On Romans, Batavians and giants: the quest for the true origin of architecture in the Dutch Republic

2018 ◽  
pp. 261-285
Author(s):  
Konrad Ottenheym
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Classical Architecture ◽  
Common Mistake ◽  
Classical Models ◽  
Dutch Painter ◽  
Contemporary Architecture

In 1631 the Dutch painter and architect Salomon de Bray wrote that it was a common mistake to regard the move towards a more classical architecture as fashionably modern. Instead, he argued, it was actually the revival the true and eldest manner of building in the Low Countries. The notion that the Low Countries had once been part of the Roman Empire helped inspire scholarly architects to introduce classical models into contemporary architecture. This essay investigates this tendency by asking how and why the Roman past became such an important topic during this period, despite a lack of remaining Roman buildings, and which alternative heroic pasts were available to account for the origins of architecture. Various historical descriptions of Netherlandish towns include references to local ancient history and Roman remains. Some of these antiquities were authentically Roman, even to modern archaeological scholarship (like Brittenburg), while others were certainly not. Antiquarian and archaeological interest focused on the era of the Batavians, a Germanic tribe living in what later became Holland who were politically independent from Rome, as well as on an even older local past, traced in were thought to be the material remains of an ancient tribe of giants.

Contesting the City

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian D. Liddy
Keyword(s):  
Urban Politics ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Urban Citizenship ◽  
Town Government ◽  
Medieval Europe ◽  
Political Narrative ◽  
Classical Models ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The City

The political narrative of late medieval English towns is often reduced to the story of the gradual intensification of oligarchy, in which power was exercised and projected by an ever smaller ruling group over an increasingly subservient urban population. This book takes its inspiration not from English historiography, but from a more dynamic continental scholarship on towns in the southern Low Countries, Germany, and France. Its premise is that scholarly debate about urban oligarchy has obscured contemporary debate about urban citizenship. It identifies from the records of English towns a tradition of urban citizenship, which did not draw upon the intellectual legacy of classical models of the ‘citizen’. This was a vernacular citizenship, which was not peculiar to England, but which was present elsewhere in late medieval Europe. It was a citizenship that was defined and created through action. There were multiple, and divergent, ideas about citizenship, which encouraged townspeople to make demands, to assert rights, and to resist authority. This book exploits the rich archival sources of the five major towns in England—Bristol, Coventry, London, Norwich, and York—in order to present a new picture of town government and urban politics over three centuries. The power of urban governors was much more precarious than historians have imagined. Urban oligarchy could never prevail—whether ideologically or in practice—when there was never a single, fixed meaning of the citizen.

scholarly journals Confessional Coexistence in the Habsburg Netherlands

2021 ◽  
Vol 136 (4) ◽  
pp. 3-26
Author(s):  
Roman Roobroeck
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
Stable System ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Interreligious Relations ◽  
Private Devotion ◽  
Religious Differences ◽  
Public Worship

For decades, early modern historians have stressed the religious differences between the Dutch Republic and the Habsburg Netherlands. The former is usually represented as a tolerant Reformed state, while the latter is represented as a repressive Catholic regime. By consequence, the similarities in terms of confessional coexistence have never been considered. This article seeks to fill that gap by reviewing the Geuzenhoek, a small rural Reformed minority group in Flanders. Fortunately, a plethora of available sources allows us to research the interactions between the Protestants and the Catholic majority. This article shows that the divide between public worship and private devotion played a key role in keeping peaceful interreligious relations and that a stable system of connivance dominated the local framework. This situation was very similar to that of the Dutch Republic. As a result, this study concludes that confessional coexistence in the Habsburg Netherlands should be re-evaluated and merits further investigation. Vroegmoderne historici hebben jarenlang vooral de religieuze verschillen tussen de Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden en de Habsburgse Nederlanden benadrukt. De een werd gewoonlijk voorgesteld als een tolerante gereformeerde staat, terwijl de andere bekendstond als een repressief katholiek regime. De gelijkenissen op vlak van confessionele co-existentie zijn daarom nooit nader onderzocht. Dit artikel wil dit hiaat opvullen door de Geuzenhoek, een kleine landelijke gereformeerde minderheidsgroep in Vlaanderen, onder de loep te nemen. Dankzij een ruime collectie aan bronnen konden de interacties tussen de protestanten en de katholieken in beeld gebracht worden. Dit artikel toont aan dat de scheiding tussen publieke en private devotie een grote invloed had op het bewerkstelligen van vredige contacten, en dat in deze lokale context een systeem van ‘oogluikendheid’ domineerde. Deze situatie is vergelijkbaar met die in de Republiek. De conclusie van deze studie is dan ook dat de confessionele co-existentie in de Habsburgse Nederlanden een herevaluatie en verder onderzoek verdient. ActualiteitsparagraafVrienden noch vijanden? Katholieken en protestanten in vroegmodern Vlaanderen Over de interacties van protestanten en katholieken in het verleden overheersen ook vandaag nog hardnekkige clichés: ze konden elkaars bloed wel drinken, geweld tussen religieuze groepen kwam vaak voor en verdraagzaamheid was vrijwel onbestaand. Toch was de historische realiteit vaak anders. Roman Roobroeck toont in zijn artikel in BMGN – Low Countries Historical Review over de Geuzenhoek aan dat de verhoudingen tussen katholieken en protestanten in het zeventiende-eeuwse overwegend katholieke Vlaanderen opvallend vreedzaam waren. Tussen de leden van deze rurale protestantse groep nabij Oudenaarde en hun katholieke buren ontsponnen zich conflicten, maar over het algemeen waren hun relaties vreedzaam. De protestantse dorpelingen profiteerden van het afwachtende beleid van de Habsburgers en ontwierpen samen met de lokale katholieken een gedoogsamenleving. Deze vorm van religieuze co-existentie kwam dus niet enkel in de Noordelijke Nederlanden voor, maar ook in de Habsburgse Nederlanden. Misschien was het religieuze klimaat in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden dan toch niet zo rigide als vaak gedacht?

scholarly journals Reformations and Revolt in the Netherlands, 1500–1621

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Judith Pollmann ◽  
Alastair Duke ◽  
Geert Janssen
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Freedom Of Conscience ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Reformed Church ◽  
Dutch Revolt ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
Southern Netherlands ◽  
Reformation History ◽  
Religious Landscape

The Low Countries have a special place in Reformation history, both because of the great diversity of the religious landscape and because they experienced a genuine Reformation “from below,” as well as fierce repression of Protestant heresies. Protests against the latter helped to trigger the revolt that resulted in the split of the Habsburg Netherlands. In the northern Netherlands, the Dutch Republic gave the Reformed Church a monopoly of worship but also guaranteed freedom of conscience to dissidents. The southern Netherlands, once “reconciled” with the Habsburgs and having expelled its Protestant inhabitants, became a bulwark of the Counter-Reformation. For more on the revolt, see the Oxford Bibliographies in Renaissance and Reformation article “The Netherlands (Dutch Revolt/Dutch Republic)” by Henk van Nierop.

Translating Sorrow

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-163
Author(s):  
Scott L. Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Musical Composition ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Central European ◽  
Cultural Challenges ◽  
The Social ◽  
Italian Music

In the multilingual environments of Central European cities and courts, Italian musicians found a receptive market for their music. There they confronted a range of linguistic abilities that encouraged innovative approaches to musical composition and publication. Recent rediscovery of the opening sheets of Giovanni Battista Pinello’s 1584 Primo libro dele neapolitane enables us to assess one Genoese composer’s experience of a multi-ethnic, Central European milieu during an unprecedented migrational wave. As chapelmaster at the electoral court in Dresden with ties to aristocratic circles in Prague, Pinello also issued a German version that can be sung, according to the composer, simultaneously with the napolitane. This study examines the Central European market for Italian music, the role of the Holy Roman Empire in facilitating Italian migration, and cultural challenges foreign musicians faced in their new homes. Nineteenth-century myths of nationhood depended on histories of folk-like immobility, but in fact migration was a basic condition of early modern European life. Music historians have long been aware of individual musicians’ travels from the Low Countries in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, along with a new trend, emerging around 1600, toward northward emigration by Italian musicians. Nonetheless, there is much more to say about the social underpinnings of such movements. Pinello’s fusion of languages, poetic forms, and registers invites us to reimagine the multi-ethnic complexion of Central European musical centers in the late sixteenth century.

Amsterdam

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henk van Nierop
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Town Planning ◽  
City Government ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Dutch Art ◽  
Dutch Revolt ◽  
The Baltic

Amsterdam was the biggest and the most important commercial metropolis of 17th-century Europe. Its wealthy merchants provided a booming market for luxury industries, making Amsterdam a European-wide production center and market for art and other luxury products, as well as books, prints, maps, and atlases. The largest, richest, and most powerful city in the Dutch Republic by far, it often played an independent role in international politics and diplomacy. Promotion of trade interests prompted Amsterdam’s burgomasters to tolerant policies toward Catholics, Jews, Mennonites, and other religious minorities. Originating as a modest settlement near a dam built in the river Amstel (hence its name), Amsterdam soon became the most important port in the Low Countries for trade with the Baltic, importing mainly grain and timber. The Reformation gave rise to fierce controversies. Anabaptist and Reformed risings in 1535 and 1566 provoked brutal repression by the Catholic city government. During the Dutch Revolt, Amsterdam initially remained loyal to church and king but switched allegiance in 1578 and adopted the Protestant Reformation. The capture of Antwerp by the Spanish army in 1585 heralded Amsterdam’s age of greatness. With Antwerp’s harbor closed and the southern provinces wracked by warfare, Amsterdam took over Antwerp’s function as the center of the highly integrated economy of the Low Countries. Amsterdam enlarged its one-sided mercantile economy with new trade routes to Russia, the Mediterranean and the Levant, the Atlantic world, and the Indies. Its newly found wealth led to an unprecedented wave of immigration, increasing its population from about 30,000 in 1578 to over 200,000 by the end of the 17th century. The urban government facilitated trade by the institution of an exchange bank and a commodity exchange, the construction of dockyards, and two bold and ambitious town-planning projects, including Amsterdam’s celebrated ring of canals. This article contains only works specifically dedicated to the history of the city of Amsterdam. Only a few of them are in English. Since Amsterdam was by far the biggest, wealthiest, and most powerful city of the Dutch Republic, much valuable information about Amsterdam is to be found in general works about the Dutch Republic listed in the Oxford Bibliographies articles on The Netherlands (Dutch Revolt / Dutch Republic) and Reformations and Revolt in the Netherlands, 1500–1621. For studies on artists working in Amsterdam and the Amsterdam art market, see the Oxford Bibliographies article on 17th-Century Dutch Art.

The introduction of the printed book auction catalogue

Quaerendo ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-149
Author(s):  
Bert Van Selm
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Book Trade ◽  
Present Knowledge ◽  
History Of The Book ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Book Sales ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Hague

AbstractBook historians have generally seen the introduction of the printed book auction catalogue as an important event in the history of the book trade. Catalogues were already being printed in the Dutch Republic in about 1600 and the present article discusses the factors that favoured this remarkably early development. In section 2 the author surveys present knowledge of book auctions from classical antiquity up to the year 1598. In particular, he discusses sales of books in the estates of deceased persons in the Low Countries during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, with particular reference to auctions in Leiden and The Hague in the last part of the sixteenth century. From the data assembled it emerges that the auctioning of books was certainly not first thought of in the Dutch Republic and that many auctions of property, including books, were held before 1599. In 1596 Louis (II) Elzevier was granted permission to hold book auctions in the Great Hall of the Binnenhof in The Hague, and in the hands of a bookseller it was possible for this form of trade to develop in the best possible way. In section 3 the author moves on to the earliest book sales with printed catalogues, namely the Marnix sale of 1599 and the Daniel van der Meulen sale of 4

Democracy and Civil Society in the Early Modern Period: The Rise of Three Types of Civil Societies in the Spanish Netherlands and the Dutch Republic

2017 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-81
Author(s):  
Maarten F. Van Dijck
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Two Cities ◽  
Craft Guilds ◽  
Civil Societies

This article proposes to refine the concept civil society by discerning three distinct forms of civil society in the past. This refined conceptual framework counters the criticism that civil society suffers from its growing popularity and its broad definition. The usefulness of these three forms of civil society—which are based on the later work of Jürgen Habermas—are applied in this article on the seventeenth-century Low Countries. The central question is how these forms of civil society acted as schools of democracy in the seventeenth-century Spanish Netherlands and Dutch Republic. The three types of civil society are identified that developed through time and built a cumulative tradition of civil society. These are the medieval craft guilds (liberal civil society), the early modern civic militia (republican civil society), and the modern Enlightenment sociability (deliberative civil society). Data about the associational life in two cities in the Low Countries, Mechelen and Rotterdam, show that different forms of civil societies had different functions according to the societal context. Furthermore, the data show that societies with civil societies characterized by social inclusive boards and high mutation ratios had less political impact when they lacked links with existing political institutions. This implies that civil societies did not as a rule serve as schools of democracy.

France, Prussia, or Germany? The Napoleonic Wars and Shifting Allegiances in the Rhineland

2006 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 611-640
Author(s):  
Michael Rowe
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
The North ◽  
Late Middle Ages ◽  
First Republic ◽  
German Speaking ◽  
City States

The following article focuses on the Rhineland, and more specifically, the region on the left (or west) bank of the Rhine bounded in the north and west by the Low Countries and France. This German-speaking region was occupied by the armies of revolutionary France after 1792. De jure annexation followed the Treaty of Lunéville (1801), and French rule lasted until 1814. Most of the Rhineland was awarded in 1815 to Prussia and remained a constituent part until after the Second World War. The Rhineland experienced Napoleonic rule first hand. Its four departments—the Roër, Rhin-et-Moselle, Sarre, and Mont-Tonnerre—were treated like the others in metropolitan France, and it is this status that makes the region distinct in German-speaking Europe. This had consequences both in the Napoleonic period and in the century that followed the departure of the last French soldier. This alone would constitute sufficient reason for studying the region. More broadly, however, the Rhenish experience in the French period sheds light on the much broader phenomena of state formation and nation building. Before 1792, the Rhenish political order appeared in many respects a throwback to the late Middle Ages. Extreme territorial fragmentation, city states, church states, and mini states distinguished its landscape. These survived the early-modern period thanks in part to Great Power rivalry and the protective mantle provided by the Holy Roman Empire. Then, suddenly, came rule by France which, in the form of the First Republic and Napoleon's First Empire, represented the most demanding state the world had seen up to that point. This state imposed itself on a region unused to big government. It might be thought that bitter confrontation would have resulted. Yet, and here is a paradox this article wishes to address, many aspects of French rule gained acceptance in the region, and defense of the Napoleonic legacy formed a component of the “Rhenish” identity that came into being in the nineteenth century.

Lord Cromer's ‘Ancient and Modern Imperialism’: A Proconsular View of Empire

1972 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-85 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. E. Chamberlain
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Roman Empire ◽  
Near East ◽  
Presidential Address ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
Ancient History ◽  
Gertrude Bell ◽  
The Times ◽  
Classical Association ◽  
Regius Professor

In 1909, two years after his retirement as British Consul-General in Egypt, Evelyn Baring, Lord Cromer — knighted in 1883, he was created Baron Cromer in 1892, viscount in 1899 and earl in 1901 — was invited to be the President of the Classical Association. It was a duty which he took very seriously and he prepared his Presidential address on “Ancient and Modern Imperialism” with immense care. In the course of this preparation he consulted many of the most distinguished scholars of the times, among them Gilbert Murray, then Professor of Greek at Oxford, J. B. Bury, then Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, F. J. Haverfield, the Camden Professor of Ancient History at Oxford, Sir William Ramsay, the Regius Professor of Humanity at Aberdeen University, Edwyn R. Bevan, a Hellenistic scholar much interested in Indian questions, Gertrude Bell, an archaeologist and expert on the Near East and Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, one of the most famous journalists of his day and an authority on Russia. After he delivered the address in January 1910 Cromer entered into further correspondence with the Conservative leader, A. J. Balfour; John Buchan who, although he is probably best remembered today as a writer of adventure stories, had been Alfred Milner's private secretary in South Africa, 1901-03 and was subsequently to be Governor General of Canada, James Bryce, the author of the classic The Holy Roman Empire, a former cabinet minister and at this time British Ambassador in Washington; and Sir William Ridgeway, the President of the Royal Anthropological Institution.

scholarly journals Naar het Oosten. Geografische verschillen in het ledenbestand van de Ridderlijke Duitsche Orde, Balije van Utrecht, 1640-1840

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
Renger E. De Bruin
Keyword(s):  
Roman Empire ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Holy Roman Empire ◽  
The Other ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Southern Germany ◽  
Admission Requirements

In the first half of the seventeenth century the Teutonic Order Bailiwick of Utrecht changed from a Catholic heir of the Crusades, loyal to a Habsburg grand master in Southern Germany into a society of married, Protestant noblemen, embedded in the structures of the Dutch Republic. The strict admission requirements make the Order an exclusive segment of Dutch nobility. The membership file offers rich possibilities of research on the composition of this layer in society. The members of the Bailiwick came from various provinces of the Dutch Republic and its successor states. A few came from the Holy Roman Empire. During the period under investigation the share of the eastern provinces of Overijssel and especially Gelderland increased (from fifty to 75 per cent), whereas that of the other provinces was much smaller and even decreasing. This conclusion confirms the image of the eastern provinces as bulwarks of nobility against the urban, maritime and bourgeois character of the western provinces, especially Holland.

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