Sixteenth-century Antwerp and its Rural Surroundings

This study of sixteenth-century Antwerp and its surroundings is an attempt to combine commercial explanation models concerning the impact of great towns on their surrounding countryside with an approach in which institutional factors, and especially property relations, play the major role. It focuses on four types of influence of Antwerp on its surroundings:

- the demographic impact

- the increasing urban demand for agrarian products

-the impact of the urban economy on non-agrarian types of labour in the countryside and

- the purchases of land and other investments made by Antwerp citizens and their impact on the property relations in the surrounding countryside

Within the framework of these four fields of interaction between town and countryside, three essential questions have to be answered: First, how can we characterize the urban influence in each of these fields? Can it be considered a stimulus for the rural economy or rather an obstacle? Second, what was the economic response of the rural economy to the urban impact? Did it respond by specializing, according to the model presented by J. de Vries, and others, or were there obstacles that obstructed specialization? Third, what role did the medieval legacies play in the interaction between the ‘capitalist’ metropolis and the 'feudal' countryside?

Michael Limberger teaches at the Catholic University Brussels (KUB) and at Ghent University. His research covers late medieval and early modern economic and social history, especially of the Low Countries.

Cette série d'études peut être considerée comme un produit du programme de recherche 'La société urbaine dans les anciens Pays-Bas (bas Moyen Age - 16e siècle)' financé par les 'Pôles d'attraction interuniversitaires - Etat belge - Services fédéraux des affaires scientifiques, techniques et culturelles' et mené par une équipe composée par les Universités de Gand (RUG, Marc Boone, Hilde Symoens), de Bruxelles (ULB, Claire Billen), de Leyde (RUL, Wim Blockmans) et d'Anvers (UFSIA, Bruno Blondé, Guido Marnef) et du départment des manuscripts de la Bibliothèque Royale (Albertina) de Bruxelles (Pierre Cockshaw, Bernard Bousmanne). Le projet (PAI, phase V, n°10) sera développé en poursuivant quatre lignes de recherche: villes et plat-pays (osmose économique, social et culturel), contrôle des comportements, identité urbaine, histoire sociale et culturelle des classes moyennes. La série publiera les resultats de recherche du programme pendant la période 2002-2006. Compte tenu de l'importance du phénomène urbain dans l'histoire des anciens Pays-Bas, le programme de recherche contribuera également à mieux comprendre la singularité de ce espace dans le contexte européen.