‘Not to be tolerated in a city of such high repute’: the prosecution of rape as a window on crime, deviance and social order in late medieval Bruges (1490–1537)

Abstract At the turn of the sixteenth century, the city of Bruges, a considerable trading centre in the County of Flanders, witnessed a noticeable increase in rape prosecutions. Drawing on final judgments by the city magistrates, many of whom imposed the death penalty, this article examines how these prosecutions were shaped by broader concerns for social order and urban prosperity. It argues that deep-rooted anxieties about disorder and deviance among both civic authorities and the wider community fostered a more standardized policy towards sexual violence. This, in turn, enables the reconstruction of the late medieval ‘criminal-rapist’: an outsider associated with brutal and dishonourable violence, deemed particularly intolerable in ‘a city of high repute’.