Politics of Movement: Exploring Passage Points in Responses to COVID-19 and the Plague in the Fifteenth-Century Netherlands

Coomans, Janna; Weeda, Claire

doi:10.1484/j.jhes.5.122465

Cited by 2 publications

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“…In that sense, the city continued to maintain its porosity, acknowledging that it was necessary to uphold the mobility of people, goods and matter insofar as possible. Nonetheless, cities also erected bottlenecks to control and restrict the mobility of specific persons, animals and matter, enhancing inequalities in the process (Coomans -Weeda, 2020). In this sense, the flow was never free, as it depended on infrastructures, was regulated and policed (Knoll -Reith, 2020: 205-207).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Porous City: Dealing with Public Health Crises in Fifteenth-Century Sint-Truiden

Weeda¹

2022

Comparative Rural History of the North Sea Area

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Many Netherlandish towns and cities in the fifteenth century had to deal with recurring public health crises. 1 Struck by outbreaks of the plague and famine, this strongly urbanised region -at the time over a third of the population in Flanders, Brabant and Holland lived in cities -faced significant challenges (Unger, 1999: 329-330; Blockmans, 1980: 43, 46;Stabel, 1997). 2 Sint-Truiden, a relatively small, yet significant market town situated in today's Belgian Limburg and the site of a large Benedictine abbey since the seventh century, fared little better. Three types of health-related crises struck its community between 1417 and 1490, at the time numbering between 4.000-6.000 inhabitants: famine, plague and financial hardship as a result of falling population numbers. How did the city handle these exigencies? This chapter will argue that, in response, the city pursued vital politics by maintaining porous boundaries. It modulated the intake and output of food, persons, matter, and, by extension, money, to uphold balance and motility in the circulation of goods, energy and waste (Rose, 2007;Hoffmann, 2007;Kaye, 2014;Knoll -Reith, 2020). In this way the weekly bylaws issued by the city magistrates actively anticipated and responded to the biopolitical challenges of managing the urban body politic on a population level, to ensure its vitality. In doing so, they built on existing practices, infrastructure and knowledge as well as adopting new policies.Before turning to the city of Sint-Truiden in more detail, it is necessary to briefly discuss some key ideas and developments in the field of public health and environmental studies relating to this period. This chapter will, therefore, commence by introducing a few concepts and interpretations of health policies, before exploring Sint-Truiden's strategies in more detail.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Porous City: Dealing with Public Health Crises in Fifteenth-Century Sint-Truiden

Weeda¹

2022

Comparative Rural History of the North Sea Area

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“…Hiermee belichten zij hoe de stadsmagistraten vroeger met deze 'flows' omgingen, maar ook welke 'passage points' zij over het hoofd zagen en welke ongelijkheden zij (onbedoeld) creëerden met hun beleid. 110 Luc François en Erwin Mahieu behandelen de uitbraak van de Spaanse Griep in Oostende, waarbij ze niet alleen een overzicht bieden van de (weinige) literatuur hierover, maar ook de mortaliteit en de sociaal-economische ongelijkheid in Oostende aantonen. 111 stadsgeschiedenis Romain van de Maele bespreekt de ontstaansgeschiedenis en evolutie van de Aalsterse mestpleinen tussen 1830-1990, waarbij hij ook ingaat op de geurhinder en de toen heersende ideeën over ziekteverspreiding via miasmen.…”

Section: Stadscartografieunclassified

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2021

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Politics of Movement: Exploring Passage Points in Responses to COVID-19 and the Plague in the Fifteenth-Century Netherlands

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Cited by 2 publications

References 5 publications

The Porous City: Dealing with Public Health Crises in Fifteenth-Century Sint-Truiden

The Porous City: Dealing with Public Health Crises in Fifteenth-Century Sint-Truiden

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