Saint Omer and its region: Changes in market structure and the regional economy in northern France and Flanders in the late Middle Ages

This dissertation uses concepts developed in regional theory to address the subject of urban decline and adaptation to economic change in late medieval France. This dissertation is based on a case study of the city of Saint-Omer and explores the ways in which the cities and towns of Flanders and northern France adjusted to the changes that took place in the economy of northern Europe during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. By the early fourteenth century, Saint-Omer was an important cloth manufacturing and international trade center, and it ranked as one of the largest cities north of the Alps. During the late Middle Ages, a series of changes in the European economy altered the bases of Saint-Omer's earlier prosperity. In response to these changes, Saint-Omer reoriented its trade and modified production to meet growing market demand in the expanding economy of the northern Netherlands. Analysis of changes in trade networks, immigration patterns, and market privileges reveals that Saint-Omer became a high-ranking regional market that integrated the economy of the county of Artois with those of Flanders, Holland and Brabant and helped fuse them into an economic region whose center, by the end of the fifteenth century, was Antwerp. Comparison of Saint-Omer's trade network and immigration patterns with the distribution of regional markets reveals that, by the early fifteenth century, the range of regional markets had increased and the market hierarchy had become more complex. This study also explores the extent to which the political unification of the Burgundian Netherlands contributed to the formation of this economic region, and investigates how political power facilitated the reorientation of Saint-Omer's trade. It shows how, through the granting and enforcement of market rights and privileges, a medieval ruler could encourage trade within his lands and stabilize the trade networks that formed among them.