In medieval and early modern Europe, transitions to a new ruler or administrator were enacted in a variety of rituals of investiture. Among them, princely inaugurations and coronations have received the most scholarly attention.² These commonly took place in court cities, provincial capitals, or – if a ruler was invested in several places at once – the main cities and towns of a region. They always consisted of a string of ritual components, the most splendid and visible of which was the joyous entry or parade of the new ruler and his or her entourage throughout the city. It was the common way to welcome new ruling princes and princesses, bishops, high functionaries and garrison commanders. As a result, contemporaries and historians have often used the term ‘joyous entry’ (Dutch: blijde inkomste; French: joyeuse entrée) as a pars pro toto for the entire investiture ritual. Smaller towns and villages are rarely studied in this context, even though they hosted similar rituals by local lords and ladies that mirrored princely investitures in many respects.³ This article focuses on these solemnities in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands and uses the terms ‘seigneurial joyous entries’ or ‘seigneurial entries’ to denominate them – the term ‘(joyous) entry’ is how the historical sources most often refer to them.⁴ Studying these entries helps us to better understand the power relations within the local communities involved, and identify the beneficiaries of the seigneurial system.

After the cultural turn and its emphasis on symbolic communication as a fully-fledged part of politics, historians no longer consider these rituals to be top-down spectacles directed at passive audiences. On the contrary, they are increasingly seen as focal points of intense negotiations between a wide array of stakeholders.⁵ Several scholars have pinpointed the importance of pre-modern ritual as a means of bridging the uncertain weeks between the death of a ruler and the full acceptance of his or her successor. Rituals legitimised and consolidated the succession from one ruler to another. Moreover, it has become clear that early modern power had to be visible in order to be tangible. Nowadays, many medievalists and early modernists, myself included, thus consider ritual and ceremony an independent instrument of power, not a mere expression of it.⁶

Taking inspiration from Clifford Geertz’s analysis of nineteenth-century Balinese ritual, these scholars apply the term ‘theatre state’ to the Burgundian and Habsburg manner of ruling the Netherlands, viewing symbolic acts as means of underpinning claims to authority. This has sparked a lively debate about the exact connection between rites and power. Historians agree that ritual was used deliberately to send out messages of hierarchy and submission and of concord and discord, but also that it was hardly possible for the organiser to exclude diverging interpretations of the symbols used and acts performed. Imposing state power by means of ritual was therefore certainly not a matter of course.⁷ Nevertheless, a new generation of scholars is emphasizing the political and juridical relevance of ritual throughout the early modern period and even during the revolutionary era. For example, as long as there were no written constitutions that unequivocally regulated relations between the various subdivisions of the government, respectively between the authorities of a state and its inhabitants, inaugurations and coronations remained important for defining these relationships.⁸

In parallel to the reinterpretation of ritual-symbolic acts, historians have also begun to question the main theories of European state formation. For a long time, rulers in expanding and ever more unified state conglomerates were seen as victors in a life-and-death battle with fellow princes, nobilities, and urban authorities. However, in many states, the ruling prince or princess strengthened his or her position not at the expense of the elites, but by collaborating with them. In order for this collaboration to succeed, the sovereign had to compromise and reward loyal vassals. A common way of doing so was to give them local ‘seigneuries’ (or ‘manors’; Dutch: heerlijkheid; French: seigneurie; German: Grundherrschaft), thereby granting portions of princely authority to private persons within a given territory. This process of decentralisation challenges the centralisation paradigm that has dominated discussions on state-building for a long time.⁹

In the Low Countries, the size of these seigneuries differed considerably, with some even comprising several towns and villages. Famous examples are the Duchy of Aarschot in Brabant and the Barony of Nevele in Flanders. More often, however, they consisted of a single village or part of a village, and many seigneuries were small plots of land with nothing more than a hamlet or scattered farms. What all these territories had in common, however, is that their lords and ladies exerted a set of economic – and in some instances governmental – powers within their boundaries. Almost every lord and lady could levy taxes, appoint village and parish dignitaries, and compel inhabitants to labour services to a certain degree. A minority could also administer justice and enforce local regulation. In the latter case, lords and ladies enjoyed the so-called ‘high jurisdiction’, which granted them considerable powers over local inhabitants and a strong claim to nobility. Most lords were men and women of flesh and blood, but legal entities such as abbeys, chapters, and cities could also possess seigneuries. In these cases, the abbot, chapter dean, or burgomaster acted ex officio as the lord. For example, the abbot and later bishop of Saint Bavo in Ghent was Lord of Evergem, and the burgomaster of Antwerp acted as Lord of Berchem, Deurne-Borgerhout, and Wilrijk.¹⁰

Given the importance of symbolic acts as instruments of power, it is not surprising that the advent of a new lady or lord was ‘theatricalised’. This article is the first to investigate the seigneurial entries as a long-standing tradition in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands. It analyses their various components, legal functions, and evolution over time. I argue that because of their frequency, joyous entries were structural components of the seigneurial landscape in these regions. They carried legal as well as social and political significance for diverse actors involved. Firstly, the entries offered benefits to the new lords or ladies, both internally and externally. Through the entry, they gained full power and authority over their subjects, henceforth allowing them to claim revenues and labour services. They could also use the event to visualise power, wealth, and status vis-à-vis fellow noblemen and the sovereign. For example, possessing a lordship with high jurisdiction was a common precondition for ennoblement in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands until the seventeenth century.¹¹ Owning a banneret lordship in Brabant – or, in the seventeenth century, possessing a significant portion of lordships and other domains – was a prerequisite for a seat in the Estates of the region.¹²

The second group to take advantage were local leaders, both secular and clerical. By publicly welcoming the new lord or lady, investing them with their full seigneurial powers, and dining with them, they cemented their role as brokers and middlemen between the lord or lady and the villagers or townspeople in front of large crowds of onlookers. Thirdly, entries could also empower a village or town community, although the analysis below argues that their bargaining power was often minimal. Seigneurial entries thus provide us with indications regarding the power relations between these groups. Studying these rites tells us not only how seigneuries were passed on but also how they worked, given that the entries constituted pivotal and often consequential occasions of negotiation between the involved parties. In this sense, this article also contributes to the historical debate about who stood to gain the most from the seigneurial system.¹³

I start this article by explaining how I have searched for the entries, and how representative the sample is. The actual analysis is structured around the main stages of the entries. First comes the preparation of the solemnities, along with the actual parade (the joyous entry in the strict sense) in the town or village. The next section focuses on the exchange of mutual oaths, an essential but from the seventeenth century onwards increasingly rare part of the seigneurial entries. Finally, I discuss the closing festivities, focusing on exclusive banquets as well as games, drinking fountains and fireworks for all the inhabitants. The significance of gift exchange is also examined in this part. Taken together, these sections provide important clues to the meaning of seigneurial joyous entries for power relations within local communities. Moreover, this article shows that joyous entries were not at all restricted to sovereign rulers. It was a common ritual that could be used for the investiture of any authority – a reality that has often been overlooked.

My analysis is based on data from 88 solemn entries in the Burgundian and Habsburg Netherlands, with a geographic emphasis on the southern Low Countries.¹⁴ All data can be found in Table 1 in the appendix to this article.¹⁵ Most of the information was discovered in monographs on specific villages or towns as well as in local historical journals. I searched for examples in Flanders, Brabant, Hainaut, Namur, Luxembourg, Limburg, and, to a lesser degree, in Holland and Zeeland. Systematically analysing further local journals and histories as well as chronicles and seigneurial and parish accounts would undoubtedly reveal more cases. Moreover, I agree that a thorough search for the more northern provinces of Guelders, Utrecht, Overijssel or Frisia is necessary in order to draw conclusions about the meaning and developments of seigneurial entries in those regions.¹⁶ My conclusions will thus mainly apply to the southern parts of the Low Countries, up to northern Brabant. Nevertheless, the data in Table 1 is representative in other respects. Firstly, there is a clear chronological continuity, with 15 cases from the fifteenth century (17.05 per cent), 22 from the sixteenth century (25 per cent), 21 from the seventeenth century (23.86 per cent), and 29 from the eighteenth century (32.95 per cent).¹⁷ Secondly, the social background of the lords and ladies is diverse. They come from high, transregional aristocratic houses such as Arenberg, Nassau, and Croÿ, but there are also lesser nobles such as François Charles de Loë, and recently ennobled burghers such as Wouter van Hecke and François Claesman.¹⁸ The list includes seigneuries belonging to legal entities as well: Evergem, owned by the Abbey of Saint Bavo and later the Diocese of Ghent, and Saint Peter’s Seigneury in Ghent, administered by the abbey of the same name.

Nevertheless, the high nobility – those families that were part of the princely entourage and, especially from the seventeenth century onwards, obtained higher noble titles such as count(ess), marquis/marquess, prince(ss), or duke/duchess – are clearly dominant in the sample of entries. There may be several reasons for this, the most important being that a large share of all seigneuries were in the hands of a small number of families. Frank Scheelings has calculated that slightly less than 600 seigneuries with high jurisdiction in eighteenth-century Brabant belonged to 245 different lords, of which six possessed more than ten seigneuries, and 43 between three and ten.¹⁹ The same holds true for Luxembourg, where a small group of noble families amassed seigneurial rights in many villages.²⁰ Furthermore, the aristocratic houses generally owned larger seigneuries that came with prestigious titles, such as the Duchy of Aarschot and the Principalities of Chimay and Grimbergen. The elevated status of these lords and seigneuries may have led to more elaborate ceremonies, larger retinues and audiences attending the solemnities, as well as more memorial accounts to spread the news of the events. The dominance of the higher nobility is meaningful for another reason as well: owning several seigneuries implied being absent from some of them for most of the time. As a result, entry celebrations became all the more important for settling matters between the lord or lady, the village or town leaders, and the local communities that otherwise had little opportunity to meet up and discuss.²¹

Another striking feature of the data is the share of towns – that is, small or medium-sized towns with less than 5,000 inhabitants.²² No fewer than 35 joyous entries in the list (39.77 per cent) concerned towns with a lord or lady (see Table 2), even though seigneurial towns only constituted a small fraction of the thousands of seigneuries scattered across the southern parts of the Low Countries. This overrepresentation could result from the fact that urban lords and ladies were more often members of the higher noble ranks and that these towns had a slightly more developed administration and better documentation, but it could also be due to the stronger juridical position of townspeople vis-à-vis their lady or lord. Corroborating the latter assumption would require more research.

A conspicuous geographic imbalance is noticeable as well. Although I searched literature and journals pertaining to several regions in the Low Countries (see above), I found no mentions of entries in Namur or Luxembourg, nor in Zeeland under Burgundian or Habsburg rule. The opposite picture emerged for Brabant: no fewer than 61 of the 88 joyous entries found (69.32 per cent) were in Brabant, including all of the fifteenth-century events.²³ This likely has to do with Brabant’s distinct tradition of liberty charters. As a matter of fact, the term ‘joyous entries’ not only refers to the ritual acts, but also to liberty charters that were granted as part of these acts. This illustrates the close relationship between investiture ritual and negotiations about the legal position of those involved. The famous Brabant Joyous Entry charter regulated the relationships between the dukes and towns or Estates since the second half of the thirteenth century. It imposed checks on the ducal regime and remained a cornerstone of Brabant’s constitution until 1794.²⁴ Bart Minnen has shown that there was an equally strong tradition of village liberty charters, often promulgated on the occasion of a new lord or lady’s entry. He identified 136 such charters for 48 villages. These charters can be viewed as markers of emancipation of village communities vis-à-vis their local rulers. A similar but less pronounced tradition existed in Hainaut, whereas in neighbouring Flanders, village liberties were much more uncommon.²⁵ The exceptional number of seigneurial entries in Brabant can almost certainly be linked to these parallel traditions of joyous entries and liberty charters.

Finally, there is an interesting observation to be made regarding gender. While the majority of invested people were male, women were the main actors in sixteen cases (18.18 per cent). Ladies could perform an entry as heiress to the lordship or as the new spouse to a lord. Nevertheless, on some occasions, a lord became the focal figure even though it was actually his wife who had inherited the seigneury.²⁶ Elsewhere, the wedding of a lord provided occasion for a new entry allowing the inhabitants to become acquainted with the new lady. Ten years after her husband, for example, Dorothée de Croÿ had her own joyous entry in Beaumont. It was an exact copy of the previous event, except that the town council did not hand her the keys to the gates.²⁷ These entries may not have been legally required, they still helped to consolidate the position of the seigneurial couple and acquaint them with the local elites.

Due to shared traditions that served as models for investiture rituals throughout large parts of the European continent, there was a standard pattern for joyous entries regardless of the authority involved.²⁸ As a result, several authors have distinguished similar phases in entry ritual in more or less detail despite examining different regions or dignities.²⁹ These phases – namely organisation, welcome, ceremonial entry, mass, exchange of the oaths, and festivities – serve as the framework for the following discussion of seigneurial joyous entries.

Unfortunately, there is only scant information on the preparations for entries. Most seigneuries were fiefs, and according to feudal law, every new fiefholder had to appear before the competent feudal court to complete certain administrative steps (Dutch: leenverhef; French: relief).³⁰ Among other things, he or she had to draw up a document (Dutch: leendenombrement) stating the location of the fief, the feudal rights attached to it, and its institutional organisation. These documents settled the administration of the fief, and in some instances also the seigneury that corresponded with it.³¹ This could occur long before the entry. Karl Ferdinand von Königsegg appeared before Brabant’s feudal court in May 1720, while his entries took place more than two years later.³² A considerable part of the practical organisation of entry celebrations presumably occurred orally between (representatives of) the new lord or lady and the leaders of the local community. One of the rare cases for which we have more information is the entry in Breda in 1475, for which a number of petitions from the town and the surrounding villages have been preserved. They indicate much lobbying and negotiation taking place prior to the entry.³³ In 1499, princely officers helped to prepare the entry in Diest, which proves that, in this case, the stakes were high not only for the new lord but also for his overlord, who wished to end a period of turmoil in the strategic border town.³⁴ In 1649, the villages of the Liberty of Turnhout discussed how to split the expenses for the upcoming entry.³⁵

Most accounts begin with the welcoming of the new lord or lady at the boundaries of the seigneury, usually by a guard of honour that was to escort them. On 2 July 1713, the aldermen and other dignitaries of Assenede, together with the Saint Sebastian’s shooters guild, welcomed the new lord Jean François della Faille outside the village.³⁶ In Beaumont, Kalken, Middelburg³⁷, and Merelbeke, artillery salvos and/or church bells sounded.³⁸ The inhabitants of Zwijnaarde lined the street under arms for the new abbot and lord of Saint Peter’s Seigneury in Ghent. When his carriage passed by on its way from the castle of Zwijnaarde to Ghent, they saluted him with a salvo. At the end of the road, the Ghent city council had stationed dragoons and cavalrymen to pay tribute to the new abbot, but also to quell any skirmishes that might occur.³⁹ In the case of towns, the aldermen waited at the town gates, as in Beaumont in 1596. The council offered the keys to the gates as a sign of deference, and the lord handed them back, thereby emphasizing that he would be a good lord.⁴⁰

Seigneurial entries could be grandiose affairs.⁴¹ In 1541, Philip ii de Croÿ arrived with an impressive retinue for his entry in the Duchy of Aarschot. Among the many nobles and prelates accompanying him were his brother, Charles de Croÿ, Bishop of Tournai, as well as the abbots of the Park, Averbode, and Saint Gertrude’s abbeys and the head of the Benedictine priory of Bierbeek.⁴² The entourage of Philip’s grandson in 1596 was even more imposing: Pedro Enríquez de Acevedo, Count of Fuentes and former interim governor-general of the Spanish Netherlands, accompanied him up to the Leuven town gate with a detachment of horsemen. Other attendees were Charles Philip de Croÿ, Marquis of Havré and head of the Council of State, Charles, Princely Count of Arenberg and member of the Council of Finance, Philip de Croÿ, Count of Solre and counsellor of state, Jean Sarrazin, Archbishop of Cambrai, Frederick d’Yve, counsellor of state, Jean Richardot and Christophe d’Assonleville, counsellors of state and privy counsellors, and Philip Prats, secretary of the Privy Council. On their way to Leuven, the first stop, around 300 inhabitants from Aarschot, Bierbeek, Heverlee, and Rotselaar welcomed them, carrying flags and arms and beating drums. Four squadrons of Italian horsemen and Leuven’s four shooting companies were also present.⁴³

The 1596 entry in Aarschot was closely linked to the burial of the previous lord: shortly before the entry, the assembled dignitaries attended the funeral of the deceased Philip iii de Croÿ in the Celestine monastery in Leuven.⁴⁴ Burial and investiture are two connected rites, together enacting the smooth transition to a new ruler. By participating in the burial of his or her ancestor and through the display of well-chosen coats of arms, the new ruler established links to his or her predecessors, gaining legitimacy in the eyes of the spectators by emphasizing lawful succession and continuity. The Aarschot case shows that this applied to local seigneuries as much as to monarchies. Furthermore, the splendour of the events in Leuven-Aarschot, with the omnipresence of blazons and carefully selected relatives and friends as mourners, testifies to the role local joyous entries and burials could play in terms of dynastic representation of noble houses, much in the same way coronations and inaugurations did for sovereign rulers.⁴⁵ All of this illustrates how high the external stakes were for the successor to one of the largest seigneuries and the oldest duchy in the Low Countries.

Once the new lord or lady had arrived, they paraded through the village or town, usually with the parish church as the ultimate destination – the entry proper. A combined procession of militiamen, aldermen, and local officials, sometimes accompanied by the local clergy and some of the more affluent inhabitants, seems to have been common practice.⁴⁶ This visible role of local officials comes as no surprise: as mentioned above, they were important stakeholders in the seigneuries, staffing its key institutions and exerting the legislative, executive, and judiciary powers of the lord or lady. Nevertheless, their position could be delicate, since they had to maintain a balance between the interests of the new ruler and the wishes of the villagers or townspeople. Consequently, entries offered welcome opportunities to visualise their position before the assembled community. At times, the processions could involve even more people: in 1722, in Erps 60 cavalrymen, trumpeters, drummers, 20 hussars, a cornet with a standard, 2 Turks with the coats of arms of Erps and Königsegg and the inscription ‘spqe’, 2 brigadiers, 2 grenadier detachments, the militias of Erps and Kwerps under arms and with musical instruments, and finally the bailiff, aldermen, and tax administrators accompanied the new count on his way to the church. Cannon and musket salvos resounded, and at the churchyard – flanked by 22 burning pitch barrels – a triumphal arch with inscriptions had been built.⁴⁷

Usually, a high mass and a Te Deum⁴⁸ took place upon arrival at the church, although some sources only mention a Te Deum.⁴⁹ When Charles de Croÿ arrived at the second town gate of Beaumont in 1596, the priest and the other clergymen and soeurs grises awaited him with crucifixes, banners, and holy water.⁵⁰ Albertine of Egmont, who had become Lady of Feluy through her marriage in 1611 and celebrated her joyous entry in 1614, likewise received holy water, as did the representative of the new Duke of Turnhout in 1753.⁵¹ In Erps, the clergy offered the count holy water and a crucifix, which he kissed.⁵² This liturgical phase sacralised the new lord or lady, giving them God’s blessing to rule the seigneury.

The local church was customarily – but not invariably – the place for the oath-taking and confirmation of local privileges.⁵³ Not all solemnities under scrutiny had the same quality, however. In the Low Countries, princely joyous entries originally consisted of a series of symbolic acts enveloping the legal core of the event: the binding oaths. Today it is commonplace to speak of constitutional ritual or constitutional feasts. Holenstein coined the term ‘constitution in actu’ to denote these practices, which has since been adopted by other scholars.⁵⁴ In the seventeenth century, notable shifts arose due to the increasing political weight of the regions (or provinces) that together comprised the Habsburg Netherlands. Archduke Albert and his wife Isabella were the last to hold joyous entries in several cities and towns per region; their successors ceremonially entered only in the capital of each region. Members of the provincial Estates replaced the city magistrates as principal interlocutors and henceforth swore the oath of loyalty and obedience to the prince. Moreover, Albert and Isabella’s successors resided in Madrid and Vienna and no longer visited their Netherlandish provinces. When they sent a governor-general as their replacement, he or she participated in a grandiose entry without sworn oaths upon arrival. The extravagant entry of Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in Antwerp in 1635, with decorations designed by Peter Paul Rubens, is the best-known example. From this point onwards, the term inauguration (Dutch: huldinge/inhuldiging; French: inauguration) applied to the official investiture of the new sovereign and the exchange of constitutional oaths including an entry procession, while the term joyous entry referred to other entries without oaths.⁵⁵

Did seigneurial joyous entries also entail the exchange of binding oaths and can we thus compare them with princely inaugurations? In many cases, the new lord or lady indeed confirmed local privileges. These solemnities resemble princely inaugurations as mentioned in the previous paragraph. In Diest in 1545, the new lady as well as the burgomaster, aldermen, council, and townspeople swore oaths, though in which exact order is unclear.⁵⁶ In Aarschot, there was a two-tiered seigneurial oath-swearing: the new lord first swore an oath in the hands of the chapter dean in the parish church, then pledged to uphold the town’s privileges on the market square outside the town hall.⁵⁷ In Heverlee, there was likewise a twofold oath before the assembled villagers and in the church. Moreover, in 1596, the new duke swore oaths in Heverlee and Rotselaar while symbolically holding a verge. In the same year, the inhabitants of Heverlee, Aarschot, and Rotselaar in turn swore obedience to the new lord and acclaimed him: Vive le duc d’Aerschot!⁵⁸ Eyewitness accounts from 1674 and 1680 only mention a ducal oath to respect the chapter statutes, though.⁵⁹ While the reciprocal oaths apparently disappeared in Aarschot, they remained in use in Esneux: first, the members of the local courts and the inhabitants swore to be loyal to the lord, then Louis-Conrard d’Argenteau pledged to be a good lord and protect the villagers’ privileges.⁶⁰

Minnen discovered 136 village liberties in Brabant from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries, many of which had been granted by local lords and ladies. At least fourteen of these concern the seigneury of Rotselaar, which merged with the Margraviate (later: Duchy) of Aarschot in 1518. The village liberties were the privileges the lord or lady confirmed during their entry, and the content of these liberties would remain unchanged from the sixteenth century onwards. However, according to Minnen, in 1522, the new lady ‘granted’ (Dutch: verlenen) rather than ‘confirmed’ (Dutch: bevestigen) the privileges, thereby stressing seigneurial authority. And after the early sixteenth century – with an exception in 1617 – lords and ladies no longer explicitly referred to Rotselaar’s privileges upon their entry as Duke or Duchess of Aarschot.⁶¹ M. W. van Boven made a similar observation for Breda: until the sixteenth century, the lords or ladies of the town issued charters detailing new privileges or explicitly confirming ancient rights, but they stopped doing so after 1584.⁶²

Jan iii de Merode used his joyous entry in Geel to grant liberties that had allegedly been rescinded by the previous rulers.⁶³ According to P. D. Kuyl, Jan’s successor Hendrik also signed a joyous entry charter for Geel.⁶⁴ For the village of Retie, no less than nine charters have been preserved, all granted and sealed on the occasion of seigneurial investitures.⁶⁵ In summary, the act of issuing written charters specifying the liberties and privileges of the inhabitants at the occasion of seigneurial entries was far from unusual. Nonetheless, all of the here studied examples predate the late sixteenth century and almost exclusively concern Brabant. There may have been significant differences in terms of who stood to gain from these charters as well: in Assendelft in Holland, for example, the villagers had to make sizeable payments and inaugurate their lord as a precondition for obtaining new privileges.⁶⁶ More micro-studies on individual village and town charters are needed in order to determine who initiated their issuance and whose interests they best represented – the lord or lady’s, the local office-holders’, or the townspeople or villagers’.⁶⁷

During princely inaugurations in the Habsburg Netherlands, the prince or princess (or their representatives) always had to take their oath first. It was not until after they had obtained the princely warrant for their rights, privileges, customs, and traditions that the city councils or Estates swore to be obedient and loyal. For unknown reasons, the order was often different in seigneuries, as the above examples show. Moreover, I found only three instances of eighteenth-century oaths. The inhabitants of Merelbeke and Lemberge pledged homage to their new lord in 1740, but did not receive an oath in return.⁶⁸ The account of the investiture in Turnhout in 1753 reveals that the town officials had to swear loyalty to the new duke, but there is no mention of a ducal oath.⁶⁹ This is in line with Holenstein’s observations on eighteenth-century eastern and northern Germany: some lawyers contended that oaths no longer established a new legal situation and that the inhabitants were in fact automatically subjects of the new lord or lady; oaths merely reflected this relationship rather than establishing it.⁷⁰ And yet, the tradition of lords and ladies swearing to protect local liberties did not entirely disappear. In 1729, the prince of Grimbergen swore with his hands on the Gospel to uphold the Catholic religion, render justice according to the laws and customs of the seigneury, preserve the ancient privileges, and protect his subjects.⁷¹

What was the impact of these oaths? Did they serve as sufficient warrants against seigneurial power abuse? Did villagers and townspeople refer to them when they felt their rights were being violated? The wording of the oaths is general and likely generic, but they usually mentioned local privileges and liberties based on specific charters safely locked away in village coffers (see Figure 1).⁷² A recent article by Tom De Waele suggests that the villagers of Meerbeke in Brabant effectively relied on sworn oaths in a confrontation with their lord, Guillaume de Goux, in 1502. The people of the village sued de Goux after he had fined them for secretly brewing beer. They lost the case and humbly paid the fine in their lord’s castle, yet still voiced an additional request: they asked de Goux to be a good lord and ‘uphold the rights and customs of the seigneury as we [the lord] had sworn’. More specifically, they entreated him to not keep the incarcerated brewers locked away for too long. This shows that – differences in power and authority notwithstanding – subjects could base specific claims on joyous entry oaths, and lords and ladies were willing to accept this line of reasoning.⁷³

Several symbolic gestures underlined the possession of the seigneury and the authority that came with it. In 1596, the new lord of Heverlee pardoned a convicted inhabitant who had committed homicide in self-defence. In Rotselaar, two men accused of murder also pleaded for and obtained ducal pardon.⁷⁴ Such acts of amnesty were reminders of the seigneurial power over life and death – almost all of the seigneuries in this analysis had ‘high jurisdiction’, meaning that local courts could judge all criminal cases and pronounce all manner of penalties in the respective lord’s name. However, Charles v and Philip ii tried to make pardon an exclusively princely affair. According to Marjan Vrolijk, only a few semi-sovereign lords, such as the marquises of Bergen op Zoom in Brabant, still retained the privilege to pardon. Vrolijk does not mention the Croÿ family, but, at a time when the state apparatus was attempting to monopolise pardon, repealing sentences, as observed in Heverlee and Rotselaar, was a strong signal.⁷⁵ In several entries, ceremonial verges of justice were prominently employed, reminding the onlookers of the lord’s judicial authority.⁷⁶ In Esneux, the new lord pulled the cord of the big church bell as a sign of having taken possession of the seigneury.⁷⁷ A joyous entry performed in 1627 by the lord of Oostham, Beverlo and Kwaadmechelen, located in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège near Brabant’s eastern border, shows to what extent inhabitants could make use of the event. Not only did the lord and village officials exchange oaths, the villagers also exploited the lord’s brief appearance to wrest the registration of regulations for the village administration and different social and economic matters, such as the use of common pastures. Moreover, they took the occasion to settle several pending processes.⁷⁸

Given the current state of research, it is unclear whether the absence of reciprocal oaths (or unilateral oaths sworn by the lord or lady) had detrimental consequences for the villagers. Further case studies on decision-making and conflict settlement in seigneuries are necessary to answer this question. Only then would we be able to determine what impact oaths had on the relationship between the lord or lady and their subjects. By extension, this is also the only means of determining what happened when no entry took place.⁷⁹ Entries lacking an exchange of oaths served as political rather than legal acts, making them similar to the aforementioned joyous entry of Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand in Antwerp. The lord or lady, local clergy, and secular leaders honoured each other with gifts and banquets in a ceremonial confirmation of loyalty and authority, with the participants and the assembled villagers or townspeople as its primary audience.⁸⁰

All joyous entries, whatever their exact proceedings and features, provided opportunity for the exchange of gifts and public festivities. This represented the final stage once the church services and oath-swearing had concluded.⁸¹ In 1457, the inhabitants of Diest offered their new lord John of Nassau several precious silver vases. His successor received 2,100 Rhenish guilders from a group of wealthy burghers.⁸² In Aarschot in 1596, the new duke was offered a banquet and a gift of 1,000 guilders. The comparatively poor aldermen of Rotselaar prepared him a more modest celebratory meal. According to Minnen, each village owed the new duke a sum of money on the occasion of his entry.⁸³ A fair amount of pressure may have been common in this regard, with lords and ladies treating their seigneuries as easy cash cows. Alphonse Wauters mentions that upon inheriting Gaasbeek, Arnoul de Hornes requested that his mill be rebuilt as a gift for his joyous entry. After some bargaining, the inhabitants and the chapter contributed 60 and 20 golden florins each.⁸⁴ One of Arnoul’s successors, Philip of Egmont, received 8,000 florins, payable within five years. However, it was not until at least ten years later, in 1577, that he received a first instalment.⁸⁵ In addition to 4,000 Carolus guilders, the new lady of Turnhout also received linen and cloth.⁸⁶ Offering a tax to the new lord or lady seems to have been an integral part of seigneurial joyous entries.⁸⁷ Conversely, new local rulers also sometimes attempted to engender goodwill among their subjects through gifts or concessions. In 1679, the assembled local dignitaries thanked the new prince of Chimay for his grâces, possibly the promise to repair damaged roads.⁸⁸ The aforementioned charters, issued at the occasion of joyous entries, can also be regarded as concessions or gifts to the inhabitants in some cases.⁸⁹ In exchange for his upholding of their town charters, the inhabitants of Diest went to great lengths in 1499 to collect enough money for a compensatory gift to their new lord, even seeking to borrow money in Antwerp, albeit in vain.⁹⁰

In addition to gifts, banquets were another, almost universal element of investiture rituals across the continent, and seigneurial entries were no exception.⁹¹ These banquets were restricted, of course: only local dignitaries and the lord or lady’s retinue were allowed to attend, but the rest of the inhabitants was not forgotten. Since lords and ladies usually had only a small police corps at their disposal, it was essential to secure the goodwill and collaboration of villagers and townspeople in order to claim seigneurial revenues and rights. Pleasing the population during the entry could therefore be highly beneficial for lords or ladies and their local leaders who wanted to preserve peace and tranquillity. To this end, the solemnities were devised as visual and auditory spectacles: the organisers ordered laudatory poems (see Figure 2), engaged musicians, displayed the new ruler’s coat of arms in public spaces, and decorated the processional streets with triumphal arches, flowers, flags, and cloth. Burning pitch barrels and bonfires were also common.⁹² In 1716, the new Count of Kruikenburg ordered the distribution of nine barrels of beer to the villagers of Kruikenburg, Wambeke, Lombeek, Ternat, and Sint-Ulrikskapelle on the occasion of his entry. The same happened in Esneux eight years later.⁹³ In Wachtebeke, Jean François della Faille not only paid for barrels of beer but also donated bottles of wine to the members of the shooting guilds.⁹⁴ Von Königsegg offered the villagers of Erps food and drinks.⁹⁵ In Turnhout, shooting competitions were organised and the new lady awarded the prizes.⁹⁶ In short, joyous entries plunged the entire local community into a festive atmosphere. Together with gifts, offering food and drinks and organising festivities of all kinds was a powerful means for the new lord or lady to create emotional bonds with their subjects.

Based on this analysis and the assembled data, several concluding remarks can be made that emphasize the meaning of these entries and prompt further scrutiny. The sample of 88 cases proves that seigneurial joyous entries were a widespread phenomenon in the southern parts of the Low Countries, and that this trend saw no decline in the early modern era. In terms of numbers, the Duchy of Brabant stands out.⁹⁷ However, the nature of the solemnities changed over time. Medieval and sixteenth-century entries included an explicit confirmation of privileges and liberties through oaths and charters. While charters fell into abeyance in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, reciprocal oaths disappeared almost entirely.

How can we assess this development? We might simply conclude that seigneurial power grew over time. In this scenario, lords and ladies no longer needed to grant liberties or swear oaths, and villagers lost important warrants for their rights and customs as a result. However, the gradual disappearance of oaths and charters may also reflect a weakening of the position of the lords and ladies, which is the more plausible scenario in the Habsburg Netherlands. To start with, the seigneurial system seems to have been rather benign in these regions. Until the late eighteenth century, it never faced structural discontent. Moreover, a recent survey of medieval and early modern police regulations in Flemish seigneuries has revealed that these documents seldom focus on the lord and lady’s privileges, but mainly reflect the desire for social and economic stability. They underpin the interests of the community as a whole and the propertied inhabitants in particular – the example of Oostham, Beverlo, and Kwaadmechelen in Liège illustrates how these regulations could work in tandem with joyous entries.⁹⁸ So, perhaps there were fewer oaths and liberty charters because villagers did not need them. Furthermore, in eighteenth-century Brabant, villagers increasingly and successfully turned to the central authorities and princely law courts to fight abuses of power by their lords and ladies.⁹⁹

Many of the examples in the analysis concern absent lords or ladies who seldom visited their seigneuries. Absentee lordship required the delegation of power to local officials – a group that clearly benefited from the entries, which bestowed prestige and authority upon them. Generally speaking, there seems to have been a modus vivendi between lords or ladies and local office holders, conflicts notwithstanding. Joyous entries expressed this partnership that we also see in the preambles of many of the aforementioned police regulations. The continuity of the organisation of seigneurial entries may thus also be a testimony to the need felt by lords and ladies to ensure the goodwill of local communities in order to effectively manage the seigneury. It is telling in this respect that a considerable number of the studied events – at least 17 out of 88 or 19.32 per cent (and 7 out of 15 for Flanders) – concerned lords or ladies and families that were new to the respective seigneury.¹⁰⁰ These newcomers may have felt a ritualised possession-taking ceremony to be particularly beneficial for cementing authority and defining their rights and duties – or, as in the case of Karl Ferdinand von Königsegg in Erps and Kwerps, to broadcast the ownership of a seigneury required to obtain a seat in Brabant’s Estates. All of this goes to show just how powerful these seigneurial entries were throughout the early modern era, and to what degree they were useful for defining the relations between the new lord or lady, the local leaders, and the village or town communities, respectively for sending messages to peers and the ruling prince or princess.