Spies, instigators and troublemakers. Gendered perceptions on women and men in revolts in late medieval Flanders.

This paper aims to discuss how gendered discourses are used to communicate political statements. To illustrate this, I will focus on the different roles attributed to men and women during revolts in late medieval Flemish cities, and more particularly, the representation of this role division in medieval historiographical sources. For instance, in the proposed case study (the 'Flandria Generosa C' chronicles), the anonymized instigators of violence during a late medieval uprising in the Flemish cities were often women.

As has been stated by many gender scholars, gender language provides an ideal arena to articulate power strategies. Hence, the main question put forward in this paper is how gendered language is applied to constitute medieval political statements or invoke political goals. How did medieval writers used gendered language to communicate contemporary political opinions? Therefore, I will scrutinize the text and context of a late medieval Flemish chronicle tradition (the so-called ‘Flandria Generosa C’). This ‘narrative’ source material gives us a clear advantage: a medieval historiographer did not write a normative text on the behavior of men or women. Instead, medieval chroniclers only indirectly used gendered language. My aim is to highlight how the described division of roles between women and men during medieval uprisings, predominantly in the Flemish cities, not only reflect existing medieval gender roles, but are equally shaped by the intended audiences these medieval writers had in mind, as well as their own political, social and cultural background.