2020 - 1

Inhoud

‘One of the sweetest places in Europe.’ Veranderingen in aanleg en gebruik van stadsgroen op de achttiende-eeuwse Antwerpse omwalling

Herwig De Lannoy

Bekwaam om te stemmen? De impact van het bekwaamheidskiesrecht op de partijvorming en politiek in Mechelen (1883-1896)

Werk in Uitvoering

Dennis De Vriese

Regulering en modernisering van de stedelijke economie. Vleesverkoop in laat- en postcorporatief Brussel (1770-1860)

Review

Arie van Steensel, Margo Buelens-Terryn, Heidi Deneweth, Jelena Dobbels, Nathalie Franckaerts, Pieter Martens, Alessandra De Mulder, Patrick Naaktgeboren, Bob Pierik, Sophie Rose, Ariadne Schmidt, Charris De Smet

Belgische en Nederlandse stadsgeschiedenis in historische tijdschriften (2018-2019)

Abstracts

Jakob Frateur, ‘One of the sweetest places in Europe’. The development of urban green on the eighteenth century Antwerp city ramparts.

Cities have been planted with trees for more than 400 years, yet much research on city trees only covers the nineteenth century formal green spaces like parks. This research on the green space of the Antwerp city ramparts in the eighteenth century wants to break with this tradition by showing that much visited green spaces existed already before 1800 and that these spaces were actively maintained through regulation and new plantings. In addition, the city green on the Antwerp ramparts underwent major changes as a result of the eighteenth-century attention for urban green, which is called the ‘embellishment’ of cities in the literature. The unique Antwerp case might even show a prelude to how cities treated urban green in the nineteenth century.

Herwig De Lannoy, Able to vote? The impact of capacity voting on party formation and politics in Mechelen (1883-1896). 

In 1883, the electorate for the municipal and provincial elections in Belgium was expanded to capacity voters who had obtained a degree of secondary education, but also with those who passed an exam. The local Catholic, Liberal and Socialist parties formed associations of capacity voters as separate party organizations, unique in Europe. These became meeting places of progressives. The expansion of suffrage, together with the political climate, changed the balance of power, gave opportunities to social democracy and blocked anti-democratic tendencies. The local associations of capacity voters, which originated all over the country, were far more than 'electoral factories'. They were emancipating political participants who developed citizenship of the common people on the way to mass democracy.

Dennis de Vriese, Regulation and the modernisation of the urban economy. Selling meat in late- and post-corporative Brussels (1770-1860).

Between 1770 and 1860, the regulation of the Brussels meat market was utterly transformed: the early modern organisation was almost entirely abolished and, in its place, a much more modern meat sector emerged. This PhD research explores how this spectacular and sudden change could take place. Focusing on the emergence of the new regulation, it explores which actors succeeded in shaping regulation, what their discursive strategies were and how they appealed to broader ideas of common and societal good to lend them credence. Subsequently, building on data on meat prices, meat retailer spatial settlement patterns and the distribution of the meat trade, it seeks out to which degree these pivotal regulatory changes succeeded in shaping the urban economy for meat.