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A targeted public: public services in fifteenth-century Ghent and Bruges

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 July 2010

JELLE HAEMERS  and
WOUTER RYCKBOSCH
JELLE HAEMERS
Affiliation:
Vakgroep Middeleeuwse Geschiedenis, Universiteit Gent, Blandijnberg 2, 9000 Gent, Belgium
WOUTER RYCKBOSCH
Affiliation:
Dept Geschiedenis, Universiteit Antwerpen, Stadscampus, S.R.A11, Rodestraat 14, 2000 Antwerpen, Belgium
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Abstract:

Though the phrase ‘public services’ is a nineteenth-century invention, which was supported by a developed rhetoric of political economy, this article shows that the concept, practice and supply of such services could also be found in the medieval city. It specifically analyses three areas of urban service provision: jurisprudence and legal security, infrastructure and finally health care and poor relief. Although the available sources tend to stress the involvement of municipal authorities in providing public services, it turns out that in fact the furnishing of services was highly multi-layered. In all three areas studied, a wide range of public and private institutions offered services to specific groups within late medieval urban society. In contrast to what the notion of ‘public services’ lets us presume, however, public services in the medieval city were not available to all inhabitants. Instead, the provision of services was usually quite restrictive, and targeted particular groups in society.

Type
Research Article
Information
Urban History , Volume 37 , Issue 2 , August 2010 , pp. 203 - 225
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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