ABSTRACT
In Sint-Truiden, Trier and Cambrai changes occurred in the social stratification and the perception thereof in the century after 1050. In Sint-Truiden the oppidani, the residents of the city, distinguished themselves from the familia (the community of those in a relationship of dependency to the monastery of Sint-Truiden). From this new entity emerged an elite of ‘sage and wellborn men’. Both the elite and the great crowd of townspeople gained political influence. The historical writing of this time almost exclusively only mentions these crowds in times of rebellion. One extensive report, however, shows how the weavers of Sint-Truiden, upon being humiliated by the urban elite, defended themselves by comparing their profession to the simple but respectable toils of the early Christians.
In Trier an elite emerged alongside and sometimes opposed to the archbishop, consisting of vassals and ministerials. Correspondingly, hitherto orally transmitted narrative material of the secular aristocracy penetrated the clerical historiography and coloured perceptions of some of the prominent citizens of Trier. In the Trier historiography of the day we find no signs that the urban population held a distinct position vis-à-vis the population of the surrounding countryside.
In Cambrai, like in Sint-Truiden and Trier, the ministerials were on the rise, but wealthy merchants also joined the urban elite. As in Sint-Truiden the entire urban population increasingly began to assert itself in the course of the century. Striking in Cambrai is that the townspeople organized themselves in an urban militia. This communia was an important military factor alongside the small feudal armies.
In all three cities sworn alliances were entered into, in a bid to influence the choice of the ecclesiastical city lord, or the collective security of urban dwellers, or combinations thereof – the emphasis shifting over time. The communes of Cambrai from the first half of the twelfth century developed the farthest in the direction of an independent political movement.
Perceptions of the urban social stratification increased in complexity as the ecclesiastical authors began to wield three hierarchies alongside one another. In the clerical hierarchy the clerics continued, as before, to allocate themselves a central position, describing all others without differentiation, using terms like ‘the laity’. In the agrarian-aristocratic order of society the contrast between the free, and the legal and social dependents remained fundamental. By contrast, in the new urban status hierarchy, differences in economic, social and political power mattered. Some social groups would have acquired a kind of sense of identity separate from these three hierarchies. The weavers of Sint-Truiden’s protests are a striking example.
The twelfth-century clerical authors who described the contemporary history of Sint-Truiden, Trier and Cambrai, were open to all kinds of new manifest social and economic phenomena. However, they rejected the new political organizations of the urban dwellers as soon as they threatened the power of the city lord. Seemingly, the clergy were not yet strongly influenced in a cultural sense by the urban environment, for perceptions of important townspeople were still dominated by clerical views. Only in Trier did the secular-aristocratic sphere hold sway: a clear indication of the power and prestige of this social layer in that city.
A few conclusions can be drawn concerning group cultures from the research on Sint-Truiden, Trier and Cambrai. In the pursuit of urban autonomy an already long-established local elite was active, i.e. the lower aristocracy. It had enough flexibility to adapt to the new economic relations, violently, through robbery and extortion, or peacefully, by establishing itself in the city and engaging in trade. In Cambrai rich merchants also surfaced alongside this group. By exception they are mentioned as a separate group in contemporary sources from Cambrai and were apparently regarded as members of a separate profession.
