VACANCY for a doctoral researcher at the VUB (Social History of Capitalism research group) and Ghent University (History Department) in the FWO project “Blaming and Shaming by Ordinary Villagers: Rural Perspectives on Social Control in Flanders, c. 1400–1600”.
Project content:
For decades, the historical development of social control has been the subject of lively debates among historians. Regarding the late Middle Ages and early modern period, three research traditions have made valuable contributions: social history of crime, Church history and its handling of deviant beliefs and behaviour, and history of popular culture. However, most research is based on sources that either reflect only the opinions of individuals in power, or exclusively focus on large cities. Thanks to a unique corpus of 15th- and 16th-century minutes of ‘ongoing inquests’ from villages in Coastal Flanders – i.e. assemblies of local communities at which attendees could accuse their neighbours of all kinds of transgressions – this project aims to broaden our perspective. These minutes, all in Middle Dutch, are socially inclusive: they show us the voices of ordinary people. This project links their concerns and complaints to their social backgrounds and the tumultuous socio-economic, demographic, political and religious context of their villages. Moreover, we dispose of an exceptional series of local customs and police regulations for these villages, which makes it possible to scrutinise the rules the villagers conformed to, those they neglected and how regulation responded to that. This project thus allows us to investigate the rural perspective on mechanisms of social control for the first time and outline a comprehensive image of the dynamics between bottom-up norming and top-down regulation.
We are looking for a motivated Master's graduate in history. Experience with unpublished late medieval and/or early modern archival sources is an advantage. We offer a 2-year contract, renewable for an additional 2 years. You will be employed at the VUB as a bursary student (more info via https://www.vub.be/nl/werken-bij-de-vrije-universiteit-brussel-vub) and will work on a joint PhD under the supervision of Prof. Klaas Van Gelder (VUB) and Prof. Thijs Lambrecht (Ghent University). As a researcher, you will also participate in the doctoral programme of the Posthumus Institute.
How to apply? Send us a letter of motivation, curriculum vitae, list of grades and a digital copy of your master's thesis by email to klaas.van.gelder@vub.be and thys.lambrecht@ugent.be, no later than Monday 20 October (12h00). Any interviews will take place in the week of 27 October.
If you would like more information or have any questions, please contact Klaas Van Gelder (klaas.van.gelder@vub.be).