The Bokkenrijders: Gangs of Drunkards or Military Operatives?

This article examines the Bokkenrijders—criminal gangs that raided Looz, the Lands of Overmaas, and parts of Germany between circa 1734 and 1795. It draws on sources, including trial records from the schepenbanken of communities in Belgian Limburg and critically analyses the sociocultural context of the factors and discourses contributing to our understanding of the Bokkenrijders. This paper investigates three research questions. Firstly, what was the etymological origin of their name? A multilingual discourse analysis of possible interpretations of the name examines the root word ‘bok’, which in the Limburgian dialect also denotes beer, to further explore what role alcohol may have had in the gangs’ formations or operations, and how bok and night thieves evolved into folktales of the Bokkenrijders riding goats at night to conduct crimes. Secondly, we investigate the social statuses and possible military affiliations of interrogated Bokkenrijders. Records show that some Bokkenrijders had former military training. The final question examines how they operated. The records show that they operated like paramilitary criminal gangs with a hierarchy including captains, and that they made use of tactics in their robberies and extortion. This sociocultural analysis revisits the Bokkenrijders to explain how they had an impact upon the region.