Vroedschap

[1] An honorific title of the vroedschap was the vroede vaderen, the "wise fathers" Most early modern Dutch cities were ruled by a government of male burghers or poorters (bourgeois) who were members of the regent class, the ruling elite.

Family ties were important, as were good breeding and social status in the community.

Vroedmannen had to satisfy three basic conditions: male, membership of the Calvinist church and ownership of a house.

Although city administrations, by present standards, were more oligarchic than meritocratic, family ties never formed a formal legal basis for election.

In times of crisis, the stadholder sometimes appointed new vroedschapsleden in a province, to ensure that his followers were in power, a so-called wetsverzetting ("change of the legislative").