The Seven Noble Houses of Brussels (also called the Seven Lineages or Seven Patrician Families of Brussels; ; ; ) were the seven families or "lineages" whose descendants formed the patrician class and urban aristocracy of Brussels.
In the Middle Ages they formed a social class with a monopoly on the civil, military and economic leadership of the urban administration, with privileges that survived until the end of the Ancien Régime. However, as of the urban revolution of 1421, the representatives of the Guilds of Brussels also exercised similar offices. Still, the offices of aldermen and captains of the civic militias were reserved exclusively for members of the "Lineages".
The lengthy and rarely threatened supremacy of the Seven Houses of Brussels was based on a multitude of common interests they shared with the ducal dynasty of Brabant,Arlette Smolar-Maynart, "Ducs de Brabant et Lignages bruxellois. De la stabilité d'une alliance d'affinité soutenue par l'intérêt", Les Lignages de Bruxelles, Brussels, 1995, no. 139-140, p. 199. (In French) as well as the successive Houses of Louvain, Burgundy and Habsburg. Together with the Guilds of Brussels, they comprised the freemen of the city.
History
The seven families were first named in a document from 1306 in which John II, Duke of Brabant restores and asserts the existing privileges of the seven families after the citizens of Brussels had violently demanded participation in the city's government. The families named in the document are: Sleeus (/sløs/) Sweerts (/sweɪrtz/) Serhuyghs (/sɛʁɡœz/) Steenweeghs (/stenweɡz/) Coudenbergh (/kawdən̪bəʁɡ/) Serroelofs Roodenbeke (/ʁodən̪bɛk/)
All the members of the city council were exclusively recruited and elected from the families who could prove patrilinear or matrilinear descent from the original seven families. However, tradesmen formed the Nations of Brussels to counter this oligarchical system and in 1421, after violent confrontations, gained some political rights. The rule of the Seven Houses remained predominant until the end of the Ancien Régime, when these special privileges were definitively abolished, along with those of the Guilds. This meant the end of this aristocratic system of government.
Membership Membership and descent of the seven families was carefully recorded in special registers. Applicants needed to provide genealogical evidence that they were descendants of one of the Seven Noble Houses. In addition they needed to be citizens of Brussels, adult, male, catholic, and not earn a living through a trade; instead they were expected to live off the interest of their wealth. Illegitimate children were excluded. Since these criteria were very stringent, few men were accepted to the ranks of this particular patriciate.
Guardians of the gates and city walls Members of the Seven Houses were responsible for defending the gates and city walls of Brussels.Roel Jacobs, "Lignages de Bruxelles", "Coudenberg", "t'Serroelofs, lignage", "Sleeus, lignage", "Steenweghs, lignage", "Serhuygs, lignage", "Sweerts, lignage", "Rodenbeke, lignage", in Dictionnaire d’Histoire de Bruxelles, under the direction of Serge Jaumain, Brussels, 2013, s.v. Starting in 1383, each House had the task of defending one of the seven gates of the Brussels wall along with a section of that wall. Houses could also use this gate (tower) to imprison members of their own House who had engaged in blameworthy conduct. In 1422, following the bloody events of 1421 that led to a new balance of power between the Brussels patriciate of the Seven Houses and representatives of the trades that then constituted the Guilds of Brussels (grouped in nine fraternities called "Nations"), this defence of the gates and walls was shared: The Cologne Gate was defended by the House of Coudenbergh, from 1422 together with the Nation of Saint-Géry. The Anderlecht Gate was defended by the House of t'Serroelofs, from 1422 together with the Nation of Saint-Christophe. The Laeken Gate was defended by the House of Sleeus, from 1422 together with the Nation of Notre-Dame. The Leuven Gate was defended by the House of Steenweghe, from 1422 together with the Nation of Saint-Jean. The Halle Gate was defended by the House of Serhuyghs, from 1422 together with the Nation of Saint-Laurent. The Flanders Gate was defended by the House of Sweerts, from 1422 together with the Nation of Saint-Gilles. The Namur Gate was defended by the House of Rodenbeke, from 1422 together with the Nation of Saint-Jacques.
Charitable activities In addition to their judicial, administrative and military functions, the Seven Noble Houses of Brussels were also benevolent and concerned about the needs and well-being of the population.
Thus, the urban administration created an administrative relief service for the indigent, called the "Supreme Charity", whose masters-general were chosen only among the members of the Houses at the end of their offices in the urban magistracy.
Between the 12th and 18th centuries, the magistrates of the Noble Houses of the city of Brussels founded numerous official institutions, including schools, orphanages, pilgrim hostels, infirmaries and almshouses.
Alongside this, members of the Houses have also had, over the centuries, in their personal capacity, important private charitable activitiesSee Stéphane Demeter and David Guilardian, "Implantation des hospices et hôpitaux à Bruxelles (XIIe-XVIIIe siècles)", in Hôpitaux du Moyen Âge et des Temps Modernes: actes; Archaeologia Mediaevalis 25; Bruxelles-Brussel, Gent, Namur, 14, 15, 16, 03, 2002, edited by Ann Degraeve (Brussels, 2007), pp. 53-60; also Claire Dickstein-Bernard, "Sens de l'hospitalité à Bruxelles au Moyen Âge", ibidem, pp. 69-80. and created many foundations and hospitals to relieve the misery of the population or members of the Houses that had fallen into poverty. These private foundations continued to exist until the end of the Ancien Régime and were after the French Revolution grouped in the Hospices Réunis, that still exist today.
Among these charitable foundations founded in a personal capacity by members of the Seven Houses, we can mention:
1128: Hospice of Saint-Nicholas, mentioned as early as 1128, next to the church of the same name. 1263: Hospice of Ter Arken, Rue Salazar 17, founded before 1263 by a member of the Clutinc family. 1356: Hospice of the Holy Trinity, founded before 1356 by the famous mystic Heilwige Bloemart called Bloemardine. 1388: Foundation of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, or Landuyt Foundation, founded in 1388 by the bishop Jean t'Serclaes. 1522: Hospice of the Holy Cross, Rue Haute, founded in 1522 by Charles t'Seraerts. 1622: Hospice of t'Serclaes or of Saint-Anne, Rue de la Fiancée, founded in 1622 by Anne t'Serclaes. 1656-1658: Hospice of the Nine Choirs of Angels, Rue des Chevaux founded in 1656-1658 by Louise van der Noot.
The Seven Noble Houses and the Ommegang
The annual Ommegang, Brussels' most important lustral procession, celebrated in honor of Our Blessed Lady of the Sablon, the powerful protector of the City of Brussels, is one of the most important moments of the history of the Seven Houses to this day.Members of the "Association royale des descendants des lignages de Bruxelles" still take part in the Ommegang to this day. The current procession was reinstituted in 1930.
The procession takes place on the Sunday before Pentecost, coinciding with the day of festival of the city of Brussels.
In this sacred procession, the magistrates and members of the Seven Noble Houses are dressed in red (the famous Brussels scarlet),Claire Dickstein-Bernard, "Une ville en expansion", in Histoire de Bruxelles, edited by Mina Martens, Toulouse, Privat, 1976, p. 111: "The cloth who makes the fortune of Brussels, which the clothier puts in front of him at the Halle, is the 'scarlet' (scaerlaken), shorn and rolled cloth (scaeren) but that is frequently dyed in seed red (hence the current meaning of the word scarlet). To a length of 48 ells (33.36 meters), it is made with English wool only by the brothers of the Drapery Court who hold the monopoly. The other clothiers can only manufacture the single-colored "marbled" or "mixed" of 42 yards, and the shorter sheets." stained in the blood of a bull. These are then preceded by the magistrates of the statue of the Virgin Mary.
Nobility of its members
Were members of the Seven Houses noble? As the historian, editor and genealogist François de Cacamp writes: this question does not make much sense since there does not ever seem to have been a legal definition or status of nobility in Brabant, during the period of the national Dukes. Members of the Seven Houses were free men, descendants of free men, and it is more or less certain that in the 12th and even 13th centuries, the notions of freemen and noblemen were almost identical. During that time, being master and lord of land was being noble in a certain way, and this nobility of blood and land, of social rather than legal character, was transmitted to all children, male and female, by their mothers just as much as their fathers, the same way that land ownership, of which it was the corollary (...this is why) members of the Seven Houses, at least until the 16th century considered themselves, and were considered by others, as nobles,See, a recognition of nobility by the Magistracy of the City of Brussels in 1606 according to which (French) "Ceux nez hors lesdits lignagers sont reputez pour escuyers", (Those born in the said lineages are reputed squires), cited in Michel De Ro, "Une attestation des échevins de Bruxelles au Conseil provincial de Namur en 1606", in Les Lignages de Bruxelles, bulletin de l'A.R.D.L.B., 2017, no. 178, pp. 1–10. issued from "de nobilibus progeniebus ", "uit adellijke geslachten".François de Cacamp, "Note sur les Lignages de Bruxelles", Les Cahiers du Genealogicum Belgicum, no. 1, Les Familles Goossens, Brussels, 1963, pp. 19—24. And also according to Hervé Douxchamps, "La famille de la Kethulle", Recueil de l’Office Généalogique et Héraldique de Belgique, 1996, p. 179, in the Middle Ages, "Noble was he who was considered as such".
Historian and genealogist Christophe Butkens similarly wrote around 1600 that "In this city of Brussels there is an officer of the Duke called Amman and seven aldermen, which have always been elected from the seven patrician families - noble and privileged – in a way that nobody is elected as alderman or magistrate if he is not a descendent, either way, of any of those families."Christophore Butkens, Trophées de Brabant, Volume II, p. 425, cited by Félicien Favresse, L'avènement du régime démocratique à Bruxelles pendant le Moyen Age (1306–1423), Brussels, 1932, p. 29.
Louis Hymans, historian of Brussels, also notes that this nobility was transmissible in the female line. Adages, told by historians, testify that: "the women, in the lineages, ennobled their husbands: Feminœ quia nobiles, etiam maritos nuptiis nobiles reddunt. They brought nobility in dowry: In dotem familiam ac nobilitatem afferunt."Louis Hymans, Bruxelles à travers les âges, Brussels, Bruylant-Christophe et Cie, editors, 1882, Volume I, Chapter III, page 130.
Nicolas Joseph Stevens concluded that: "even though under the Austrian regime, which in terms of prerogatives devolving to the nobility, we know the essentially formalistic spirit, the quality of Noble was denied to members of the Seven Houses, init is not any less true that they had, by the seniority of their existence and by their services rendered to the City, rights to a certain illustrious standing, which distinguished them from the rest of the bourgeoisie".Nicolas Joseph Stevens, Recueil généalogique de la famille de Cock, "Des sept lignages ou familles patriciennes de Bruxelles", Printed by P. Parent, Brussels, 1855, pages 147 to 157, and mainly page 157.