Nobles, patricians and officers: the making of a regional political elite in late medieval Flanders. From: Journal of Social History | Date: December 22, 2006| Author: Dumolyn, Jan | COPYRIGHT 2006 Journal of Social History. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

In the county of Flanders the late medieval period was an era of important social mobility among the dominant classes, as a result of the formation process of the Burgundian state. I argue that in the course of the later Middle Ages, and more specifically in the period of Burgundian domination (1384-1492), a regional political elite was made, as much as it made itself, in the county of Flanders, to paraphrase E. P. Thompson. (1) Significant groups of the lower and higher nobility, t...