Marijke Meijer Drees

Coping with crisis: an introduction

On 18 June 2015, the Vatican published Pope Francis’ second encyclical, Laudato si’.1 The document, entitled after Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun, called for a more careful approach to the environment. It was an appeal to repent of humanity’s sins against the earth: the gluttony, sloth and greed with which the developed world had abused its natural resources. It called for a reversal of the current breakdown of global society through increasing social inequality and the exploitation of the poor. And it supported scientific evidence of climate change and its catastrophic consequences. The warming of the planet was, so Pope Francis argued, a symptom of a greater problem: the developed world’s indifference to the destruction of the earth in its pursuit of short-term economic gain. The encyclical was hailed by many members of the scientific community as a milestone in the recognition of man-induced climate change and as a powerful call for sustainable energy.2 The arguments of the papal appeal, however, were not new. They resonated with medieval and early modern debates on natural disasters. Its key aspects: the reminder of the sins of mankind and their effect on nature as well as on social order and stability had been rehearsed in many premodern tracts, sermons and images. Expert discourses by specialists – astronomers, doctors and engineers – were, likewise, part of the early modern explanatory repertoire to come to terms with natural disasters. Surveying recent literature, we can now state that research into ‘disaster management’ of early modern societies is no longer in its infancy. It has developed as a mature (albeit small), multi-headed field of research, which is nourished by various strands of historical investigation and interdisciplinary approaches. The research programmes under the umbrella Historical Disaster Studies proposed by scholars such as Frank Mauelshagen, Gerrit Caspar Schenk and Monica Juneja are vivid evidence of this maturation.3 It seems fair to say, that much of the scholarship relating to early modern disaster research has been undertaken in the German-speaking (but English-publishing) academic community. Research into (nature-induced) disasters has been fed from many angles: it is, perhaps, no coincidence that one of the first research centres devoted to the topic, the Graduiertenkolleg Interdisziplinäre Umweltgeschichte. Naturale Umwelt und gesellschaftliches Handeln in Mitteleuropa (2004–2013) was established at the

‘Providential Discourse’ Reconsidered: The Case of the Delft Thunderclap (1654)

Scholarly research has described religious reactions to early modern disasters as ‘providential discourse’, in line with the theological term Divine Providence, and has claimed that the so-described ‘peccatogenic’ perception (from the Latin word ‘peccatum’ or sin) prevails in this discourse. This article reconsiders the concept of providential discourse in two respects. Firstly, its diversity is highlighted. Secondly, it argues that providential discourse, rhetorically charged as it was, often aimed to evoke collective emotions in its audiences, such as compassion with those affected. This reconsideration is based on the analysis of narratively framed responses to the Delft Thunderclap (1654).Scholarly research has described religious reactions to early modern disasters as ‘providential discourse’, in line with the theological term Divine Providence, and has claimed that the so-described ‘peccatogenic’ perception (from the Latin word ‘peccatum’ or sin) prevails in this discourse. This article reconsiders the concept of providential discourse in two respects. Firstly, its diversity is highlighted. Secondly, it argues that providential discourse, rhetorically charged as it was, often aimed to evoke collective emotions in its audiences, such as compassion with those affected. This reconsideration is based on the analysis of narratively framed responses to the Delft Thunderclap (1654).

Blameren en demoniseren. Satirische pamfletliteratuur in de zeventiende-eeuwse Republiek

This article discusses the rhetoric and function of seventeenth-century Dutch clandestine satire as counterpart to the more official laudatory literature in which the mighty regents were morally praised and honoured because of their civic virtues. While these laudatory texts served both as honorary monuments for the rulers and positive civic mirrors at the same time, their satirical counterparts functioned as moral negatives that actually subverted public order. We focus on the pamphlets against the influential Amsterdam ruling family Bicker in the context of political power games in 1650.