Notes

1 Stadsarchief Gent (hereafter SAG), series 301, no. 32, fol. 152v.

2 C. Lévi-Strauss, Les structures élémentaires de la parenté, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1949, p.

3 P. Bourdieu, �?Les stratégies matrimoniales dans le système de reproduction’, Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 27, 1972, pp. 1105–27.

4 M. Howell, �?The social logic of the marital household in cities of the late medieval Low Countries’, in M. Carlier and T. Soens (eds) The Household in Late Medieval Cities. Italy and North-Western Europe Compared,Leuven: Garant, 2001, p. 194. See also her The Marriage Exchange: Property, Social Place, and Gender in Cities of the Low Countries, 1300–1500, Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, 1998.

5 M. Danneel, Weduwen en wezen in het laatmiddeleeuwse Gent, Leuven: Garant, 1995, p. 180 and S. McSheffrey, Marriage, Sex, and Civic Culture in Late Medieval London, Philadelphia, PA: University Press, 2006, p. 138.

6 A. Guerreau-Jalabert, �?Observations sur la logique sociale des conflits dans la parenté au Moyen Age’, in M. Aurell (ed.) Les stratégies matrimoniales, Turnhout: Brepols, 2013, p. 427. See also A.Fine, C.Klapisch-Zuberand D.Lett, �?Liens et affects familiaux’, Clio 34, 2011, pp. 7–16.

7 C. Wieben, �?Unwilling grooms in fourteenth-century Lucca’, Journal of Family History 40, 2015, pp. 263–76.

8 The practice of customary vengeance declined as citizens found law courts increasingly attractive as venues for the pursuit of their emotions like hatred and anger (D.

9 We have published these contracts in J. Haemers and C. Delameillieure, �?Het herteleet van Simon van Formelis. Familieruzies, erfeniskwesties en het huwelijk in laatmiddeleeuws Gent’, Handelingen van de Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde te Gent 71, 2017, pp. 73–88.

10 J. Decavele, �?Bestuursinstellingen van de stad Gent (einde 11de eeuw-1795)’, in W. Prevenier and B. Augustyn (eds) De gewestelijke en lokale overheidsinstellingen in Vlaanderen tot 1795, Brussels: Algemeen Rijksarchief, 1997, pp. 277–320, and A. Nevejans, �?Aldus staet in scepenen bouc... De registers van de Gentse schepenen van de Keure in de 14de eeuw’, Handelingen van de Maatschappij voor Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde 56, 2002, pp. 53–64.

11 SAG, series 301 (Keure) and 330 (Gedeele). For instance, the register of the Gedeele of 1450–1451 (no. 25) contains 1,914 documents, the year 1451–1452 contains 1,566 and the year 1452–1453 contains 3,154 acts. The figure for 1452–1453 is considerably higher as a result of the wars and high mortality Ghent faced in these years; many acts record the guardianship of orphans (namely 1,352 vs. 200–300 in an average year). An �?aldermanic’ year started on 15 August, when the city fathers were elected, and ended on 14 August the year thereafter.

12 P. Reynolds, How Marriage Became One of the Sacraments: The Sacramental Theology of Marriage from Its Medieval Origins to the Council of Trent, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016, p. 35.

13 M. Vleeschouwers-Van Melkebeek, Compotus sigilliferi curie Tornacensis: Rekeningen van de officialiteit van Doornik (1429–1481), Brussels: Koninklijke Academie van België, 1995.

14 See, for instance, F. Vanhemelryck, De criminaliteit in de ammanie van Brussel van de late middeleeuwen tot het einde van het ancien régime (1404–1789), Brussels: Koninklijke Academie van België, 1981, and M. Greilsammer, L’envers du tableau. Mariage et maternité en Flandre médiévale, Paris: Colin, 1995.

15 M. Vleeschouwers-Van Melkebeek, �?Mortificata est. Het onterven of doodmaken van het geschaakte meisje in het laatmiddeleeuwse Gent’, Bulletin de la Commission Royale pour la publication des anciennes lois et ordonnances de Belgique 51–52, 2010–2011, pp. 357–435.

16 D. Nicholas, The Domestic Life of a Medieval City: Women, Children, and the Family in Fourteenth-Century Ghent, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988; S. Hutton, Women and Economic Activities in Late Medieval Ghent, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011; Danneel, Weduwen en wezen; and M. Carlier, Kinderen van de minne. Bastaarden in het vijftiende-eeuwse Vlaanderen, Brussels: Koninklijke Academie van België, 2001.

17 The following is based on M. Boone, �?Formelis (Simon van)’, Nationaal Biografisch Woordenboek 13,1990, 286–92; J. Dumolyn, Staatsvorming en vorstelijke ambtenaren in het graafschap Vlaanderen (1419–1477), Leuven: Garant, 2003, passim; and F. Buylaert, Repertorium van de Vlaamse adel (ca. 1350–ca. 1500), Ghent: Academia Press, 2011, pp. 229–32.

18 F. Buylaert et al., �?De adel ingelijst: “adelslijsten” voor het graafschap Vlaanderen in de veertiende en vijftiende eeuw’, Bulletin de la Commission Royale d’Histoire 173, 2007, p. 124.

19 J. Haemers, De Gentse opstand (1449–1453). De strijd tussen rivaliserende netwerken om het stedelijke kapitaal, Kortrijk: UGA, 2004, pp. 81–2. In 1479, Archduke Maximilian of Austria appointed Jan Jr.

20 C. Stroobant, �?Notice historique et généalogique sur les seigneurs d’Oisquercq et de Val’, Annales de l’Académie d’Archéologie de Belgique 5, 1848, pp. 351–3. About the Brabantine nobility: P. De Win, �?De adel in het hertogdom Brabant in de vijftiende eeuw. Een terreinverkenning’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 93, 1980, pp. 391–409, andM. Damen, �?Prelaten, edelen en steden. De samenstelling van de Staten van Brabant in de vijftiende eeuw’, Bulletin de la Commission Royale d’Histoire 182, 2016, 5–274.

21 SAG, series 301, no. 32, fol. 151r.

22 This means that they had the right to punish criminals and even pronounce the death penalty.

23 On the difference between illegality and validity in late medieval canon law, see M. Vleeschouwers-Van Melkebeek, �?Classical canon law on marriage: The making and breaking of households’, in Carlier and Soens (eds) The Household in Late Medieval Cities, p. 16.

24 C. Delameillieure, �?Partly with and partly against her will. Female consent, elopement, and abduction in late medieval Brabant’, Journal of Family History 42, 2017, pp. 351–68.

25 SAG, series 301, no. 41, fol. 59r (12 November 1450): �?dat hij uwer dochter wechleede sonder uwen danc’; SAG, series 301, no. 32, fol. 152v (1 July 1433): �?naer dat tzijnre kennesse commen was dat Jan zijn zone buten den consente van hem ende den joncfrouwe zijnre moeder ontscaect hadde de dochter van Janne van Oestkerke’.

26 Reynolds, How Marriage Became One of the Sacraments, p. 160.

27 Marriages contracted in a domestic sphere through words of present consent were not considered clandestine or atypical in late medieval London; see S. McSheffrey, �?Place, space and situation: Public and private in the making of marriage in late medieval London’, Speculum 79, 2004, pp.

28 A. Gheldolf, Coutume de la ville de Gand, Brussels: Gobbaerts, 1868, pp. 450–1.

29 Ibid., pp. 623–5.

30 P. Godding, Le droit privé dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux du 12e au 18e siècle, Brussels: Algemeen Rijksarchief, 1987, p. 281.

31 Danneel, Weduwen en wezen, pp. 171–2. On women in the Low Countries, see A. Bardyn, �?Women in the medieval society’, in V. Lambert and P. Stabel (eds) Golden Times. Wealth and Status in the Middle Ages in the Southern Low Countries, Tielt: Lannoo, 2016, pp. 283–317.

32 SAG, series 301, no. 41, fol. 59r (12 November 1450).

33 Danneel, Weduwen en wezen, pp. 171–2.

34 SAG, series 301, no. 32, fol. 151r (15 July 1433).

35 Danneel, Weduwen en wezen, p. 171.

36 In the fifteenth century, a skilled labourer had to work seven days to earn 1 noble.

37 SAG, series 301, no. 32, fol. 151r (15 July 1433), and SAG, 32, fol. 24v (9 October 1433).

38 SAG, series 301, no. 32, fol. 24v (7 October 1433).

39 M. Vleeschouwers-Van Melkebeek, �?Marital breakdown in the consistory courts of Brussels, Cambrai and Tournai: Judicial separation a mensa et thoro’, The Legal History Review 72, 2004, pp. 81–9.

40 M. Vleeschouwers-Van Melkebeek, �?Eendrachtelic commen ende vriendelic vereffent: boedelverdelingen voor de schepenen van de Keure van Gent tussen echtparen gescheiden van tafel en bed, 1439–1450’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Commissie voor de Uitgave der Oude Wetten en Verordeningen Van België 47, 2006, no. 11.

41 S. Butler, Divorce in Medieval England: From One to Two Persons in Law, London: Routledge, 2013.

42 �?Eerst aenghesien dat se noyt present was daer de vorseide huwelike voorwaerde passeerde te wette noch daerinne consent drouch’...

43 Danneel, Weduwen en wezen, pp. 178 and 180.

44 B. Kane and F. Williamson, �?Introduction’, in B. Kane and F. Williamson (eds) Women, Agency, and the Law, 1300–1700, London: Pickering & Chatto, 2013, pp. 6–7. See also several case studies in C. Beattie and M. Stevens (eds) Married Women and the Law in Premodern Northwest Europe, Woodbridge: Boydell, 2013.

45 SAG, series 301, no. 40, fol. 89v (13 August 1450).

46 A. Bardyn, �?Women’s fortunes. Gender differences, asset management and investment in late medieval Brabant’, unpublished PhD thesis, KU Leuven, 2018, pp. 25–66, and T. Phipps, �?Female litigants and the borough court. Status and strategy in the case of Agnes Halum of Nottingham’, in R. Goddard and T. Phipps (eds) Town Courts and Urban Society in Late Medieval England, 1250–1500, Woodbridge: Boydell, 2019, pp. 90–1.

47 Haemers, De Gentse opstand, pp. 163–75.

48 Danneel, Weduwen en wezen, p. 174. See also Godding, Le droit privé, p. 283, andR. Jacob, �?Mobilité sociale et coutumes familiales dans la France du nord et dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux’, in W. Prevenier (ed.) Marriage and Social Mobility in the Late Middle Ages,Ghent: Rijksuniversiteit Gent, 1989, pp. 35–49. More general: J. Gilissen, Le statut de la femme dans l’ancien droit belge, Brussels: Librairie Encyclopédique, 1962, vol. 2, pp. 255–321.

49 �?Ende dat thuwelic daerup sloot ende voortghinc tusschen denselven Janne ende joncfrouwe Gheertruut zinen wive ende de gheboden van hem beeden en waeren noch niet ghedaen ter kerken als de vorseide worden ghevielen’ (SAG, series 301, no. 41, fol. 59r (12 November 1450)).

50 From a legal point of view, a wife lost the capacity to contract debts because Ghent’s customs determined that a man was the head of the household (see Gilissen, Le statut de la femme, passimand Bardyn, �?Women in the medieval society’).

51 SAG, series 301, no. 25, fol. 164r (28 July 1451), fol. 229r (26 January 1452) and fol. 356r (9 March 1452). Jan or Gertrude alternately appeared in court representing each other in these cases; in July 1451, for instance, it was Gertrude who was present �?with the consent of Jan, her husband’.

52 Buylaert, Repertorium van de Vlaamse adel, p. 230. See also Rijksarchief Gent, Fonds Borluut, no. 31.

53 SAG, series 301, no. 44, fol. 78v (31 March 1457).

54 S. Hutton, �?Property, family and partnership: Married women and legal capability in late medieval Ghent’, in Beattie and Stevens, Married Women, p. 157. See also E. Kittell and K. Queller, �?Widows and wives in medieval Flanders’, Social History 41, 2016, 436–54, and J. Haemers, A. Bardyn and C. Delameillieure (eds) Wijvenwereld. Vrouwen in de middeleeuwse stad, Antwerp: Vrijdag, 2019.