On Friday 18 November 2022 (4pm CET), Dr. Julie De Groot (University of Antwerp) will deliver a paper titled 'At Home in Renaissance Bruges. Connecting Objects, People and Domestic Spaces in a Sixteenth-Century City'. This will be a digital open lecture organised by the Digital Research Network for Medieval Urban History, an initiative of Queen Mary University London and the Henri Pirenne Institute at Ghent University.

Paper

How did citizens in Bruges create a home? What did an ordinary domestic interior look like in the sixteenth century? And more importantly: how does one study the domestic culture of bygone times by analysing documents such as probate inventories? These questions seem straightforward, yet few endeavours are more challenging than reconstructing a sixteenth-century domestic reality from written sources. At Home in Renaissance Bruges takes full advantage of the inventory as a source and convincingly frames household objects in their original context of use.

Speaker

Dr. Julie De Groot (University of Antwerp, Centre for Urban History) is a historian of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century domestic and material culture, urban history and singles in the city. She defended her PhD 'At Home in Renaissance Bruges. Material and Domestic Culture in a City in Decline, 1438-1600' at the University of Antwerp in 2017. She currently also works as a European and international research funding expert and project manager.

The digital lectures are open to all. If you would like to join the debate, please get in touch