3.4.1 The Decline of Serfdom in the Low Countries
As everywhere else in North-Western Europe, serfdom fell into decline in the Low Countries in the second half of the Middle Ages. In comparison with neighbouring regions, its breakdown already started in the twelfth century in some areas.
Many reasons could once more be given: demographic changes, the progress of agriculture and the clearance movement, territorial lords and cities trying to increase their power to the detriment of manorial lords, etc.132 Likewise, many of the territorial lords, such as the Counts of Flanders, Hainaut and Holland sometimes enfranchised whole groups of serfs at once, or made legislation to attenuate some of the characteristics of serfdom (for example, by changing the right of mainmorte to a right of meilleur catel for the serf’s lord).133In some regions such as Flanders and Brabant, the decline was almost completed by the end of the twelfth century. In others, it would take longer.134 It is safe to say that whereas serfdom had thus ceased to be an institutional reality in most of the provinces of the Low Countries at the end of the Middle Ages, it remained present in some areas and was not legally abolished until the end of the Ancien Régime. As concerns those last vestiges of serfdom, we can note that the written customs of three areas in the Southern Netherlands (Hainaut, Aalst and Luxemburg) still contained references to the institution in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, although it became less relevant over time there as well.135 Likewise, in the North, remains of serfdom could be found in the provinces of Gelderland and Overrijsel up until the Batavian Revolution at the end of the eighteenth century.136
We do not find general decrees of emancipation in the Low Countries either. We already noted how the ordonnance of Louis X in 1315 did not at all free all slaves or serfs, which would have been relevant for the territories subject to the French crown, such as the County of Flanders—which, in any case, was not a part of the royal domain.
Though the influential eighteenth century Flemish jurist Georges de Ghewiet (1651–1745) tried to trace back the disappearance of slavery in the Southern Netherlands by pointing at a decree of the Flemish Countess Marguerite of 1232,137 this is most certainly also incorrect. In fact, that ordonnance only abolished the right of meilleur catel for free people in a small part of the County of Flanders.138Likewise, there was no general emancipation decree made by the Flemish, Burgundian or Spanish lords of the Low Countries. In law, serfdom thus continued to exist until the end of the Ancien Régime, but in fact, the number of serfs had become small by the end of the Middle Ages and further declined between 1500–1650. The great majority of the population of the Low Countries was certainly free in the sixteenth century, but this alone does not explain the origins of the freedom principle in these areas.