Sources: ecclesiastical large landowners

The main body of sources that are being used are account series of large landowners of ecclesiastical nature. This includes different offices of collegiate churches, urban hospitals and abbeys. These accounts series provides us with detailed data concerning grain transactions of different kinds. Sales, purchases, rents that are converted into species, estimated values of agricultural production etc. In addition, the various ways of income and expense of the main grain types in the region (mostly wheat and oats) are to be found as well in these sources.

The large landowners which provided the bulk of the newly processed data are:

  • Bruges: hospital St John, hospital Potterie and collegiate church of St Donatian
  • Ghent: abbey St Bavo, abbey St Peter and the poor table of the church St Nicolas
  • Lille: hospital St Sauveur and collegiate church St Peter
  • Douai: collegiate church St Amé, hospital Wetz and abbey Notre-Dame des Prés
  • Cambrai: metropolitan church Notre-Dame, hospital St Julien abbey St Sépulcre, collegiate church St Croix and collegiate church St Géry

These accounts series are being preserved in:

  • Stadsarchief Brugge (SAB) (City Archives Bruges)
  • Rijksarchief Gent (RAB) (State Archives Ghent)
  • Archives Départementales du Nord (ADN) (Department Archives Lille)
  • Archives Municipales Douai (AMD) (City Archives Douai)

The data gathered from these sources have been supplemented with published data sets by various authors.