The elusive Netherlands. The question of national identity in the early modern Low Countries on the eve of the Revolt

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.

This thesis examines the importance of dress in India. It focuses less on the material artefact than on the use of clothes in the construction of social and political identity. Scholars often stress the rigidity of the clothing system in India where identity appears neatly prescribed by caste and tradition. Challenging this view, I suggest that clothes are often a highly controversial issue. In Chapter 1, I define my approach as an examination of the problem of what to wear. This provides a dynamic model with which to address questions of local and national sartorial identity. Each chapter that follows is an exploration of the problem as faced by different people in various circumstances. Chapters 2-4 focus mainly on questions of national identity through a discussion of the clothing controversies of Indian men in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These are analysed within the context of British Imperialism and the Indian struggle for Independence. Chapters 5-8 concentrate primarily on contemporary clothing issues concerning women's dress in a Gujarati village. Here the clothing choices of individuals and groups are discussed in relation to such factors as caste, education, urbanisation and ideas of female modesty. Questions of local and national identity are brought together in Chapter 9 where I examine the development of contemporary ethnic fashions in an urban village in Delhi where members of the educated elite are returning to the clothes that rural women are rejecting. Finally I demonstrate how all of the sartorial trends discussed in this thesis are part of a long-term cultural debate concerning Indian identity which is played out at a variety of levels from the village to the nation. By incorporating the attitudes of people both to their own clothes and to the clothes of others, I hope to have created a new dynamic model with which anthropologists can approach the complexity of the relationship between clothing and identity.

The Elusive Netherlands: The Question of National Identity in the Early Modern Low Countries on the Eve of the Revolt

The realization of a positive and well-integrated national identity is difficult even under the most favorable circumstances. Korea, Chechen, and the Palestinians are notorious recent examples of national identities destined, due to a combination of circumstances, to remain frustrated to some extent. Taiwan has, since relinquishing its claim to be sole international representative of ‘China’ as hopelessly unrealistic in the early 1990s, faced formidable practical problems in its quest for national identity. This article attempts to comprehend Taiwan’s aim-inhibited quest for ethnic and national identity in the context of Taiwan’s complex and delicate international environment and the cross-Strait dilemma in particular.

Contents: By way of introduction The elusive Netherlands: the question of national identity in the early modern Low Countries on the eve of the Revolt In defence of the common fatherland: patriotism and liberty in the Low countries, 1555a 1576 Moulded by repression: the early Netherlands Reformation, 1520a 55 The 'inquisition' and the repression of religious dissent in the Habsburg Netherlands, 1521a A legend in the making: news of the 'Spanish Inquisition' in the Low Countries in German evangelical pamphlets, 1546a 1550 Dissident propaganda and political organisation at the outbreak of the Revolt of the Netherlands Posters, pamphlets and prints: the ways and means of disseminating dissident opinions on the eve of the Dutch Revolt Calvinists and 'papist idolatry': the mentality of the image-breakers in 1566 Martyrs with a difference: Dutch Anabaptist victims of Elizabethan persecution The search for religious identity in a confessional age: the conversions of Jean Haren (c.1545a c.1613) Calvinist loyalism. Jean Haren, Chimay and the demise of the Calvinist republic of Bruges Bibliography Index.

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.

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

‘The Sharpness of a Smooth Tongue’. Literary Texts and the Formation of Public Opinion in the Early Modern NetherlandsThe Low Countries hardly play any role in international debates about the history of the formation of public opinion in early modern Europe. In the wake of Jürgen Habermas, historians have focused in particular on late seventeenthand eighteenth-century England and France. Scholars have criticised the notion that it was during the eighteenth century that the formation of free public opinion came into existence due to a combination of the periodical press, its critical role and a national readership. Nevertheless, the period before 1700 is hardly referred to at all during discussions about the role of public opinion. During that time a permanent, structured public openness did not exist. However, in the early modern Low Countries many socio-cultural and institutional conditions seem to be present which made the formation of critical public opinion among the population possible. The literary culture of these regions offers an important research subject for studies into the formation of public opinion.

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.

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

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.

Carnivals, rogues and heroes. An interpretation of the Brazilian dilemma. By Roberto DaMatta. Notre Dame/London: University of Notre Dame Press. 1991. 279 pp. Pb.: £13.50. ISBN: 0 268 00794 2.The Brazilian puzzle. Culture on the borderlands of the western World. Edited by David J. Hess and Roberto DaMatta. New York: Columbia University Press. 1995. 306 pp. Pb.: $12.50. ISBN: 0 231 10115 5.Brazilian anthropological studies of that country's modern, highly urbanised society are varied in subject and theoretically diverse. The emergence of this distinct sub-discipline in the seventies coincided with the harsh years of military rule, and it is perhaps little wonder that the question of national identity, directly or in a more diffuse way, seems to pervade most research in this area. Were not the military, in a sense, occupying their own country? What was one to think of elites that turned their back on the problems of the common people? Who are we, the Brazilians? What is ‘Brazilianness’, brasilidade, or as Roberto DaMatta puts it, ‘What makes brazil Brazil?’

Carnivals, rogues and heroes. An interpretation of the Brazilian dilemma. By Roberto DaMatta. Notre Dame/London: University of Notre Dame Press. 1991. 279 pp. Pb.: £13.50. ISBN: 0 268 00794 2.The Brazilian puzzle. Culture on the borderlands of the western World. Edited by David J. Hess and Roberto DaMatta. New York: Columbia University Press. 1995. 306 pp. Pb.: $12.50. ISBN: 0 231 10115 5.Brazilian anthropological studies of that country's modern, highly urbanised society are varied in subject and theoretically diverse. The emergence of this distinct sub-discipline in the seventies coincided with the harsh years of military rule, and it is perhaps little wonder that the question of national identity, directly or in a more diffuse way, seems to pervade most research in this area. Were not the military, in a sense, occupying their own country? What was one to think of elites that turned their back on the problems of the common people? Who are we, the Brazilians? What is ‘Brazilianness’, brasilidade, or as Roberto DaMatta puts it, ‘What makes brazil Brazil?’

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.

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