How
subversive was the speech of Flemish rebels in the later Middle Ages?
Violence remained the exception in urban rebellions, whereas
subversive utterances, though always risky, must have been almost the
rule of daily politics in the urban centres of late medieval Flanders
and in many other European towns and cities as well. Quoted below,
you can find five of the most popular expressions of urban rebels in
Flanders. Naive at first sight, they contain however hidden messages
for those who were shouted at.
1.
‘A bad chicken was brooding’
(een
quaet kiekin broedde;
Ypres, 1477) was a common proverb in the Middle Ages. It meant that
wicked people were hatching a malicious plan. They ‘were brooding
on’ subversive plans that had to remain hidden from the
authorities, until they could take action and openly call for a
strike in the textile industry. Testimonies of Flemish rebels not
only show that they planned their political actions in clandestine
meetings, but also that even groups completely excluded from
political power, as the young apprentices of the Flemish textile
guilds, commonly exchanged dangerous political ideas amongst
themselves without the initial knowledge of the urban rulers or the
deans and masters of their guilds. When these bad eggs were hatched,
subversive speech could pose a serious threat to the authorities.
2.
‘Son of a b*tch’
(hoerezuene;
Bruges, 1478). Such vulgar language was not used only by rebels, as
it seems to have been quite common in all social layers in town.
Anyway, as today, one of the most common metaphors used to describe
the strengths and weaknesses of opponents in past societies involved
sexuality. Insulters targeted men and women with references to their
(alleged) sexual excesses and unreliability. Furthermore, a victim’s
descent was called into question when an insulter called him or her a
‘b*stard’ or a ‘son of a b*tch’. Power and status depended
not only on behaviour, but also on membership in an important family
through birth or marriage. Both aspects came under pressure if a man
or woman was labelled as an illegitimate child, because in Flanders
‘b*stards’ had no legal rights unless the sovereign legitimized
them.
3.
‘I
sh*t on you’
(ic
schyte in ulieden;
Bruges, 1527). In 1527, the fishmonger Thomas Haghebaert had shouted
to the dean and the sworn men of his guild ‘I have nothing to do
with you or with the magistrate. I sh*t on you and on the aldermen
and on all those who think they can harm me!’ He was exiled as
well, a heavy punishment for a serious crime. More than just social
status and reputation were at stake when Thomas threatened his
superiors with these ‘faecal insults’. He was also challenging
their legal authority. Therefore, this ‘indecent language’, as it
was called in the final verdict of Thomas, not only wanted to
dishonour the chiefs of the guild, as the main purpose of the
defamation was to destabilize the political authority of rulers and
privileged social groups.
4.
‘Liver
eater’
(levereter;
Ghent, 1432). This offensive term was generally aimed at corrupt
officers or aldermen. The term was linked to ‘organologic’ views
which compared the city with a body that could be harmed by the
corrupt acts of individuals. In this case, according to rebel
ideology, people who ate the ‘liver’ of the city damaged the most
important part of its ‘body politic’. Medieval medicine saw the
liver as the source of all necessary body fluids, but medical models
aside, the basic idea of eating one’s liver is expressive enough.
By accusing someone of this severe crime, rebels legitimated the
punishment of those who were accused of corruption, as they claimed
that it was a necessary action to cure ‘a wounded town’.
5.
‘Kill!
Kill!’
(slaet
doot, slaet doot;
Bruges, 1477). The rhythmic structure of the Middle Dutch text, and
of several other similar examples, shows that it was meant to be
chanted or sung. If a mob of thousands was shouting such phrases
unisono,
this would obviously have an extremely intimidating effect on the
aldermen hiding in the city hall. Using a rhetoric of violence
targeted at the moral failings of rulers, these shouted slogans did
not attack the urban government as a whole, but just those who had
failed to fulfil their proper role as good governors. Rebels sought
to hold up the mirror to magistrates, asking them to correct their
faults and remedy the particular grievance that lay at the heart of
the protest. Rebels did perhaps not fully understand what the ‘bad
practices’ were that they were referring to when they collectively
shouted similar slogans in public during times of commotion, but they
certainly did know what was at stake and why they shouted it.
Text
by Jan Dumolyn and Jelle Haemers
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