Title Promoter Affiliations Abstract "Sabbatical Jelle Haemers: Medieval voices. A social history of late medieval politics from below (13th-15th centuries)" "Jelle Haemers" "Medieval History, Leuven" "In this research project I want to listen to the voice of medieval people. Historiography agrees that late medieval politics were not only made 'from above', but also 'from below'. Important political developments in the period between 1250 and 1550, such as the accession of larger groups of people to the government, were effectively achieved through political initiatives of citizens, both men and women. However, it remains unclear what exactly they wanted, and how far their influence extended. That's why I plan to research documents that inform us about the political aspirations of urban and rural residents to find out what their political views were. In particular, I wish to examine the influence of women on political mentality changes. That is why I am planning two sub-projects: first, a publication for Oxford University Press based on an analysis of late medieval court files, slogans and songs recorded in chronicles, correspondence, etc., which inform us about the political aspirations of subjects; secondly, I would like to prepare a publication that gives the floor to some specific medieval people. I want to make the voices of a nobleman and a duchess, but especially also a businesswoman, a rebel and even a female sex worker, heard in a book with a wide audience. What did they think of their society, what did they want to achieve and why? To what extent have they, in collaboration with others, been able to influence the events of their time? And those circumstances were very recognizable: war, political uncertainty, economic crisis, climate change and a pandemic. They are problems that plagued the individuals in question, just as they guide our lives today. What response did people in late medieval Europe formulate to this, especially in a period and region in which important democratic changes took place (the Netherlands)? So I will dedicate the research time to finding answers to those questions, and ultimately to share them with the scientific and wider public." "Podcast 'The princesses of Flanders': an alternative public history of the medieval county" "Els De Paermentier" "Department of History" "Did you always think that women in the Middle Ages had no say in things? That their horizon didn’t stretch beyond the home? Then get ready for the leading ladies of the county of Flanders! Women like the mysterious princess Judith, at the time of the Viking raids, or the genius pair of power players of the Burgundian era, Margaret and Mary. “De vorstinnen van Vlaanderen” brings to life over six hundred years of history, which no one can truly grasp without also taking women into account. Get a fresh perspective on the Middle Ages, looking over the shoulders of Lisa Demets and Els De Paermentier, two inspiring historians, and with Klara radio host Julie Van Bogaert by your side to guide you along the way. From December 2023 on VRT MAXA co-production of Klara and the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies of Ghent UniversityPodcast series (11 episodes), with Julie Van Bogaert, Els De Paermentier and Lisa DemetsResearch: Lisa Demets, Els De Paermentier, Stefan Meysman (UGhent)Script: Julie Van Bogaert (UGhent, Klara)" "Pre-allocated professorship in medieval history" "Steven Vanderputten" "Department of History" "A position as pre-allocated professor grants one the privilege of focusing primarily on research for a period of maximum of 5 years with a teaching load limited to no more than 8 ECTS per semester on average over a period of 3 years." "Natural history and determinants of the burden of medial vascular calcification, using pseudoxanthoma elasticum as a model." "Olivier Vanakker" "Department of Biomolecular Medicine" "In this PhD project, a heritable form of medial vascular calcification (VCm) will be studied namely pseudoxanthoma elasticum (PXE), caused by ABCC6 mutations. The natural history of VCm in PXE patients, causative molecular mechanisms and the role of dysfunctional lipid metabolism will be studied, contributing to improved clinical management and prognosis of patients with VCm phenotypes." "Painting/Mapping the Medieval Landscape. A Landscape-archaeological analysis of the medieval landscape around Bruges as depicted by Pieter Pourbus" "Wim De Clercq" "Department of Archaeology" "During the Middle Ages, the metropolis of Bruges thrived through its oversea trade. A large tidal inlet – called Zwin – provided a navigable passage from the North Sea, through the wetlands, to heart of the city. In the middle of the 16th century, the Eighty Years War (1568-1648) transformed the Zwin area from an axis of trade into a frontline of war. Of course, this had a profound impact on the environment. At the start of this sudden landscape transformation, painter-cartographer Pieter Pourbus portrayed the countryside of Bruges with a unique level of detail, accuracy and scale. Although this painted map is often used as an illustration, it has remained incomprehensibly understudied. In general, studies of historical maps have mainly focussed on the iconography of city maps on the one hand, or on the geometric accuracy of relatively recent mapped landscapes on the other. Moreover, recent research has shown that the current landscape-historical narratives of this part of the North Sea area are severely outdated. In order to fill these gaps and study this unique landscape through this unique painting, we will merge newly developed digital techniques from art history and geography, and complement this with a renewed archaeological and historical survey of the region. By unlocking the details of the painted map, we will make an invisible landscape reappear, and unveil the historical, archaeological and environmental records of this remarkable manmade landscape." "Sabbatical Gert Partoens: Completion of two edition projects related to the early medieval reception of Augustine's exegesis of Paul + Contribution to the scientific description of a series of medieval homiliaria in the Florentine Biblioteca Laurenzia" "Gert Partoens" "Latin Literature, Leuven" "I will devote most of my time to the completion of two edition projects, each of which will result in a volume in the Corpus Christianorum (Brepols): (1) (in collaboration with Dr. Nicolas De Maeyer) the second volume of the Collectio ex opusculis sancti Augustini in epistolas Pauli of Beda Venerabilis (672/3-735); (2) the first part of the voluminous commentary on the letter to the Romans in the Expositio in epistolas beati Pauli ex operibus sancti Augustini by Florus van Lyon (+ c. 860). Both commentaries on Paul's epistles are composed of quotes from Augustine's works and have strongly influenced not only the medieval exegesis of Paul, but also the reception of the Church Father himself. I have already made arrangements with Prof. Francesco Santi (Bologna + director of S.I.S.M.E.L.) with a view to cooperating in the scientific description of a series of medieval homiliaries in the Florentine Biblioteca Laurenziana. This contribution will allow me to expand my knowledge of late antique and medieval sermon corpora and also to turn my focus to the transmission of authors other than Augustine (which has hitherto been the main focus of my attention). I shall begin the study of the manuscript transmission of the sermons of Valerian of Cimiez (+ c. 460) with a view to a future critical edition in the Series Latina of the Corpus Christianorum." "The Haemorrhaging Woman (Mark 5:24-34par). An iconological research into the meaning of the bleeding woman in medieval art (1th-15th century). Also a contribution to the blood- and touching taboo before the era of modernity." "Barbara Baert" "Art History, Leuven" "This interdisciplinary project contributes to a lacuna in the representation and perception of the biblical female in western medieval art history: namely the haemorrhaging woman (Mark 5:34-34par).The project consists in four levels of methodological approaches. 1. Text and image transposition: Iconographical tradition and interpretation The first level of this project is focused on the iconographical approach or the visual tradition. 2. Historical-critical exegesis (supplier) and visual culture In exegesis the passage is interpreted as Marks wish to present the haemorrhaging woman as an example of a bulwark of faith, superior to all other women. The fact that this healing by deep faith concerns a bloodshed a taboo concerning Levitical law - made this passage an important locus in gender research and the anthropology of the other (the menstruant, the outcast of society) 3. Gender and blood It is clear that the Haemorrhoïssa thematizes the female menstrual cycle. This project clarifies the different fields where the Haemorrhoïssa plays a role in the gendered perceptions of female bleeding. These fields are textual, contextual and visual. 4. Anthropology of imagery and Bild-Anthropologie. Borderlines On the level of text interpretation this story underlines the borders (and the passing of borders) concerning touching. The woman touches even the symbolic border par excellence: the hem." "The early hydrography of the city of Ghent: an explorative geomorphological and historical study of human intervention in water management in medieval Ghent (1100-1300)." "Tim Soens" "Power in History - Centre for Political History" "Human modifications to the natural hydrological system have generated the conditions in which one of the most spectacular examples of urban growth in medieval Europe could take place. It is, therefore, remarkable that almost no historical studies about this variable exist for the city of Ghent. The integration of the analysis of the (rare) historical evidence with new geomorphological and geological data, that have become available to research recently, will valorise existing expertise present at the Centre for Urban History (UA) and the Centre for the history of architecture and urban planning (HA)." "Food from Somewhere? Urban Households, Access to Land and Alternative Food Entitlements in the Late Medieval City." "Tim Soens" "Centre for Urban History" "Medieval cities were obsessed by food, food supplies and food shortages. Like in most pre-1900 societies, extreme weather conditions, warfare, trade conflicts easily disrupted the precarious food supplies, resulting in recurrent and virulent price spikes and potentially unleashing social unrest. No wonder then, that urban food supplies or 'Feeding the city' has been a prominent topic in economic history for decades, with a particular emphasis on the later Middle Ages, period of far-reaching crisis, instability and economic transformation in Europe and beyond. All of this literature however, is based upon the assumption that cities, above a certain population level, are basically fed through the market, where rural agricultural surpluses are exchanged against the products of urban industry and trade. Urged by recent articulations of alternative ways of urban food provisioning – notably the rise of Urban Agriculture and all efforts to replace anonymous 'Food from Nowhere' mediated by increasingly globalized food markets by more localized 'Food from Somewhere' – this project aims at revolutionizing our understanding of urban food provisioning in the past, by questioning the self-evidence of the market as hegemonic allocator of food in past urban societies. In this project, the key to achieve such paradigm shift in urban food history, is sought in the access to land. The accumulation of both urban and rural land by urban households has been documented in many contexts, but is mostly explained in terms of capital investment and rent seeking and as a tool of social ascent. The food generating capacity of land is mostly overlooked, or minimized as a sign of economic backwardness, small 'agro-towns' or a mere survival strategy for the urban poor. Either through the direct cultivation of land in the city and its periphery, through deliveries in kind by rural tenants or rural family-members or through access to urban commons, land might have provided a wide range of 'alternative food entitlements' for many different social groups, with or without the capability and incentive to secure a market-independent access to food. Understanding the role of land for feeding the citizens (rather than the city) might be crucial to understand the dynamics of food markets in the later Middle Ages. What if land-based food supplies did not contract but rather expand with the development of food markets? What if dependency of the food markets became connected with lower social status? After all, the social fabric of the late medieval cities was both characterized by an ascent of 'corporate' middle classes, and the disposition of alternative, land-based food supplies, might be one of the instruments through which these middling class tried to emulate the social elites, leaving the food market for the lower strata of urban society. Such observation would significantly change our understanding of 'imperfect' food markets and failing food policies. For Ghent, Norwich and Dijon, three comparatively large cities with a pronounced difference in connection to regional and long-distance food trade, an in-depth analysis of alternative food entitlements at the household level, will allow to reveal the contexts in which alternative food economies flourished; their relative contribution to the supply of urban households; the actors and networks involved in such supplies; the solidarity and dependency they create and finally their integration in or interaction with the urban food market. If successful this project might not only generate important new insights in the history of urban food provisioning in late medieval Europe, but also offer an important historical contribution to present-day debates on the viability and social dynamics of alternative urban food supplies." "Limbo life: An archaeological analysis of a medieval suburb in Ypres (1200-1383)." "Wim De Clercq" "Department of History, Department of Archaeology" "This research project will study the topography and the built environment of suburban areas of late medieval Ypres, the relationship with its centre and the abandoned area’s evolution through time. This well-preserved site will make a significant contribution to the international debate of subaltern areas in medieval towns. An interdisciplinary approach including archaeological, geophysical and historical data will be used."