SHOC research group - Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Medici Florence was a magnet for craftsmanship from the Low Countries!🏛️

Yesterday, Belgian newspaper De Standaard featured the migration research of SHOC members William Torbeyns and Bart Lambert, together with KU Leuven colleague Jelle Haemers 📰
Drawing on the membership registers of a migrant confraternity, they show that in the fifteenth century, hundreds of people from the Low Countries—men, women and children alike—made their way to Florence 🧳⛪. These migrants came not only from major urban centres such as Ghent, Bruges and Brussels, but also from smaller towns like Peer, Diest and Herk-de-Stad.
Many found work in the Florentine linen industry 🧵, while others were active as bakers, barbers, and musicians 🍞🎶
Their study was published in BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review 📚 and is available in open access here: https://bmgn-lchr.nl/article/view/23149
https://www.standaard.be/natuur-en-wetenschap/linnenwevers-bakkers-en-muzikanten-al-in-de-15de-eeuw-lokte-firenze-vakmanschap-uit-de-lage-landen/157470275.html

Al in de 15de eeuw lokte Firenze vaklui uit de Lage Landen: “De mondreclame deed haar werk: daar was werk te vinden” De Bourgondische tijd was niet voor iedereen een periode van cultureel en economisch hoogtij. Veel mensen emigreerden, op zoek naar een beter leven. Dat blijkt uit de ledenlijst van een Florentijnse vereniging van nieuwkomers in de Toscaanse stad.

Last Friday, many SHOC members attended the opening of wOnderland in Ieper 🎉. This exhibition at the Yper Museum shows what archaeological finds from beneath the city, and the interdisciplinary research carried out on them, can tell us about the medieval urban environment and its inhabitants 🏛️

One of the key elements in the exhibition is the isotopic and osteological work carried out by SHOC member Charlotte Van Riet, together with her colleagues Martijn Jacobs and Lucy Koster from the Make-Up of the Cities project, led by Bart Lambert 🔬. Their research demonstrates in a fascinating way how the study of human skeletal remains can shed light on the origins, diets, mobility, health, and lifestyles of medieval city-dwellers 🦴
wOnderland can be visited until April 2027 📅

https://www.ypermuseum.be/nl/wonderland

Our second podcast featuring Bart Lambert is a treat especially for our French speaking followers🎧—but it’s just as fascinating for anyone interested in the historical impact of pandemics!

It’s the first episode of the series Contagions – une histoire des épidémies, a collaboration between our Francophone sister university ULB and Belgian public broadcaster RTBF, tracing epidemics across human history 📚🌍.
This episode zooms in on the late medieval plague, including the discovery of the Yersinia pestis bacterium in 14th century human remains uncovered in Sint-Truiden (in the east of present day Belgium) 🧬📍. The find was made by an interdisciplinary team led by KU Leuven. Bart, who contributed to the team’s subsequent publication, discusses what this discovery means—and how it helps us better understand and interpret historical sources from times of pandemic.
The episode, as well as the seven others in the series, is now available on RTBF Auvio platform 🎙️👇
https://auvio.rtbf.be/media/contagions-une-histoire-des-epidemies-contagions-une-histoire-des-epidemies-3486479

The series will also be released on other platforms and broadcast on RTBF radio in August 📻

Get ready for the Big Bart Lambert Podcast Weekend! 🎧

Over the next few days, we’re excited to share not one but two brand-new podcast episodes featuring SHOC colleague Bart Lambert. 🎙️📚

First up: a fresh episode from the English Heritage podcast—the charity that cares for hundreds of historic sites across England 🏰. Released to mark International Refugee Day tomorrow 🌍, this episode explores refugee movements in medieval Europe.
Bart joins English Heritage historian Will Wyeth to discuss how people from all walks of life fled the devastation of the Hundred Years’ War ⚔️, the Wars of Scottish Independence 🛡️, and natural disasters in the Low Countries 🌊.

You can listen now on Spotify, Apple, or Google Podcasts👇

The English Heritage Podcast Every object has a story to tell. But how can one mystery item lead us on a journey through history, people and places? In the English Heritage podcast, comedian and writer Amy Matthews brings you entertaining tales from unexpected places. Each week, we begin with a mystery item and with the help of...

On Wednesday 10 June, Imma Petito successfully defended her PhD on the relations between the Kingdom of England and Italian polities in the later Middle Ages 🎓. Her research highlights, among other insights, the key role of Italian mercantile networks in the Low Countries as vital intermediaries in these contacts 🌍📜.

This was a joint doctorate between VUB and the University of Salerno, supervised by Bart Lambert (VUB-SHOC), Francesco Senatore (University of Naples Federico II) and Silvia Siniscalchi (Salerno) 🤝. Imma passed her viva with flying colours 🌟 and was warmly celebrated with serious and not-so-serious gifts by an enthusiastic SHOC delegation 🎁🎉.

Tanti auguri, Dottoressa Petito!👏

SHOC member Leonie Vanlerberghe recently led an engaging workshop on “Gender in Personal Documents” at the Spring Conference of the Royal Netherlands Historical Society (KNHG)🎓, together with Stefan Kras (history teacher and PhD researcher) and Jessie Baerts (Master student Gender & Diversity, Ugent).

Leonie shared compelling excerpts from autobiographies of socialist workers📖, preserved at the Amsab Institute for Social History. Stefan introduced letters written in 1943 by 17- and 18-year-old boys forced into labour in Germany, offering a poignant glimpse into their correspondence with friends back home in the Netherlands. Jessie, in turn, invited participants to read along with the diary of a woman from Ghent during the First World War 📝.

Together, these sources opened up vivid perspectives on the lives of individuals that are usually underrepresented in the evidence!

New vacancy!

We are looking for 2 doctoral candidates to conduct research on the Brussels construction sector as a nexus of labour, materials, and capital, from the nineteenth century to the present. The PhD trajectories are part of the broader interdisciplinary research project ‘Flows in the Construction Sector. Urban-Environmental Histories of Labour, Materials, and Money’, a collaboration between the VUB research groups VUB Architectural Engineering Lab, Social History of Capitalism, and Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Research.

For more info: https://shoc.research.vub.be/en/vacancy-docotral-researcher-flows-in-the-construction-sector-urban-environmental-histories-of-labour

🏆 Quiz champions! 🏆

Once again, our SHOC members showed they’re experts in more than just history at the annual VUB staff quiz. Three SHOC teams competed this year, and one of them—featuring Ward Leloup, Jolien Gijbels, William Torbeyns, Brent Huygh and Thijs Costers, better known as “The Quiztorians”—even brought home the trophy.
As tradition has it, they’ll have the honour of organising next year’s quiz.

Congratulations to our colleagues on a well-earned victory—and see you all next year for the SHOC-organised quiz! 👏🎉

On 26 May, the Faculty Research Day brought together PhD students from the Faculty of Languages and Humanities for a full day of exchange, inspiration and academic discovery🎓✨ It was a great opportunity to connect with fellow researchers and explore each other’s work. Several SHOC PhDs and postdocs were in attendance, alongside their supervisors. We were also proud to see SHOC’s students in the Talent for Research honours programme presenting their poster projects:

- ‎Arne Vinck presented his project “Mapping Justice,” in which he explores new ways of visualising legal practices.
- ‎Daan Huysman introduced his work on improving access to the Colonial Military Court Archives of Burundi.
- ‎Noémie Tomaszynski presented her research on mobility in the Middle Ages, focusing on social organisation and diversity in fifteenth-century Bologna.
- ‎Axel Van der Maelen showcased how the Transkribus tool can be used to analyse eighteenth-century case files of the Drossaard of Brabant.

Developing and presenting an academic poster is an important part of the training programme, helping students communicate their research clearly and concisely—an essential academic skill! 💡

Last Tuesday, 19 May, SHOC celebrated its third anniversary with an inspiring lecture by Prof. Andreas Malm (Lund University). Titled “The Political Ecology of Charlemagne – Or, What, if Anything, is Special about Capitalism?”, it offered a first glimpse of a foundational chapter from Andreas’ forthcoming monograph on popular histories of the wilderness.

Using Charlemagne and the expansion of the Carolingian Empire as a metaphorical focal point, Andreas took us on a historical-philosophical journey exploring how human intervention in the landscape—especially deforestation—helped consolidate power and facilitate the domination of oppressed populations. Nicolas Schroeder from our francophone sister institution ULB acted as a formidable sparring partner for Andreas.

We can confidently say that the audience thoroughly enjoyed both the thought-provoking lecture and the engaging discussion that followed.