: SAB, 216, 1496-7, fo.

I20V-21.

7. Remi de Puys, commenting on Charles V's tour around Flanders in 1515, wrote that the cities were anxious to outdo each other in their displays, 'fearing their affection for the prince might be deemed inferior': Remi de Puys, La tryumphante entree de Charles prince des Espagnes en Bruges I5 15,

ed. S. Anglo (Amsterdam, I973) [unfoliated].

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the descent of the Holy Spirit.1 In 1440 Philip the Good entered after the citizens had been pardoned for their murderous behaviour in I437: over a thousand citizens knelt bareheaded outside the city gates at the Duke's approach. The theme of Advent was combined with the theme of forgiveness in the 'living pictures' that attended the ducal cortege through the streets of Bruges: one of them (so a Bruges chronicler wrote) linked the story of Esther with the intercession of the Duchess Isabella for her people.2 When Maximilian entered Bruges in August I477, it was not to assert his authority after a rebellion but to ensure support for the prosecution of his claims to the county. The threat posed by the king of France was a theme taken up by the Entry tableaux. One stage showed people dressed as Romans receiving Julius Caesar after his conquest of Gaul: an inscription beneath read 'Glorious prince, defend us so that we shall not die'.3 Once again the ambitions of the prince could marry well with anti-French traditions of the city.

Entries also demonstrated the common ties that bound city to count. The description of Charles V's entry into Bruges in 1515 by Remi du Puy, the official recorder of the event - and in particular of the eleven scenes organized by the civic authorities and guilds - highlights how far civic traditions could be merged with those of the count.4 The first pageant to confront Charles V linked the biblical Joshua distributing lands amongst the elders of Israel with the story of Liederic, the first forester and founder of the comital line, dividing up Flanders between his heirs. The citizens of Bruges were the chosen people, Remi explains, whose fortunes were to be restored by a new Messiah. The second pageant was a representation of the portals of St Donatian: inside, the ark of the covenant, brought by David into Jerusalem, was twinned with the presentation by Baldwin 'Iron Arm', the traditional founder of Bruges, of relics of St Donatian to the city. The third tableau made specific reference to the 'traditional' and fruitful connection between the counts and the Holy Blood. Thierry d'Alsace was offered the Holy Blood relic by the Patriarch of Jerusalem: the count and the city, Remi announces, were ennobled by this act. The dependence of the city and civic traditions on the count was amply illustrated.

Nevertheless, Entry ceremonies were hardly exercises in obsequi- ousness. They might flatter the count only to deceive. The citizens'

i. Philip swore his oath in St Donatian's church on a gospel open at John I2:26, in which the Pentecost is predicted: Murray, 'Liturgy', pp. 137-52.

2. See SAB, MS 436, Chronike van Vlaenderen 480-1467, fos. 2o8v-I4. 3. 0. Delepierre, Chronique de I'abbaye de St Andre (1839), pp. 113-6 (from the Excellente

Chronike van Vlaenderen); for the Entry of 1486: Het boeck van al 't gene datter geschiet es binnen Brugge sichentJaer I477, I4 Februarii, tot I49, ed. C. Carton (Ghent, 8 59), pp. I I6-28. H. Soly does not seem to include these events as 'triumphal march pasts': he argues that none took place in Flemish towns from 1473 to 1492 because of the general 'weakening of monarchy': (H. Soly, 'Plechtige intochten in de steden van de Zuidelijke Nederlanden tijdens de overgang van middeleeuwen naar Nieuwe Tijd: communicatie, propaganda, spektakel', Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis, xcvii (I984), 345.

4. For the following, see de Puys, La tryumphante entree; also SAB, 12o, Hallegeboden, iii (i 513- 30), fos. 47-53; and see Soly, 'Plechtige', 346-7.

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obedience to comital authority was displayed, but obedience, so it was also implied, was a contractual arrangement played out by the swearing of oaths. Procedural changes in oath-taking by the fifteenth century suggest that the citizens had consciously made this part of the entry ceremony more significant. In I I27 Count William had been escorted to the 'usual field', where he swore over saints' relics to preserve the liberties of St Donatian and citizens; he later entered the church of St Donatian to make an offering on the High Altar.1 By 1384, and in subsequent entries, the oath to preserve the citizens' liberties had assumed a more prominent and distinctive position. The involvement of the canons was held back: it was the citizens who tended to greet the count first. The canons met the count at the west gate entrance of the burg a day or two after he had actually entered the city. After making the traditional offering at the high altar and the oath to protect collegiate liberties, the count swore his oath to the citizens in the burg or sometimes from the windows of the scepenhuis in the adjoining Markt.2

The city asserted its political position by reminding the prince of his special duties to the city. On the one hand, he had obligations to a Holy City: if the count was the saviour, then he was entering the city of Jerusalem. In 1440 one stage was set up depicting Bruges as the Heavenly city, and the city pageants of I 515 presented Bruges, Remi explained more than once, as a second Jerusalem.3 On the other hand, the prince as count owed obligations to a city of Flanders. Particularly from the time of Charles the Bold onwards, Entry ceremonies also reminded the prince that despite all his other titles, whether duke of Burgundy or even Emperor, to the citizens he was still a count of Flanders. From this title alone came his right to rule. Under Charles the Bold and in the Habs- burg era, the city went to some expense in displaying the arms of Flanders on triumphal arches or city gates. In April 1468 Charles and Margaret of York passed through a triumphal arch at the end of the Breydelstrate on which the arms of England, Brabant, Luxembourg, Aquitaine and Normandy were represented: more prominent than these was the black lion and standard of Flanders.4

The civic authorities made their most explicit statement of comital traditions and duties in the Entry ceremonies of I 5 I.5 The city was

I. Galbert, Murder, c. 55 (p. 501), c. 8i (p. 250o); and see 1128 c. 102 and 103 (pp. 278, 280).

2. See, for instance, Philip the Bold's entry in 1 384 and Charles V's in I 55: BAB: Acta Capituli: A48, fo. I I i; A 3 fos. 136v-7. For the oath sworn by Charles the Bold in 1468, Despars, Chronyke, iv. 7; or

by Maximilian in 1477, when a special stage was set up in the Markt the day after his entry procession: Delepierre, Chronique, p. I 6; SAB, 216, I476-7, fo. 129.

3. SAB, MS436 Chronike, fo. 213. See also 1468, Despars, Chronyke, iv.273. In 1486 too, the theme

of the city pageants was to welcome the anointed king to Jerusalem: Het boeck, ed. Carton, pp. I 6-27.

4. Despars, Chronyke, iv.28. The town accounts show payments also for painting arms with

crowned 'V's (Vlaanderen) on them when the dowager princess came to the city in June, SAB, 216,

I467-8 fo. 73. For similar expenses in 1477 see SAB, 216, I1476-7, fo. 142v; and for 1486, Het boeck, ed.

Carton, p. 116; SAB, 216, 1486-7, fo. 153. 5. For the following, see De Puys, La tryumphante entree, passim, and S. Anglo's useful

introduction.

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intent upon flattering, but also manipulating, the young Charles V. Bruges had begun to feel the onset of an economic decline: the whole

entry ceremony was designed, according to Remi de Puys, to show the city's search for a saviour to restore prosperity. It did not, however, reflect the concerns of the city alone. The tableaux organized by the citizens contrast strikingly with those arranged by the foreign merchants which were much more flattering to the wider ambitions of the Habsburg dynasty. The Spaniards' showed an imperial Charles about to deliver Jerusalem from the infidel: Jerusalem, this time, was not associated with Bruges. The Hanseatic League's likened the foreign conquests of the Emperor to the feats of Alexander: the young would-be con- queror was shown mounted on Bucephalus, urged by his father to seek other kingdoms because his own was too small.

The civic authorities, however, had not intended to encourage their ruler's ambitions. Remi de Puys, paid by the city to write up the event in French probably for the benefit of the prince Charles,1 played down any expansionist implications. When commenting on the Hanseatic pageant, he pleads with the reader to conclude that the father was exhorting his son not to search for foreign kingdoms but to keep those that he had. The eleven scenes organized by the civic authorities, moreover, went to some lengths to emphasise Charles's position as count. They described the history of the counts and their relationship with Bruges from the legendary days of Liederic to the four Valois dukes of Burgundy. Philip the Good and Charles the Bold were identified in the eighth scene as ruling during Bruges' Golden Age. The figures of Maximilian and Philip the Fair were omitted from the next two scenes depicting the Age of Silver and the Age of Iron, in which the fortunes of Bruges had become severely depleted, but the message was obvious: Charles's immediate family predecessors had let the fortunes of Bruges slip and it was his duty as count to revive them. The whole sequence firmly cast Charles, although a Habsburg ruler of many lands, in the role of count of Flanders, and implied that there were sacred duties against which his rule would be measured.

In common with many other towns, but perhaps more lavishly than most, Bruges developed festivities in the later Middle Ages that glorified its urban traditions. Chivalric displays, civic fraternities and processions, continually replayed and reworked secular and sacred images of the city, portrayed as a harbour of liberties and as a second Jerusalem. Within and around the city walls, the Holy Blood procession protected civic independence. There was much that was 'urban' and 'Flemish' about civic ritual in Bruges. Moreover, expenditure on civic events was increasing, especially in the later fourteenth century - in marked contrast with Ghent. There, the authorities were spending less on civic

I. SAB, 216, 1514-I5, fo. I27.

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events between 1384 and I420 than before. Chivalric tournaments were not conducted as frequently and the two most important annual processions did not symbolically tread the boundaries of the city walls, but journeyed outside the city to the monastery of St Baafs and to the procession of Our Lady at Tournai. Perhaps the Ghent authorities, the Three Members, 'felt secure in their control and did not need to use spectacles as a means of social control'.1 But the civic government of Bruges, likewise, although more dominated by an elite patriciate, did not suffer any serious threat after 1382, apart from short-lived uprisings in 1407 and I436. The willingness to devote more civic funds to festivities looks like the result less of an oligarchy's insecurity than of a confidence in the stability and wealth of a city which was generally less prone to social tensions than Ghent.

The key to the difference between rituals in Ghent and Bruges may well have lain in the relationship of these cities with the ruling counts of Flanders. As Nicholas writes, Ghent's frequent stance against the count adversely affected its development of ceremonies. The patriciate of Bruges, however, were always more natural allies of the count: after the city had made amends in 1384 for its partial support for Ghent's rebellion, the ties of patriciate and nobility with the new Burgundian rulers flowered within the ritual context of new guilds and processions. The links between Burgundian dukes and Bruges prompted a flourish- ing of festivals within the city in a way that did not happen at Ghent. The ambitions of the dukes, and their need of money and men (especially under Duke John) encouraged them to promote ceremonial ties with the city. As counts of Flanders, moreover, the Burgundian dukes were able to draw upon traditions with which the citizens could identify. The origins of the city, or the myths and activities of the White Bear, could be linked with the legendary exploits of former counts. The church of St Donatian, originally founded by the counts, in some respects remained a

repository of dynastic tradition. Some ceremonies initiated by the city could also be linked with a comital past. The Holy Blood procession paraded a relic that became associated with the crusading ventures of

twelfth-century counts. All these traditions could be brought out in the tableaux of Entry ceremonies when the counts weaved their way through city streets to their church of St Donatian.

The traditional links between the counts and citizens, continually brought out in ceremonies, were no doubt useful tools for rulers of Flanders in the politics of persuasion. They might help to keep Bruges loyal. But the problem for the Valois dukes, and their Habsburg successors, was that their dynastic interests could often diverge from those of Flemish towns. The resulting tensions were also played out at the level of ritual. The rulers attempted to mould local urban festivities, even the Holy Blood procession, to serve their wider needs. They encouraged

i. Nicholas, 'Theater State', p. 290.

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ceremonies, like the general processions, which sought to nurture in the townspeople a sense of loyalty to the expanding interests of the dynasty. They initiated special celebrations that commemorated their triumphs over external enemies and over rebels within the city itself. Since the Burgundian dukes and the Habsburgs were not, first and foremost, counts of Flanders, they had to try harder to persuade cities like Bruges of their Flemish credentials.1 But there was a limit to the manipulation of civic ritual: the Holy Blood procession, although tampered with, remained a powerful symbol of civic independence; the Entry ceremony of I 5 I 5 revealed the civic authorities to be far less in tune with the wider ambitions of the Habsburg ruler than the communities of foreign merchants.

The promotion of ceremonies and ritual, as it has often been said, is undoubtedly intended to create consensus or communal stability; processions can be designed to present suitably ideal visions of social ordering. But ritual can also reveal and even create tensions. On the one hand, some of the celebrations or anniversaries initiated by Burgundian dukes played upon potential divisions within the city, between the commonalty and the patriciate or college of St Donatian, between the native burghers and foreign merchants, or between Bruges and other cities. It is important to recognise that citizens were by no means united against the count. On the other hand, some ceremonies highlighted tensions in the relationship between counts and city as a whole. The growing number of festivities within Bruges in which the rulers of Flanders were involved is perhaps a measure less of their control than of their insecurity, or at least of their concern to compete with the expansion of festivities funded by the citizens. The larger number of general processions initiated by Charles the Bold and then his Habsburg successor reflects their political troubles, not their political confidence. The Entry of I515 brought out a paradox. It highlighted, in a manner more systematic than any previous Entry, the traditional links between city and count; but the very insistence on those links exposed the gap that had opened up between the two.

University of Edinburgh ANDREW BROWN

i. Compare the experience of the new dukes of Guelders with their towns during the same period: G. Nijsten, 'The Duke and His Towns. The Power of Ceremonies, Feasts, and Public Amusement in the Duchy of Guelders (East Netherlands) in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries', in City and Spectacle, ed. Hanawalt and Reyerson, pp. 235-70.

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Civic Ritual: Bruges and the Counts of Flanders in the Later Middle Ages

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