Changes in sovereignty concepts of cities of trade and the impact on diplomatic relations (Low Countries, xvth-xvith centuries)
p. 83-98
Note de l’auteur
This chapter was written with the support of the European Research Council (ERC Consolidator Grant CaPANES, nr 101044356).
Texte intégral
I. Introduction: the sovereignty of cities
1Over the past decade, political scientists and international lawyers have paid more attention to the international relations, diplomacy and legal status of cities. For a long time, the emphasis of historical arguments found in studies of the mentioned disciplines was on the emergence and the historical characteristics of states. As a result, cities were only envisaged as being important when it came to city-states.1 Nowadays, the question of the legal position of cities has become more important, especially with regard to metropolises and so-called global cities. Major cities in the world are facing challenges that come together with globalization, such as climate change, migration and international crime. However, they often lack the legal power to address these issues, since they are part of a state that monopolizes most of the relevant competences.2 Therefore, the history of cities, and in particular of their connections and interactions to states, has attracted new interest. The old idea that cities are imbued with a culture of freedom, which can transpire into legal autonomy,3 has been revived, yet also challenged.4 Many studies now delve into urban republicanism.5 However, legal historians have for a large part not contributed to the emerging trends.6 In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, many aspects that have become relevant again were discussed among medieval historians who studied the origins and institutions of medieval cities; legal historians were involved as well.7 This older literature needs to be revalued, in combination with legal-historical examination of diplomatic and urban sources. In this contribution I will underpin this argument with references to the Low Countries, in particular to the cities of Bruges and Antwerp. In the course of the later fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the notions libertas, respublica and emporium were becoming more prominent in the discourse of urban administrators. Contrary to what has commonly been thought, these was not mere literary references or rhetoric. There were clear political and legal changes going on in the governance constellations of these cities. In relation to the princely authorities, there was a more independent stance, which resulted in independent actions.
II. Medieval notions to describe the sovereignty of cities
2In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, for the Low Countries the polities of cities were defined with many different terms. The concepts of villa or civitas existed, depicting a territory and entity, in close combination with the notion of communitas, which had the connotation of a closed group of inhabitants, even citizens.8 Since the twelfth century communitas was mentioned in phrases such as “magistratus et communitas”9 or “scabini et communitas”,10 which referred to the legitimation of the power of the administrators of cities as rooted in the people. For the county of Flanders, these expressions have sometimes been considered as indications, even legal expressions, of popular sovereignty, that is as referring to the Digna vox-principle or even a ius resistendi, but over the years these qualifications became more nuanced.11 In the fourteenth century a “council” was often mentioned in combination with the urban scabini. This could refer to the populace of the city, or to a select group of representatives of corporations, which assisted the city government.12 As was the case with communitas, the idea behind the additional support from councilors was caused by a search for popular legitimacy of the urban government.
3Libertas was another legal concept that was used, bringing with it a whole different set of meanings. For example, in 1221 the city of Antwerp received a charter of communal rights from the Duke of Brabant, which stipulated that the Duke gave back to the city its “old freedom”.13 In the early thirteenth century diplomas were handed out by the Duke granting “libertas, quod est immunitas” to communities of villages and cities.14 This formula had been borrowed from canon law and referred to protection against impositions of force and taxations. Moreover, the term of “libertas” was intermingled with “libertates”, which were synonyms of consuetudines, unwritten customs.15 The mentioned granting of libertas then had the meaning of giving sovereignty in combination with a pledge of respect from the prince for the local laws and traditions.16 Starting from the fourteenth century, in charters of communal rights, it became usual that the prince warranted the right of urban administrators to legislate as well.17 In 1291 Duke John I gave the Antwerp aldermen a limited right to issue ordinances but only with regard to the properties of the city.18 In 1306 Duke John II granted the general right to pass bylaws on all issues relevant for the administration of the city, on the condition that the ducal representative, the écoutète (schout), was involved.19
4Both libertas and communitas had roots in ecclesiastical and canon law, whereas civitas was derived from Roman law. Libertas ecclesia referred to the immunity of the Church and to bishops’ obligations to defend ecclesiastical jurisdiction from usurpation by laymen.20 Like libertas, also communitas and civitas could gain and lose meanings over time; in addition, the contents and scope of these terms was highly dependent on circumstances. For example, whereas in thirteenth-century canon law libertas a.o. referred to the exemption of clerics from worldly taxes, in Antwerp at the same time the libertas castrensis referred to mandatory work (or a replacing tax) at the ditches of Antwerp’s fortress.21 Indeed, libertas could also refer to a jurisdiction outside the walls of the city and the notion then had the meaning of a territory.
III. New Renaissance terminology
5In the course of the sixteenth century, in the county of Flanders and the Duchy of Brabant, the notion of libertas became intermingled with state organization and commercial independence and clout. This development was mostly related to cities and not to other polities. The new connotations originated in the Italian Renaissance, where the medieval meanings of liberty were supplemented with new ones, many of which were derived from Antiquity. As a result, libertas became inflated to an idea of the rule of law, in combination with the virtues of citizens and the justness of public authority. In the 1420s, Leonardo Bruni used libertas as a central concept in his History of the People of Florence.22 Bruni referred to libertas in its medieval sense of immunitas, as negative liberty. The self-control of Florence was a power to defend itself legally and factually against usurpers. At the same time, libertas according to Bruni is a quality of the polity. It is the liberty to participate in political life, and hence the legal constellation of the city allows for this freedom. Prominent citizens have the right to demonstrate their views and can have a say in who administers the city. And therefore also, libertas in Bruni’s work reflects the virtue of the politically active citizen.23 In an earlier work, a Laudatio of the city of Florence, Bruni had propagated similar ideas, but had also linked them to the medieval term of libertates. These were the customs of the city, as acknowledged by the Emperor; the chartered immunities of cities warranted for their political and legal existence, and provided the basis for the political freedom that marked their fundamental laws.24
6One can find several examples of comparable ideas, connected to libertas, in sixteenth-century texts written by legal practitioners in the Low Countries. When such authors described the jurisdiction and political regimes of cities in the Low Countries, they resonated with the Renaissance ideas. In 1567, for example, Frans Goethals wrote a treatise on the “republic” of Bruges25 in which he referred to Venice when arguing in favor of the autonomy of the city of Bruges. Bruges did not have full legal autonomy. As a city, it had received municipal rights from the count of Flanders; this entailed the right to pass bylaws on matters relating to the security, health and economy of the city. However, since the thirteenth century the Flemish count was represented in the Bruges’ Townhall, by the écoutète (schout). This officer exercised the high justice, which was held to be an exclusive jurisdiction of the prince. In criminal affairs, the écoutète initiated the prosecution and formulated the indictment, but the aldermen of Bruges made the verdict. If the punishment was a corporeal punishment, then the écoutète was responsible for its implementation.26
7The Venetians according to Goethals had libertas; they did not have to seek approval from a higher authority for their policies. Venice had “plena et absoluta potestas”.27 However, this power was to be understood in reference to the Digna vox-principle. “Leges (…) valent (…) (quae sunt anima civitatis)”, autonomy does not engender excesses (“regio non est soluta legibus”) because the municipal laws that apply are in the common good and therefore mark the soul of the city.28 Here the connection between virtues and governance, which was typical of Renaissance thought, is evident. Also, as Bruni had done, Goethals stressed the fact that the libertas of Bruges was a shield. Libertas was an “immunitas a oneribus”, it entailed exemptions from taxes imposed from above.29 Goethals referred to the wide scope of the privileges which Bruges had received from the count of Flanders. The immunity and liberties, even though they were rooted in a princely charter, were a legal basis for autonomous municipal legal action.30 Goethals’ account is clearly inspired by contemporary humanist, republican thinking. However, it is also different because of its clear legal discourse. Goethals did not hesitate to express and underpin republicanist views with legal terms that stood in a tradition that was mostly reserved for states.31
8A new notion which arrived in the Low Countries in the later fifteenth century was emporium. The term of emporium was derived from classical authors such as Strabo and Ptolemy. The word suggested a place of attraction for trade (the Greek term emporion means market or trade settlement).32 It denoted the fact that at a city or harbor merchants flocked because of certain geographical qualities, in particular the closeness to the sea or the proximity of a gateway to the sea. Emporion could have the meaning of harbor or of city of trade.33 Already Thucydides used the term in all the mentioned senses. In his History of the Peloponnesian War, Corinth is described as an emporium but also as having a “commercial network” spanning different centers, which was closely connected to dominance at sea.34 Strabo is well-known for his interest in emporia. He considered harbors with thriving markets as natural phenomena; the reference to the geography, i.e. their location besides the sea, served as an explanation for their economic success. Strabo used emporium also with the connotation of a Hinterland, since it was often said that a people had one particular city or harbor as emporium. As a result, also the meaning of clout that came from the economic attractiveness of a center was attached to emporium. Successful market places attracted visitors from far away.35
9In late fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Flanders emporium became connected to staple rights. The first use of the term emporium with reference to Bruges was situated in the Hanseatic sphere, and was closely linked to the monopoly rights of the Hanseatics in that city. After 1470, the Hanseatic authorities obtained a staple of cloth in Bruges. This staple was secured in 1487, when it was confirmed by Maximilian of Hapsburg.36 In the early sixteenth century, in correspondence between the city of Bruges and the Hanseatic institutions, the term of stapula became mixed with emporium. The Hanseatics stressed that Bruges had become a dominant trading center because of the monopoly rights which they had vested in the city.37 The rules, agreed on in treaties and which was bestowed upon the Hanseatics, were defined as “iura emporii”, which seems to have been a straightforward translation of the Dutch stapelrechten.38 The staple itself was also referred to as “ius emporii”, i.e. stapelrecht (the right of stapula).39 In his Annales rerum Flandricarum of 1561, Jacques de Meyer used the notion of emporium both in the sense of stapula and of renowned international market center.40 It is no surprise that Goethals’ account applied the same implicit meanings of the term emporium, but connected those to legal consequences and republican thought. In his view, the city’s administrators should be moderate in trying to attract trade. There was a clear danger of giving too many exemptions in attempts to redirect trade to the city. Goethals mentions the virtues of the city and the possibility that poverty but also contacts with “barbarians” would negatively influence the values of the polity.41 Resuming all of the above, in the course of the sixteenth century, in Bruges emporium had many meanings. The term hinted at the city’s economic attractiveness as well as to its cloth staple. And also the meaning of emporium as implying control over a Hinterland was clear in the fact that the 1487 privileges to the city were also directed against neighboring Sluis, which attempted to deflect trade from Bruges to its wharfs.42
10The mentioned crossovers in interpretation of libertas and emporium, which pointed to virtues, also brought respublica within reach. In his history of the city of Florence, Francesco Giucciardini mentions that the republic of Florence had profited from its geography.43 Respublica could indeed have economic connotations; the economic success of a polity was not merely due to its location but also followed from a type of government and from the virtues which it upheld. In the later fourteenth century, with regard to Florence, Coluccio Salutati had already emphasized the importance of merchants participating in administration and even stressed the relevance of mercantile values as contributing to peace.44 However, this was quite exceptional. Many humanists embraced Aristotelian and Aquinas’ views on merchants. They emphasized the dangers that came with allowing moneychangers and stressed that commerce in the first place was meant to approvision the city, not to make profits.45 One of the consequences of the meanings of virtue that came together with respublica was that authors could quickly merge institutional with humanist terminology. In the report of his travels through the Low Countries, Lodovico Guicciardini, the nephew of the abovementioned Francesco, stated that the city of Antwerp behaved like a respublica.46 The Town Hall indicated independence, even though Guicciardini did refer to the Duchy of Brabant as controlling legal entity.47 Guicciardini mentions the Duke as lord of Antwerp but at the same time says that so many privileges had been granted to the city that the latter “comme de soy-même (reservé tousiours le droict & supériorité du Prince), quasi ainsi que une cité libre & comme une république se regit & gouverne” (“governs itself, almost like a free city, and republic, except always the right and superiority of the prince”).48 This was the passage, as translated from the original Italian, which featured in the first, 1567, French edition.49 However, in the second French edition of the book, dating from 1582, the fragment received a somewhat stronger translation:“presque comme cité libre, & une republique, & franche seigneurie; sauf touiours à respecter le droit & souverainité du Prince”. (“almost like a free city, republic, and free seigniory, except always in respect of the right and sovereignty of the prince”).50 The addition of “free seigniory”, which was not in the original, was particularly stark. For the notions of republic and “free city” it could be upheld that these were literary, not legal. For “franche seigneurie”, which basically meant “independent fief”, this was not the case; the meaning would have been clear to any lawyer of the time.51
IV. More than rhetoric: the example of Antwerp (16th century)
11In the sixteenth century the notions of emporium and libertas migrated, or gained new meanings derived from a literary discourse, and that these meanings could come very close to legal ones. This clearly has to do with civic humanism. For Antwerp, the connections between lawyers and humanist authors are very clear. For example, in 1549 Cornelis De Schrijver (Grapheus), the secretary of the city was behind a sophisticated campaign that was set up for the inauguration of prince Philip, later Philip II, as margrave of Antwerp. Charles V introduced his son to the Low Countries as future heir and the city of Antwerp took the opportunity to show off its riches in a ceremony that involved depictions throughout the city. The prince was guided through the city and at different locations arches were installed,52 mentioning phrases that lauded the sovereign’s authority but which mentioned the powers of the city as well. Here, for the first time the concept of the Antwerp republic was promoted.53 However, the mentions of Antwerp as being a respublica were not mere rhetorical. They served a purpose in diplomatic efforts that had been launched in the months before the Joyous Entry of Philip. The administrators of the city of Antwerp negotiated on new privileges and in a request the same strategy of emphasizing the powers of the prince and the city, as respublica, was used.54 The latter was combined with economic arguments.
12There are clear indications that urban republicanism, in its economic variety, mattered, also in legal practice. Antwerp is a case in point. In the 1530s and 1540s the grip of central government had become tighter. More taxes were demanded, and the urban government was controlled as well. In the 1530s the aldermen of the city were formally installed by the sovereign, for example.55 In 1548, the accounts of the city were for the first time checked by central officers as well.56 In turn, economic policies became more centralized. In 1536, a princely law had been promulgated that put the decision on cessio bonorum with the Council of Brabant, the provincial princely court for the duchy of Brabant.57
13In 1549, a few months before the inauguration of the prince, the rulers of Antwerp had started negotiations over new privileges. In a formal request, written in humanistic Latin, it was stressed that the duke had always granted privileges, and that the city was a libertas, having immunitas; the city had become a commercial hub due to the protection of the lord. However, there was concern about the new policies, also in the religious sphere. The Inquisition had made that merchants had left the city, and therefore the aldermen stressed that the government of economic affairs would best be located at the urban level. Moreover, the haphazard approach of giving privileges to foreign merchants had resulted in problems. There was a reference to privileges given to Hanseatics in 1546, which could send over cases to the City Council of Lübeck in appeal, and also the mentioned 1536 law on cessio bonorum was mentioned as allowing for fraud. The provincial court did not know the reputation and affairs of applicants, it was feared that illegitimate requests for cessio would be honored and that this would harm the city’s prosperity. This brought the Antwerp aldermen to claim complete first-instance jurisdiction over inhabitants, even for crimes which they had committed outside the duchy of Brabant. However, the demands by the Antwerp aldermen were not met; the emperor referred to “justes et bonnes causes” for his economic policies and emphasized that he wanted to stick to the older privileges. In fact, a soft spot in the arguments by the Antwerp magistracy was that the oath to be sworn by the prince in 1549 literary stated that the old privileges would be honored.58
14The 1549 request is a remarkable document, in many respects. The abovementioned blending of literary and legal discourse was brought to near perfection. The use of the terms republica and also emporium attest to this. One further example shows how humanistic ideas could perfectly be tweaked towards pleas for more municipal autonomy. In the request it was stressed for example, much in the same vein as Goethals would do a few years later, that there was a danger in giving in to international commerce. If the aldermen of the city of Antwerp would give nations of foreign nations everything that they wanted, this would result in the collapse of the Antwerp market. Therefore, the request stated, the aldermen cannot be dictated what to do, and must have the leeway to pursue a policy of their own.59
15All this invites for further research into the legal aspects of urban and merchant republicanism. Political scientists have written amply about republicanism and how it became integral part of the Western institutional discourse. They debated over the structuralist or exclusively contextual use of concepts relating thereto. For example, John Pocock argued against an ad hoc use of notions, and their mere instrumental use or rhetorical quality; whereas Quentin Skinner for example put stress on research of the factors influencing the use of certain notions.60 Much of the research that was inspired by these views has not taken into account legal traditions, and neither the tradition of charters and corresponding administrative practice. In the later Middle Ages, a notion such as libertas had gained the connotation of jurisdiction in charters, for example, and could in the sixteenth century be merged with qualitative ideas on a republic, thus combining the territorial connotation that had stemmed from medieval charters with a new humanistic meaning of liberty and a virtue-driven polity. And in this regard a purely literary term such as emporium could trickle into legal discourse and administrative practice as well. In the 1500s, the privileges of the Count of Flanders which granted staple rights to Bruges in the Hanseatic trade, were interpreted such that economic privileges were combined with a description of the city in terms of an economic hub. And Goethals then took this a step further by deriving legal rights of autonomy from this; in doing so he came full circle and notions such as libertas, respublica and emporium became largely interchangeable, when it came to describing the legal qualities of commercial cities.
16All this sheds a different light on the history of sovereignty, related concepts and appending rules. This was not a monolithic concept of sovereignty in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. From studies of doctrine, it is clear that imperium and iurisdictio were considered layered and that levels of government could coexist;61 they could combine autonomy with delegated powers. And the dominant orientation of such notions towards the organization of states started in the later sixteenth century. But there are other undercurrents of thought that were important. First, the tradition of charters and the language that was used in them; by extension, the language of negotiations between sovereigns and cities, and the concepts and/or connotations that emerged in those negotiations. And also, literary traditions that under the impetus of humanism became intermingled with legal traditions. One may add thereto, the interactions between cities, even across borders.
17The abovementioned ideas on economic hubs with legal authority emerged in the Low Countries roughly speaking after 1540. In that regard, the republic of letters was most important, it was a necessary cause for the new approaches. There were exchanges between intellectuals. From the middle of the fifteenth century onwards, the secretaries of the city of Antwerp had commonly studied law at Italian universities. In this respect, one can refer to the Antwerp law clerk Peter Gillis (Aegidius), the predecessor of Cornelis De Schrijver (Grapheus). Gillis was a jurist and alumnus of Orléans University, as well as a humanist maintaining good contacts with Erasmus and Thomas More.62 It can be safely assumed that Gillis and Grapheus read Italian authors, in the writings of whom they found ideas that they used for the purposes of their office. For Bruges, the same can be said for Frans Goethals (legal advisor to the Bruges aldermen).63 In this regard, there are indications that the route of inter-city contacts, and administrative and pre-diplomatic practice, mattered more than literature, and that only when things shifted in the former, also literary discourse could become more important.
18There are examples of negotiations between cities, on privileges of merchant communities. The transfer of the Hanseatic Kontor from Bruges to Antwerp, for example, was discussed in the 1540s and early 1550s. In 1546 the Antwerp pensionary Jacob Maes travelled to Lübeck and negotiated a treaty with the aldermen of Lübeck, and also the Hansa Diet.64 The privileges that were agreed on were in part to be confirmed by the Duke of Brabant, in part they were simple agreements between Antwerp and the Hanseatic authorities. In February 1546, the agreement between representatives of the Hansa and the Antwerp aldermen was issued in the form of a municipal ordinance, to which at the end 22 articles were added for which acknowledgment would be sought from the central authorities. Apparently, the parts sent over to the Duke had to do with tolls and saufconduite; in the parts of the agreement with Antwerp alone much emphasis was put on the jurisdiction of the Antwerp aldermen. However, the parts agreed with the city of Antwerp alone also had to do with criminal jurisdiction (for which the écoutète, the representative of the Duke, was responsible).65
19Other contacts which Antwerp entertained with cities in the sixteenth century have for the most part not been preserved in documents. For the relations with the city of Florence, there are but few sources. Since the 1510s there were Florentine merchants in Antwerp; the decades before, many of them had predominantly traded in Bruges. In 1546 an official Florentine community of foreign merchants was established in Antwerp.66 Municipal support of a spontaneous organization of Florentine traders had started much earlier, already in the early sixteenth century.67 One of the instigators of obtaining a princely charter, with privileges, in 1546 was Gaspar Ducci. He was from Pistoia but nonetheless considered a Florentine. In 1544 he secured a monopoly on alum imports to the Low Countries and he maintained good contacts with governess-general Mary of Hungary.68 This banker-financier, with high connections throughout Europe, was indicative of the profile of the natio’s members. They combined the roles of merchant, business partner and representative of states. Antwerp’s Florentines maintained contacts that both served the interests of principals, their home city and of themselves. In fact, not only the consoli of the Florentine natio but also most of its members belonged to the class of members of the Florentine aristocracy that came from mercantile backgrounds but which specialized in office-holding as well.69 They maintained direct contacts with the Antwerp city government and the governors-general of the Low Countries in Brussels.70 Also in regard of their hometown, thy could easily bypass institutions, when seeking support from the highest levels of government. In 1549, for example, the quarrel between the Florentine and Genoese nation, over which one had precedence in the ceremonies surrounding the Joyous Entry of 1549, was steered by Cosimo de Medici himself.71
20In spite of the occasional help from Florence, at Antwerp the Florentine natio acted mostly independently. Formally, control was in the hands of the Consoli di mare. In 1568, the Magistrato dei consolati was established as supervisor of the consuls of Florentine nations abroad, but this office was abolished quickly, in 1571.72 In the later Middle Ages it had been typical of the Florentine trade organization, that oversight from the city and its government was minimal. Many expat communities did not even have a representative.73 In Antwerp, the prominent members of the nation most naturally dealt with the aldermen of the city themselves, individually or collectively, and sometimes alongside talks with the governess-general in Brussels. The discourse of Lodovico Giucciardini’s Descrittione, in which Antwerp had been defined as autonomous, was matched in the relations between the Florentine natio, Antwerp and the Florentine Republic. Giucciardini himself was consigliere of the Antwerp natio in 1568,74 which meant that he could bring to practice what he had written in his travel report of the previous year.
V. Outlook and conclusion
21All this invites for further research. It is clear that in the sixteenth century cities of commerce, amongst themselves, had contacts, even when they did not qualify as city-states. And these contacts had political and economic significance. The economic clout of commercial hubs could transpire in the diplomatic arena, with delegates acting largely independently and without prior or formal authorization from the central level of government. The interactions between Antwerp, the Florentine natio and the city of Florence confirm what has been labelled as “new diplomatic history”.75 In a period preceding the arrival of permanent diplomacy, correspondence and talks could involve officials, prominent merchants, and even scholars. The example of Lodovico Guicciardini shows that such persons not only belonged to the same class, but also often combined these profiles. What is needed is close scrutiny of the contacts between commercial cities. Insights to be derived from the analysis of letters and requests may result in a picture that will add new views to legal-historical understandings of the public law and institutions of the early modern period. A re-appraisal of the legal status of cities, in practice, may contribute to a more nuanced comprehension of state formation processes. In this regard, an exclusive focus on the state is no longer feasible.
Notes de bas de page
1City-states and city leagues (in particular the Hansa) are sometimes considered precursors of the modern nation state. See for example in Ch. Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990-1992, Cambridge, Blackwell, 1990, and H. Spruyt, “The Origins, Development, and Possible Decline of the Modern State”, Annual Review of Political Science (2002), pp. 127-149, at 134. This perspective of emphasis on, in particular, city-states is still prominent in recent generalizing monographs on the theme, such as for example G. Parker, Sovereign City: The City-State Ancient and Modern, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 2004.
2On this problem, see S. Sassen, The Global City, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1991, and S. Sassen, “The Global City: Introducing a Concept”, Brown Journal of World Affairs 11/2 (2005), pp. 27-43. For a recent positioning of the theme within the context of international law, see H. Ph. Aust and J. E. Nijman, “The Emerging Role of Cities in International Law”, in H. Ph. Aust and J.E. Nijman (eds.), Research Handbook on International Law and Cities, Cheltenham, Edward Elgar, 2021, pp. 1-15, and Ch. Swiney, “The Urbanization of International Law and International Relations: The Rising Soft Power of Cities in Global Governance”, Michigan Journal of International Law 41/2 (2020), pp. 227-278. For an assessment from the angle of constitutional law, see R. Hirschl, City, State: Constitutionalism and the Megacity, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020.
3For example H. Pirenne, Les anciennes démocraties des Pays-Bas, Paris, Flammarion, 1910, pp. 54-55.
4A popular book that in its search for the characteristics of cities pays ample attention to the “messy” and darker aspects of urban life is B. Wilson, Metropolis, A History of the City: Humankind’s Greatest Invention, London, Doubleday, 2020. A more idealized, liberal approach can be found in A. Lambert, Seapower States. Maritime Culture, Continental Empires, and the Conflict that Made the Modern World, Yale, Yale University Press, 2018.
5See the chapters on civic humanism and republicanism in M. Van Gelderen and Q. Skinner (eds.), Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage. Vol. 1: Republicanism and Constitutionalism in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
6One exception, a great analysis, which stays close to the legal meaning of terms, is G. Chittolini, L’Italia delle civitates. Grandi e piccoli centri fra Medioevo e Rinascimento, Rome, Viella, 2015.
7For example, O. von Gierke, Das deutsche Genossenschaftsrecht, vol. 2, Berlin, Weidmann, 1873, pp. 598-622 (communitas), pp. 622-649 (libertas).
8For example, Diplomata Belgica (www.diplomata-belgica.be, hereinafter DiBe), 5396 (12 June 1176, “…nullus hominum qui sit de communitate ville Atrebatensis…”. See also DiBe 13253 (June 1202) and DiBe 31828 (10 July 1225).
9An early example is DiBe 4662 (11 November 1166).
10For example, DiBe 35266 (26 May 1217); L.A. Warnkönig, Flandrische Staats- und Rechtsgeschichte bis zum Jahr 1305, vol. 2, Tübingen, Fues, 1836, 46 (June 1248).
11J. Braekevelt, “Constitutions, State and Estates: Interactions between Princely Restrictions and Reforms, Privileges of the Governed and the Control of Absolute Power in the Burgundian Low Countries”, in Fr. Foronda and J.-Ph. Genet (eds.), Des chartes aux constitutions. Autour de l’idée constitutionelle en Europe (xiie-xviie siècle), Paris, Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2019, pp. 236-237.
12In 1356 and 1435, the duke granted Antwerp the right to have a fixed number of councilors, selected from guilds. See ACA, Privilegiekamer, 76, fol. 22 r. (25 February 1356 ns). This charter was published in F.H. Mertens and K.L. Torfs, Geschiedenis van Antwerpen, vol. 2, 507-510. The 1436 charter is to be found in: Recueil des Ordonnances des Pays-Bas, 1se series, vol. 2/2, 138-139 (24 November 1435).
13DiBe 16544 (March 1221).
14The earliest example is DiBe 13661 (1204).
15For example, J.F. Willems and J.-H. Bormans (eds.), De Brabantsche Yeesten, vol. 2, Brussels, Hayez, 1843, 673-674 (21 March 1291 ns).
16For an in-depth analysis of mentions of libertas in communal charters in Nort-West Europe in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, see J.-M. Cauchies, “Libertés et liberté. Des franchises médiévales aux idéologies contemporaines” in La critique historique à l’épreuve. Liber disciplinorum Jacques Pacquet, Brussels, Saint-Louis, pp. 49-173.
17A first example, for the county of Flanders, dates from 1199. See J.-M. Cauchies, Es plantar un mundo nuevo: Légiférer aux anciens Pays-Bas (xiie-xviiie siècle). Before the 1200s, both in Flanders and Brabant, the rights of scabini as judges were stressed and their rights of legislating were either subsumed under the former or explicitly restricted. For a late example of the former, see the charter of 1217 given to Middelburg by the Flemish countess Joanna: DiBe 15846 (1217). For a limitation of legislative rights, see the so-called Grote Keure of Bruges of 1177. See R.C. Van Caenegem and L. Milis, “Kritische uitgave van de ‘Grote Keure’ van Filips van de Elzas, graaf van Vlaanderen, voor Gent en Brugge (1165-1177)”, Bulletin de la Commission royale d’Histoire 143 (1977), pp. 207-257.
18Antwerp City Archives (FelixArchief) (hereinafter ACA), Privilegiekamer, 76, fol. 15 r. (21 February 1291 (ns)). For an edition, see F.H. Mertens and K.L. Torfs, Geschiedenis van Antwerpen, vol. 2, pp. 502-505; J.F. Willems and J.-H. Bormans (eds.), De Brabantsche Yeesten of Rymkronyk van Braband, Brussel, Hayez, 1839, vol. 1, pp. 677-678.
19ACA, Charters., C 58 (6 December 1306). For an edition, see J.F. Willems and J.-H. Bormans (eds.), De Brabantsche Yeesten, vol. 1, pp. 737-739.
20On the development of this concept, see a.o. K. Pennington, “Ecclesiastical Liberty on the Eve of the Reformation”, Bulletin of Medieval Canon Law 33 (2016), p. 185-207.
21On the libertas castrensis, see A. Bousse, “De verhoudingen tussen Antwerpen en het platteland”, Bijdragen tot de Geschiedenis bijzonderlijk van het aloude hertogdom Brabant 58 (1975), pp. 140-141; G. Van Acker, “De ‘libertas castrensis operis’ van Antwerpen en de Ottogracht te Gent”, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Maatschappij voor Oudheidkunde en Geschiedenis van Gent 41 (1987), pp. 2-9.
22L. Bruni, Historiarum Florentini populi libri XII e Rerum suo tempore gestarum commentaries, Florence, Lapi, 1926.
23For further analysis, see N. Rubinstein, “Florentina libertas”, Rinascimento, 26/2 (1986), pp. 3-26.
24L. Bruni, “Laudatio Florentinae Urbis” in H. Baron (ed.), From Petrarch to Leonardo Bruni, Chicago, Chicago University Press, 1986, pp. 232-263.
25F. Goethals, De foelici et infoelici republica, ad senatum Brugensem, Leuven, Johannes Bogardus, 1566.
26On the composition and competences of the Bruges City Council, which included the bailiff and aldermen, see H. Nowé, Les bailis comtaux de Flandre. Des origines à la fin du xive siècle, Brussels, Lamertin, 1929, p. 360.
27F. Goethals, De foelici et infoelici republica, op. cit., fol. 2v.
28Ibid.
29Ibid.
30F. Goethals, De foelici et infoelici republica, op. cit., fol. 3v.
31On the republicanist ideas of Goethals, see K. Tilmans, “Republican Citizenship and Civic Humanism in Burgundian-Habsburg Netherlands (1477-1566)” in M. van Gelderen and Q. Skinner (eds.), Republicanism. Vol. 1: Republicanism and Constitutionalism in Early Modern Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 107-124, at 119-125.
32M.H. Hansen, “Emporion. A Study of the Use and Meaning of the Term in the Archaic and Classic Periods”, in T.H. Nielsen (ed.), Yet More Studies in the Ancient Greek Polis, Stuttgart, 1997, pp. 83-106.
33On this difference, see Hansen, “Emporion”, pp. 85-86.
34D. Pettigrew, The Isthmus of Corinth: Crossroads of the Mediterranean World, pp. 44-46.
35On these meanings, see M. Gárcia Morcillo, “Patterns of trade and economy in Strabo”, in D. Dueck (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Strabo, London, Routledge, 2017, pp. 137-149.
36L. Gilliodts-Van Severen, Inventaire des archives de la ville de Bruges, vol. 6, Bruges, Gailliard, 1876, 273 (12 June 1487).
37For example, in 1500 a letter of the Hanseatic syndic mentioned Bruges’ “emporii statum quam stapulam vocatur”. See L. Gilliodts-Van Severen, “Les relations de la Hanse teutonique avec la ville de Bruges au commencement du xvie siècle”, Bulletin de la Commission royale d’Histoire 7 (1880), pp. 175-282, at p. 189.
38Ibid., p. 197
39Ibid., p. 186, p. 191, p. 194, p. 196.
40J. de Meyer (Meyerus), Commentarii, sive Annales rerum Flandricarum libri septemdecim, Antwerp, Steels, 1561, 126, 354 (emporium as stapula), 205 (Emporium as international trade center).
41F. Goethals, De foelici et infoelici republica, op. cit., fol. 27v-28 v.
42On the Bruges-Sluis conflicts, see B. Lambert, “Merchants on the margins: fifteenth-century Bruges and the informal market”, Journal of Medieval History (2016), pp. 1-28.
43F. Giucciardini, The History of Italy, S. Alexander (ed.), Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1984, p. 4.
44D. Wood, Medieval Economic Thought, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p. 218.
45On these views, see C. Lis and H. Soly, Worthy Efforts. Attitudes to Work and Workers in Pre-Industrial Europe, Leiden, Brill, 2012, pp. 256-276.
46L. Giucciardini, Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi, Antwerp, Silvius, 1567, p. 120.
47Ibid. pp. 111-112.
48Ibid. p. 120.
49L. Giucciardini, Descrittione di tutti i Paesi Bassi, op. cit., p. 90. “…che ella come da per sé (salvo sempre il iure e superiorità del Principe) quasi a modo di città libera e di Republica si regge e si governa…”.
50L. Giucciardini, Description de touts les Pais-Bas…, Antwerp, Plantin, 1582, p. 137.
51The translation was made by François de Belleforest (dec. 1583). It is tempting to consider this stronger phrasing as the result of Antwerp’s secession from the Spanish empire in the later 1570s, but it may also have been an interpretation made by the translator, without implicit references to the contemporary political situation.
52On this Joyous Entry, see S. Bussels, Spectacle, Rhetoric and Power: The Triumphal Entry of Prince Philip of Spain into Antwerp, Leiden, Brill, 2012; D. De ruysscher, “Lobbyen, vleien en herinneren: vergeefs onderhandelen om privileges bij de Blijde Inkomst van Filips in Antwerpen (1549)”, Noord-Brabants Historisch Jaarboek 29 (2012), pp. 64-79.
53E. Wouk, “Semini and its Progeny: the Construction of Antwerp’s Antique Past”, in K. Christian and B. de Divitiis (eds.), Local Antiquities, Local Identities. Art, Literature, and Antiquarianism in Europe, 1400-1700, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2019, pp. 209-236.
54General Archives of the Realm (Brussels) (hereinafter GARB), Papieren van State en Audiëntie, 1191/41, nr 21.
55G.E. Wells, Antwerp and the Government of Philip II: 1555-1567, Ithaca (NY), Cornell University Press, 1982, pp. 13-14, pp. 18-19; K. Wouters, “Een open oligarchie? De machtsstructuur in de Antwerpse magistraat tijdens de periode 1520-1555”, Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Filologie en Geschiedenis 82 (2004), pp. 905-934, at pp. 909-910.
56ACA, R, 2566, document of 30 September 1548.
57Recueil des Ordonnances des Pays-Bas, 2nd series, vol. 3, Brussels, Gobbaerts, 1893, pp. 549-550 (August 1536).
58For an detailed analysis of this document, see De ruysscher, “Lobbyen, vleien en herinneren”, op. cit., pp. 71-76.
59GARB, Papieren van State en Audiëntie, 1191/41, nr 21, fol. 3v-4r.
60On this methodological debate, see for example, A. R. Gibson, Understanding the Founding: The Crucial Questions, Lawrence (Ks), 2007, pp. 91-129, applying the different approaches onto the US Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
61G. Rossi, “Deconstructing Iurisdictio: The Adventures of a Legal Category in the Hands of the Humanist Jurists” in P. du Plessis and J. Cairns (eds.), Reassessing Legal Humanism and its Claims. Petere Fontes?, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2015, pp. 59-87; G. Sluijs, “Jurisdiction and its Attribution in the Works of Diodorus Tuldenus (1594-1645)”, Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis 90 (2022), pp. 222-249; J. Vallejo, “Power hierarchies in medieval juridical thought. An essay in reinterpretation”, Ius commune 19 (1992) pp. 1-29.
62See for legal humanism at Antwerp: D. De ruysscher, “Antwerp Commercial Law in the Sixteenth Century: A Product of the Renaissance? The Legal Facilitating, Appropriating and Improving of Mercantile Practices”, in B. Blondé and J. Puttevils (eds.), Antwerp in the Renaissance, Turnhout, Brepols, 2020, pp. 53-86, at pp. 60-69.
63Goethals is mentioned in his book as “jurisconsultus Brugensis et advocatus in eadum Senatu”.
64ACA, Privilegiekamer, 1062.
65ACA, Privilegiekamer, 1063/12 (9 February 1546 (ns)).
66C. Laurent, J. Lameere and H. Simont (eds.), Recueil des ordonnances des Pays-Bas, Brussel, Commission royale pour la publication des anciennes lois et ordonnances de la Belgique, vol. 5, Brussels, Gobaerts, 1910, pp. 296-298.
67J.A. Goris, Étude sur les colonies marchandes méridionales (portugais, espagnols, italiens). Anvers de 1488 à 1567. Contribution à l’histoire des débuts du capitalisme moderne, Leuven, Librairie universitaire, 1925, p. 625 ; J. Maréchal, “Le départ de Bruges des marchands étrangers (xve et xvie siècle)”, Handelingen van het genootschap “Société d’Emulation” te Brugge 88 (1951), pp. 26-74, at pp. 43-44.
68H. Soly, “De aluinhandel in de Nederlanden in de 16de eeuw”, Revue belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 52/4 (1974), pp. 800-857, at pp. 811-816.
69Ch. Schellekens, Merchants and their Hometown: Florentines in Antwerp and the Duchy of Florence (c. 1500-1585), unpublished PhD dissertation EUI Florence 2018, pp. 46-58.
70With regard to Gaspar Ducci, see the recent and very thorough analysis in H. Soly, Capital at Work in Antwerp’s Golden Age, Turnhout, Brepols, 2022, pp. 99-169.
71Ch. Schellekens, “The Antwerp Joyous Entry of 1549. The Florentine-Genoese conflict as a window on the role of a trading nation in political cultural transfers”, Incontri 30/2 (2015), pp. 15-28, at pp. 23-25.
72A. Grunzweig, « Les papiers du magistrat des consulats aux archives d’état de Florence », Bulletin de l’Institut historique belge de Rome 12 (1932) pp. 5-59.
73I. Houssaye Michienzi, « La “nation” et les milieux d’affaires florentins aux xive et xve siècles », in Nation et nations au Moyen Âge, Paris, Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2014, pp. 299-309.
74Ch. Schellekens, “The Antwerp Joyous Entry”, op. cit., p. 21, footnote 37.
75I. Lazzarini, Communication and Conflict. Italian Diplomacy in the Early Renaissance, 1350-1520, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.
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