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The vernacular literary output of the 'chambers of rhetoric' in the Low Countries provides us with some insight into the ideology of the urban medieval middling classes. This literature included criticisms of social order, and it is argued here that whilst these come from an inherited religious discourse of reform, they can nonetheless be read as speaking to a political ideology particular to the urban context of the late Middle Ages. This article seeks to bring these ideological expressions into view, to contribute to our understanding of the political practices and popular uprisings of this time and place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]