The Last Chapter of the Golden Fleece (Ghent, 1559). Burgundian Ritual, Church Space and Urban Lieux de Mémoire

ABSTRACT In 1559 the twenty-third chapter of the Golden Fleece was held in Ghent, presided over by its grandmaster King Philip II. The meeting concluded the chivalric order’s venerable tradition of organising large public ceremonies in the primary cities of the Burgundian-Habsburg lands. This contribution foregrounds the spatial arrangements for this chapter within Ghent’s collegiate church of St Bavo and discusses the positions not only of the court but also of important local players such as the church chapter, the urban magistracy, local chroniclers, and iconoclasts. The essay shows how the Habsburg dynasty systematically appropriated the interiors of the main urban churches in the Low Countries in order to highlight the continuity of Burgundian rule but at the same time broadcast a new imperial ideology. Despite these efforts, however, local audiences reinvented these spaces as important lieux de mémoire of what they perceived as traditional Burgundian rule.