In the latest issue of BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review, an article by dr. Christian Manger and dr. Maurits den Hollander titled ‘Advisers or Decision-Makers? The Agency of Dutch Urban Administrative Officials, c. 1500-1700’ appeared.

It analyses the unique position of secretaries and pensionaries in the
governments of cities in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Northern
Netherlands. At the centre of our analysis stands the tension which arose from
the discrepancy between these officials’ extraordinary access to government
knowledge and their formally subordinate and sometimes even foreign status.
With particular attention for cases of conflict between these urban administrative
officials and their ‘political’ superiors, this article explores the agency of secretaries
and pensionaries in influencing urban governance through (informal) power,
discretionary space, and influence on policy-making. This broad study argues that
local context and individual networks provided urban administrative officials with
considerable scopes of action, which adds a new facet to our understanding of late
medieval and early modern governance in its day-to-day practice.

Read the article in diamond open access on the website of BMGN: [link]!

dr. Christian Manger

Co-author

dr. Maurits den Hollander

Co-author