Stretching the boundaries of urban power: the moral economy and institutional change in the Bruges fish trade (1474–1484)

This article examines how the moral economy shaped the actions of urban authorities in late medieval Bruges, one of the leading urban centres of north-western Europe. While E.P. Thompson and subsequent scholarship have primarily focused on early modern protests against high grain prices, this study shifts the attention to bottom-up complaints over seasonal and highly perishable marine products, such as fresh herring and shellfish (venteghoedt). Drawing on legal documents from the appeal court of the Council of Flanders, the article provides rare insight into the institutional dynamics of the period. By examining both formal and informal rules, as well as processes of path dependency and institutional change, it shows that Bruges’ urban authorities embarked on a sustained process of institutional trial and error within a prolonged multi-crisis context. They struggled to impose lasting market interventions, as successive magistrates faced entrenched hereditary fishmongers whose privileges ultimately rested on the duke of Burgundy. The Council of Flanders initially sided with the fishmongers, only to reverse its position and ultimately rule in favour of the urban authorities following a change in its composition. The findings show that moral-economic pressures could constrain and reshape institutional practices even in the face of entrenched corporate privileges.