CITY HALL
- The modest success of the uprisings -
The construction of an impressive City Hall in the sixteenth century was the symbolic, visual confirmation of the political power and autonomy of the city council. Nonetheless, this also shows that the demands of the lower classes were taken into account as well. Originally, the council did not gather on a regular basis in a fixed room or building, characterizing the backroom politics of the twelfth and thirteenth century. In 1317 the duke of Brabant decided that a room should be arranged as a meeting hall for the sheriffs in a building that was to be erected: the Cloth Hall. Next, in the middle of the fourteenth century, a ‘sheriff’s house’ was built, adjacent to the market square. Also other Brabantine cities knew a similar evolution, with councils taking up residence in cloth halls or in individual buildings. It seems therefore that the non-elite classes’ desire for transparancy and controle of the city council was translated to the exterior of the city, since the location of the political centre next to the market place added to the visibility of the political decision-making process.