Jean-Joseph Raepsaet

Jean-Joseph Raepsaet (29 December 1750 in Oudenaarde – 19 February 1832) was a Belgian politician and historian.

Jean-Joseph Raepsaet was born to a family that had grown from rural civil servants in the south-east of the County of Flanders in the Austrian Netherlands in the Holy Roman Empire to the highest ranks of society.

He was the grandson of Jan Arent Raepsaet (1680-1752), scribe of Heestert, and Agnes Valcke.

He became one of the leading voices of the conservative party in Oudenaarde, and he disputed the reformations of Joseph II of the Holy Roman Emperor, while at the same time supporting the closing of several monasteries and the abolition of hermitages.

On 20 May 1777, Jean-Joseph Raepsaet married Maria Olympa Bauwens, daughter of another high-ranking official from Oudenaarde, in Antwerp.