This project aspires to understand how urban political elites were shaped and reshaped in relation to the intense upheavals of the sixteenth century with an in-depth study of Ghent, the largest city of Flanders. This is a high-potential case study, as it combines a unique mix of elements that are central to current international debates, such as shifting city-state relations, intense confessional and ideological strife, socio-economic change and the entanglement of urban elites with both regional and supra-regional elites as well as with urban middling groups. To chart structural processes of elite formation as well as the agency of elites and would-be elites in buffering or exploiting those processes, this project would combine quantitative methods with an agency-focused analysis of families and individuals to exploit the exceptionally rich and diverse primary sources available for the top layers of the Ghent urban community. On the one hand, the structural processes of elite formation are measured by looking at (1) the number of political offices held per family, (2) the “wealth” of Ghent’s ruling families, the way in which they were fused with (3) the Habsburg state officials, (4) the nobility as well as (5) Ghent’s craft guilds, and finally by (6) charting the confessional choices of Ghent’s urban political elite. On the other hand, the agency Ghent’s political elite is studied by a comparative analysis of various well-documented leading families. By comparing the evolution of Ghent’s political elite to the various trajectories of urban elite formation in different European regions, this project will allow a meaningful intervention in the current historiographical debate on the agency of established elites and the impact of structural changes on urban government.