'Na de publicatie van den niewe ordonnantie': The Publication and Printing of Ordinances for the Court of Holland, 1462–1600.

During its age-long existence, dozens of ordinances concerning the competence and procedure at the Court of Holland were issued. For a clear understanding of the functioning of the Court of Holland in a general sense, the ordinances of 1462, 1480, 1515, 1522 and 1531 are essential. After 1531 many ampliations and specific instructions followed, but the Instruction of 1531 remained the fundamental document for the functioning of the Court of Holland until its dissolution in 1811. Until recently, historians relied upon seventeenth-century handwritten copies and ignored contemporary prints of the existing ordinances. Nevertheless, the Dutch authorities immediately used the printing press to proclaim laws publicly since the 1500s. The Instruction for the Court of Holland of 1515 was one of the earliest printed state publications in the Low Countries. This paper analyses the issuing, publication and printing of the consecutive ordinances for the Court of Holland in the sixteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]