‘How one shall govern a city’: the polyphony of urban political thought in the fourteenth-century duchy of Brabant

Abstract

ABSTRACT:This article examines late medieval urban political thought. By means of an intertextual methodology that combines the efforts of continental scholars and English literary historians, it provides new insights into the political ideas that circulated within the towns of the fourteenth-century duchy of Brabant. A qualitative analysis between different source types, that originated amongst socially diverse groups, will indicate that political ideas had a polyphonic character. Indeed, ideas were constantly reconstructed and reshaped by the social groups that used them and the context in which they were uttered. During the fourteenth century, the Brabantine citizenry was involved in an ideological battle that was fought with similar, but adaptable, weapons.