Civic Ceremony and Religion in Medieval Bruges c.1300-1520

Public religious practice lay at the heart of civic society in late medieval Europe. In this illuminating study, Andrew Brown draws on the rich and previously little-researched archives of Bruges, one of medieval Europe's wealthiest and most important towns, to explore the role of religion and ceremony in urban society. The author situates the religious practices of citizens - their investment in the liturgy, commemorative services, guilds and charity - within the contexts of Bruges' highly diversified society and of the changes and crises the town experienced. Focusing on the religious processions and festivities sponsored by the municipal government, the author challenges much current thinking on, for example, the nature of 'civic religion'. Re-evaluating the ceremonial links between Bruges and its rulers, he questions whether rulers could dominate the urban landscape by religious or ceremonial means, and offers new insight into the interplay between ritual and power of relevance throughout medieval Europe. 'Based on an impressive knowledge of the archives of the civic and religious institutions of Bruges, [Andrew Brown] sets out to describe the development of virtually every single ritual phenomenon he encountered in late medieval Bruges. Whenever possible he underpins his argumentation with quantitative data ... an invaluable tool for the study of (religious) rituals and events within the late medieval town.' Job Weststrate, Reviews in History (history.ac.uk/reviews) '... a bracingly smart excavation of Bruges's ceremonial pulse, a study grounded in extensive, patient work in ecclesiastical and civic sources. Brown's study is impressive for its empiricism ... and for its theoretical familiarity with ritual as a scholarly field ... one of the finest considerations of medieval Bruges ... will be considered the standard work for decades to come.' Peter Arnade, Journal of Ecclesiastical HistoryIntroduction; 1. The Holy Blood Procession; 2. General processions; 3. Feast days and liturgical commemoration; 4. Guilds: feast, festivity and public worship; 5. Guilds and civic government; 6. Civic charity; 7. Civic ceremony, religion and the counts of Flanders; Conclusion and epilogue: civic morality c.1500.