Top Highlights

• The building in Lille which will help us explore these matters is the main entrance porch (grant porche) of the Hôtel de la Poterne, completed in January 1466
• Insofar as it is possible to summarise findings and make comparisons at this stage, it can be said that manifestations of power were slower to emerge in the historical record of towns and cities of the Low Countries than in the Italian peninsula.
• As Valois and then Habsburg rulers extended their grip over Flemish and Brabantine cities in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and as the manifestations of their own power within the city walls grew more numerous and complex over that time, the dream of the city-state, so brilliantly realised in parts of Italy, faded away for good in cities li...
• Like many ducal residences it evolved into a multi-functional complex of buildings. The Poterne served all year round as a base for certain institutions of ducal government, most importantly the central counting housefor the duke’s northern dominions, the chambre des comptes, which was located there from 1413 onwards. It also housed the local offic...

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