“Beyde borghers, beyde leken, en van al de rest ghelijck, buyten geus en catholijck”. Het beeld van omgangsoecumeniciteit in de Roomsche reijs en Extractum katholicum van Joannes Stalpart van der Wiele

Abstract

The research presented in this article demonstrates the application of the imagological method to an analysis of the portrayal of interconfessional relations in 17th-century Dutch religious polemic literature by a Roman Catholic author, the priest Joannes Stalpart van der Wiele. The aim of this research is above all to identify how informal contacts between Catholics and non-Catholics were depicted in a literary discourse. The analysis focuses on Stalpart’s two texts, Roomsche reijs (Journey to Rome) and Extractum katholicum (Catholic extract), to identify images which may be classified as showing “interconfessional conviviality” and omgangsoecumene, twin concepts postulated by Willem Frijhoff. By pointing to the existence of themes related to religious toleration in the work of Stalpart van der Wiele, an author not associated with such ideas, a change of emphasis in the image of his oeuvre may be achieved.