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The Low Countries became one of the most urbanised regions in late-medieval Europe. This article analyses the consequences of urbanisation and also state formation for the nobility in Zeeland. Noble lords remained the dominant political power, the result of their position in the States of Zeeland, but only a significant minority of the nobility was active in state service or urban government. The Zeeland towns offered the nobility a range of opportunities for service, and political, economic and familial networks developed across social boundaries. The nature of these ties depended on the status and objectives of those involved, making late-medieval society in Zeeland more complex than merely a division between nobility and burghers. Zeeland also illustrates the regional diversity within the Low Countries in the position of the nobility in urban society. It refutes the idea that they were transformed into a state nobility and shows that the chances of social mobility for the inhabitants of the small towns of Zeeland were slight.
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