Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T15:03:49.040Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sisters of early modern confraternities in a small town in the Southern Netherlands (Aalst)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 December 2012

ELLEN DECRAENE
ELLEN DECRAENE*
Affiliation:
Centre for Urban History, University of Antwerp, Prinsstraat 13 – D330, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

This article analyses female agency within the religious confraternities active in an early modern town in the Southern Netherlands in order to gain an insight into women's positions within a (semi-)public urban network and thus beyond the household. The analysis suggests that confraternities did not provide women with opportunities to develop a significant public role within the town. Nonetheless, while there is little evidence that early modern religious confraternities functioned as social networks, female agency on the religious level of confraternal life did exist. It is argued that many of these women were active agents in their own spiritual lives.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 40 , Issue 2 , May 2013 , pp. 247 - 270
Copyright
copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 De Vries, J., The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behaviour and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present (Cambridge, 2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Among others: Ogilvie, S.C., A Bitter Living. Women, Markets, and Social Capital in Early Modern Germany (Oxford, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Van den Heuvel, D., Women and Entrepreneurship: Female Traders in the Northern Netherlands, c. 1580–1815 (Amsterdam, 2000)Google Scholar; Van Nederveen-Meerkerk, E., De draad in eigen handen: vrouwen en loonarbeid in de Nederlandse textielnijverheid, 1581–1810 (Amsterdam, 2007)Google Scholar; Everard, M., ‘Verandering en continuïteit in de arbeid van vrouwen. Keetvrouwen en molendraaisters en het huiselijkheidsideaal, 1750–1900’, Tijdschrift voor Sociale en Economische Geschiedenis, 2 (2005), 81–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar; De Vries, A., ‘Toonbeelden van huiselijkheid of arbeidzaamheid? De iconografie van de spinster in relatie tot de verbeelding van arbeid en beroep in de vroegmoderne Nederlanden’, Tijdschrift voor sociale en economische geschiedenis, 2 (2005), 103–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Braddick, J.M. and Walter, J., ‘Grids of power: order, hierarchy and subordination’, in Braddick, J.M., and Walter, J. (eds.), Negotiating Power in Early Modern Society (Cambridge, 2001), 1–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lynch, K.A., ‘The family and the history of public life’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 24 (1994), 665–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vander, M. Heijden, Huwelijk in Holland: stedelijke rechtspraak en kerkelijke tucht, 1550–1700 (Amsterdam,1998)Google Scholar; Vickery, A., ‘Golden age to separate spheres? A review of the categories and chronology of English women's history’, Historical Journal, 36 (1993), 383–414CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brinkgreve, C., ‘Mannen en vrouwen; verschuivingen in macht en identiteit’, in Zwaanand, T.Brinkgreve, C.et al. (eds.), Familie, huwelijk en gezin in West-Europa: van Middeleeuwen tot Moderne Tijd, Amsterdam (Boom, 1993), 298–308Google Scholar; Hareven, T.K., ‘The history of the family and the complexity of social change’, American Historical Review, 96 (1991), 95–124CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lynch, K.A., Individuals, Families and Communities in Europe, 1200–1800: The Urban Foundations of Western Society (Cambridge, 2003)Google Scholar.

4 Black, C., ‘The development of confraternity studies over the past thirty years’, in Terpstra, N. (ed.), The Politics of Ritual Kinship. Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge, 1995), 9Google Scholar; Van Dijck, M., ‘Het verenigingsleven op het Hagelandse platteland. Sociale polarisatie en middenveldparticipatie in de 17e en 18e eeuw’, Tijdschrift voor sociale en economische geschiedenis, 2 (2005), 82–4Google Scholar.

5 Lynch, Individuals, Families and Communities in Europe.

6 Ibid., 87–8.

7 Ibid., 1.

8 For example Eckstein, E. and Terpstra, N., ‘Sociability and its discontents’, in Eckstein, E. and Terpstra, N. (eds.), Sociability and its Discontents. Civil Society, Social Capital, and their Alternatives in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Turnhout, 2009), 1–20Google Scholar; Van Dijck, ‘Het verenigingsleven op het Hagelandse platteland’, 81–108; De Munck, B., ‘From brotherhood community to civil society? Apprentices between guild, household and the freedom of contract in early modern Antwerp’, Social History, 35 (2010), 2–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ogilvie, S., “‘Whatever is, is right”? Economic institutions in pre-industrial Europe’, Economic History Review, 60 (2007), 649–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 G. Casagrande, ‘Confraternities and lay female religiosity in late medieval and renaissance Umbria’, in Terpstra (ed.), The Politics of Ritual Kinship, 49; Bruaene, A.-L. Van, ‘Brotherhood and sisterhood in the chambers of rhetoric in the southern Low Countries’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 36 (2005), 22Google Scholar; M. Van Dijck, ‘Confrérieen in het Land van Aarschot, Rotselaar en Wezemaal, (17de–18de eeuw)’, unpublished Leuven MA thesis, 2002, 161–3.

10 Vickery, ‘Golden Age to separate spheres?’, 383–4.

11 Municipal Archives of Aalst (MAA), Church Archive of the parish of Saint Martin (CA), Brotherhoods, no. 627, fol. 1, 1632; no. 706, fol. 2, 1743; no. 652, fol. 1, 1699; no. 622, fol. 2; no. 634, fol. 3, 1664; no. 660, fol. 1, 1760; no. 672, fol. 3, 1610; W. Ryckbosch and E. Decraene, ‘From civil society to social relations. Social structure and religious confraternities in early modern Aalst (Southern Netherlands)’, unpublished paper presented at the 10th International Conference on Urban History in Ghent, 1–4 Sep. 2010, 4.

12 MAA, CA, Brotherhoods, no. 657, fol. 2; J. Ghysens, Heiligenverering te Aalst (Aalst, 1993), 1–4.

13 However, due to the fact that we cannot fall back on lists of memberships for the confraternity of the Holy Mother of Halle and only fragmentary records for the late eighteenth century have been preserved, this confraternity will play only a marginal role within the analysis.

14 MAA, CA, Brotherhoods, no. 627, fol. 1, 1632; no. 706, fol. 2, 1743; no. 652, fol. 1, 1699; no. 622, fol. 2; no. 634, fol. 3, 1664; no. 660, fol. 1, 1760; no. 672, fol. 3, 1610.

15 For a detailed overview of the gender composition per confraternity over time see appendix Table 1.

16 Ryckbosch and Decraene, ‘From civil society to social relations’, 9.

17 MAA, CA, Brotherhoods, no. 706, fol. 6; no. 660, fols. 34–5; no. 652. fol. 1.

18 Ibid., no. 627.

19 Ibid., no. 628, fol. 34.

20 Van Bruaene, ‘Brotherhood and sisterhood in the chambers of rhetoric in the Southern Low Countries’, 11–35; Lynch, Individuals, Families and Communities in Europe, 57–8/137–40.

21 Ghysens, Heiligenverering te Aalst, 117.

22 Lynch, Individuals, Families and Communities in Europe, 145–6; Simiz, S., Confréries urbaines et dévotion en Champagne (1450–1830) (Villeneuve-d'Ascq (Nord), 2002), 381Google Scholar.

23 Trio, P., ‘The emergence of new devotions in late medieval urban Flanders (thirteenth–fifteenth centuries). Struggle and cooperation between church/clergy and urban government/bourgeoisie’, in Ehrichand, S. and Oberste, J. (eds.), Städtische Kulte im Mittelalter (Regensburg, 2010), 327–37Google Scholar; Trio, P., ‘The social positioning of late medieval confraternities in urbanized Flanders: from integration to segration’, in Escher-Apsner, M. (ed.), Mittelalterliche Bruderschaften in europäischen Städten. Functionen, Formen, Akteure / Medieval Confraternities in European Towns. Functions, Forms, Protagonists (Frankfurt am Main, 2009), 99–110Google Scholar.

24 Ryckbosch and Decraene, ‘From civil society to social relations’, 8–9.

25 Ghysens, Heiligenverering te Aalst, 108.

26 Wiesner-Hanks, M.E., Early Modern Europe, 1450–1789 (Cambridge, 2006), 381.Google Scholar

27 MAA, CA, Brotherhoods, no. 652, fol. 1, 1699.

28 Ibid., no. 627, fol. 11.

29 Ryckbosch and Decraene, ‘From civil society to social relations’, 10.

30 While the boards often contained male members of the laity as well as of the clergy, the majority of the members of the different confraternity were lay people.

31 Ryckbosch and Decraene, ‘From civil society to social relations’, 13.

32 MAA, CA, Brotherhoods, no. 706.

33 Van Dijck, ‘Confrérieen in het Land van Aarschot, Rotselaar en Wezemaal (17de–18de eeuw)’, 159.

34 MAA, CA, Brotherhoods, no. 677, fol. 3.

35 ., no. 706, fol. 1, 1743.

36 Lynch, Individuals, Families and Communities in Europe, 87–102.

37 MAA, CA, Brotherhoods, no. 660, fol. 1.

38 Black, C., ‘Confraternities and the parish in the context of Italian Catholic reform’, in Donnely, S.J. and Maher, M.W. (eds.), Confraternities and Catholic Reform in Italy, France and Spain (Kirksville, 1998), 1–27Google Scholar; Trio, P., ‘Middeleeuwse broederschappen in de Nederlanden. Een balans en perspectieven voor verder onderzoek’, Trajecta, 3 (1994), 108Google Scholar.

39 Van Dijck, ‘Het verenigingsleven op het Hagelandse platteland’, 107–8.

40 MAA, CA, Brotherhoods, no. 674, fol. 44.

41 Ibid., no. 652, fol. 1; no. 627, fol. 2; no. 706, fols. 8–9; Trio, ‘Middeleeuwse broederschappen in de Nederlanden’, 108; Bogaers, L., ‘Broederschappen in laatmiddeleeuws Utrecht op het snijpunt van religie, werk, vriendschap en politiek’, Trajecta, 8 (1999), 112–13Google Scholar.

42 Casagrande, ‘Confraternities and lay female’, 49

43 MAA, CA, Brotherhoods, no. 660, fols. 45–7; no. 706, fols. 7–9; no. 652, fols. 2–5.

44 Ibid., no. 652, fols. 1–2.

45 Ibid., no. 652, fols. 1–2.

46 Ibid., no. 706, fols. 7–8.

47 Ibid., no. 708.

48 Ibid., nos. 706, 652.

49 Black, C.F., ‘The public face of post-Tridentine Italian confraternities’, Journal of Religious History, 28 (2004), 100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 MAA, CA, Brotherhoods, no. 631, fol. 9.

51 Ibid., no. 652, fols. 1–2.

52 Ibid., no. 652, fol. 4.

53 A. Esposito, ‘Men and women in Roman confraternities in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries: roles, functions, expectations’, in Terpstra (ed.), The Politics of Ritual Kinship, 51.

54 MAA, CA, Brotherhoods, no. 699, fol. 7.

55 ., nos. 642, 639, 631, 690.

56 The probate inventories are being placed at my disposal by Dr Wouter Ryckbosch. After elimination of incomplete or unreliable inventories, this has left us with a total of 421 inventories. MAA, Old Archive of Aalst (OAA), nos. 1790–801, 1861–6.

57 I used the following website to carry out a random sample: www.ethologie.nl/methoden/random.htm. Margin of error: 0.85%.

58 MAA, OAA, nos. 264, 269, 273, 277.

59 See Table 2 in appendix.