WRITING AND THE ADMINISTRATION

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1 WRITING AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF MEDIEVAL TOWNS UTRECHT STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL LITERACY 27

2 UTRECHT STUDIES IN MEDIEVAL LITERACY General Editor Marco Mostert (Universiteit Utrecht) Editorial Board Gerd Althoff (Westfälische-Wilhelms-Universität Münster) Michael Clanchy (University of London) Peter Gumbert (Universiteit Leiden) Mayke de Jong (Universiteit Utrecht) Rosamond McKitterick (University of Cambridge) Arpád Orbán (Universiteit Utrecht) Armando Petrucci (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa) Richard H. Rouse (UCLA)

3 WRITING AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF MEDIEVAL TOWNS MEDIEVAL URBAN LITERACY I edited by Marco Mostert and Anna Adamska H F

4 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Medieval urban literacy. I, Writing and the administration of medieval towns. (Utrecht studies in medieval literacy ; 27) 1. Written communication History To Records History To Literacy History To Cities and towns, Medieval. I. Series. II. Mostert, Marco editor. III. Adamska, Anna, editor '244'091732'0902-dc23 ISBN-13: Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2014/0095/49 ISBN e-isbn: Printed in the E.U. on acid-free paper

5 Contents Preface Maps vii ix Introduction MARCO MOSTERT and ANNA ADAMSKA 1 Part I: Varieties of Administrative Urban Literacy Producing, Using, and Keeping Records in Medieval Swedish Towns INGER LARSSON 13 The Use of Records in Medieval Towns: The Case of s-hertogenbosch (Brabant) GEERTRUI VAN SYNGHEL 31 The Use of Records in Medieval Towns: The Case of Bolzano, South Tyrol HANNES OBERMAIR 49 Urban Chanceries in the Kingdom of Castile in the Late Middle Ages JOSÉ MIGUEL LÓPEZ-VILLALBA 69 Urban Administrative Literacy in the Northeastern Low Countries: A Comparison of Groningen, Kampen, Deventer, and Zutphen, Twelfth-Fifteenth Centuries JEROEN F. BENDERS 97 Towns and the Written Word in Medieval Hungary KATALIN SZENDE 123

6 vi Contents Urban Literacy in Small Polish Towns and the Process of Modernisation of Society in the Later Middle Ages AGNIESZKA BARTOSZEWICZ 149 Part II: Urban Archives: Places of Power, Memory, and Secrets Writing and Social Evidence Before the Archives : Revealing and Concealing the Written in Late Medieval Lüneburg ANDREAS LITSCHEL 185 The Political Implications of Urban Archival Documents in the Late Medieval Flemish Cities: The Example of the Diary of Ghent HANNES LOWAGIE 209 Civic Literacy in Later Medieval England SARAH REES JONES 219 Urban Literacy and Urban Secrecy? Some New Approaches to an Old Problem MICHAEL JUCKER 231 Trust, Secrecy, and Control in the Medieval Italian Communes CHRISTOPH FRIEDRICH WEBER 243 A Technique to Ensure Safety: The cedulae inclusae of Strasbourg, Berne, and Basel during the Burgundian Wars ( ) BASTIAN WALTER 267 Part III: Litterati in Town: Notaries, Schoolmasters, and Schoolboys The Professsional Formation of Public Notaries in Dalmatia from the Second Half of the Twelfth Century to the End of the Fourteenth Century BRANKA GRBAVAC 285 Laborem circumspecti domini notarii : Town Notaries in Early Modern Transylvania ÁGNES FLÓRA 313 Some Thoughts on Urban Schools, Urban Literacy, and the Development of Western Civilisation MARCO MOSTERT 337 Index 349

7 Preface This volume and its companion volume, Uses of the Written Word in Medieval Towns, form the main result of the research project Medieval 1 Urban Literacy, sponsored by The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). The Institut für 2 vergleichende Städtegeschichte (ISTG) of the Universität Münster, the Institute for Medieval Studies (IMG) of the University of Leeds, the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN), the Institute of History and Archival Sciences of Toruñ University, the Institute of Byzantine Studies, Queen s University Belfast, and the Fachbereichsbibliothek Byzantinistik und Neogräzistik of the Universität Wien have also been involved in the project. Together with Georges Declercq and Walter Ysebaert, both from the VUB, the editors, Marco Mostert and Anna Adamska, both from the Universiteit Utrecht, organised a workshop in Brussels on 2-3 June 2008, under the title 3 New Approaches to Medieval Urban Literacy. On 9-12 July 2007, 7-10 July 2008, and July 2009, sessions and round tables were organised during the International Medieval Congress (University of Leeds). Paul Trio, from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, campus Kortrijk, and Ana Belen Sánchez- Prieto, from the Facultad de Ciencias de la Documentacion, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, helped with drawing up the programme. In all, more than fifty papers were presented at Leeds. Apart from the Introductions, the two volumes appearing in Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy contain 33 contri- 1 Uses of the Written Word in Medieval Towns: Medieval Urban Literacy II, ed. M. MOSTERT and A. ADAMSKA (Turnhout, 2014: Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy 28). 2 Dossiernummer Published as New Approaches to Medieval Urban Literacy, ed. G. DECLERCQ et al. (Brussels, 2013: Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten: Contactforum), with eleven contributions.

8 viii Preface butions, a few of which have been added afterwards, as has been, in the companion volume, a short suggestion for further research under the title Whither the study of medieval urban literacy? The editors feel that, despite the many publications devoted to aspects of medieval urban literacy, together Writing and the Administration of Medieval Towns and Uses of the Written Word in Medieval Towns manage to provide new insights into this multifaceted phenomenon. If they are not mistaken, this will come about not in the least by the comparative approach that has been adopted, which allows the reader to compare known forms of urban literacy with examples from areas and centuries he or she may not have been familiar with prior to picking up these volumes. Hopefully this will lead to new hypotheses and new research, which will lead to a better understanding of the European-wide phenomenon of medieval urban literacy. During the editorial process, assistance with the checking of the English of the contributions was provided by Connie Hopkins. The maps were made by Maria Juran of the Institute for the Historical Geography of the Church in Poland (Catholic University of Lublin). The editors are grateful to all institutions and individuals who have made these volumes possible, and more in particular to those who consented to develop their papers for publication or to write wholly new papers for inclusion in these volumes.

9 Maps 1 The Low Countries in the Late Middle Ages x 2 The Region of Bolzano (Bozen) in the Early Modern Period xi 3 The Network of Hungarian Towns in the Late Middle Ages xii 4 Croatia: Geographical and Political Division at the End of the Sixteenth Century xiii 5 The Urban Network in the Region of Cracow c xiv 6 The Town Network in the Iberian Kingdoms of the Late Middle Ages xv

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11 Maps xi

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15 Maps xv

TOWARDS NEW THINKING IN URBAN HISTORIOGRAPHY Old Texts, New Approaches. A Reconsideration of Urban Historical Consciousness in Northwest Europe

TOWARDS NEW THINKING IN URBAN HISTORIOGRAPHY Old Texts, New Approaches. A Reconsideration of Urban Historical Consciousness in Northwest Europe Organising committee: Bram Caers (UAntwerpen) Lisa Demets