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Office des Paiseurs
The Office des Paiseurs was an organ of municipal government that operated across the actual north of France, Belgium and Netherlands, from the 13th century until the end of the Ancient Regime. Its main function was to operate a court of law designed to appease conflicts amongst citizens of their municipality.

Purpose
The Office des Paiseurs was a court of law designed by municipal governments to solve conflicts in a manner that would be satisfying for both parties involved and would insure the establishment of a durable peace between members of the urban community. As its name attests, the goal of the Office des Paiseurs was to make peace between the citizens of the urban community. This means that the variety of cases they faced was broad, ranging from simple insults to homicide, but also including multifarious injuries and sometimes accidental harm inflicted on a second party. Moreover, conflicts could arise between citizens for a variety of reasons, from a drunken tavern brawl to accusations of professional malpractice, or slandering. If the court was able to handle a large variety of cases, it was however only accessible to the Bourgeois of the city. The statute of Bourgeois was a form of citizenship that required the respect of certain conditions that varied between cities, but usually involved being a permanent member of the community (by having one’s main residence located in the city for example) subject to financial levying (bourgeoisie could be acquired and preserved in exchange of financial retribution for example). Women, if members of the bourgeoisie, were usually allowed to present their case to the court, but not cases of domestic violence.

The office would solve conflict and aim to reach an appeasement by offering financial compensations to injured individuals. These compensations there designed to reimburse the medical costs of the injury, to compensate the loss of salary during the time of convalescence and to compensate the potential loss of employment in case of permanent injuries. The office would also offer social compensation, that could take various forms, including public ceremonies designed for the guilty party to beg his victim for forgiveness, gifts to the parish of the victim and expiatory pilgrimages. These social compensation were designed to restore the social status of both the victim and the culprit and prevent them form being marginalized and excluded from the urban community.

Geography
In terms of geographical presence, the Office des Paiseurs was part of the municipal government in most of the major cities of the county of Flanders and the duchy of Brabant, such as Ghent, Bruges, Douai, Lille and Brussels. It would assume different names in different regions: Paiseurs or Appaiseurs in the French-speaking parts of the county of Flanders, Paysierders, or Paysmaker in the Dutch-speaking parts of the county of Flanders and duchy of Brabant. The name of the office reflects its intentions of alleviating conflicts: the words Paiseurs and appaiseurs are derived from the French words paix, and the Latin word pax meaning peace, and appaiser meaning alleviate. The words paysierders and paysmaekers are also derived from these French and Latin words.

Origins
The office came into existence through charters issued by the countess Marguerite of Flanders in the twelfth century, allowing each city to make this office an official part of their government. The charters  were regularly renewed by the successive political leaders, such as the dukes of Burgundy. Some historians have tried to link the emergence of such an office in the largest cities of the Low Countries to a desire to reduce the number of cases presented to the main court of law of the city, the court of the Schepen. It seems evident that in many larger cities the emerging Office des Paiseurs took away part of the pressure imposed on the Schepen to preside over a significant number of cases each year. However, the presence of such an office in many smaller cities, clearly shows that it responded to a different kind of need as well, emanating both from the population and from the authorities. This need for a justice destined to solve conflict rather than punish, becomes even more apparent if we consider that this office resisted the many political changes that befell upon the region of the southern Low Countries from its formation in the thirteenth century until at least the end of the fifteenth century. In the city of Lille for example, the office would be active until the end of the Ancien Régime, testifying to its important role in the social fabric of the city.