Advisers or Decision-Makers?

The Agency of Dutch Urban Administrative Officials, c. 1500-1700

Author(s)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.51769/bmgn-lchr.19533

Keywords:

Urban Governance, Bureaucracy, Officials, Institutions, Professionalisation

Abstract

This article analyses the unique position of secretaries and pensionaries in the governments of cities in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Northern Netherlands. At the centre of our analysis stands the tension which arose from the discrepancy between these officials’ extraordinary access to government knowledge and their formally subordinate and sometimes even foreign status. With particular attention for cases of conflict between these urban administrative officials and their ‘political’ superiors, this article explores the agency of secretaries and pensionaries in influencing urban governance through (informal) power, discretionary space, and influence on policy-making. This broad study argues that local context and individual networks provided urban administrative officials with considerable scopes of action, which adds a new facet to our understanding of late medieval and early modern governance in its day-to-day practice.

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Author Biographies

  • Christian Manger, Tilburg University

    Christian Manger is a postdoctoral researcher at Tilburg University in the project ‘Professionals and the People’. He studied History and Scandinavian Studies and obtained his PhD at the University of Amsterdam in 2023, with a thesis entitled ‘Councils, Conflicts, Correspondence: Urban Diplomacy in Reval (Tallinn) and Lübeck (c.1470-1570)’. His research interests include the history of conflict, diplomacy, and the archive. E-mail: C.Manger@tilburguniversity.edu.

  • Maurits den Hollander, Tilburg University

    Maurits den Hollander is assistant professor of legal history at Tilburg University. In 2021, he obtained his PhD with a dissertation on Amsterdam’s insolvency legislation in the seventeenth century. He published a commercial edition of this monograph, Court, Credit, and Capital (Cambridge University Press 2025), as well as a shorter book on Amsterdam’s city hall in the seventeenth century, Palace of Commerce (Verloren 2025), co-authored with prof. em. Bob Wessels. He currently leads the research project ‘Professionals and the People’ (2023-2029), which analyses the impact of urban administrative officials involved in making and implementing law and policy in late medieval and early modern Dutch cities. E-mail: M.denHollander@tilburguniversity.edu.

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Published

2025-09-30

Issue

Vol. 140 No. 3 (2025)

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Christian Manger, Maurits den Hollander

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How to Cite

Manger, C., & den Hollander, M. (2025). Advisers or Decision-Makers? The Agency of Dutch Urban Administrative Officials, c. 1500-1700. BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review, 140(3), 25-47. https://doi.org/10.51769/bmgn-lchr.19533
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