The Netherlands (Dutch Revolt/ Dutch Republic)
- LAST REVIEWED: 03 June 2015
- LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2012
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0146
- LAST REVIEWED: 03 June 2015
- LAST MODIFIED: 24 July 2012
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195399301-0146
Introduction
By the middle of the 16th century the Netherlands consisted of some twenty principalities and lordships, loosely connected under the rule of Emperor Charles V. The heir of the dukes of Burgundy, Charles ruled these lands as his own patrimony. They roughly covered the area of the present-day Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg, as well as a strip of northern France. During the rule of Philip II, king of Spain (r. 1555–1598), Charles’s son and successor, a revolt broke out. From c. 1580 onward Philip succeeded in bringing the southern provinces of the Netherlands (roughly modern-day Belgium) back to obedience, while the northern provinces (roughly the area covered by today’s Netherlands) retained their independence. The northern provinces came to be known as the “United Netherlands” or the “Dutch Republic,” the southern ones as the “Spanish Netherlands.” What had begun as a rebellion turned into regular warfare between the Dutch Republic, on the one side, and Spain and the Spanish Netherlands, on the other. The so-called Twelve Year Truce interrupted the fighting between 1609 and 1621. It was not until 1648 that the belligerents finally concluded peace. After 1585 (the capture of Antwerp by the Spanish army), the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands gradually drifted apart as they became two separate states, and, even more slowly, they developed their own national cultures and identities. The consequence for historiography is that the history of the Netherlands until the end of the 16th century is best studied as a whole, while the histories of the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands during the 17th century are usually studied separately.
General Overviews
The revolt of the Netherlands and the Dutch Republic forms two distinct yet overlapping historiographical traditions. Israel 1995 and van Deursen 2004 cover the period of the revolt as well as the entire 17th century (with the former covering an even longer period). In focusing on the 17th century, Israel 1995 provides an overview that is by far the most comprehensive and authoritative. With more than 1,200 pages, it is also the most detailed study of the entire period. Concentrating on political events and religion, van Deursen 2004 provides a good introduction. Groenveld and Leeuwenberg 2008, richly illustrated, covers the entire period of the Eighty Years War. Prak 2005 and Price 1998 pay scant attention to the Dutch revolt, but they provide general overviews of the history of the Dutch Republic during its “Golden Age.” Prak 2005 is especially strong in social history, while Price 1998 offers a concise introduction to Dutch society and culture in the 17th century.
Groenveld, Simon, and H. L. Ph. Leeuwenberg. De Tachtigjarige Oorlog: Opstand en consolidatie in de Nederlanden, ca. 1560–1650. Zutphen, The Netherlands: Walburg Pers, 2008.
Traditional narrative of the Dutch revolt as a struggle for religious freedom and against Spanish oppression, directed at a wide audience. With an extensive (30 pages) guide for further reading. Richly illustrated, this is a revised edition of two earlier books by the same authors, De kogel door de kerk? (Zutphen, The Netherlands: Walburg Pers, 1979), and De bruid in de schuit (Zutphen, The Netherlands: Walburg Pers, 1985).
Israel, Jonathan I. The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477–1806. Oxford: Clarendon, 1995.
More than 1,200 pages long and based on wide reading of secondary sources as well as original research, this is by far the most comprehensive overview, the indispensable starting point for teaching as well as research. The account of the Dutch revolt differs from that provided by other authors, in underlining the separate characteristics of the northern and southern provinces as a precondition for the revolt. With extensive bibliography.
Prak, Maarten. The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century: The Golden Age. Translated by Diane L. Webb. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Largely passing by the Dutch revolt, this is an introduction to the history of the Dutch Republic, with a strong focus on economic and social history, especially urban life and urban citizenship. With an elaborate bibliographic essay. English translation of Gouden Eeuw: Het raadsel van de Republiek, first published in 2002 (Nijmegen, The Netherlands: SUN).
Price, J. L. The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century. New York: St. Martin’s, 1998.
Very concise (171 pages) introduction; skillful summary of existing scholarship. Recommended for undergraduate teaching, with short bibliography.
van Deursen, Arie Theodorus. De last van veel geluk: De geschiedenis van Nederland, 1555–1702. Amsterdam: Bakker, 2004.
Well-written narrative of the period of the revolt and the entire 17th century, with an emphasis on political and religious developments. Contains concise guide to further reading. Directed at a large audience.
Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login.
How to Subscribe
Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here.
Article
- Alberti, Leon Battista
- Alexander VI, Pope
- Amsterdam
- Antwerp
- Aretino, Pietro
- Ariosto, Ludovico
- Art and Science
- Art, German
- Art in Renaissance Florence
- Art in Renaissance Venice
- Art Literature and Theory of Art
- Art Market
- Art of Poetry
- Art, Spanish
- Art, 16th- and 17th-Century Flemish
- Art, 17th-Century Dutch
- Artisans
- Ascham, Roger
- Astell, Mary
- Astrology, Alchemy, Magic
- Austria
- Avignon Papacy
- Bacon, Francis
- Banking and Money
- Barbaro, Ermolao, the Younger
- Barbaro, Francesco
- Baron, Hans
- Baroque
- Baroque Art and Architecture in Italy
- Barzizza, Gasparino
- Beaufort, Margaret
- Bellarmine, Cardinal
- Bembo, Pietro
- Bernardino of Siena, San
- Beroaldo, Filippo, the Elder
- Bessarion, Cardinal
- Bible, The
- Biondo, Flavio
- Bishops, 1400-1550
- Black Death and Plague: The Disease and Medical Thought
- Boccaccio, Giovanni
- Bohemia and Bohemian Crown Lands
- Borgia, Cesare
- Borgia, Lucrezia
- Borromeo, Cardinal Carlo
- Bosch, Hieronymous
- Bracciolini, Poggio
- Brahe, Tycho
- Bruegel, Pieter the Elder
- Bruni, Leonardo
- Bruno, Giordano
- Bucer, Martin
- Buonarroti, Michelangelo
- Burgundy and the Netherlands
- Calvin, John
- Calvinism
- Camões, Luís de
- Caravaggio
- Cardano, Girolamo
- Cardinal Richelieu
- Cardinals
- Carvajal y Mendoza, Luisa De
- Cary, Elizabeth
- Casas, Bartolome de las
- Castiglione, Baldassarre
- Catherine of Siena
- Catholicism, Early Modern
- Cecilia del Nacimiento
- Cellini, Benvenuto
- Cervantes, Miguel de
- China and Europe, 1550-1800
- Christian-Muslim Exchange
- Church Fathers in Renaissance and Reformation Thought, The
- Ciceronianism
- Cities and Urban Patriciates
- Civic Humanism
- Civic Ritual
- Classical Tradition, The
- Clifford, Anne
- Colet, John
- Colonna, Vittoria
- Columbus, Christopher
- Comenius, Jan Amos
- Confraternities
- Constantinople, Fall of
- Contarini, Gasparo, Cardinal
- Convent Culture
- Conversos and Crypto-Judaism
- Copernicus, Nicolaus
- Cornaro, Caterina
- Costume
- Council of Trent
- Crime and Punishment
- Croatia
- Cromwell, Oliver
- Cruz, Juana de la, Mother
- Cruz, Juana Inés de la, Sor
- Dance
- d'Aragona, Tullia
- Datini, Margherita
- Davies, Eleanor
- de Commynes, Philippe
- de Sales, Saint Francis
- de Valdés, Juan
- Death and Dying
- Decembrio, Pier Candido
- Dentière, Marie
- Des Roches, Madeleine and Catherine
- d’Este, Isabella
- di Toledo, Eleonora
- Dialogue
- Dolce, Ludovico
- Donne, John
- Drama, English Renaissance
- Dürer, Albrecht
- du Bellay, Joachim
- Du Guillet, Pernette
- Ebreo, Leone
- El Greco
- Elizabeth I
- England, 1485-1642
- English Puritans, Dissenters, Quakers, and Recusants
- Environment and the Natural World
- Epic and Romance
- Erasmus
- Europe and the Globe, 1350-1700
- Family and Childhood
- Fedele, Cassandra
- Ferrara and the Este
- Ficino, Marsilio
- Filelfo, Francesco
- Florence
- Foscari, Francesco
- France in the 17th Century
- France in the 16th Century
- Francis I
- Francis Xavier, St
- French Law and Justice
- French Renaissance Drama
- Fugger Family
- Galilei, Galileo
- Gambara, Veronica
- Garin, Eugenio
- General Church Councils, Pre-Trent
- Geneva (1400-1600)
- Ghetto
- Giambologna
- Ginés de Sepúlveda, Juan
- Giustiniani, Bernardo
- Góngora, Luis de
- Gournay, Marie de
- Greek Visitors
- Guarino da Verona
- Guicciardini, Francesco
- Guilds and Manufacturing
- Hanseatic League
- Henri IV
- Henry VII
- Henry VIII, King of England
- Herbert, George
- Hispanic Mysticism
- Historiography
- Hobbes, Thomas
- Homes, Foundling
- Huguenots
- Humanism
- Humanism, The Origins of
- Hundred Years War, The
- Hungary, The Kingdom of
- Hus, Jan
- Hutchinson, Lucy
- Iconology and Iconography
- Ignatius of Loyola, Saint
- Inquisition, Roman
- Isabel I, Queen of Castile
- Ivan IV the Terrible, Tsar of Russia
- Japan and Europe: the Christian Century, 1549-1650
- Jeanne d’Albret, queen of Navarre
- Jesuits
- Jews
- Jews and Christians in Venice
- Joan of Arc
- Jonson, Ben
- Julius II
- Kepler, Johannes
- Knox, John
- Kristeller, Paul Oskar
- Labé, Louise
- Landino, Cristoforo
- Landscape
- Last Wills and Testaments
- Law
- Lay Piety
- Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm
- Leo X
- Leonardo da Vinci
- Leoni, Leone and Pompeo
- Leto, Giulio Pomponio
- Letter Writing and Epistolary Culture
- Libraries
- Literary Criticism
- Literature, French
- Literature, Italian
- Literature, Late Medieval German
- Literature, Penitential
- Literature, Spanish
- Locke, John
- London
- Louis XIII, King of France
- Louis XIV, King of France
- Luther, Martin
- Lyric Poetry
- Machiavelli, Niccolo
- Macinghi Strozzi, Alessandra
- Malatesta, Sigismondo
- Manetti, Giannozzo
- Mannerism
- Mantovano (Battista Spagnoli), Battista
- Manuel Chrysoloras
- Manuzio, Aldo
- Marinella, Lucrezia
- Marlowe, Christopher
- Marriage and Dowry
- Mary Stuart (Mary, Queen of Scots)
- Mary Tudor, Queen of England
- Masculinity
- Maximilian I, Emperor
- Medici, Catherine de'
- Medici, Cosimo il Vecchio de'
- Medici Family, The
- Medici, Lorenzo de'
- Medicine
- Mediterranean
- Memling, Hans
- Merici, Angela
- Midwifery
- Milan, 1535-1706
- Milan to 1535
- Mirandola, Giovanni Pico della
- Mission
- Monarchy in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, Female
- Montaigne, Michel de
- More, Thomas
- Morone, Cardinal Giovanni
- Music
- Navarre, Marguerite de
- Netherlandish Art, Early
- Netherlands, 1500-1621, Reformations and Revolt in the
- Netherlands (Dutch Revolt/ Dutch Republic), The
- Netherlands, Spanish, 1598-1700, the
- Nettesheim, Agrippa von
- Niccoli, Niccolò
- Nicholas of Cusa
- Nobility
- Opera
- Ottoman Empire
- Panofsky, Erwin
- Papacy
- Papal Rome
- Paris
- Parr, Katherine
- Patronage of the Arts
- Perotti, Niccolò
- Persecution and Martyrdom
- Peter the Great, Tsar of Russia
- Petrarch
- Philips, Katherine
- Piccolomini, Aeneas Sylvius
- Plague and its Consequences
- Poetry, English
- Pole, Cardinal Reginald
- Polish Literature: Renaissance
- Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, The
- Political Thought
- Poliziano, Angelo
- Pontano, Giovanni Giovano
- Portraiture
- Portugal
- Poverty and Poor Relief
- Prince Henry the Navigator
- Printing and the Book
- Purgatory
- Purity of Blood
- Quirini, Lauro
- Rabelais, François
- Raphael
- Reformation and Hussite Revolution, Czech
- Reformation and Wars of Religion in France, The
- Reformation, English
- Reformation, German
- Reformation, Italian, The
- Reformation, The
- Rembrandt
- Renaissance, The
- Reuchlin, Johann
- Revolutionary England, 1642-1702
- Rhetoric
- Ricci, Matteo
- Rienzo, Cola Di
- Roman and Iberian Inquisitions, Censorship and the Index i...
- Ronsard, Pierre de
- Royal Regencies in Renaissance and Reformation Europe, 140...
- Rubens, Peter Paul
- Russell, Elizabeth Cooke Hoby
- Russia and Muscovy
- Saint John of the Cross
- Saints and Mystics: After Trent
- Saints and Mystics: Before Trent
- Salutati, Coluccio
- Sarpi, Fra Paolo
- Savonarola, Girolamo
- Scandinavia
- Schooling and Literacy
- Scientific Revolution
- Scotland
- Scève, Maurice
- Sforza, Caterina
- Shakespeare, William
- Sidney Herbert, Mary, Countess of Pembroke
- Sidney, Philip
- Sixtus IV, Pope
- Skepticism
- Spain
- Spanish Inquisition
- Spanish Islam, 1350-1614
- Spenser, Edmund
- Spinoza, Baruch
- Stampa, Gaspara
- Stuart, Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia
- Switzerland
- Tarabotti, Arcangela
- Teresa of Avila
- The Radical Reformation
- Thirty Years War, The
- Titian
- Toleration
- Tornabuoni, Lucrezia
- Trade Networks
- Tragedy, English
- Translation
- Transylvania, The Principality of
- Traversari, Ambrogio
- Universities
- Urbanism
- Ursulines
- Valeriano, Pierio
- Valla, Lorenzo
- van Eyck, Jan
- van Schurman, Anna Maria
- Vasari, Giorgio
- Vega, Lope de
- Vegio, Maffeo
- Velázquez
- Venice
- Venice, Maritime
- Vergerio, Pier Paolo, The Elder
- Vermeer, Johannes
- Vernacular Languages and Dialects
- Vida, Marco Girolamo
- Virgil in Renaissance Thought
- Visitors, Italian
- Vives, Juan Luis
- War and Economy, 1300-1600
- Ward, Mary
- Warfare and Military Organizations
- Weyden, Rogier van der
- Widowhood
- Witch Hunt
- Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal
- Women and Learning
- Women and Medicine
- Women and Science
- Women and the Book Trade
- Women and the Visual Arts
- Women Writers in Ireland
- Women Writers of the Iberian Empire
- Women Writing in Early Modern Spain
- Women Writing in English
- Women Writing in French
- Wroth, Mary