Bad neighbours and weird stenches are universal, but what about jingling pigs? In this episode of Murmuring Medievalists, we take a look at neighbourly disputes and public sanitation in late medieval Dutch and Belgian cities with Dr. Janna Coomans. How did communities form in the late medieval Low Countries? What made a good neighbour, and a bad one? And what nuisances could disrupt local harmony? And how were cleanliness, sanitation and peace managed in towns such as Ghent and Utrecht? Drawing from medieval court record books for stories on bad behaviour and disruptive actions, Dr. Coomans answers all these questions and more.
Explore
- Coomans, Janna. Community, urban health and environment in the late medieval Low Countries. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021.
- Coomans, Janna. ‘Making Good and Breaking Bad: Materiality and Community in Netherlandish Cities, 1380-1520’. The English Historical Review. Vol. 137 (587) (2022): 1053-1081.
- Coomans, Janna. ‘The King of Dirt: Public Health and Sanitation in Late Medieval Ghent.’ Urban History. Vol. 46 (2019): 82-105.
- Haemers, Jelle, and Ryckbosch, Wouter. ‘A Targeted Public: Public Services in Fifteenth-Century Ghent and Bruges.’ Urban History. Vol. 37 (2) (2010): 203-225.