Social Conflict

Défense faubourienne et nouvelle marque territoriale : les fausses-portes et les maisons-fortes à Liège à la fin du Moyen Âge

Comme dans de nombreuses autres villes d’Europe, les 13e et 14e siècles à Liège sont le théâtre de luttes sociales et économiques, parfois extrêmement féroces. Dans la capitale principautaire, une puissante reconfiguration « aristocratique » est alors en cours, remodelant les divers corps sociaux et leur rapport de force. Dans le même temps, deux phénomènes (dont l’apparentement semble avoir été peu, voire jamais, étudié) commencent à se manifester dans le paysage urbain. Il s’agit de l’éclosion simultanée des fausses-portes fortifiées, barrant les accès des faubourgs, et de la multiplication, dans la périphérie de la cité, des maisons-fortes familiales. Cet essai tente de mettre en lumière, à travers tout le spectre urbain, les mécanismes principaux qui ont présidé à la création de ces petites fortifications collectives. La contribution, évidemment, n’a rien de définitif, ni d’exhaustif. L’enjeu est bien de proposer un autre angle d’attaque, une autre approche, d’un phénomène qui frappa beaucoup de grandes villes médiévales.

Mots clés : Liège (Belgique), fausses-portes, maisons-fortes, luttes sociales, marques territoriales

The defense of the faubourgs and a new form of territorial marking: False doors and fortified homes in Liège in the Late Middle Ages

As in many other cities in Europe, Liège underwent sometimes ferocious social and economic conflict in the 13th and 14th centuries. A powerful “aristocratic” reconfiguration was underway in the principality, reshaping the different social groups and altering their power relations. At the same time, two phenomena began to appear in the urban landscape: the increased use of fortified false doors, blocking access to the faubourgs; and a simultaneous rise in fortified family homes on the outskirts of the city. The similarity of these two phenomena seems to have been examined very little in the literature, if at all. This essay attempts to describe the main mechanisms, across the entire urban spectrum, that led to the creation of these small, collective fortifications. This attempt is, of course, neither definitive nor exhaustive. Our aim is to offer another angle of attack, a new approach, to a phenomenon that arose in a large number of major medieval cities.

Keywords: Liège (Belgium), false doors, fortified homes, social conflict, territorial marking

Wars and conflicts affect everyone; especially the children the most. Civil wars have been not only costly and they have crippled social infrastructures including education and other basic and necessary social services (Waal and Vines 1992; Malecela 1999). The war in 2011 and subsequent conflicts in Libya have affected almost every Libyan. The most affected have been the children. This study attempted to investigate how the war affected Libyan students particularly in the city of Sebha with special reference to their environment, education system, their learning habits, their thinking ability as well English language learning ability. To this end, the relevant research data was collected from the teachers (06), students (19), parents (06) and guardians (05) from Sebha using observation and interview as data collection techniques. The analysis of the data revealed that the Libyan conflict had direct impacts on education. There were school closures due to targeted attacks, collateral damage, military use of school buildings, and use by displaced populations. Death and injury to teachers and students were also noted which affected the education process. On the part of parents, fear of sending children to school, recruitment of teachers and students by armed forces and thus reduced public capacity to deliver education were notable findings of the study.

Over the last 130 years, patterns of land use in central Australia have altered dramatically, and so too have fire regimes and fire management objectives. Although Aboriginal people still have tenure over large parts of the landscape, their lifestyles have changed. Most Aboriginal people now live in towns and settlements and, although fire management is still culturally important, the opportunities for getting out on country to burn are constrained. Large parts of the landscape are now used for pastoral production. Under this land use the management objective is often one of fire exclusion. The other large-scale land use is for conservation. Here, fire management has a greater focus on conserving biodiversity using various burning strategies. In this paper we explore contemporary fire regimes in central Australia. Widespread fire events are found to be associated with two or more consecutive years of above-average rainfall. Although most of the fires linked with these high rainfall ...