Maintaining the Common Peace: Security and the Religious Peace of 1578 during the Dutch Revolt

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-250
Author(s):  
Erik Swart
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Dutch Revolt ◽  
The Common ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Religious War

Abstract This article analyses the failed Dutch Religious Peace of 1578 through the lens of security. As Wayne te Brake recently argued in Religious War and Religious Peace in Early Modern Europe, creating security for all parties is key for an effective religious peace. In the sixteenth century, communal security was deemed a collective responsibility. In practice this meant that religious peace – suppressing and preventing violence and threats between Protestants and Catholics – was framed as a matter of preserving the common peace. Theological questions were dissimulated or kept out of peace settlements. In 1578, the religious peace proposed that Catholics and Calvinists were to live in the Netherlands side by side, each allowed to worship publicly. Some 27 Dutch towns introduced this religious peace. Yet the municipal magistrates mostly did so reluctantly and generally declined to share political power, thus contributing to its failure. Moreover, there were different, conflicting conceptions at work concerning the common peace, as well as regarding how to keep it.

scholarly journals ‘ACCEPTABLE TRUTHS’ DURING THE FRENCH RELIGIOUS WARS

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 55-75
Author(s):  
Penny Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Specific Context ◽  
Religious Truth ◽  
Religious Wars ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Intense Debate

AbstractThis paper seeks to provide some historical perspective on contemporary preoccupations with competing versions of the truth. Truth has always been contested and subject to scrutiny, particularly during troubled times. It can take many forms – judicial truth, religious truth, personal truth – and is bound up with the context of time and place. This paper sets out the multidisciplinary approaches to truth and examines its role in a specific context, that of early modern Europe and, in particular, the French religious wars of the sixteenth century. Truth was a subject of intense debate among both Renaissance and Reformation scholars, it was upheld as an absolute by judges, theologians and rulers. Yet, it also needed to be concealed by those who maintained a different truth to that of the authorities. In the case of France, in order to advance their cause, the Huguenots used subterfuge of various kinds, including the illicit carrying of messages. In this instance, truth was dependent on the integrity of its carrier, whether the messenger could be trusted and, therefore, their truth accepted. Both sides also sought to defend the truth by countering what they presented as the deceit of their opponents. Then, as now, acceptance of what is true depends on which side we are on and who we are prepared to believe.

The Tenuous Thread: A Venetian Lawyer's Apology for Jewish Self-Government in the Seventeenth Century

AJS Review ◽  
1987 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 223-250
Author(s):  
David Malkiel
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Jewish Community ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
The State ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Political Structures

Ghettoization stimulated sixteenth-century Italian Jewry to develop larger and more complex political structures, because the Jewish community now became responsible for municipal tasks. This development, however, raised theological objections in Catholic circles because Christian doctrine traditionally forbade the Jewish people dominion. It also aroused hostility among the increasingly centralized governments of early modern Europe, who viewed Jewish self-government as an infringement of the sovereignty of the state. The earliest appearance of the term “state within a state,” which has become a shorthand expression for the latter view, was recently located in Venice in 1631.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Lockwood
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Modern State ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Modern Europe

The introduction outlines previous definitions of the modern state as well as historians’ current explanations of state formation in early modern Europe and England. It demonstrates that earlier scholars have focused almost entirely on the state’s ability to engage in active warfare and have thus neglected an important aspect of the monopoly of violence, the restriction of non-state or illegitimate violence. The introduction also explores the medieval background of the coroner system, the mechanism designed to regulate violence in England and explains why the system had failed to achieve its proposed ends prior to the sixteenth century.

Sites of Consumption in Early Modern Europe

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Evelyn Welch
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Division Of Labour ◽  
Economic Security ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Material Goods ◽  
Modern Europe

In 1535, the Venetian patrician Francesco Priuli began a new account book for his household's daily expenditure. Despite his elevated standing, he kept it in his own hand, noting with precision how his money was spent, where, when, and on what. There are a number of things to note about this patrician family's behaviour. One is that a major mercantile city such as Venice already offered a wide range of shopping spaces and opportunities in the early sixteenth century (and had for many years). Also, forms of payment varied and could take place long after the goods had been transferred. Moreover, Priuli's purchases (and his occasional sales) make it clear that Venice's large second-hand markets provided economic security. This article focuses on sites of consumption in early modern Europe, first considering the moral aspects of the division of labour and then discussing the spectacles of consumption. It also examines credit, the sites of bargaining and exchange of material goods, and activities such as lotteries, second-hand dealers, pawnbrokers, and auctions.

scholarly journals The Dissolution of the Monasteries and the Democratisation of Magic in Post-Reformation England

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 241
Author(s):  
Francis Young
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Reformation England ◽  
Literacy Knowledge ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Monastic Libraries ◽  
Former Inmates

The dissolution of the monasteries in England (1536–1540) forced hundreds of former inmates of religious houses to seek livelihoods outside the cloister to supplement meagre pensions from the crown. Among the marketable skills these individuals possessed were Latin literacy, knowledge of liturgy, sacramental authority and a reputation for arcane learning: all qualities desirable in magical practitioners in early modern Europe. Furthermore, the dissolution dispersed occult texts housed in monastic libraries, while the polemical efforts of the opponents of monasticism resulted in the growth of legends about the magical prowess of monks and friars. The dissolution was a key moment in the democratisation of learned magic in sixteenth-century England, which moved from being an illicit pastime of clerics, monks and friars to a service provided by lay practitioners. This article considers the extent of interest in magic among English monks and friars before the dissolution, the presence of occult texts in monastic libraries, and the evidence for the magical activities of former religious in post-dissolution England. The article considers the processes by which monks, friars and monastic sites became associated with magic in popular tradition, resulting in a lasting stereotype of medieval monks and friars as the masters of occult knowledge.

OF LIVING LEGENDS AND AUTHENTIC TALES: HOW TO GET REMEMBERED IN EARLY MODERN EUROPE

2013 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 103-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Pollmann
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Crucial Role ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Historical Evidence ◽  
Modern Germany ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Memory Practices ◽  
New Criteria

ABSTRACTFolklore experts have shown that for a legend to be remembered it is important that it is historicised. Focusing on three case-studies from early modern Germany and the Netherlands, this article explores how the historicisation of mythical narratives operated in early modern Europe, and argues that memory practices played a crucial role in the interplay between myth and history. The application of new criteria for historical evidence did not result in the decline of myths. By declaring such stories mythical, and by using the existence of memory practices as evidence for this, scholars could continue to take them seriously.

Interlocking Patrimonialisms and State Formation in Qing China and Early Modern Europe

2011 ◽  
Vol 636 (1) ◽  
pp. 164-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liping Wang ◽  
Julia Adams
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
State Formation ◽  
Political Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Ancien Regime ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Ancien Régime

Familial power contributed to binding territories together and systematically severing them in both China and early modern European states. In the early Qing (1644–1911) Empire, Manchu conquerors met the challenges of securing and expanding rule by discovering ways to use laterally related brothers and imperial bondservants to hold Chinese bureaucrats in check, while deploying bureaucracy to restrain princely brothers from partitioning the state. The ensuing interlock of patrimonial practices and bureaucracy, developed in a style similar to ancien régime France, stabilized political power for centuries.

scholarly journals Truth and the Transunto: a copy of the Holy Shroud in Sixteenth-Century Bologna

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (18 N.S.) ◽  
pp. 59-80
Author(s):  
Samantha L. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Scientific Practice ◽  
The Body ◽  
Body Of Christ ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Visual Evidence ◽  
Modern Natural ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
Nuanced Understanding

'Truth and the transunto' investigates the use of a hand-painted copy of the Holy Shroud which found its way to Bologna in the late sixteenth century. Used by the archbishop of Bologna, Alfonso Paleotti (1531-1610), this copy was the source of observations of the body of Christ, in the manner of an autopsy and is presented in Paleotti's book Esplicatione del Lenzuolo [...]. Early modern copies of the Holy Shroud are not however accurate copies, but present seemingly simplified replicas of the original. This article explores how such information, and indeed, level of trust, can come from these copies, which, to the modern eye, seem fallible. Previous studies have excused the strange appearance of these Shroud copies by considering them solely devotional instruments yet as the article shows, Paleotti's use of such an object shows that the copies might be better understood in the context of early modern natural historical studies and illustrations. The article draws on scholarship which discusses the emerging interest for visual evidence in early scientific practice and shows how certain types of images and image-making practices were able to evoke the idea of presence and clarify the indecipherable. Demonstrating that Paleotti's copy of the Holy Shroud was not just a religious tool, but also an epistemic image, this article shows how Paleotti's use of the term 'transunto' could be used as a valuable tool in gaining a more nuanced understanding of the concept 'copy' in Early Modern Europe.   On cover:ANNIBALE CARRACCI (BOLOGNA 1560 - ROME 1609), An Allegory of Truth and Time c. 1584-1585.Oil on canvas | 130,0 x 169,6 cm. (support, canvas/panel/str external) | RCIN 404770Royal Collection Trust / © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2021.

Liberating Judgment

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Douglas John Casson
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Liberal Democracy ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Absolute Certainty ◽  
The Social ◽  
Modern Europe ◽  
The Way

Examining the social and political upheavals that characterized the collapse of public judgment in early modern Europe, this book offers a unique account of the achievement of liberal democracy and self-government. The book argues that the work of John Locke instills a civic judgment that avoids the excesses of corrosive skepticism and dogmatic fanaticism, which lead to either political acquiescence or irresolvable conflict. Locke changes the way political power is assessed by replacing deteriorating vocabularies of legitimacy with a new language of justification informed by a conception of probability. For Locke, the coherence and viability of liberal self-government rests not on unassailable principles or institutions, but on the capacity of citizens to embrace probable judgment. The book explores the breakdown of the medieval understanding of knowledge and opinion, and considers how Montaigne's skepticism and Descartes' rationalism—interconnected responses to the crisis—involved a pragmatic submission to absolute rule. Locke endorses this response early on, but moves away from it when he encounters a notion of reasonableness based on probable judgment. In his mature writings, Locke instructs his readers to govern their faculties and intellectual yearnings in accordance with this new standard as well as a vocabulary of justification that might cultivate a self-government of free and equal individuals. The success of Locke's arguments depends upon citizens' willingness to take up the labor of judgment in situations where absolute certainty cannot be achieved.

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