Het Brusselse hof van Nassau De oprichting van een laatmiddeleeuwse stadsresidentie

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Bram Vannieuwenhuyze & Stefan Meijering, The court of Nassau. The construction of an aristocratic residence in late medieval Brussels In recent years, historians have devoted much attention to the integration of rich nobles and state officials in late medieval urban society. However, the concrete spatial practices linked to this socio-cultural integration have received less scholarly attention. In this paper, we use the abundant archives relating to the late medieval court of Nassau in Brussels (14th-16th century) to reconstruct the genesis and expansion of such an urban noble residence and its integration within the surrounding neighbourhood. The complex that we know from 16th-and 17th century iconography and cartography seems to be the result of several successive construction campaigns. It is, however, clear that the construction of this residence was not the result of a simple and short architectural intervention. We stress the complex and long term interaction between personal aspirations and collective interests, between family history and town history and between local building history and the urbanization of the surrounding quarter and entire town.