Introduction

The town of Sint-Truiden, in present-day Belgian Limburg, was a significant pilgrimage, market and textile centre in the 15th century. In the town, which had a population of around 4,000-6,000, there was ‘tweeherigheid’. One half of the town was under the administration of the important abbey of Sint-Truiden. The other half, as one of the twenty-three ‘Good Cities’, belonged to the prince-bishopric of Liège from 1227.

In the 1480s, Sint-Truiden became entangled in a conflict between, on the one hand, the nobleman Willem van der Marck of the house of Arenberg, and, on the other, the prince-bishop of Liège. Shortly before the conflict erupted, Willem van der Marck resided for a while in Sint-Truiden, in the ‘House of Arenberg’ in Plankstraat. When William assassinated the prince-bishop of Liège in 1482, the army of Archduke Maximilian of Austria, Liège's ally, subsequently marched on Sint-Truiden and the town was forced to surrender. In 1485, Willem van der Marck and the new prince-bishop of Liège make peace. However, when the new prince-bishop visits Sint-Truiden on 17 June 1485, Willem is led into a trap, imprisoned, and beheaded in Maastricht the next day without trial.

Detailed sources have been preserved for Sint-Truiden. From 1417, every Monday the administration in the city met: the mayors, the council (consisting of representatives of the guilds) and the aldermen. On those Mondays, they signed up legal judgements and issued new city ordinances, which were kept in the so-called Monday Books. Often the new laws and regulations came about in response to direct minor offences and misdemeanours in the city. Such was the case in November

1485.

Text and interpretation by Claire Weeda

Physical Description

Paper codex containing copies of keuren and other provisions of the city of Sint-Truiden. Sixteenth-century italic hand.