Book Chapter

Unlikely followers of fashion? Dressing the poor in late medieval Bruges

  • Peter Stabel

Surprisingly little is known about the way the poor strata of urban society in the late medieval period used dress to express social identities. Systematic empirical data have not been available, and sources tend to illustrate the opinion of the elites about poverty. Through the analysis of cloth distribution by charitable institutions and, above all, of a unique set of inventories for fifteenth-century Bruges, it becomes clear that dress was not only an important element in the material culture and the construction of social identity of the poor, but that instead of being a passive player depending on charity and alternative commercial circuits, the poor used dress to conform to fashion cycles set by the wealthier groups in urban society. In late medieval Bruges, they were wearing the same typology of dress, the same colours and the same fabrics, displaying in this way a willingness to participate and invest in fashion cycles. In assessing both urban economies and social dialogue, scholars should therefore not focus on elite demand alone.

  • Keywords:
  • Social relations,
  • late medieval city,
  • dress and material culture,
  • poverty,
+ Show More

Peter Stabel

Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium - ORCID: 0000-0002-0582-4151

  1. Alexandre-Bidon, Danièle, and Marie-Thérèse Lorcin. 2003. Le quotidien au temps des fabliaux. Paris: Picard.
  2. Baatsen, Inneke, Bruno Blondé, Jullie De Groot, and Isis Sturtewagen. 2018. “At home in the city. The dynamics of material culture.” In City and society in the Low Countries 1100-1600, ed. Bruno Blondé et al., 192-219. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  3. Blanc, Odile. 1989. “Vêtement féminin, vêtement masculin à la fin du Moyen-Age: le point de vue des moralistes.” In Le vêtement, histoire, archéologie, symbolique vestimentaire au Moyen-Age, 243-254. Paris: Léopard d’or.
  4. Blockmans, Wim P. and Antheun Janse, ed. 1999. Showing status. Representations of social positions in the late Middle Ages. Turnhout: Brepols.
  5. Blockmans, Wim P., and Walter Prevenier. 1976. “Openbare armenzorg te ‘s Hertogenbosch tijdens de groeifase 1435-1535.” Annalen van de Belgische Vereniging voor Hospitaalgeschiedenis 12: 19-78.
  6. Blockmans, Wim, and Walter Prevenier. 1978. “Poverty in Flanders and Brabant from the Fourteenth to the Mid-Sixteenth Century: Sources and Problems.” Acta Historiae Neerlandicae 10: 20-57.
  7. Blondé, Bruno, Marc Boone and Anne-Laure Van Bruaene, eds. 2018. City and society in the Low Countries, 1100-1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  8. Blondé, Bruno, Sam Geens and Peter Stabel, “The world of goods. An essay about leisure and a Medieval Industrious Revolution.” In The Medieval world. A cultural history of leisure, ed. Paul Milliman, forthcoming. London: Blackwell.
  9. Bologni, Pierre, et al., ed. 2002, Le petit peuple dans l’Occident médiéval. Terminologies, perceptions, réalités. Paris: Editions de la Sorbonne.
  10. Bonenfant, Paul. 1996. “Achats de drap pour les pauvres de Bruxelles aux foires d’Anvers de 1393 à 1487, contribution à l’histoire des petites draperies.” In Philippe le Bon, sa politique, son action, ed. Paul Bonenfant, 379-91. Brussels: Bibliothèque du Moyen Âge.
  11. Breward, Christopher. 1995. The culture of fashion. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  12. Camille, Michael. 2001. “For our devotion and pleasure. The sexual objects of Jean, Duc de Berry.” Art History 24: 169-94.
  13. Carlier, Myriam, and Peter Stabel. 2002. “Questions de moralité dans les villes de la Flandre au bas moyen âge: sexualité et activité urbaine (bans échevinaux et statuts de métiers).” In Faire Banz, edictz et statuts. Légiférer dans la ville médiévale, ed. Jean-Marie Cauchies et al., 241-62. Brussels: Presses de l’Université Saint-Louis.
  14. Carlier, Myriam. 2001. Kinderen van de minne? Bastaarden in het vijftiende-eeuwse Vlaanderen. Brussels: Royal Academy.
  15. Crane, Diana. 2000. Fashion and its social agendas. Class, gender and identity in clothing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  16. Danneel, Marianne. 1987. Weduwen en wezen in het laatmiddeleeuwse Gent. Leuven: Garant eds.
  17. De Groot, Julie. 2011. “Zorgen voor later? De betekenis van de dienstperiode voor jonge vrouwen in het laatmiddeleeuwse Gent herbekeken.” Stadsgeschiedenis 6: 1-15.
  18. De La Haye, Amy and Elisabeth Wilson, ed. 1999. Defining Dress. Dress as an object. Meaning and Identity. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  19. de Mérindol, Christian. 1989. “Couleurs, étoffes et politique à la fin du Moyen Age, Les couleurs du roi et les couleurs d’une cour ducale.” In Recherches sur l’économie de la France médiévale, les voies fluviales, la draperie, actes du 112ème congrès des sociétés savantes, Lyon, 1987, 221-51. Paris: Editions du CNRS.
  20. De Meyer, Ingrid. 1974. “De sociale strukturen te Brugge in de 14de eeuw.” In Studiën betreffende de sociale structuren te Brugge, Kortrijk en Gent in de 14e en 15e eeuw, ed. Wim P. Blockmans et al. Kortrijk-Heule: Standen en Landen.
  21. Deceulaer, Harald. 2008. “Second hand dealers in the Early Modern Low Countries: Institutions, markets and practices.” In Alternative exchanges. Second hand circulations from the sixteenth century to the present, ed. Laurence Fontaine, 13-42. New York-Oxford: Berghahn.
  22. Delort, Robert. 1978. Le commerce des fourrures en Occident à la fin du Moyen-Age, (v.1300 - v.1450). Paris: Ecole française de Rome.
  23. Dubbe, B., and R. Meischke. 1980. Thuis in de late middeleeuwen. Het Nederlandse burgerinterieur 1400-1535. Zwolle: Waanders.
  24. Dückers, Rob, and Pieter Roelofs, ed. 2005. The Limbourg Brothers. Nijmegen masters at the French court 1400-1416. Nijmegen: Ludion.
  25. Dumolyn, Jan. 1997. De Brugse opstand van 1436-1438. Kortrijk-Heule: Standen en Landen.
  26. Dyer, Christopher. 1989. Standards of living in the Later Middle Ages. Social change in England c.1200-1520. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  27. Easton, Martha. 2008. “Was it good for you, too? Medieval erotic art and its audiences.” Different Visions: A Journal of New Perspectives on Medieval Art 1: 1-30.
  28. Elias, Norbert. 1983. The court society. New York: Blackwell.
  29. Fontaine, Laurence. 2008. Alternative Exchanges: Second hand circulations from the sixteenth century to the present. New York-Oxford: Berghahn.
  30. Galvin, Michael Tuteur. 1998. The poor tables of Bruges 1270-1477. New York: PhD Columbia University.
  31. Galvin, Michael Tuteur. 2002. “Credit and parochial charity in fifteenth-century Bruges.” Journal of Medieval History 28: 131-54.
  32. Geens, Sam. Forthcoming, A golden age of labour? Economic inequality and labour income after the Black Death, Antwerp: University of Antwerp, PhD thesis.
  33. Gilliodts-Van Severen, Louis. 1876. Inventaire des archives de la ville de Bruges. Bruges: Gaillard.
  34. Herlihy, David. 1997. The Black Death and the transformation of the West. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
  35. Howell, Martha C. 1998. The Marriage Exchange: Property, social place, and gender in cities of the Low Countries, 1300-1550. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  36. Howell, Martha C. 2010. Commerce before capitalism in Europe, 1300-1600. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  37. Hutton, Shennan. 2011. Women and economic activities in Late Medieval Ghent. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
  38. Jolivet, Sophie. 2006. “Le phénomène de mode à la cour de Bourgogne sous Philippe le Bon: l’exemple des robes de 1430 à 1442.” Revue du Nord 88: 331-46
  39. López Barahona, Victoria, and José Nieto Sánchez. 2012. “Dressing the poor. The provision of clothing among the lower classes in eighteenth-century Madrid.” Textile History 43, 1: 23-42.
  40. Lorcin, Marie Thérèse. 2007. D’abord il dit et ordonna… Testaments et société en Lyonnais et Forez à la fin du Moyen Âge. Lyon: Presses universitaires de Lyon.
  41. Maes, Marleen. 1986. “Kledij als teken van marginaliteit in de late middeleeuwen.” In Sociale structuren en topografie van armoede en rijkdom in de 14e en 15e eeuw, ed. Walter Prevenier, et al., 135-56. Ghent: Studia Historica Gandensia.
  42. Mane, Perrine. 1989. “Emergence du vêtement de travail à travers l’iconographie du vêtement.” In Le vêtement. Le vêtement, histoire, archéologie, symbolique vestimentaire au Moyen-Age, 93-122. Paris: Léopard d’or.
  43. Maréchal, Griet. 1978. De sociale en politieke gebondenheid van het Brugse hospitaalwezen in de Middeleeuwen. Heule: Standen en Landen.
  44. McCants, Anne E.C. 2007. “Goods at pawn. The overlapping worlds of material possessions and family finance in Early Modern Amsterdam.” Social Science History 31, Summer 2007: 213-38.
  45. Mollat, Michel. 1978. Les pauvres au moyen âge. Etudes sociale. Paris: Hachette.
  46. Munro, John H. 2003. “Wage stickiness, monetary changes, and real incomes in Late-Medieval England and the Low Countries, 1300-1500: did money matter?.” Research in Economic History 21, 185-297.
  47. Munro, John H. 2005. “Builders’ wages in Southern England and the Southern Low Countries, 1346-1500. A comparative study of trends in and levels of real incomes.” In L’Edilizia prima della rivoluzione industriale, secc. XIII-XVIII, ed. Simonetta Caviococchi, 1013-76. Firenze: Istituto Internazionale di Storia Economica “Francesco Datini”.
  48. Munro, John H. 2007. “The anti-red shift to the dark side: colour changes in Flemish luxury woollens, 1300-1550.” Medieval Clothing and Textiles 3: 55-95.
  49. Nicholas, David. 1987. The metamorphosis of a Medieval city: Ghent in the Age of the Arteveldes, 1302-1390. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
  50. Piponnier, Françoise, and Perrine Mane. 1986. Se vêtir au moyen âge. Paris: Adam Biro.
  51. Piponnier, Françoise. 1970. Costume et vie sociale, la cour d’Anjou, XIV-XVe siècle. Paris: Mouton.
  52. Prevenier, Walter, et al. 1998. Le prince et le peuple. Images de la société du temps des ducs de Bourgogne, 1384-1530. Antwerp: Fonds Mercator.
  53. Roche, Daniel. 1994. The culture of clothing. Dress and fashion in the ancien regime. Cambridge: Cambridge university Press.
  54. Rousseaux, Xavier. 1999. “Sozialdisziplinierung, Civilisation des moeurs et monopolisation du pouvoir. Eléments pour une histoire du controle social dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux 1500-1815.” In Institutions, instruments and agents of social control and discipline in Early Modern Europe, ed. Heinz Schilling, and L. Behrisch, 251-74. Frankfurt: Klostermann.
  55. Rublack, Ulinka. 2010. Dressing up. Cultural identity in Renaissance Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  56. Scott, Margaret. 2004. Medieval clothing and costumes. Displaying wealth and class in Medieval times. New York: Rosen Publishing.
  57. Scott, Margaret. 2007. Medieval dress and fashion. London: British Library.
  58. Simmel, Georg. 1904. “Fashion.” International Quarterly 10, October 1904: 130-55.
  59. Simmel, Georg. 2003. “The philosophy of fashion.” In The Consumption Reader, ed. David B. Clarke, Marcus A. Doel, and Kate M.L. Housiaux, 238-245. Londen: Routledge.
  60. Smail, Daniel Lord. 2016. Legal plunder. Households and debt collection in Late Medieval Europe. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
  61. Smeyers, Maurits. 1999. Flemish miniatures from the 8th to the mid-16th century. Leuven: Davidsfonds.
  62. Smith, Sally V. 2009. “Materializing resistant identities among the medieval peasantry: an examination of dress accessories from English rural settlement sites.” Journal of Material Culture 14: 309-32.
  63. Soens, Tim, and Erik Thoen. 2010. “Vegetarians or carnivores? Standards of living and diet in Late Medieval Flanders,” In Economic and biological interactions in pre-industrial Europe from the 13th to the 18th centuries, ed. Simonetta Cavaciocchi, 495-527. Firenze: Firenze University Press (Fondazione Istituto internazionale di storia economica “F. Datini” Pubblicazioni. Serie II, Atti delle “settimane di studio” e altri convegni, 41).
  64. Sosson, Jean-Pierre. 1977. Les Travaux publics de la ville de Bruges, XIVe-XVe siècles. Brussels: Crédit Communal.
  65. Sosson, Jean-Pierre. 1987. “Les XIVe et XVe siècles: un âge d’or de la main d’oeuvre? Quelques réflexions à propos des anciens Pays-Bas méridionaux.” In Aspects de la vie économique des pays bourguignons (1384-1559): dépression ou prospérité, 17-39. Basel: Centre européen d’Etudes bourguignonnes.
  66. Spufford, Margaret. 2000. “The cost of apparel in seventeenth-century England and the accuracy of Gregory King.” Economic History Review 53: 677-705.
  67. Spufford, Margaret. 2003. “Fabric for seventeenth-century children and adolescents’ clothes.” Textile History 34: 47-63.
  68. Stabel, Peter. 1995. De kleine stad in Vlaanderen: bevolkingsdynamiek en economische functies van de kleine en secundaire stedelijke centra in het Gentse kwartier (14de-16de eeuw). Brussels: Royal Academy.
  69. Stabel, Peter. 2011. “Militaire organisatie, bewapening en wapenbezit in het laatmiddeleeuwse Brugge.” Revue belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 89: 1049-74.
  70. Stabel, Peter. 2015. “Working alone? Single women and economic activity in the cities of the county of Flanders (early 13th-early 15th century).” In Single life and the city 1200-1900, ed. Julie De Groot et al., 27-49. London: Palgrave McMillan.
  71. Stabel, Peter. Forthcoming. A capital of fashion. Guilds and economic change in late medieval Bruges. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  72. Sturtewagen, Isis. 2016. All together respectably dressed. Fashion and clothing in Bruges during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Antwerp: unpublished PhD University of Antwerp.
  73. Thoen, Erik, and Isabelle Devos. 1999. “Pest in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden tijdens de middeleeuwen en de moderne tijden: Een status quaestionis over de ziekte in haar sociaal-economische context.” In De pest in de Nederlanden: medisch historische beschouwingen 650 jaar na de Zwarte Dood, 19-43. Brussels: Academia Regia Belgica Medicinae (Dissertationes. Series Historica).
  74. Tits-Dieuaide, Marie-Jeanne. 1975. “Les tables des pauvres dans les anciennes principautés belges au moyen âge.” Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis 88: 562-83.
  75. Van Buren, Anne H., and Roger S. Wieck. 2011. Illuminating fashion. Dress in the art of Medieval France and the Netherlands, 1325-1515. New York: The Morgan Library.
  76. Van Rompaey, Jan. 1967. Het grafelijk baljuwsambt in Vlaanderen tijdens de Boergondische periode. Brussels: Royal Academy.
  77. Veblen, Thorstein. 1899. Theory of the leisure class. An economic study in the evolution of institutions. New York: Macmillan.
  78. Welch, Evelyn, and Michelle O’Malley. 2010. The Material Renaissance, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
  79. Welch, Evelyn. 2005. Shopping in the Renaissance. Consumer cultures in Italy 1400-1600. New Haven: Yale University Press.
PDF
  • Publication Year: 2022
  • Pages: 293-318
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2022 Author(s)

XML
  • Publication Year: 2022
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
  • © 2022 Author(s)

Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Unlikely followers of fashion? Dressing the poor in late medieval Bruges

Authors

Peter Stabel

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-565-3.17

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

La moda come motore economico: innovazione di processo e prodotto, nuove strategie commerciali, comportamento dei consumatori / Fashion as an economic engine: process and product innovation, commercial strategies, consumer behavior

Editors

Giampiero Nigro

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

422

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-565-3

ISBN Print

978-88-5518-564-6

eISBN (pdf)

978-88-5518-565-3

eISBN (xml)

978-88-5518-566-0

Series Title

Datini Studies in Economic History

Series ISSN

2975-1241

Series E-ISSN

2975-1195

463

Fulltext
downloads

280

Views

Export Citation

1,341

Open Access Books

in the Catalogue

2,191

Book Chapters

3,790,127

Fulltext
downloads

4,399

Authors

from 923 Research Institutions

of 65 Nations

64

scientific boards

from 348 Research Institutions

of 43 Nations

1,247

Referees

from 380 Research Institutions

of 38 Nations