Cities attributed a remarkable importance to the keeping of their archives and other written testimonies of urban power and organization, that was also the case for late medieval Ghent. In this research project, we will focus on five elements related to the city archive and its managements of records: firstly ...
(Show more)Cities attributed a remarkable importance to the keeping of their archives and other written testimonies of urban power and organization, that was also the case for late medieval Ghent. In this research project, we will focus on five elements related to the city archive and its managements of records: firstly the oldest inventory of 1432, secondly the compilation of city cartularies, thereafter the administration of voluntary jurisdiction, in the fourth place a few products of urban historiography and finally the existence of countermemories. We will focus on the emergence and the development of urban archives and the use and functionality of archival documents in a contemporary context. Several administrative documents were constructed to confirm the urban identity. The combined study of the population of the urban administration with the various types of documents (and political instruments) they generated and created, will be exploring the connections between social identities, community building, (historical) time consciousness and practices of literacy.
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