Pouvoir d'état et enrichissement personnel: investissements et stratégies d’accumulation mis en oeuvre par les officiers des ducs de Bourgogne en Flandre

Abstract

State power and personal enrichment : investments and accumulation strategies carried out by the Duke of Burgundy’s officials in Flanders. In the Late Middle Ages, Flemish civil servants played a key role in the creation of the Burgundian State. The revenues they generated in various ways and from various sources were first invested in landed property by senior civil servants. The fiefs and domains were indeed very valuable as symbols of authority and as a means of social advancement. Furthermore, land, an essential means of production in feudal society, continued to be the most important and safest kind of capital. For many senior civil servants, inherited property brought in, on a yearly basis, as much or more than the amounts that service to the State enabled them to pocket. It can justly be said that some senior civil servants profited by renting out plots of land or entire buildings. As much from the political as from the economic point of view, the creation of the State meant, other than the salvation of some noble families, the success of newer members of the power elite in the Burgundian State.