On Fri, 25 Jul 1997 14:53:27 +-200, Rene Barendse wrote:
[much text deleted]
[snip]
Interest in overseas' ventures would thus have been a good reason for =
sticking to Spain and catholicism, as can be observed in Holland in the =
1580's where Amsterdam remained catholic while the rest of Holland had =
turned Protestant partly to preserve its trading links with Iberia.
-----------------------
Rene: I always enjoy reading your messages because you manage to add
information which forces us to enrich our use of world-system
approaches. One area that often gets neglected or treated in a
functionalist manner is religion. Religious factors are interesting
because they involved both institutional issues --there are often
formal organizations and 'officials'-- and 'cultural' perspectives
about how the world works, how patterns recognized there should be
judged, etc. Obviously, precision is important when discussing
something likely to be so involved in world-systemic interactions.
At the height of its global influence in the 17th century, Holland in
particular and the United Provinces in general had a large Roman
Catholic minority. Indeed, the Roman Catholic minority in the modern
Kingdom of the Netherlands is probably even larger in percentage
terms (absolutely larger numerically of course). But in what sense
was Amsterdam Roman Catholic in the 1580s? At what point did it
change sufficiently to become a political bastion of those Calvinists
opposed to Johan van Oldenbarnevelt and his faction? I understand
that the Amsterdam leadership opposed the proposed truce with Spain
in the early 17th century because of the provisions about trade
activity in the West Indies, but how did this concern interact with
Amsterdam's role in Calvinist opposition to those who supported the
truce, like Oldenbarnevelt?
------------------------
[snip: I cut text only to shorten the message.]
pirates preying on Spanish ships in the Atlantic staunchly opposed the =
politics of reconciliation with Spain of `Raadpensionaris' Johan van =
Oldenbarnevelt. Therefore, in the very complicated quarel which erupted =
in 1605 between the `Arminian' and `Gomarian' branch of the Dutch =
reformed church, Zeeland staunchly supported `stadhouder' Maurits who =
supported the Arminians against Van Oldenbarneveld and towns like =
Amsterdam who supported the Gomarians. The quarrel finally led to =
Oldenbarneveld's execution. I could make the same argument for the =
situation after the treaty of Utrecht but enough internal Dutch politics =
here. The argument basically depends upon what country one is =
considering when (the Baltic interests may have played a role in the =
Swedish reformation too, for example.)
--------------------------
Rene: It was actually the other way around. Maurits supported the
Gomarist position while Oldenbarnevelt worked to protect the Arminian
minority. Although a number of towns in Holland where the municipal
government favored the Arminians expelled Gomarist preachers, I don't
believe that Amsterdam was among them (since I am pretty much
confined to the house just now, I can't check that), and Amsterdam
certainly gave no support to Oldenbarnevelt on the Arminian-Gomarist
issue all through the conflict before the Calvinist Synod of Dort,
during the Synod itself, nor during his condemnation and execution a
few days after the Synod's conclusion. The matter is interesting
since the core issue was the Calvinist doctrinal position about
divine authority and salvation. The Gomarists supported a strict
doctrine of supralapsarian, double predestination as elaborated in
Geneva by Theodore Beza while the Arminians, including Jacobus
Arminius himself and the so-called Remonstrants, wanted a definition
which gave some role to human choice. I think we miss a real
opportunity to understand world-system development in this period if
we reduce this dispute to a conflict over trade relations with
territories of the global Hispanic Monarchy.
--------------------
Anyhow, the situation is actually even more complicated than
that. Hostility to Spain might lead to some states supporting the
reformation. [snip] While, again, some other states were =
both very catholic and anti-Spanish: thus Venice which on the one hand =
harshly persecuted its own protestants, on the other harboured all =
protestants persecuted by the Spaniards.
-------------------
Rene: Again, distinctions may be important. I am not aware of any
"Spanish" "protestants" who ended up under Venice's protection. The
issue here may involve *conversos*, baptised Christians whose
genealogical tree included Jewish ancestors. Such folk were
vulnerable to charges before Inquisition courts in territories of the
Iberian Habsburg dynasty as judaizers, a different issue. I recently
read the autobiography of Diego de Simancas, one of Castile's
inquisitors and the man responsible for overseeing the trial for
heresy of Bartolome de Carranza, Archbishop of Toledo, before a papal
commission in Rome. Simancas was disgusted that ecclesiastical
leaders of the papacy didn't share his prejudice against *conversos*;
they pointed out that all of the early members of the Apostolic
Church were *conversos*! I suspect that Venetian authorities,
including inquisitors, felt the same way.
---------------------
One could be catholic and yet =
be anti-Spanish, as the example of France under Henry IV shows, or =
-------------------
Rene: One wonders whether France would count as a 'Roman Catholic'
country at the time. The king had, of course, been twice a Calvinist
and, if one believes the story, rejoined the Roman Church because he
guessed "Paris was worth a Mass." Certainly many of his fellow Roman
Catholics didn't think their kingdom was properly Christian, and one
of them managed to assassinate the king in 1610! But now we really
are going to bore our non-historian colleagues if we keep
demonstrating that the world really is a strange place :-)
Where was the Blusse and Winius article published?
Regards from the mountains so far from the sea.
Jack
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J. B. "Jack" Owens, Professor of History
Project Coordinator, Computer-Mediated Distance Learning
Idaho State University, Pocatello, ID 83209 USA
e-mail: owenjack@fs.isu.edu
www: http://www.isu.edu/~owenjack
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