Convoys and Companies: Privatising Economic Warfare at Sea in the Dutch Republic, 1580–1800

2020 ◽  
pp. 63-84
Author(s):  
Erik Odegard
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Private Firms ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Economic Warfare ◽  
Government Corporations

When the Dutch Republic and Habsburg Spain went to war again in 1621, the Dutch were confronted by a well-run campaign against its trade and fisheries mainly operating out of Dunkirk. This chapter studies how the Dutch Republic responded to this threat. It argues that consistent efforts were made to outsource protection of trade and fisheries to those groups which profited from it. Rather than centralising decision-making and monopolise violence at sea, the Dutch state devolved responsibility to lower levels of government, corporations and chartered companies, and private firms. These ships were mainly uses for convoy duty. This chapter argues that this devolution was instrumental in protecting Dutch commerce and provided ships to the fleet in crises such as the Battle of the Downs as well. But from the middle of the seventeenth century this system would deteriorate and more tasks would be taken up by the admiralties themselves.

Biblical Philology and Hermeneutical Debate in the Dutch Republic in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jetze Touber
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Biblical Scholarship ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Conflicting Interests ◽  
The Ideal ◽  
Held Back

Spinoza’s time was rife with conflicts. Historians tend to structure these by grouping two opposing forces: progressive Cartesio-Cocceian-liberals versus conservative Aristotelian-Voetian-Orangists. Moderately enlightened progressives, so the story goes, endorsed notions such as human dignity, toleration, freedom of opinion, but shied away from radicalism, held back by the conservative counterforce. Yet the drift was supposed to be inevitably towards the Enlightenment. This chapter tries to capture theological conflicts in the Dutch Republic of the Early Enlightenment in a triangular scheme, that covers a wider range of conflicting interests. Its corners are constituted by ‘dogmatism’ (Dordrecht orthodoxy), ‘scripturalism’ (Cocceianism), and ‘rationalism’ (theology inspired by Cartesianism, Spinozism, or any other brand of new philosophy). Dogmatics and rationalists battled in terms of philosophy, whereas the scripturalists and their respective opponents fought each other rather in the field of biblical scholarship. This multilateral conflict within Dutch Calvinism made the ideal of a unified church untenable.

scholarly journals The Jesuitesses in the Bookshop: Catholic Lay Sisters’ Participation in the Dutch Book Trade, 1650–1750

2021 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 163-184
Author(s):  
Elise Watson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
Book Trade ◽  
Dutch Book ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Institutional Critique ◽  
Public Criticism

The institutional Catholic Church in seventeenth-century Amsterdam relied on the work of inspired women who lived under an informal religious rule and called themselves ‘spiritual daughters’. Once the States of Holland banned all public exercise of Catholicism, spiritual daughters leveraged the ambiguity of their religious status to pursue unique roles in their communities as catechists, booksellers and enthusiastic consumers of print. However, their lack of a formal order caused consternation among their Catholic confessors. It also disturbed Reformed authorities in their communities, who branded them ‘Jesuitesses’. Whilst many scholars have documented this tension between inspired daughter and institutional critique, it has yet to be contextualized fully within the literary culture of the Dutch Republic. This article suggests that due to the de-institutionalized status of the spiritual daughters and the discursive print culture that surrounded them, public criticism replaced direct censure by Catholic and Reformed authorities as the primary impediment to their inspired work.

The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century By Maarten Prak

History ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 91 (304) ◽  
pp. 630-631
Author(s):  
ELIZABETH EDWARDS
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Dutch Republic

scholarly journals Verleden en macht in Vondels Gijsbreght van Aemstel

1970 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 123-145
Author(s):  
Mike Keirsbilck
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Theoretical Concept ◽  
The State ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Literary Practice ◽  
Political Debates

The Amsterdam Schouwburg festively opened in January 1638 with the performance ofVondel’s Gijsbreght van Aemstel. The play was situated in medieval Amsterdam, butaddressed nonetheless the seventeenth-century audience explicitly. In Gijsbreght vanAemstel political and moral instructions that related to the Amsterdam of Vondel’s agewere given. To approach these political and moral instructions, I will make use of MichelFoucault’s notion of ‘governmentality’. Foucault’s theoretical concept deals with theconstruction of power structures. Governmentality allows me to place Vondel’s text in acontemporary debate about how the state should be ordered, and in this way opens up aninterpretation of the instructions of the play accordingly. I will argue that the play condemned violentstruggles, and that the text presented an opposing stand on how the stateshould be ordered.To indicate how the play voiced an opinion about contemporary political debates, Iwill confront Gijsbreght van Aemstel with Hugo de Groots De Republica Enendanda.This early tract, by one of the most important scholars of the Dutch Republic, also playeda part in Vondel’s play. This way Vondel's text can be read as an exploration of politicalideas in a literary practice, in which the character of Gijsbreght van Aemstel is presentedas an ideal.

Time for Prayer and Time for Work. Rule and Practice among Catholic Lay Sisters in the Dutch Republic

2002 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 161-172
Author(s):  
Joke Spaans
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Use Of Time ◽  
Work Rule

One shall rise at five in the morning and go to communal prayers at six. After prayer and meditation one shall read the first three canonical hours: matins, lauds and prime – but those who do not have the leisure can also do this over their work.This is how the Rule of a community of seventeenth-century Dutch Catholic lay-sisters started. Theirs was a very flexible rule, designed to accommodate both wealthy sisters, who could spend much of their time in their devotions, and poorer ones, who had to work for their living. Their Rule provides a good illustration of attitudes towards the use of time among pious Christians in the seventeenth century.

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