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Posthumus students Bram Hilkens (PhD candidate at Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Sam Miske (PhD candidate at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), with support by the Posthumus Institute research network ‘Economy and Society of the Pre-Industrial Low Countries in Comparative Perspective’, the NWO-funded VIDI projects ‘Positively Shocking! The Redistributive Impact of Mass Mortality through Epidemic Diseases and Violent Conflict in Early Modern Northwest Europe’ and ‘Land Grabbing and Dutch Empire (16-18th century)’, and the International Institute for Social History (IISH), are organising the workshop ‘Agrarian Capitalism in the Preindustrial Low Countries : Local, Regional, and Global Dimensions’ at the International Institute of Social History in June 2023. For this workshop, papers on agrarian capitalism in the preindustrial Low Countries and related areas, such as border regions and colonies under the Dutch Empire, are welcomed. The organisers are hoping to receive contributions from researchers at various points in their respective careers and especially encourage the application of early career researchers such as PhD candidates and postdocs.

About the workshop

In scholarship concerning the transition from feudalism to capitalism, the concept of agrarian capitalism has played a crucial role as it marks the dominance of market mechanisms over other forms of exchange of land, labour, and capital in the countryside. The medieval and early modern Low Countries form a particularly interesting case in this scholarship, as both the Southern Low Countries and the Dutch Republic have been associated with early forms of agrarian capitalism. These transitions, however, have mostly been discussed in isolation from not only one another, but also from broader social developments such as the overseas expansion of the Dutch Republic, the flourishing of textile industries in the Southern Low Countries, or war-driven migration, to name a few.

New research projects are attempting to approach the agrarian capitalism framework from a different angle, stressing its many interrelated links with environment, inequality, the rise of the world market, and gender relations. This workshop attempts to consider new approaches to and uses for the agrarian capitalism framework for the Low Countries. Under what circumstances do we speak of agrarian capitalism? How do we distinguish it from ‘urban’ or ‘regular’ capitalism? What kind of variables indicate its emergence or dominance? Where do we place it chronologically? Do we speak of an internal institutional transition in the countryside, or is it impossible to see it apart from broader, global socioeconomic developments? How did these processes relate to (changes in) the gendered division of labour and economic autonomy of women? By addressing such questions, we aim to test the relevance of the agrarian capitalism framework for the case of the preindustrial Low Countries and vice versa.

Program

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On 11-13 December 2023, UCSIA, the Urban Studies Institute (University of Antwerp) and Centre Pieter Gillis (University of Antwerp) organise an academic workshop at the University of Antwerp on interdisciplinary perspectives on the role of religiously inspired solidarity in modernising and post-secular contexts.

The organisers of this workshop aim to discuss the role of faith and religious inspiration in organizing solidarity in contemporary superdiverse and post-secular urbanized societies as well as in secularising societies from the nineteenth century on by proceeding from the observation that religiously inspired or faith-based organizations have played and continue to play a significant role in offering social support and protection to vulnerable groups. However, these organisations do not sit easily in their intellectual and political-ideological context. While religiously inspired solidarity is driven by inner motives and personal faith, in the historical development of European welfare states, solidarity has become institutionalized as a set of impersonal redistributive mechanisms such as paying taxes and social contributions.

Confirmed keynotes are Anne Birgitta Pessi (Professor of Church and Social Studies, University of Helsinki), Sigrun Kahl (Assistant Professor of Political Science and Sociology, Yale University) and Joan Stavo-Debauge (Associate Researcher, University of Lausanne).

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On 5 June 2023, Posthumus alumna Dr Janna Everaert, now affiliated as postdoc researcher with the Brussels Centre for Urban Studies at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, will present the first copy of the book Macht in de metropool: Politieke elitevorming tijdens de demografische en economische bloeifase van Antwerpen (ca. 1400-1550), published with Amsterdam University Press, to the mayor of the City of Antwerp, Mr. Bart De Wever.

If you want to attend this launch, please make sure to register before 24 May 2023 (see button below).

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About the book

During Antwerp’s Golden Age, the city replaced Bruges as the primary trading hub of Western Europe. Antwerp transformed from a medium-sized Brabantine town to an unparalleled metropolis in the Low Countries with over 100.000 inhabitants. Although little is known regarding the impact of this transformation on the city’s governance, Antwerp serves as an intriguing and exceptional case study. Unlike other trading metropolises such as sixteenth-century Lyon or seventeenth-century Amsterdam, where merchants increasingly occupied positions in the city council, this was not the case in Antwerp. The book Macht in de Metropool reconstructs the compositions of Antwerp’s city council between 1400 and 1550. It examines the profile of the different aldermen and mayors and how they evolved over time. Furthermore, the research analyses the real estate investments of this group and their relationship with key groups in society such as the merchants, the nobility, and the central administration.

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Preceding the PhD defence by Hugo La Poutré, the Groningen Research Institute for the Study of Culture (ICOG) and the Scientific Network for Historical Demography (HiDo:) jointly organise the hybrid workshop ‘Epidemics in Medieval and Early Modern Western Europe’.

This workshop will be chaired by Dr Anjana Singh and includes presentations by several Posthumus fellows and alumni.

The workshop will be held both on location and via a live-stream. No prior registration is required, but please contact organiser Dr Richard Paping to obtain the required links.

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On 30 June 2023, the Center for Urban History of the University of Antwerp and the Antwerp Interdisciplinary Platform for Research into Inequality (AIPRIL), in cooperation with the N.W. Posthumus Institute, will host a workshop that is dedicated to the brand new book by Maarten Prak and Jan Luiten van Zanden, published in 2022 under the title Pioneers of Capitalism: The Netherlands, 1000-1800.

To frame the long-term socioeconomic history of the Northern Netherlands, the book employs the terminology of ‘varieties of capitalism’, which revolves around the idea that the balance between market and state differs in time and space. While capitalism in the colonies remained extractive, the intervention of the state in the economy fostered the rise of a resilient and inclusive market economy within the Netherlands. Assessing the societal impact of the idiosyncratic development of Dutch capitalism, Prak and Van Zanden refer to a group of Flemish historians who recently drew attention to the paradoxical confluence of rising middle classes and increasing social inequality that went hand in hand with economic growth in the Low Countries.

This workshop reflects on the ‘varieties of capitalism’ and ‘Low Countries paradox’ concepts and assesses their strengths and limitations for future research into the socioeconomic history of both the Northern and Southern Netherlands. Please register prior to the event by e-mail with PhD candidate Bas Spliet at the University of Antwerp.

~ because of scope, in Dutch only ~

Het onderzoeksteam achter het Kennisplatform Collectieve Kracht organiseert op 16 juni in Eindhoven een inspirerende dag waar burgercollectieven en overheid worden samengebracht. Beide partijen hebben in het verleden met elkaar samengewerkt, maar waar zal die samenwerking in de toekomst toe leiden en welke volgende stappen moeten genomen worden?

Het evenement begint met een warm welkom door Lukas Held van Collectieve Kracht en Jacques Giesbertz van Europe Direct Eindhoven. Hierop volgen een keynote en tien sessies met elk hun eigen thema’s en sprekers. Het evenement wordt afgesloten met een panel en netwerkborrel. Welkomstconsumpties en consumpties tijdens de netwerkborrel zijn voorzien, de optionele lunch dient zelf betaald te worden. Toegang tot de bijeenkomst is verder vrij, reservering vooraf is echter nodig.

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Antwerp Summer University welcomes applications for the Summer School CityLab IX: ‘Cities and states: exploring a complicated relationship’, to be organised at the University of Antwerp in July 2023. In this CityLAB, a range of scholars from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and focusing on cities and states in the North as well as the South will introduce the participants to their research. Urban professionals and high profile urban politicians will also discuss how they see the current position of cities in relation to national states. Participants will also have the opportunity to discuss their research with other participants and senior scholars.

Through this interdisciplinary summer school, the organisers aim to bring junior and senior scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore and discuss how, when and why the relationships between cities and states have evolved and are still evolving. Particular interest is taken in how cities and state have differed and differ in the way they govern societies and with which impact on social inequality, power relations, socio-ecological flows and living in diversity.

Applications should be submitted via the dedicated portal, the deadline for applications has been set at 15 May 2023. Those requiring visa to enter Belgium are advised to submit their application timely.

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On 5 June 2023, Posthumus alumnus Hugo La Poutré will defend his PhD thesis ‘English population 1086-1377: a modelling approach’ at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Groningen.

Population size, food production, and consumption are closely related. Hugo La Poutré concentrates on this relationship in his doctoral research. He shows by the use of simulations that the English population tripled within two centuries, from two million in 1100 to over six million in 1300. Half a century later, the Black Death, the devastating plague epidemic of 1348-1349, caused more than three million deaths in England alone. During the following plague epidemics, the population declined even further.

Amongst other things, these changes left their mark on the production and consumption of food. Pints of beer and hog roast might not have been uncommon at the end of the fourteenth century, but they were when the population peaked at the start of the fourteenth century. Then, it must have been pea soup with bread. After all, such a large population had to be fed, and arable land is simply more productive than pasture. La Poutré makes plausible that the common people must have lived on an almost vegan diet of cereals and legumes. To raise production, peasants spread as much manure on their land as possible, and let their land less often lie fallow. Making use of models, La Poutré calculates their production to have been 50 per cent higher than what was attained at their lord’s land. In this way, a population of six million could be fed.

Promotors are Dr Richard Paping and Professor emeritus Maarten Duijvendak, both from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Groningen.

The defence will also be streamed live via the link mentioned in the header section of this post. You can find more info and download the thesis via the button below.

Please note that Hugo has connected his promotion to the charity programme of Tracing (Restoring Family Links), a programme of the international Red Cross to help find lost relatives in case of war, conflicts, natural disaster or migration. Donations are welcome.

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