Dissident Identities in the Early Modern Low Countries

Dissident Identities in the Early Modern Low Countries . By Alastair Duke . Edited by Judith Pollmann and Andrew Spicer . Ashgate . 2009 . xiv + 320 pp. £65.00 . This volume brings together a collection of essays by one of the leading specialists of the political and religious history of the Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, most of which had previously been published between 1996 and 2009 except for two articles that appear in print in this book for the first time. The central themes are the Revolt of the Netherlands, the spread of the Reformation, and the formation of an alleged national identity in the Burgundian-Habsburg principalities. As always, in such cases, finding an all-encompassing title for such a book is a somewhat hazardous enterprise. Indeed, although at first sight the notion of ‘dissident identities’ might have a clear and commonsensical meaning, the question whether this is a fruitful concept for further empirical research remains a doubtful one. This is only a minor reproach, however, because there is a genuine coherence and unity of methodological approach in the separate essays collected here, that of the identification of the inhabitants of these prosperous and urbanized regions with different forms of communities in an era of great social, political and religious turmoil. Though this is not explicitly stated, in Duke's approach ‘identity’ should then be understood as a process rather than as a static concept. The articles all excel in the eloquence of their narratives, in the abundance of the sources listed in the scholarly footnotes, and in the rigorous reading of the primary material, in many cases making the results of many years of research published in Dutch accessible to an international audience as well as situating them within a wider European perspective. The most fascinating question that this book brings to the forefront is whether there really was such a thing as a common identity in the early modern Low Countries, be it as a whole before the division of the North and the South after 1585, or within these two separate political units, the Spanish Netherlands and the Dutch Republic, after that date. The author seems to leave that question somewhat open, and this might well be the most prudent way of handling this problem given the actual state of the historical research, though on some pages he seems to suggest that such a ‘Netherlandish’ national consciousness really did exist and the inhabitants of Flanders, Holland, Brabant, Hainaut, Zeeland, Utrecht etc. did not just identify with their own principality. On page 14 he refers to the ‘scepticism’ of some Dutch historians as far as such precocious national consciousness is concerned. The undersigned reviewer is also one of these sceptics and the many interesting sources quoted by Alastair Duke that might advance the contrary viewpoint remain unconvincing to the degree that they are in the great majority of cases based on printed sources written by the elites and the amount of archival sources that might reflect the opinions of the lower strata and local communities is rather small. True enough, so-called ‘ideas of nationhood’ have historically been established by exactly these political, economic and cultural elites so studying them in detail is a very legitimate endeavour. And indeed, this collection of essays does so in a very convincing manner.

ABSTRACTAlthough sodomy was purportedly an “unmentionable vice” in the early modern period, popular songs from the Low Countries paint a different picture. Bringing musical sources to bear upon the subject adds an extra dimension to the now widely held view that sodomy was a multimedia phenomenon in early modern society. Sodomy was represented in art, literature, poetry, and popular song as well. These songs were pedagogical in that they aimed to encourage performers and audience to live a pious life, and they stimulated the formation of confessional identities. By drawing attention to this neglected chapter in the history of homosexuality—popular song in the early modern Low Countries—this article seeks to contribute to the research on cultural perceptions of sodomy in the period.

Archduke Philip the Handsome promulgated a new constitution for the County of Zeeland (Keure van Zeelandt in Dutch).1 In Antwerp Govaert Bac later printed the text. It was the first time that the central authorities of the Low Countries resorted to printing to disseminate its official acts. This case, and in particular the links between the Antwerp printer Govaert Bac and the Burgundian court in Brussels, provide the starting point for a broader study, exploring the relationship between the community of printers and the central government in the early modern Low Countries. This complex relationship has not yet been the subject of a detailed study. Until now, only the relationship between printers and local, provincial or religious authorities have attracted the attention of scholars. Investigations were notably conducted on the French-speaking part of the Low Countries and Antwerp.

The Elusive Netherlands: the Question of National Identity in the early Modern Low Countries on the Eve of the RevoltThe idea of the Burgundian-Habsburg Netherlands having any sort of national identity is usually met with understandable scepticism. The constitutional obstacles to the construction of such an identity were formidable, not least the piecemeal formation of the Burgundian dynastic state, whose prince owed homage to the kings of France and to the Holy Roman Emperor for their territories, and some of whose subjects could still seek justice in ‘foreign’ courts . Not surprisingly the early modern Low Countries baffled foreigners, but even those thoroughly familiar with the region did not know whether it belonged to ‘Gallia’ and ‘Germania’, and in particular how the Habsburg Netherlands related to an entity as vague as ‘Nider teutschelant’. The rich yet problematic nomenclature for the Low Countries testifies to these difficulties, which were aggravated by the protean configuration of the Habsburg state and by uncertain relationship between ‘Dutch’ and ‘Teutsch zung’. The state-building activities of Charles V certainly did not resolve the political and cultural confusion, but by 1555 these had helped to foster a stronger consciousness of the Low Countries as a distinctive political community, especially in the ‘core’ provinces. On the eve of the Revolt this found expression, ironically, in the emerging opposition to the presence of Spanish soldiers and to the central government’s religious policy.

Sixteenth-century political, religious and intellectual authorities were themselves concerned about the persuasive power of songs and poems. Fearing the divisive potential of such works, they developed special censorship rules such as bans on the treatment of certain subjects, the checking of texts prior to performance, and thereafter prosecution and, where deemed necessary, sanctions. This chapter examines the process of the formation of public opinion in the early modern Low Countries with a special focus on the insufficiently examined role of literature in forming opinions and ways of thinking. It shows that the early modern Low Countries did in fact have the potential to develop a public opinion, and that literary works were important in this regard. The chapter demonstrates that it should be no less natural for historians to use responses to social, political, religious and other issues which appeared in a literary form as well as other sources. Keywords: early modern Low Countries; public opinion

This collection of essays by one of the leading scholars of the sixteenth-century Low Countries provides a stimulating overview of research conducted in the past two decades. In a sense it serves as a successor to Alastair Duke's Reformation and Revolt in the Low Countries (1990) which focused on the early Reformation and stressed the malleable and multifarious character of evangelical Protestantism in the Netherlands. Many essays in Reformation and Revolt in the Low Countries have by now acquired classic status, and I expect the same will happen with a number of contributions to this volume. All are of high quality, original in their scope, stimulating in their assessments, and packed with often fascinating detail. Specialists will be familiar with the topics covered in this volume, since nine out of eleven essays have been published previously. Still, there is much new to enjoy, since all pieces have been revised (some of them extensively) and two essays appear here for the first time. While each essay can be read in its own right, they share a common scope. Duke is particularly interested in the construction of religious and political identities and the way in which these were articulated in various media on the eve of and during the Dutch revolt (broadly speaking 1520 to 1600).

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Introduction to the special issue 'Time and Temporality in the Early Modern Low Countries'.

This chapter shows how an early modern theatre society facilitated forms of public debate and the formation of public opinion which Habermas believed to have been absent at the time for lack of proper media and of an engaged and informed public. Using the case of Amsterdam in the 1530s it argues that a sophisticated interplay of theatrical, visual, oral, manuscript and printed media increased public debate, and helped create an interregional movement and the formation of its leadership. Theatrical means were used by various layers of society to create maximum publicity effects. Finally, the chapter argues that, if societies can be characterized by their dominant communication systems, then, given the example of Amsterdam and many other places in and outside the Low Countries, early modern urban society can be termed a theatre society. Keywords:Amsterdam; early modern theatre society; Low Countries; public debate; public opinion

Contents: Preface Craft guilds in comparative perspective: the Northern and Southern Netherlands, a survey, Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly The establishment and distribution of craft guilds in the Low Countries, 1000-1800, Bert De Munck, Piet Lourens and Jan Lucassen Corporate politics in the Low Countries: guilds as institutions, 14th to18th centuries, Maarten Prak Export industries, craft guilds and capitalist trajectories, 13th to 18th centuries, Catharina Lis and Hugo Soly Dressed to work: a gendered comparison of the tailoring trades in the Northern and Southern Netherlands, 16th to 18th centuries, Harald Deceulaer and Bibi Panhuysen Religion and social structure: religious rituals in pre-industrial trade associations in the Low Countries, Alfons K.L. Thijs A tradition of giving and receiving: mutual aid within the guild system, Sandra Bos Corporative capital and social representation in the Southern and Northern Netherlands, 1500-1800, Johan Dambruyne Conclusion, Jan Lucassen and Maarten Prak Bibliography Indexes.

This essay deals with the nature, background, and consequences of urban patronage for individual rhetoricians in the fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Low Countries. Although this phenomenon is most likely rooted in courtly practice, it is mainly because of the usefulness of rhetoricians in the context of urban public festivals that some of them received financial rewards from city authorities. My analysis shows how in the Low Countries urban festive culture and the oral dissemination of literary texts played an important, and heretofore largely neglected, role in the professionalization and individualization of authorship during the early modern period.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Low Countries were a melting pot of religious beliefs: Roman Catholicism and several Protestant and Catholic Reformation movements coexisted together, the ‘radical Reformation movement’ of the Anabaptists, the ‘militant movement’ of Calvinism, and the more mild variant of Lutheranism. The Southern part of the Low Countries were ‘re‐catholicized’ after the Fall of Antwerp in 1585, and the Counter‐ Reformation was active there. Authors of several denominations wrote Latin plays. In this article I will look at the theology represented in some of these plays, particularly those of Macropedius and Laurimanus as examples of Roman Catholic (non‐Jesuit) plays; those of Lummenaeus a Marca and Libenius as examples of Jesuit drama; and those of Gnapheus as examples of Protestant theatrical writing. Thus, it will be possible to draw some general conclusions about religion, theology and confessionalization in neo‐Latin drama of the Low Countries.

This paper describes the iterative process of conflating historical population statistics for the medieval and early modern Low Countries. This process improves the quality of analyses of the data by adding fine-grained geospatial definitions to the historical observations, gradually refining the underlying historical GIS itself too: both intertwined processes benefit from each other. A flexible semantic model for premodern administrative units in the Low Countries is introduced to accommodate the continuous refinements, while maintaining backward compatibility.

Previous studies of radical thinkers have brought us few examples of female radicals from the Low Countries, even if the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic was a hub for radical thought which offered a relatively female-friendly climate. In this article, we explore how new perspectives and modes of analysis, better adjusted to the restrictions and opportunities women experienced, make women’s radical thought visible. By doing so, we aim to present a more balanced perspective on what might count as female radical thought in the early modern Low Countries (1500–1800). Starting from the notion of “agency,” we analyze the life, work and relations of three Dutch authors, as well as representations of female radicalism in two literary works, in order to rebalance the notion of radicalism in a woman’s world. Anna Bijns, Meynarda Verboom and Margaretha van Dijk were not radically disruptive in the sense of operating completely outside of male-dominated domains. Instead, they gained agency by negotiating their position in patriarchal knowledge systems and by bending conventions within male-dominated networks so that their voices could be heard. To understand these voices, it is necessary to disconnect “being radical” from “the amount of disruption caused” by female agency.

Abstract:The emergence of factor markets during the transition from the Middle Ages to the early modern period was of crucial importance for long-term economic development. Despite Flanders and Brabant being situated in one of the most densely urbanised regions within Europe at the time, the current historiographical debate lacks a quantitative analysis of the market for land in the late medieval and early modern Low Countries. This article focuses on the transmission of rural property in the southern Low Countries from the 1400s up until the end of the eighteenth century. Using time-series data on the rural land market for a selection of case studies within Inland Flanders and Brabant has enabled me to present a long-run analysis of the changes in the market value of land, the market activity and the overall nature of the rural peasant land market. My findings show a tendency towards fewer but larger holdings being transferred on the land market. The path-dependent nature of this process had a significant impact upon the changing proto-capitalistic nature of agriculture within the southern Low Countries. As per capita market activity declined and the average transfer size increased, the farmers’ dependency on the lease market grew effectively speeding up the pauperisation processes in Inland Flanders.