Louis Sicking, born in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, in 1966. Ph.D. from Leiden University. Assistant Professor of Medieval History at Leiden University.
Fellow (1 February 2009 – 30 June 2009)
INTEREST GROUPS, LEGISLATION AND RISK MANAGEMENT. LOCAL, REGIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL DYNAMICS IN THE MARITIME TRANSPORT SECTOR OF THE LOW COUNTRIES, C. 1530-1580
There are many documents preserved in Belgian archives that belong to a corpus of administrative papers produced by ‘maritime interest groups’. Of these several deal with the preparation of central legislation on ships, shipping, cargo and insurance of ships and cargo. Analysis of these documents has centred on two areas: reconstructing the dynamics of technology change; and the interaction between local interest groups and centralised authority in the maritime transport sector of the Low Countries’ core provinces – Flanders, Brabant (Antwerp), Holland and Zealand – between c. 1530 and 1580.