Brecht Deseure
Royal Library of Belgium, Newspapers, Post-Doc
- Brecht Deseure (PhD) is an historian specialising in the political and cultural history of Belgium, the Netherlands a... moreBrecht Deseure (PhD) is an historian specialising in the political and cultural history of Belgium, the Netherlands and France in the revolutionary era. His research interests include political culture, the history of memory, constitutional history, historical theory and the history of journalism. He is currently employed as a research fellow at CAMIlle, Centre d'archives sur les médias et l'information, hosted by the Royal Library of Belgium (KBR) and the Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), where he investigates the history of Belgian newspaper journalism.edit
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‘Van herbergen en koffiehuizen: een onderzoek naar de sociale achtergrond van drinkpartijen in achttiende-eeuws ’s-Hertogenbosch’, Bossche Bladen (2008) 90-95.
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La facon dont se representait le pouvoir francais dans les pays occupes par la Republique en dit long sur la relation entre occupants et occupes dans ces contrees. Le cas de la Belgique etudie ici demontre que ces pratiques... more
La facon dont se representait le pouvoir francais dans les pays occupes par la Republique en dit long sur la relation entre occupants et occupes dans ces contrees. Le cas de la Belgique etudie ici demontre que ces pratiques representatives sont bien differentes de l'image creee par l'historiographie. Loin de se limiter a des abstractions philosophiques, les administrateurs francais tenaient compte des sensibilites des habitants des departements reunis, specialement de leur histoire. Leur discours temoigne d'une volonte d'adapter le message revolutionnaire au public belge en vue de legitimer le pouvoir francais. L'orthodoxie ideologique lui est souvent subordonnee. De plus, cette politique d'adaptation etait sanctionnee par la volonte ministerielle. Tout cela permet de remettre en question la politique d'amalgame et d'homogeneisation supposee depuis longtemps. Ces constatations reclament un nouveau regard sur les strategies de representation et de legi...
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'Het tomeloze verleden. Over de geschiedenispolitiek van de Franse overheid in België’, Romaneske 40 (2015/1) 60-69.
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Brecht Deseure, Henk de Smaele, Guido Marnef and Bart Tritsmans, ‘Rubensmania: de complexe constructie van cultuur in heden en verleden’, in: Inge Bertels, Bert De Munck and Herman Van Goethem (eds.), Antwerpen: biografie van een stad... more
Brecht Deseure, Henk de Smaele, Guido Marnef and Bart Tritsmans, ‘Rubensmania: de complexe constructie van cultuur in heden en verleden’, in: Inge Bertels, Bert De Munck and Herman Van Goethem (eds.), Antwerpen: biografie van een stad (Antwerp, Meulenhoff/Manteau, 2010) 179-210.
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ie en herkenbaarheid 238 Voedster der kunsten 251 Herkenbaarheid, lokaal verleden en esprit public 261 8. Het verleden als koppelteken 273
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“Tot maintien van sijne eer”: herberggevechten in ’s-Hertogenbosch (1650-1800)’, Brabants Heem 59 (2008) 44-53.
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Summary The exact nature of the concept of sovereignty enshrined by the Belgian Constitution of 1831 has recently become the object of academic debate. This article takes a stand in this debate by analyzing the representative system... more
Summary The exact nature of the concept of sovereignty enshrined by the Belgian Constitution of 1831 has recently become the object of academic debate. This article takes a stand in this debate by analyzing the representative system instated by the constituent National Congress. It is argued that the congressmen attributed primacy to the legislative Chamber because it concentrated in its midst all the individual wills of the people in order to express the general will or the wish of the Nation. Importantly, though, parliament was not the only representative of the national will, neither was it considered completely self-contained. Parliament’s expression of the national will was subject to constant evaluation by public opinion. When the assembly failed to respond to popular grievances, other representatives were qualified to address the issue: the king could disband the Chamber or pronounce his veto when the national interest required it. The jury, assessing press or political relat...
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Liberty and justice were central to the political iconography developed in the course of the French Revolution. Revolutionary iconography was introduced in the Southern Netherlands as a result of their annexation to France in the 1790s.... more
Liberty and justice were central to the political iconography developed in the course of the French Revolution. Revolutionary iconography was introduced in the Southern Netherlands as a result of their annexation to France in the 1790s. The reception of this visual language has hitherto scarcely been investigated, despite offering valuable indications about the degree of popular acceptance of the new legal order. This chapter focuses on a rare example of a visual source that explicitly engages with the revolutionary iconography. The Tydsgebeurtenissen chronicle by the Antwerp nobleman Pierre-Antoine-Joseph Goetsbloets contains a unique collection of watercolour drawings made under the French regime. Despite his repudiation of the revolution and its principles, Goetsbloets was well acquainted with the revolutionary symbolism. Not only did he carefully copy revolutionary ceremonial into his chronicle, he also appropriated the new iconography in a subversive way. The elaborate satires he drew contained ironic reversals of the revolutionary representations of liberty and justice. By systematically undermining the revolutionary symbolism in the privacy of his chronicle, Goetsbloets created a powerful yet little-known visual counter-narrative to the French occupation of his hometown.
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This paper uses the collaborative project Radical Translations [1] as case study to examine some of the theoretical perspectives informing the adoption and critique of data visualization in the digital humanities with applied examples in... more
This paper uses the collaborative project Radical Translations [1] as case study to examine some of the theoretical perspectives informing the adoption and critique of data visualization in the digital humanities with applied examples in context. It showcases how data visualization is used within a King’s Digital Lab project lifecycle to facilitate collaborative data exploration within the project interdisciplinary team – to support data curation and cleaning and/or to guide the design process – as well as data analysis by users external to the team. Theoretical issues around bridging the gap between approaches adopted for small and/or large-scale datasets are addressed from functional perspectives with reference to evolving data modelling and software development lifecycle approaches and workflows. While anchored to the specific context of the project under examination, some of the identified trade-offs have epistemological value beyond the specific case study iterations and its de...
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Brecht Deseure, Luc Duerloo, Bart Tritsmans and Ilja Van Damme, ‘Brandpunt van de stedelijke gemeenschap. De Grote Markt en het stadhuis’, in: Marnix Beyen, Inge Schoups, Bert Timmermans and Herman Van Goethem (eds.), Het stadhuis van... more
Brecht Deseure, Luc Duerloo, Bart Tritsmans and Ilja Van Damme, ‘Brandpunt van de stedelijke gemeenschap. De Grote Markt en het stadhuis’, in: Marnix Beyen, Inge Schoups, Bert Timmermans and Herman Van Goethem (eds.), Het stadhuis van Antwerpen. 450 jaar geschiedenis (Antwerp: Pandora, 2O15) 33-67.
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The way in which French power was represented in those countries occupied by the Republic says a great deal about the relation between occupants and occupiers in these countries. The case of Belgium, the subject of this article,... more
The way in which French power was represented in those countries occupied by the Republic says a great deal about the relation between occupants and occupiers in these countries. The case of Belgium, the subject of this article, illustrates that these practices were very different in reality from the image created in traditional historiography. Far from limiting themselves to philosophical abstractions, the French administrators were aware of the sensibilities of the inhabitants of the Belgian departments, particularly their history. Indeed, their discourse revealed a desire to adapt the Revolutionary message to a Belgian public in an effort to legitimize French power. The ideological orthodoxy was often subordinate to this consideration. Moreover, these “politics of adaptation” were sanctioned by ministerial will. All these factors call into question the long-accepted notion of the politics of amalgamation and homogenization. These observations invite a new interpretation of the st...
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Singing songs is an age-old way of voicing political protest, which was widely practiced in the revolutionary era. This article presents a first systematic investigation of political songs in the former Austrian Netherlands under French... more
Singing songs is an age-old way of voicing political protest, which was widely practiced in the revolutionary era. This article presents a first systematic investigation of political songs in the former Austrian Netherlands under French rule. The analysis centers on a corpus of ten anti-French song from the city of Antwerp. All songs, dating from 1792 to 1814, voice complaints about republican and Napoleonic rule. As such, they constitute important evidence of public opinion at the time, for which few other sources are available. In line with recent international historiography, songs are considered here as tools aimed at the creation of community feelings within specific groups. The analysis shows that several rhetorical and musical techniques were used in order to suggest and enhance group identities. These techniques include the integration of shared moral values, relatable (fictional) protagonists and elements from local urban identity, as well as the satirical use of republican melodies. As to the content, the songs voiced complaints that were typical of the conservative, antirepublican opposition against French rule. Prominent among these complaints were the financial plunder of the Netherlands by the French government, economic and monetary distress, anticlerical policy and the introduction of fake liberty.
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The exact nature of the concept of sovereignty enshrined by the Belgian Constitution of 1831 has recently become the object of academic debate. This article takes a stand in this debate by analyzing the representative system instated by... more
The exact nature of the concept of sovereignty enshrined by the Belgian Constitution of 1831 has recently become the object of academic debate. This article takes a stand in this debate by analyzing the representative system instated by the constituent National Congress. It is argued that the congressmen attributed primacy to the legislative Chamber because it concentrated in its midst all the individual wills of the people in order to express the general will or the wish of the Nation. Importantly, though, parliament was not the only representative of the national will, neither was it considered completely self-contained. Parliament's expression of the national will was subject to constant evaluation by public opinion. When the assembly failed to respond to popular grievances, other representatives were qualified to address the issue: the king could disband the Chamber or pronounce his veto when the national interest required it. The jury, assessing press or political related crimes, could correct oppressive governmental action. And if all of this failed-and only then-the nation could ultimately resist and take directly matters in its own hands. Thus, it is argued that the character of sovereignty in the Belgian state system was ultimately popular.
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Journal for Constitutional History/Giornale di Storia Costituzionale 35 (2018/1) 17-32. Special issue 'The Belgian Constitution of 1831: History, Ideologies, Sovereignty / La Costituzione belga del 1831: storia, ideologie, sovranità'
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BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review 133 (2018/3), 98–121. Special issue 'Political Change and Civic Continuities in the Age of Revolutions'.
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Constitutional precedence constitutes a defining element of modern constitutionalism. This chapter aims to elucidate the way in which this idea was embedded in the Belgian Constitution of 1831. It does so by combining a... more
Constitutional precedence constitutes a defining element of modern constitutionalism. This chapter aims to elucidate the way in which this idea was embedded in the Belgian Constitution of 1831. It does so by combining a historical-genealogical approach with a legal one. The chapter begins with a discussion of the genesis of the Belgian Constitution in relation to the Fundamental Law of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. It shows how the Belgian opposition’s constitutional resistance to government policy created a debate over the interpretation of the Fundamental Law, which in turn provided the conceptual building blocks for the understanding of constitu-tional precedence in the 1831 Constitution. After examining the concept of legal order, the chapter explains how, in the eyes of the Belgian revolutionaries, the Belgian Constitution could be a legiti-mate replacement for the Fundamental Law as the foundational document of the state. The concern for constitutional precedence was expressed furthermore by recurring debates within the National Congress and the press over the constitutionality of the acts of both the constituting and constituted powers. The chapter then turns to the constitutional text and analyzes the way the precedence of the Constitution was legally anchored into the Belgian state system. Constitutional precedence was expressed by a combination of measures concerning a) the special status and the endurance of con-stitutional law as compared to ordinary law and b) the Constitution’s status as the legally binding ground rule for the constituted powers. Finally, the precedence of the Constitution was symbolically expressed by a discourse of respect for the Constitution as the ul-timate guarantee of the wellbeing of the state.
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Even though they were formally abolished during the French Revolution, the constitutions of the Old Regime continued to be politically relevant in nineteenth-century Belgium. The suggestion that there was continuity between the defunct... more
Even though they were formally abolished during the French Revolution, the constitutions of the Old Regime continued to be politically relevant in nineteenth-century Belgium. The suggestion that there was continuity between the defunct charters and privileges of the former Southern Netherlands and the modern Belgian state proved useful for legitimising Belgian independence and for historically grounding the institutions of the young state. This article draws attention, first, to a specific legal historical line of argument, developed by patriotic Belgian historians and legal scholars in the nineteenth century, who made a case for formal continuity between the Belgian Constitution of 1831 and the old fundamental laws. After analysing this continuity thesis and its political and ideological backgrounds, the article then turns to the actual genesis of the Belgian Constitution. As the debates in the constituent assembly and in the press make clear, the Belgian revolutionaries of 1830 were much less concerned with national constitutional history than has later been supposed. The views on constitutional monarchy enshrined by the Constitution of 1831 were fundamentally liberal, and invocations of the ancient constitutions usually remained limited to preserving the spirit of ancestral liberty. A notable and little known exception was the reedition of the medieval Joyous Entry charter by Toussaint, a radical Belgian revolutionary who turned to the medieval charters as an alternative for the elitist and socially conservative Constitution produced by the Constitutional Committee and the National Congress.
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Article 25 of the Belgian Constitution of 1831 specifi es that all powers emanate from the nation, but fails to defi ne who or what the nation is. This chapter aims at reconstructing the underdetermined meaning of national sovereignty by... more
Article 25 of the Belgian Constitution of 1831 specifi es that all powers emanate from the nation, but fails to defi ne who or what the nation is. This chapter aims at reconstructing the underdetermined meaning of national sovereignty by looking into a wide array of sources concerning the genesis and reception of the Belgian Constitution. It argues, fi rstly, that 'nation' and 'King' were conceptually differentiated notions, revealing a concern on the part of the Belgian National Congress to substitute the popular principle for the monarchical one. By vesting the origin of sovereignty exclusively in the nation, it relegated the monarch to the position of a constituted power. Secondly, it refutes the widely accepted defi nition of national sovereignty as the counterpart of popular sovereignty. The debates of the constituent assembly prove that the antithesis between the concepts 'nation' and 'people', supposedly originating in two rivalling political-theoretical traditions, is a false one. Not only were both terms used as synonyms, the Congress delegates themselves plainly proclaimed the sovereignty of the people. However, this did not imply the establishment of universal suffrage, since political participation was limited to the propertied classes. The revolutionary press generally endorsed the popular principle, too, without necessarily agreeing to the form it was given in practice. The legitimacy of the National Congress's claim to speak in the name of the people was challenged both by the conservative press, which rejected the sovereignty of the people, and by the radical newspapers, which considered popular sovereignty invalidated by the instatement of census suffrage.
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La façon dont se représentait le pouvoir français dans les pays occupés par la République en dit long sur la relation entre occupants et occupés dans ces contrées. Le cas de la Belgique étudié ici démontre que ces pratiques... more
La façon dont se représentait le pouvoir français dans les pays occupés par la République en dit long sur la relation entre occupants et occupés dans ces contrées. Le cas de la Belgique étudié ici démontre que ces pratiques représentatives sont bien différentes de l'image créée par l'historiographie. Loin de se limiter à des abstractions philosophiques, les administrateurs français tenaient compte des sensibilités des habitants des départements réunis, spécialement de leur histoire. Leur discours témoigne d'une volonté d'adapter le message révolutionnaire au public belge en vue de légitimer le pouvoir français. L'orthodoxie idéologique lui est souvent subordonnée. De plus, cette politique d'adaptation était sanctionnée par la volonté ministérielle. Tout cela permet de remettre en question la politique d'amalgame et d'homogénéisation supposée depuis longtemps. Ces constatations réclament un nouveau regard sur les stratégies de représentation et de légitimation du pouvoir dans les départements réunis ainsi que dans l'intérieur de la République.
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‘De lange schaduw van de Blijde Inkomst. Revolutionair discours over de oude grondwetten in België’, in: Dave De ruysscher, Maarten Colette, Kaat Capelle, Brecht Deseure and Gorik Van Assche (eds.), Rechtsgeschiedenis op nieuwe wegen... more
‘De lange schaduw van de Blijde Inkomst. Revolutionair discours over de oude grondwetten in België’, in: Dave De ruysscher, Maarten Colette, Kaat Capelle, Brecht Deseure and Gorik Van Assche (eds.), Rechtsgeschiedenis op nieuwe wegen (Antwerp: Maklu, 2015) 35-58.
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'Het tomeloze verleden. Over de geschiedenispolitiek van de Franse overheid in België’, Romaneske 40 (2015/1) 60-69.
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‘Questie en Afdronk: sociale codes in het openbaar lokaal op het Noord-Brabantse platteland in de nieuwe tijd’, Volkskunde: driemaandelijks tijdschrift voor de studie van het volksleven 107 (2006/2) 97-118.
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‘Van herbergen en koffiehuizen: een onderzoek naar de sociale achtergrond van drinkpartijen in achttiende-eeuws ’s-Hertogenbosch’, Bossche Bladen (2008) 90-95.
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“Tot maintien van sijne eer”: herberggevechten in ’s-Hertogenbosch (1650-1800)’, Brabants Heem 59 (2008) 44-53.
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Het omstreden politiek potentieel van het verleden. De weergave van het verleden is nooit neutraal. Zeker tijdens periodes van ingrijpende maatschappelijke veranderingen krijgt het verleden een omstreden politiek potentieel. Nooit was dit... more
Het omstreden politiek potentieel van het verleden. De weergave van het verleden is nooit neutraal. Zeker tijdens periodes van ingrijpende maatschappelijke veranderingen krijgt het verleden een omstreden politiek potentieel. Nooit was dit meer het geval in België dan rond 1800, tijdens de turbulente overgangsjaren van het ancien régime naar de moderne tijd. In maatschappelijke debatten en politieke conflicten kwamen uiteenlopende visies op de geschiedenis lijnrecht tegenover elkaar te staan.
Dit boek onderzoekt de manier waarop de bezettende Franse overheid zich van het verleden bediende in haar communicatie met de Belgische bevolking. Van de revolutionaire beginperiode tot het meer traditionalistische bewind van Napoleon: telkens gebruikten overheidsfunctionarissen het verleden om een politieke boodschap te verspreiden. Onhoudbaar verleden toont aan dat de manier waarop ze dat deden vaak verrassend pragmatisch was. De politieke realiteit tijdens deze belangrijke maar weinig bestudeerde periode uit de Belgische geschiedenis komt daarmee in een heel nieuw licht te staan.
Onhoudbaar verleden. Geschiedenis als politiek instrument tijdens de Franse periode in België (Leuven: Leuven University press, 2014).
Dit boek onderzoekt de manier waarop de bezettende Franse overheid zich van het verleden bediende in haar communicatie met de Belgische bevolking. Van de revolutionaire beginperiode tot het meer traditionalistische bewind van Napoleon: telkens gebruikten overheidsfunctionarissen het verleden om een politieke boodschap te verspreiden. Onhoudbaar verleden toont aan dat de manier waarop ze dat deden vaak verrassend pragmatisch was. De politieke realiteit tijdens deze belangrijke maar weinig bestudeerde periode uit de Belgische geschiedenis komt daarmee in een heel nieuw licht te staan.
Onhoudbaar verleden. Geschiedenis als politiek instrument tijdens de Franse periode in België (Leuven: Leuven University press, 2014).