Bad Lordship and Peasant Resistance in the Flemish Seigneurie of Eksaarde (c. 1439 to 1482)

Abstract This article is concerned with a series of clashes between the successive lords of Eksaarde, a village in Flanders, and their peasants. More so than in other parts of Europe, seigneurial institutions were dominated by peasants rather than lords, but the evidence from Eksaarde reveals that lords tried to protect their rights and that the heavy-handed rule of Duke Charles the Bold (1467–1477) over the Low Countries created opportunities for aggressive lords to intimidate their subjects. A series of legal confrontations before a princely court of law reveals how peasant communities successfully organized themselves against such threats to their autonomy and that even extremely aggressive lords could not alter the basic economic arrangements of seigneurial lordship, which were highly favourable to peasant control over the land.