Sint Rombout in een Mechelse stadskroniek.

In a Mechelen urban chronicle written around 1500 by Mechelen citizen Jan de Wilde, much attention is devoted to the city's patron, Saint Rumbold. The author based his chronicle mainly on Brabantine historiography, but added passages on Rumbold from various sources. Among these are not only an older vita describing Rumbold's life and miracles, but possibly also archival sources which are still kept in the city archives today. The article shows that Jan de Wilde was true to his sources, but at the same time consciously increased the importance of Rumbold in his narrative. His version of Mechelen's history, infused with Rumbold's vita, fits within a broader context of intensified devotion towards the city patron in the late fifteenth century that increasingly associated the Saint with the city's urban identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]