Geert H. Janssen

The Dutch revolt and Catholic exile in Reformation Europe

Introduction Part I. Flight: 1. Corpus Christianum divided 2. Exodus Part II. Exile: 3. Conditions of displacement 4. The Counter-Reformation of the refugee 5. International Catholicism Part III. Return: 6. A new order: the southern Netherlands 7. Negotiating diversity: the Dutch Republic Epilogue Bibliography Index.

The Counter-Reformation of the Refugee: Exile and the Shaping of Catholic Militancy in the Dutch Revolt

This article explores the Catholic exile experience in the Dutch revolt of the 1570s and 1580s. It shows how Catholic refugees negotiated their stay in places such as Cologne and Douai and developed a more militant, Tridentine identity. This process of religious radicalisation is reflected in a series of white papers by leading refugees about Catholic renewal in the contested Netherlands. This article argues that Catholic exiles became the mobilising forces of a popular Counter-Reformation movement in the southern Netherlands, thereby facilitating the eventual split of the Low Countries into a northern and southern state.

Quo Vadis? Catholic Perceptions of Flight and the Revolt of the Low Countries, 1566-1609 *

This article examines Catholic views of flight, exile, and displacement during the Dutch Revolt. It argues that the civil war in the sixteenth-century Low Countries generated a new imagery of exile among Catholics, a process that was to some extent similar to what had happened to Protestant refugees a few decades earlier. Yet the Dutch case also demonstrates that the contrasting outcomes of the revolts in the Northern and Southern Netherlands led to very different appreciations of exile in Catholic communities in both areas. Habsburg triumph and Tridentine militancy sparked a Counter-Reformation movement in the Southern Netherlands that glorified exile and presented refugees as exemplary forces of an international militant church. In the northern Dutch Republic the revolt created a more ambiguous Catholic identity, in which loyalty to an officially Protestant state could coincide with commitment to the Church of Rome.

The Republic of the Refugees : Early Modern Migrations and the Dutch Experience

This essay surveys the wave of new literature on early modern migration and assesses its impact on the Dutch golden age. From the late sixteenth century, the Netherlands developed into an international hub of religious refugees, displaced minorities, and labour migrants. While migration to the Dutch Republic has often been studied in socio-economic terms, recent historiography has turned the focus of attention to its many cultural resonances. More specifically, it has been noted that the arrival of thousands of newcomers generated the construction of new patriotic narratives and cultural codes in Dutch society. The experience of civil war and forced migration during the Dutch revolt had already fostered the development of a national discourse that framed religious exile as a heroic experience. In the seventeenth century, the accommodation of persecuted minorities could therefore be presented as something typically ‘Dutch’. It followed that diaspora identities and signs of transnational religious solidarity developed into markers of social respectability and tools of cultural integration. The notion of a ‘republic of the refugees’ had profound international implications, too, because it shaped and justified Dutch interventions abroad.

The Cambridge Companion to the Dutch Golden Age

During the seventeenth century, the Dutch Republic was transformed into a leading political power in Europe, with global trading interests. It nurtured some of the periods greatest luminaries, including Rembrandt, Vermeer, Descartes and Spinoza. Long celebrated for its religious tolerance, artistic innovation and economic modernity, the United Provinces of the Netherlands also became known for their involvement with slavery and military repression in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. This Companion provides a compelling overview of the best scholarship on this much debated era, written by a wide range of experts in the field. Unique in its balanced treatment of global, political, socio-economic, literary, artistic, religious, and intellectual history, its nineteen chapters offer an indispensable guide for anyone interested in the world of the Dutch Golden Age.

Less is More. Geschiedenis in het Rijksmuseum

Less is More: History at the Rijksmuseum The central idea behind the newly refurbished Rijksmuseum is to evoke ‘a sense of time, and a sense of beauty’. This prompts the question: what sense of time, and whose sense of beauty has the museum visualised? In what ways, moreover, can public institutions offer visitors a balanced ‘sense of the past’ when ‘beauty’ has served as the main criterion for selecting the objects on display? This essay addresses these questions by exploring the celebrated Dutch Golden Age collections of the Rijksmuseum. De nieuwe inrichting van het Rijksmuseum heeft als doelstelling ‘een besef van tijd op te roepen en een gevoel voor schoonheid’. Deze ambitie roept de vraag op welk besef van tijd en wiens gevoel van schoonheid worden gevisualiseerd in het museum. Op welke manieren kan een publieke instelling bovendien een evenwichtig ‘historisch besef’ oproepen wanneer ‘gevoel voor schoonheid’ de maatstaf is geweest voor wat wel en wat niet op zaal mag komen te hangen? In dit essay worden deze vragen besproken aan de hand van de veelgeroemde Gouden Eeuw-collecties van het Rijksmuseum.

'Het einde van de geesteswetenschappen 1.0' - 'The End of the Humanities 1.0'

On 14th December 2012 Rens Bod delivered his inaugural address as Professor of Computational and Digital Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. Under the ominous title Het einde van de geesteswetenschappen 1.0 [ The End of the Humanities 1.0 ], the lecture provided a spirited agenda for the future of the arts and humanities. This Forum of the BMGN - Low Countries Historical Review seeks to facilitate a discussion about Rens Bod’s ideas from the perspective of current historical science in the Netherlands and Belgium. For this purpose the editors have asked three historians with expertise in digital humanities – Inger Leemans, Andreas Fickers and Marnix Beyen – to engage with Bod’s agenda from their respective cultural, political and media historical perspective.