Until now, scant attention has been paid to this extraordinary series of over two thousand pardon letters issued by the rulers of the Burgundian Low Countries between 1386 and 1500, overturning convictions for crimes. This book's authors demonstrate just how undeserved this neglect has been. The letters draw back the curtain onto an astonishing range of social worlds, from the dinner tables of noble residences to the taverns, bathhouses and gutters of small-town backstreets. The voices of people usually silent in the historical record seem suddenly audible: tales of women, street actors and prostitutes are recorded in narratives that often suggest a “world turned upside-down.”

Arnade and Prevenier have fully transcribed a careful selection of these letters to disclose this social range. But this is the least of their achievements since the interpretative framework in which they place the letters brilliantly extends their significance well beyond being a source for “social facts.” The legal context is explained to show how petitioners and their notaries constructed their narratives, and anthropological and sociological theories are drawn upon to interpret these narratives as strategies. Also revealed is how closely these pardons resemble the tales of the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles enjoyed by Burgundian courtiers. Whether composed of “fact” or “fiction,” story-telling in the letters provides access to a wider culture: how its social norms and hierarchies operated and how they were challenged; how relations between rulers and towns were governed and undermined, how honour was upheld and threatened, and how masculinity and femininity were constructed.

The authors thus deepen the possibilities for interpreting these letters by removing them from the archive and deftly placing them alongside other texts and discourses. Yet they also do so by returning them to the archive. In many cases, further sources tracked down in other archives reveal more about the letters’ petitioners and protagonists to provide an even richer, multi-layered understanding of their motives and why they were pardoned. This book is an exemplary model of archival research and its interpretation. Scholars and students of the Burgundian Low Countries across a range of disciplines will find it invaluable, as will anyone interested in the process of reconstructing and understanding past cultures from difficult sources.