Niels Fieremans (1997) is a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University, working at the intersection of legal, social, and economic history of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. He obtained his bachelor's and master's degrees in history at Ghent University (2019) with the highest distinction. His master's thesis was awarded the Ghent Prize for Historical Research. From September 2019 to August 2023, Niels was a PhD Fellow under the joint supervision of Prof. Jan Dumolyn, Prof. Dave De ruysscher, and Prof. Dirk Heirbaut. In June 2023, he successfully defended his PhD in Law and History entitled "Law, Leverage and Litigation. Legal Strategies of foreign merchants in late medieval Bruges." The main objective was to determine how foreign merchants used the legal framework of the Burgundian Netherlands to their advantage and how the aldermen of Bruges tried to remain the guardians of justice. His dissertation was awarded the Eric Duverger Prize of the Royal Academy for a monograph of major importance on the historical Netherlands (pre-1900) with heavy reliance on archival sources. He is currently a postdoctoral researcher in the Ghent Special Research Council project 'Lordship and Agrarian Capitalism', where he is investigating the contestation of seigneurial rights. His main research interest is the impact of law on society and how society shapes these laws in the late medieval and Renaissance Low Countries.
