Multiple identities in a late medieval and early modern city: Mechelen in the 15th and 16th centuries.

This project aims at analysing multiple identities that town dwellers adopt and (re)produce and in doing so it will try to present a more nuanced image of pre-modern urban society than traditional social and cultural history usually permits. For the case-study of Mechelen in the late medieval and early modern period, it wants to identify how identities are constructed (by the participation of different groups in civil society), how they are performed in the public arena and how identities are perceived in collective memory (rituals, historiography, literature).

Keywords:SOCIAL IDENTITY, SOCIAL FABRIC, URBAN HISTORY, CULTURAL HISTORY

Disciplines:History, Language studies, Literary studies