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Project

Women and peaceful resistance in late medieval Brabant.

This project wants to revalorize peaceful subversion in history. It argues that non-violent resistance by common citizens has been decisive for changes in urban politics. To prove so, it combines research on two ignored aspects of the history of political protest, namely the role of women in social conflicts, on the one hand, and the omnipresent peaceful protest in cities, on the other. Until this day, the historiography on social upheaval has mainly focused on violent revolts, led by men who rallied against oppressing authorities. This project, though not denying that women were almost absent in these conflicts, claims that historians have consistently studied the wrong forms of protest for analyzing the agency of women in the political history of the late medieval era. Indeed, a preliminary inquiry into the sources on peaceful resistance shows that women were also active when it came to performing subversive songs, insulting the authorities, mobilizing discontent, etcetera. Historians, however, have hitherto neglected to study such forms of political protest in the Middle Ages. Therefore, this project not only proposes research on gendered subversion, but also on non-violent contention in medieval Europe. It states that common citizens have successfully tried to influence urban politics by non-violent means, such as strikes, gatherings and petitions. This political history from below will be based on the detailed scrutiny of such petitions, reports of town councils, and records of repression from fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Brabant. Their analysis will show that men and women frequently protested against (alleged) misrule and that, at the same time, their protest has led to fundamental changes in urban government.
Date:1 Oct 2014 →  30 Sep 2018
Keywords:Middle ages, Gender, Rebellion, Urban history
Disciplines:History