van Steensel, Arie

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   University of GroningenReview of Gilles de Langen and Hans Mol, Friese edelen, hun kapitaal en boerderijen in devijftiende en zestiende eeuw. De casus Rienck Hemmema te Hitzum (Amsterdam, 2022)van Steensel, AriePublished in:The Medieval Low CountriesIMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite fromit. Please check the document version below.Document VersionPublisher's PDF, also known as Version of recordPublication date:2022Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research databaseCitation for published version (APA):van Steensel, A. (2022). Review of Gilles de Langen and Hans Mol, Friese edelen, hun kapitaal enboerderijen in de vijftiende en zestiende eeuw. De casus Rienck Hemmema te Hitzum (Amsterdam, 2022).The Medieval Low Countries, 9, 131-135.CopyrightOther than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of theauthor(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons).The publication may also be distributed here under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license.More information can be found on the University of Groningen website: https://www.rug.nl/library/open-access/self-archiving-pure/taverne-amendment.Take-down policyIf you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediatelyand investigate your claim.Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons thenumber of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum.Download date: 12-12-2024THE MEDIEVAL LOW COUNTRIESHISTORY, ARCHAEOLOGY, ART, AND LITERATURETHE MEDIEVAL LOW COUNTRIESEditorsDr. Hanneke van Asperen, Radboud University NijmegenDr. Godfried Croenen, Vlaamse ErfgoedbibliothekenProf. dr. Wim De Clercq, Ghent UniversityDr. Anna Dlabačová, Leiden UniversityProf. dr. Jan Dumolyn, Ghent UniversityDr. Andrew Murray, Open UniversityDr. Roos van Oosten, Leiden UniversityProf. dr. Alexis Wilkin, Université libre de BruxellesBook review editorsDr. dr. Krijn Pansters, Tilburg UniversityDr. Roos van Oosten, Leiden UniversityEditorial boardProf. dr. Paul Bertrand, Université catholique de LouvainProf. dr. Arnoud-Jan Bijsterveld, Tilburg UniversityDr. Mario Damen, University of AmsterdamDr. Bram van den Hoven van Genderen, Utrecht UniversityProf. dr. Martha C. Howell, Columbia Universityem. Prof. dr. Jos Koldeweij, Radboud University NijmegenDr. Rob Meens, Utrecht UniversityProf. dr. James M. Murray, Western Michigan UniversityDr. Diane J. Reilly, Indiana UniversityDr. Nicolas Schroeder, University of OxfordProf. dr. Walter Simons, Dartmouth CollegeProf. dr. Paul Trio, KU LeuvenProf. dr. Richard Unger, University of British ColumbiaProf. dr. Hugo van der Velden, University of AmsterdamDr. Hanno Wijsman, Institut de recherche et d’histoire des texts(IRHT-CNRS)© BREPOLS PUBLISHERSTHIS DOCUMENT MAY BE PRINTED FOR PRIVATE USE ONLY.  IT MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER. The Medieval Low Countries9 (2022)This publication has been realized with the assistance ofStichting Professor Van WinterfondsCover illustration: Interior view of the weavers’ chapel, photograph, 1904.Collectie Archief Gent, SCMS_FO_6851.© 2023, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium.All rights reserved. No part of this publication maybe reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ortransmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwisewithout the prior permission of the publisher.D/2023/0095/188ISBN 978-2-503-59875-8DOI 10.1484/J.MLC.5.134617ISSN 2295-3493eISSN 2507-0363Printed in the EU on acid-free paper.© BREPOLS PUBLISHERSTHIS DOCUMENT MAY BE PRINTED FOR PRIVATE USE ONLY.  IT MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER. ContentsThe Spatial Politics of Craft Guilds in Fourteenth-CenturyFlandersMathijs SPEECKE 7The Residences of the Lucchese Merchants in Bruges (1390–1430). Their Social Network, the Locations of Their Real Estate,and the Financial Drivers for Their PropertiesJan VERHEYEN 43Jan Moffet and Scottish Merchants in Bergen op Zoom in theEarly Sixteenth CenturyLauran TOORIANS 79Scotland, the Low Countries, and the Conduct of Diplomacy inthe Later Middle AgesDavid DITCHBURN 93Book Reviews 121© BREPOLS PUBLISHERSTHIS DOCUMENT MAY BE PRINTED FOR PRIVATE USE ONLY.  IT MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER. BooK rEViEws 131Gilles de Langen and Hans Mol, Friese edelen, hunkapitaal en boerderijen in de vijftiende en zestiende eeuw.De casus Rienck Hemmema te Hitzum. Amsterdam:Amsterdam University Press, 2022, 256 pp., ill. DOI10.5117/9789463727785. ISBN 978-94-6372-778-5. 24.95€ /e-ISBN 978-90-4855-671-7 (available in open access)The history of medieval Frisia diverged in many ways from political andeconomic developments in the surrounding regions of the Low Countries.Never fully conquered by the Romans or Franks, central Frisia remainedautonomous until the instalment of Albert of Saxony as hereditary gover‐nor by Maximilian of Habsburg in 1498. This marked the end of theperiod of so-called Frisian Freedom, when the region was not subject toa territorial lord but, instead, formed a confederation of small towns andpeasant communities. Primarily a rural, agricultural society in the MiddleAges, central Frisia is most often mentioned in textbooks in relation toits landscape and the mounds erected by its inhabitants, as well as forthe commercial activities of Frisian traders in the North Sea area. Thesetrading ties alone meant that Frisia was always connected to surroundingregions, with its society shaped by the exchange and transfer of ideasand practices. Over the past decade, archaeologist Gilles de Langen andhistorian Hans Mol have worked in tandem taking an interdisciplinary ap‐proach that has produced ground-breaking research on many dimensionsof Frisia’s medieval history, in particular, the material and administrativebasis of cooperation between nobles (known as hoofdelingen or capitanei)and free landowning farmers. Their Friese edelen, hun kapitaal en boerderijenin de vijftiende en zestiende eeuw is the latest example in which they explorethe material position of Frisian nobles in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen‐turies.The protagonist of the study, Rienck Hemmema of Hitsum (c. 1541–1574/81), is certainly not an unknown figure in the historiography, thanksto his Memoriael of Rekenboeck, a ledger covering the administration ofhis farm from 1569 to early 1574, and a source often referred to in ruralor agricultural studies. Although he is normally described as a farmer,De Langen and Mol portray Hemmema as a Frisian nobleman; yet theobjective of their book is not merely to reinterpret this important source(which, by chance, reveals the high price Hemmema paid for infidelityand includes other personal notes as well). Rather, they aim to use itas a starting point for sketching a much broader picture of Friesland’ssociety in the later Middle Ages. For example, Hemmema and his wife, AthRoorda, were nobles and farmers, raising the question of the importanceof agricultural investment for the Frisian nobility. In light of the politicaldevelopments of the early sixteenth century, a proper management ofeconomic and social capital became even more urgent to maintain one’s132 BooK rEViEwsprivileged social position. De Langen and Mol aim to assess the extentto which the economic and social behaviour of the Hemmema-Roordacouple was typical for nobles in sixteenth-century Frisia in general. Morespecifically, they seek to reconstruct the real estate portfolio of the coupleand its management.The book is organised into seven short thematic chapters. The firstsketches the noble landscape in Frisia around 1500, using both qualitativeand quantitative information. The following two chapters reconstruct thelineages of Hemmema and his wife, and the composition of their landedproperties, of which the main part was inherited from Hemmema’s motherin the village of Hitzum. Chapters 4 and 5 locate Hemmema’s main proper‐ties and comparatively analyse their management. Chapter 6 assesses thewealth of the Frisian nobility in order to situate the couple on the socialladder, while the last chapter explores Hemmema’s noble lifestyle.In 1505, 241 noble individuals representing 170 families were listed bytheir new lord, the Duke of Saxony, after they agreed to pay an annual taxin lieu of accepting a feudal relation with him. This is the first source togive an indication of the size of Frisia’s medieval nobility. The foundationsof this social elite, which perceived itself as a noble and privileged group,originating from the central Middle Ages, were its administrative offices,landed properties and social networks. The social position of these lordswas not derived from any relationship to princely power, but from therecognition of their peers and the freeholders and tenants whom theykept at a social distance. Together, these hoofdelingen built about 500strongholds (stinsen) in the period between 1150 and 1500, predominantlyon the clay soils in the western and north-western parts of the region. Theyplayed an important role in the often violent feuding and strife betweenthe Frisian nobles who identified with one of two competing groups orparties – the Schieringers and Vetkopers – from the late fourteenth centuryonwards.Rienck Hemmema’s father, Hette, was a Schieringer and supported thetakeover of the later Emperor Charles V as lord of Frisia in 1515. Hettebecame grietman of Menaldumadeel, where he held properties; however,he might have fallen out of favour due to his religious convictions. Rienck’smother, Berber, came from a similar noble family, with landed property inHitzum. De Langen and Mol place an emphasis on reconstructing kinshipties and property transfers to demonstrate that Rienck descended fromnoble families on both sides, paternal and maternal, which was a condi‐tion for being fully recognised as noble by contemporaries. Furthermore,they emphasise the nobles’ strategies to retain their landed properties orcapital, the most important asset for maintaining their status. Kinship tieswere rather flexible, and property was acquired through inheritance andmarriage. Noblemen could appropriate the name of their wives’ family ifdeemed profitable. As Rienck himself did not belong to the upper stratum© BREPOLS PUBLISHERSTHIS DOCUMENT MAY BE PRINTED FOR PRIVATE USE ONLY.  IT MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER. BooK rEViEws 133of Frisia’s nobility, and because he was a younger son from a large family,marriage was the key to strengthening his position. He had five childrenwith Ath, but was only survived by his daughter, Berber. Both partnersbrought in land, rents and capital worth two sizeable farms with aboutsixty-eight hectares of land, which placed the couple among the lowerstratum, but not the bottom, of the nobility in terms of wealth.The authors make a great effort to localise the properties that Hem‐mema and his wife inherited and how they were situated in the older prop‐erty structures of Hitzum. The older ecclesiastical possessions are carefullyreconstructed, as well as the properties of the village’s fifteenth-centuryhoofdelingen. The landscape was shaped by a series of mounds built onan older salt-marsh ridge, along which the main five mixed farms of thesettlement were located. Hemmema’s farm (Wiersma) stood on the north-eastern side, but he also inherited interests in an adjacent farm (Gratinga/Roorda). The latter was linked to a stone keep that had belonged to theleading local noble family in the early fifteenth century. This fortified houseno longer existed in the sixteenth century, but Hemmema inherited thelocal position of power nevertheless, granting him the position of villagelord. A fine spatial analysis allows the authors to identify the two farms– Gratinga/Roorda and Wiersma – and, to lesser extent, other scatteredplots of (leased) land belonging to Hemmema.Interestingly, Hemmema terminated the lease contract of the Wiersma-farm in 1569 and opted to exploit his demesne himself by hiring labour.He cultivated crops that were in high market demand and kept about sixtydairy cows. De Langen and Mol do not analyse the financial informationfrom the ledger about the management of the mixed farm in detail, as thishas been done by Slicher van Bath. However, they make two new points.First, the losses suffered by Hemmema are explained by the initial invest‐ments he made in the years covered by the source. Second, they argue thatthe Frisian was a skilful, market-driven agricultural entrepreneur, but notmodern or innovative by contemporary standards. The decisions he tookin the management of his properties were not new but embedded in anexisting commercial agricultural context.In order to answer the question of how typical Hemmema was ofa sixteenth-century Frisian nobleman, De Langen and Mol chart thedistribution of land ownership in the wider region of Franekeradeel andHennaarderadeel. Hitzum was located in the first district, where the no‐bility was more strongly present, possessing more than a quarter of theland. Ownership of land and farms was the material basis of the nobilitybut, interestingly, these properties were overwhelmingly leased out. Hem‐mema’s relatively large farm size was typical of other directly exploitednoble farms, but it was not very common for nobles to exploit their farmsthemselves. Due to Rienck’s early death, it is difficult to determine whetherthe Hemmema couple would have moved up or down the noble hierarchy.134 BooK rEViEwsBoth Rienck and Ath were well connected to higher-ranking families,which would have enabled them to increase their capital and strengthentheir social position.Wealth was a prerequisite for a noble lifestyle, but farming was notHemmema’s only interest. Like many of his family members, includingthree of his brothers, he pursued academic training, enrolling at the Uni‐versity of Louvain in 1559. From the end of the fifteenth century, it hadbecome common for Frisian nobles who aspired to an ecclesiastical oradministrative career to obtain an academic degree. This development wasalso part of a broader humanistic interest, and education became a meansof social distinction. Hemmema and his family members demonstratedtheir social status through multiple means, such as sculpted tombs, por‐traits, heraldry (Hemmema’s coat of arms depicted a greyhound), armourand gardens, but also through hunting and political participation. Rienck’sinterest in Frisian history combined old and new noble values, as theledger contains a payment for the transcription of a chronicle. The farmingrevenues were partly ploughed into a modest noble lifestyle.The value of this study is that it produces new information about theHemmema couple and their historical context and interprets it from adifferent angle, portraying Rienck as a nobleman-farmer. De Langen andMol conclude that Hemmema and his wife were typical representativesof the Frisian nobility, the origins of which can be traced back to thecentral Middle Ages. This is another strong point of the study: placingthe Hemmema case in a broader diachronic and synchronic context helpsto understand its meaning but also generates a less granulated pictureof medieval Frisia. The familiarity of the authors with a wide range ofsources show that this book is the result of years of skilful interdisciplinaryresearch. The spatial approach, in particular, is instrumental in charting theevolution of ownership structures in Hitzum and the distribution of noblepower in general. One minor point of criticism is the quality of the maps:the design is not standardised, and their meaning is sometimes difficult tograsp (cf. Map 10).The main question this outstanding example of both micro-historyand regional history raises is what it tells us about other regions. First,the case of Rienck Hemmema seems rather atypical of Frisia becausefew other nobles directly exploited their farms (and none kept a financialadministration as far as we know). Perhaps he intended to develop anoble-worthy residence on his newly acquired estate? Hemmema himselfalso leased out parts of his land. Moreover, it was not uncommon fornobles elsewhere to be directly involved in the management of demesnes,even though this does not imply that their hands became dirty. Hemmemamight, therefore, be characterised as a nobleman rather than as a farmer, orit should at least be made more specific what being a farmer meant in thiscontext. Second, De Langen and Mol make a good case for regarding the© BREPOLS PUBLISHERSTHIS DOCUMENT MAY BE PRINTED FOR PRIVATE USE ONLY.  IT MAY NOT BE DISTRIBUTED WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER. BooK rEViEws 135late medieval hoofdelingen as nobility. In many ways, they resembled noblesin other parts of the Low Countries: landed properties were the main basisof their wealth, while their social status was defined through marriage,military prowess, and other distinctive activities and investments. Theauthors emphasise the non-feudal origin of this nobility, but it remainsunclear how this aspect distinguished it from nobilities elsewhere. Withoutunderestimating the importance of princely power and vassalage, nobilitywas primarily defined through custom in other regions too. Strictly speak‐ing, this goes beyond the goals the authors set for themselves, but amore comparative approach would have clarified some of the key conceptsused. Obviously, the study provides an excellent building block for abroader comparison of the economic profile and activities of nobles in themedieval Low Countries in particular.Arie van Steensel,University of Groningen

Review of Gilles de Langen and Hans Mol, Friese edelen, hun kapitaal en boerderijen in de vijftiende en zestiende eeuw. De casus Rienck Hemmema te Hitzum (Amsterdam, 2022)

https://pure.rug.nl/ws/files/926131344/Van_Steensel_-_2022_-_MLC.pdf

Review of Gilles de Langen and Hans Mol, Friese edelen, hun kapitaal en boerderijen in de vijftiende en zestiende eeuw. De casus Rienck Hemmema te Hitzum (Amsterdam, 2022)

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