Joyous Entry
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The Joyous Entry ("Blijde Inkomst" in Dutch, "Joyeuse Entrée" in French), implying the peaceable entry of the Duke of Brabant into his city of Brussels—is the charter of liberties granted to the Duchy of Brabant following the death in 1355 of its Duke, Jan III; the document is dated 3 January 1355/6 (old style). The charter was not completely new, but followed an old custom in Brabant of "landcharters", such as the Charter of Kortenberg, granted by Jan II in 1312, or the "Walloon Charter" of 1314, a custom with origins in the previous century. The six specific freedoms or "privileges" detailed powers granted to the church, the towns and some nobles, by means of which the Duke's heirs, Joanna, Duchess of Brabant and her consort Wencelaus of Luxemburg, could collect taxes.
By August 1356, the document was a dead letter in practice, owing to the military occupation of Brabant by Louis, count of Flanders, and the following February, when Emperor Charles IV, Joanna and Wenceslas and representatives of the Brabant towns all met at Maastricht, it was officially denigrated by all parties, especially its chapter vii, which stipulated that the Duchess Joanna, if childless, should be succeeded by her natural heirs—her sisters. Thus it was by abrogation of the Joyous Entry that the Habsburgs eventually inherited Brabant. The defeat of Wencelas in 1371 was a victory for the towns over the feudal nobility, and in supporting Anton of Burgundy as Duke, the towns wrung from him new constitution or Inauguration Charter (1406).
The Joyous Entry has been viewed an equivalent in the Low Countries of Magna Carta's establishment for England of a rule of law, the only other medieval document with claims to comprising a written basis of governance, in the other early successful example of a nation-state. In common with Magna Carta its functioning significance was exaggerated by the Romantic historians of the 19th century (van Uytven and Blockmans).
Annually the Dukes of Brabant pledged to adhere to the text in the document by making a ceremonial entry into the main cities of Brabant. In the midst of the Eighty Years' War in the Low Countries, a book was repeatedly published (the 1578 edition safely from Cologne) with the Latin title Laetus introitus, with the view of reminding Philip II and his military commanders of the constitutional restraints of the Blijde Inkomst and giving heart to the insurgents in Brabant.
The Joyous Entry was declared null and void when the Revolutionary French forces took possession of the Austrian Netherlands in 1794. A formal city visit of the Belgian monarchy is still referred to as a "Joyous Entry", a reminder of the Brabant tradition of the rule of law.
