Spreekuur/Hours

Thursday and Friday, by appointment.

Fields of interest

Late medieval history; state formation; party strife; feuding; power elites; taxation.

Research

"Schieringers" and "Vetkopers". Feuding and party strife in late medieval Frisia west of the Lauwers.
  Within the encompassing project Twilight zone: Party strife, factionalism and feuding in the late medieval Northern Low Countries, led by prof.dr. Peter Hoppenbrouwers (UL) and prof.dr. Hans Mol (Fryske Akademy, UL) and funded by NWO, Gerrits handles the Frisian case. 

In the late Middle Ages, the district that is roughly concurrent with the nowadays province of Friesland in the Netherlands was ruled not by princes, but by the “Free Frisians” themselves. This highly unusual situation has been described by Slicher van Bath as “democratic”, but in reality, local noblemen (“hoofdelingen”) ruled the surrounding countryside. These noblemen got into conflict with each other quite often – in fact we may call late medieval Frisia a “feuding society”. In rare circumstances, small scale noble feuds evolved into much larger quarrels, that polarized the nobles into two opposing camps (dubbed “Schieringers” and “Vetkopers” in historiography). These large scale quarrels opened the door for the foreign prince Albrecht of Saxony in 1498. His entrance, on request of the Schieringers, signals a watershed in Frisian history: the stateless feuding society was transformed into a more common central state under the rule of a prince. This, in turn, totally changed the ball game for nobles in search of power and status. 

To understand the workings of feuding and party strife in the late medieval Frisian situation, Gerrits adopts a double research strategy. Of course, the conflicts themselves are studied extensively. But this will not suffice; attention has to be paid to the regional noble elite. They are the ones that chose to start feuds and they formed feuding groups and parties. Why? And how did the nobles adapt to the changes in the playing field that they – mostly unintentionally –  provoked themselves: the emergence of a powerful central state? What role did the former parties play within the new state? Study of these issues in the in the rather atypical Frisian situation will contribute to current debates on feuding, party strife and state formation.

Curriculum vitae

Matthijs Gerrits (1982) did his BA and MA (cum laude) in history at Leiden University. His MA-thesis was on fiscal developments in the county of Holland in the early sixteenth century. He was an editor of Leidschrift