The NOE family from the Meetjesland in East-Flanders, Belgium

C IV Jacobus Noë

fs Joannes and Adriana De Bock

° Zelzate 17/4/1721
x Assenede 14/1/1748 Judoca Verguyse
xx Assenede 11/3/1750 Livina Debilst
† Ertvelde 9/10/1796.

He was their only son who reached adulthood. He was born about 4 in the afternoon and baptized the same day in the presence of his godparents Jacobus Monie and Joanna Steels. When he was 10 years old, his little sister, Petronella died and a few days before his 20^th birthday he also lost his mother.

After about three years under French occupation peace returned to our regions following the Treaty of Aachen (1748) and the reign of Emperess Maria Theresia of Austria. For 36 years she was assisted by her brother-in-law Charles of Lorraine whom she had appointed governor of the Low Countries.

During her reign commerce revived and the first factories were built i.a. the big cotton printing shops in Ghent. Agriculture flourished because the farmers learned about crop rotation. Fallow land was brought back into cultivation. This quickly became the golden age of the potato. In spite of all this there was still great poverty. And the church lost a lot of its prestige.

In 1780 the Empress Maria Theresia died and so did her brother-in-law, Charles of Lorraine. And now began the reign of Emperor Joseph II.

Five years after the death of Jacobus' father, the parental farm was sold to end the indivision. And that's how the farm came to belong to his eldest sister Catharina. Did Jacobus then work for his sister? Or did he find work elsewhere? So far we have found no information on this.

On 14/1/1748 he married Judoca Verguyse in Assenede. She was born there on 8 April 1706 and was 15 years his senior. The priest in the marriage act writes Jacobus Nowé and Judoca Voorhuyse. She was the widow of Lieven De Vos and Pieter Bosschem and brought 2 children with her, Livina De Vos and Frans Bosschem. Judoca died childless in Assenede on 12/8/1749. That was only 18 months after her wedding.

Jacobus declares that his deceased wife didn't bring any real estate into the marriage and that they didn't acquire any during their 18 months of marriage. But what about their livestock ? "Two horses, a foal, four cows, a small ox, three calves, three "groote stierkens" ("groote" = big, "stier" = bull and the suffix "-ken" means small) and seven piglets and all the chickens..."

There were also 2200 sheaves of wheat straw, 1400 sheaves of wheat, 1300 sheaves of oats, 600 sheaves of beans and 700 sheaves of clover hay. The estate reckonings closed on a positive balance of 125 pounds.

On 11 March 1750 Jacobus remarried 20 year old Livina Debilst, daughter of Joannes and Joanna Rondas. Her father who was from Zomergem, had died 3 years before and her mother had passed away 6 months earlier. She was born in Oosteeklo on 10 May 1729. She had a brother aged 11.

Her parents had first lived in Oosteeklo, her mother's native village. After 1742 the De Bilst family farmed in Assenede in the Wilde district. They were clearly not terribly well off because in the estate reckonings we read they had no land and no life or other annuity. The sale was held a mere five days after her mother's death.

Jacobus and Livina farmed in Assenede in the Muyken district.

On 28 October 1757 the new covenant was drawn up for the "laudable confrerie of the honey flowing holy father Ambrosius, patron saint of the bee-keepers". Together with 28 others Jacobus signed this new covenant. But we never found out whether he held down a position of responsibility in this religious association.

Under the Ancien Régime, especially in the 17^th and 18^th Century, in the heyday of the Catholic Church, in every village and parish such guilds and religious associations sprang up. Their members were the pious men and women of the well-to-do.

Each confrerie was governed by a dean, a bailiff, two messengers and a receiver. These were elected by the members for a period of two years. Quite often one was elected messenger and promoted at one of the following elections. One was hardly ever reelected, except after a period of several years.

According to the rules of this confrerie of St Ambrosius members didn't have to be present at any procession but if they didn't show up for the annual meal in honour of the feast of the saint they were once again fined... a sum of money. Quarreling and drunkenness were also severely sanctioned.

Members had to accompany the dean, the bailiff and the messengers from the church to the place of the annual feast of the patron saint. And at the funeral of a member the four youngest members carried the coffin to the church and from the church to the cemetery while all the other members followed them and the family.

On 26 May 1777 Jacobus Noée bought from Jooris Dhondt fs. Pieter:
- a piece of land of 300 rods in the fourth section number 11 in Ertvelde
- a piece of pasture and sowing-land situated in the parish of Ertvelde in the district of Avrije, in two parts
- a piece of pasture now sowing-land in two parts, one next to the other of 474 rods for the sum of 191-0-0 pounds. And next in the act we read the words "grooten sterck permissiegelt". That means these were not regular but regional pounds. Until the reign of Napoleon each region had its own measures and quite often also its own money.

But on 8 October 1779 he sold everything. Master Schoorman from Ghent paid 300 pounds once again "grooten sterck permissiegeld" for it all. Apparently Jacobus -- this time in the act they wrote Noeë--had every reason to be very happy with the whole deal.

In 1778 he had paid 10-14-3 pounds in taxes. Of the 343 tax paying inhabitants of Assenede he was the 36th: 193 tax payers paid less than 1 pound, 97 of them paid between 1 and 10 pounds. But he paid less than 1% of the grand total of 1346 pounds in taxes due that year.

On 18 December 1781 Jacobus--he was then 60 years old--bought an inn in the center of Assenede. It was called the Queen of Hungary ("de Coninginne van hongarien"). It stood on 58 rods of land south of the calseydestraet and west of the Ballinckstreet. And in view of the fact that back then this auction was the talk of the town for quite a little while we will now talk some more about it.

The inn was the property of Joanna Corthals, widow with 2 children of Frans Van Poecke. Gregorius De Meulemeester, a neighbour, started off the auction on 18/11/1781 with a bid of 213 pounds. According to the rules every bid had to be at least 2 pounds more than the previous one. And the seller didn't have to sell to the highest bidder. The costs of 1 shilling in the pound or 5%, as well as expenses, were chargeable to the buyer.

Not a single bid was received until 9 December. Then one bid followed the other. Ferdinand De Boes added 4 pounds, Lauren Schetters 2 pounds and Jan Baptist Pauwels added 12 pounds in one go. Ferdinand then added 2 pounds. Jacobus Noë added 6 pounds; Ferdinand upped the price again with 4 pounds. Jacobus now added 7 pounds and Ferdinand added 10 more to that. Pieter De Cleene came up with an increase of 6-8-10 pounds. With 6 more pounds Ferdinand brought the price up to 272-8-10 pounds and that was that for just this one day in December.

The next day Pieter De Cleene added 10 pounds; Jacobus Noë added 8 pounds, Ferdinand 10, Jacobus again 4 pounds and Ferdinand 10 more.

Finally after another increase of 4 pounds by Jacobus Noë the inn was assigned to him for the sum of 318-8-10 pounds plus expenses amounting to 5-11-6 pounds. The grand total came to 341-18-10 pounds.

To finance the deal Jacobus had to borrow some money. And two days later an agreement between himself and Miss Angeline Van Westerhout was signed for a mortgage of 350 pounds at 4% per annum. Who was Miss Angeline? An astute businesswoman? No, in fact she was a Beguine in the small beguinage in Ghent and she came from Assenede. Jacobus' son, Francies, just married, and having just started his farming carreer on the Fonteyne and his nephew Judocus Hamerlinck from Zelzate (the son of Joannes Hamerlinck and Jacobus' sister Maria Adriana) were garantors for the mortgage. We don't know exactly when Jacobus died, but as soon as he did, no doubt around the turn of the century and when also the Beguine had passed away, things really livened up. Young Francies knows only too well what we're talking about.

Thanks to Mr. Laurent Lievens we now know the exact date of death of Jacobus: 9 October 1796. His widow survived him by more than 15 years and died in Assenede on 25-4-1812 at about 23 hrs. She was 82 years old. The next day son Francies and son-in-law Casimir Huyghe went to register her demise. They even thought she was 86 years old.

The children of Jacobus Noë and Livina Debilst:

Petrus Joannes Noë
° Assenede 5/2/1751
† Assenede 24/2/1751
Judocus Noë
° Assenede 22/7/1752
x Assenede 13/11/1787 Angelina Petronella Cathelijn
† Assenede 28/10/1811
Joannes Noë
° Assenede 1/1/1754
This "child of the New Year" married in Assenede on 18/6/1782 with 20 year old Elisabeth Van De Vijvere, the daughter of Joannes Van De Vijvere and Joanna Maria Buysse. Elisabeth was born there on 16/3/1762. Joannes died there childless on 13 March 1786.
A good year later, on 24/7/1787 Elisabeth married Jacobus De Langhe who was from Lembeke.
Franciscus Noë
° Assenede 13/9/1755
x Assenede 27/2/1781 Petronella Wauters
† Assenede 14/8/1817
NN, girl, stillborn on 20/7/1757, baptized by the midwife.
Joanna Maria Noë
° Assenede 26/9/1758
† Assenede 1/6/1760
Petrus Franciscus Noë
° Assenede 15/12/1760
† Assenede 7/5/1777

The death certificate of Jacobus Noë

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