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This article investigates the rise of urban policing of itinerant poor in the Northern Low Countries in the late medieval period. Practices of prosecution show important variations between cities (selected cases are Deventer, Kampen, Haarlem and Gouda), both in chronology and compared to urban bylaws and other regulations, such as the 1531 edict issued by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. A combination of external factors such as war, conflict, dearth, disease and the socio-political ambitions of urban authorities were at play and could lead to regionally different outcomes. In the course of this process, we see the complex making of vagrancy as a social and legal category to negotiate the reality of a highly mobile society, with a major impact on the attitudes towards itinerant poor and on the latter’s lives. Dit artikel bestudeert het ontstaan van maatregelen rondom arme migranten in vier steden in de Noordelijke Nederlanden tijdens de Late Middeleeuwen, namelijk Deventer, Kampen, Haarlem en Gouda. Het onderzoek naar hoe deze vervolging van rondtrekkende armen in deze steden in de praktijk werd gebracht, legt belangrijke verschillen bloot wat betreft de chronologie van de maatregelen, alsook in vergelijking met de stedelijke verordeningen en andere voorschriften, zoals het edict van Keizer Karel V uit 1531. Een combinatie van externe factoren, zoals oorlog, conflict, voedselschaarste en ziekte, en interne sociaal-politieke ambities van stedelijke autoriteiten, was bepalend voor deze verschillen. De bestudeerde maatregelen demonstreren de complexe totstandkoming van landloperij als een sociale en juridische categorie, die door lokale autoriteiten werd gebruikt om controle te behouden over een zeer mobiele samenleving. Dit had grote gevolgen voor de houding tegenover rondtrekkende armen en voor het leven van deze landlopers zelf.

Women’s economic activity in the butcher’s guild of fifteenth and sixteenth-century LeuvenThis article examines women’s agency in the butchers’ guild in Leuven during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. An analysis of urban ordinances demonstrates that the corporation allowed women of various marital status to work in the trade. Married women acted frequently as active substitutes of their husbands or as part of a family production unit. Unmarried women, most often widows, were allowed to perform certain tasks independently. This contrasts with findings in earlier studies about gendering in butchers’ guilds in other towns. I argue that the changing hereditary character of the corporation influenced women’s agency in the trade.

Women’s economic activity in the butcher’s guild of fifteenth and sixteenth-century Leuven This article examines women’s agency in the butchers’ guild in Leuven during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. An analysis of urban ordinances demonstrates that the corporation allowed women of various marital status to work in the trade. Married women acted frequently as active substitutes of their husbands or as part of a family production unit. Unmarried women, most often widows, were allowed to perform certain tasks independently. This contrasts with findings in earlier studies about gendering in butchers’ guilds in other towns. I argue that the changing hereditary character of the corporation influenced women’s agency in the trade.

Women’s economic activity in the butcher’s guild of fifteenth and sixteenth-century Leuven This article examines women’s agency in the butchers’ guild in Leuven during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. An analysis of urban ordinances demonstrates that the corporation allowed women of various marital status to work in the trade. Married women acted frequently as active substitutes of their husbands or as part of a family production unit. Unmarried women, most often widows, were allowed to perform certain tasks independently. This contrasts with findings in earlier studies about gendering in butchers’ guilds in other towns. I argue that the changing hereditary character of the corporation influenced women’s agency in the trade.

Women’s economic activity in the butcher’s guild of fifteenth and sixteenth-century Leuven This article examines women’s agency in the butchers’ guild in Leuven during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. An analysis of urban ordinances demonstrates that the corporation allowed women of various marital status to work in the trade. Married women acted frequently as active substitutes of their husbands or as part of a family production unit. Unmarried women, most often widows, were allowed to perform certain tasks independently. This contrasts with findings in earlier studies about gendering in butchers’ guilds in other towns. I argue that the changing hereditary character of the corporation influenced women’s agency in the trade.