Seasonable Coexistence: Temporality, Health Care and Confessional Relations in Spa, c .1648–1740

Abstract

Abstract This article adds a temporal dimension to our interpretation of confessional relations. While historians are increasingly attuned to the subtleties of space in their interpretation of interconfessional contact, we also need to acknowledge interactions differed according to multiple intersecting calendars and societal rhythms. I use a case study of the watering place of Spa (current-day Belgium) around the turn of the eighteenth century in order to unravel practices of and motivations for confessional coexistence. Spa attracted an internationally and confessionally mixed clientele, capable of living in tranquillity while Europe was only tentatively finding ways to coexist in diversity. In the watering town, on a small scale, the practices of coexistence were put to the test: interim measures and exceptions bracketing out time to engage and exchange, interwoven calendars inspiring varying interactions, and fluctuating priorities challenging narratives of linear chronological progress. Rather than casting Spa as ahead of its time in championing an abstract value of toleration, this article shows how coexistence was built on traditional and charitable duties of healthcare, which would, in turn, give shape to later spa culture.