‘Hoemen een stat of lantscap regieren sal’

stadsliteratuur als een politiek instrument voor verandering in het veertiende-eeuwse hertogdom Brabant

Samenvatting

‘How to govern a city or country’: urban literature as a political instrument for change in the fourteenth-century

This article investigates late medieval urban political thought. By means of a discourse analysis of both didactic and historiographical urban literature, it provides new insights into the political ideas that circulated within the understudied towns of the duchy of Brabant. A qualitative analysis, grounded in the history of Brabant, indicates that literary authors voiced ideas as a reaction on contemporary politics. As political implements, ideas played an active and strategic role within their own society. During the turbulent fourteenth century, literary works tried to convince urban governors to alter their policy in a selective manner. Political change insured the preservation of elitist power, and could thus have a ‘conserva- tive’ character.