This volume contains the proceedings of a conference held at University of Ghent in November 2010, during which nine scholars presented their recent (mostly doctoral) research on the composition, the competences and the functioning of the intermediate institutions in the County of Flanders, i.e. institutions situated between the local (towns, villages and seigniories) and the supra-regional or central level of the Burgundian-Habsburg composite state, like it was getting settled at the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries. The conference was organised by the Institute of Legal History of the Ghent Law Faculty (Georges Martyn) in collaboration with the Institute of Early Modern History of the Ghent Arts Faculty (René Vermeir) and the Ghent Department of the Belgian State Archives (Chantal Vancoppenolle). Contributions by Frederik Buylaert and Jonas Braekevelt, Sarah Castelain, Sylvie De Smet, Laurie Fréger, Simon Groenveld, Laurent Inghelbrecht, Klaas Van Gelder and An Verscuren.