State services, fortuitous marriages, and conspiracies: Trans-territorial family strategies between Madrid, Brussels, and Vienna in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

Early modern composite monarchies functioned by maintaining local rights and traditions and the successful accommodation of noble elites in the army, diplomatic corps, and regional governments. Scholars commonly focus on the integration of nobles from the core lands in order to implement a faithful civil service and reliable institutions for government. Yet noble families from peripheries or border regions have been disregarded either as supporters or as opponents of royal power. This article explores the differing strategies of the Carrettos from Imperial Italy and the Arenbergs from the Southern Netherlands, two noble families from the border regions of the Habsburg realms and how they responded to integrative measures offered by the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs. It analyses four important aspects of noble family strategies. First, the article examines how vassalage, loyalty, and sovereignty created important bonds between noble families in the western border regions of the Holy Roman Empire and the emperor or sovereign. Second, it establishes how families became members of competitive Habsburg court societies via court honours, titles, and interregional marriage alliances. Third, the article looks at how these families supported the early modern state with successful performances of state service and how they utilized the vast career possibilities of composite monarchies. Fourth and finally, it analyses how the failed integration of noble elites from border regions resulted in governmental crisis and uprisings. This article demonstrates how nobles in the border regions could be integral to state power.

Risk Mitigation and Investability of a U-PHS Project in The Netherlands

We review the status of a 1.4 GW, 8 GWh underground pumped hydro storage (U-PHS) project in the southern Netherlands, which has been under development since the 1980s. Its history shows how the prospect of a large-scale U-PHS for The Netherlands (a country whose proverbial flatness prohibits PHS) has been attractive in every decade, based on proven technology in a subsurface location with validated properties, and solid analysis of its economics. Although the ongoing energy transition clearly requires massive electricity storage, (U-)PHS projects are challenging investment propositions, in The Netherlands, as elsewhere. This case study illustrates a point of general relevance, namely that although the project execution risk, related to uncertainty with respect to subsurface integrity, is very low, the transition risk, associated with the intrinsic uncertainties of an electricity system in transition, is significant. We point out mitigation strategies for both risk categories.

The Changing Perception of the Five Senses

This article examines the changing approach towards the representation of the senses in 17th-century Flemish painting. These changes are related to the cultural politics and courtly culture of the Spanish sovereigns of the Southern Netherlands, the Archdukes Albert and Isabella. The 1617–18 painting-series of the Five Senses by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens as well as the pendant paintings on the subject are analyzed in relation to the iconography of the five senses, and in regard to Flemish genre themes. In this context, the excess of objects, paintings, scientific instruments, animals, and plants in the Five Senses are read as an expansion of the iconography of the senses as well as a reference to the courtly material culture of the Archdukes. Framing the senses as part of a cultural web of artifacts, Brueghel and Rubens refer both to elite lived experience and traditional iconography. The article examines the continuity between the iconography of the senses from 1600 onwards, as developed by Georg Pencz, Frans Floris, and Maerten de Vos, and the representation of the senses in the series. In addition, the article shows how certain elements in the paintings are influenced by genre paintings of the courtly company and collector’s cabinet, by Frans Francken, Lucas van Valckenborch and Louis de Caullery. Through the synthesis of these two traditions the subject of the five senses is reinvented in a courtly context

Van Bataafse auxiliarii naar Frankische foederati

Summary In the Late Roman period the Batavians disappeared from the written sources, and archaeologically speaking, nearly all rural settlements and cities of the Southern Netherlands ceased to exist, alongside the civilian centres. There is no good explanation for this depopulation but slight hints point to the population’s deportation. In the early 5th century several settlements were inhabited again. Judging by the style of the house plans, the pottery and jewelry, the inhabitants came from the area north of the Rhine. Ubiquitous gold finds in the same area imply that they were paid by the Roman government. They are called Franks in the written sources and most likely served as foederati when regular Roman troops left in 401/402. Migration has always been a thorny issue in archaeology: based on ethnic interpretation of artefacts, arrows were drawn on maps, but theoretical objections silenced this approach, at least in theoretically-oriented archaeology. Migration can further be researched by new scientific methods (aDNA and isotope analysis of human remains); the results for the Roman period are not yet spectacular. More is expected from the analysis of settlement complexes by various methods: a) provenancing pottery by geochemical and mineralogical analysis, b) combined with stylistic study; c) isotopic analysis of associated animal bones, to see whether the animals were brought on the hoof over long distances; d) stylistic analysis of the house plan, and e) plotting the circulation area of the metal jewelry. This combination can ascertain whether the inhabitants of settlements were migrants originally and how quick they adapted to their new environment.

De rol van bronnen in de imagologie: een case study van Vlaamse vreemdelingen, Engelse inwoners, ambtenaren en machthebbers van de stad Norwich in de zestiende eeuw

In the middle of the 16th century many people left the Low Countries for England as a result of religious persecution and economic hardship. Several thousand of these people, mainly from the Southern Netherlands, went to Norwich, the second largest city in England. Some of them wrote letters to friends and family members whom they left behind in the Low Countries, which indicate that they valued the religious freedom and economic opportunities in Norwich. This suggests that they had a positive image of the local English people. However, if one looks at official English documents, the picture is more mixed. While some English valued the economic contribution that the migrants made, others were concerned about the effect on the local workforce, and measures were taken to restrict their economic activities. Furthermore, some people in Norwich had Catholic sympathies and this was an important motivating factor in a plot to eject the migrants from the city, which ultimately failed. In short, this article uses the situation in Norwich in the late 16th century as a case study for exploring how different sources can create contrasting images of how one group of people views another.