- NWO Veni fellow, Lecturer in History, and team member of the Signed, Sealed & Undelivered projectedit
The persecution of the Huguenots in France, followed by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, unleashed one of the largest migration waves of early modern Europe. Focusing on the fate of French Protestants who fled to the Dutch... more
The persecution of the Huguenots in France, followed by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, unleashed one of the largest migration waves of early modern Europe. Focusing on the fate of French Protestants who fled to the Dutch Republic, "Experiencing Exile" examines how Huguenot refugees dealt with the complex realities of living as strangers abroad, and how they seized upon religion and stories of their own past to comfort them in exile. The book widens the scope of scholarship on the Huguenot Refuge, by looking beyond the beliefs and fortunes of high-profile refugees, to explore the lives of ‘ordinary’ exiles. Studies on Huguenots in the Dutch Republic in particular focus almost exclusively on the intellectual achievements of a small group of figures, including Pierre Bayle and the Basnage brothers, whereas the fate of the many refugees who joined them in exile remains unknown. This book puts the masses of Huguenot refugees back into the history of the Refuge, examining how they experienced leaving France and building a new life in the Dutch Republic.
Divided into three sections – ‘The Economy of Exile’, ‘Faith in Exile’ and ‘Memories in Exile’ – the book argues that the Huguenot exile experience was far more complicated than has often been assumed. Scholars have treated Huguenot refugees either as religious heroes, as successful migrants, or as modern philosophers, while ignoring the many challenges that exile presented. As this book demonstrates, Huguenots in the Dutch Republic discovered that being a religious refugee in early modern Europe was above all a complex and profoundly unsettling experience, fraught with socio-economic, religious and political challenges, rather than a clear-cut quest for religious freedom.
Divided into three sections – ‘The Economy of Exile’, ‘Faith in Exile’ and ‘Memories in Exile’ – the book argues that the Huguenot exile experience was far more complicated than has often been assumed. Scholars have treated Huguenot refugees either as religious heroes, as successful migrants, or as modern philosophers, while ignoring the many challenges that exile presented. As this book demonstrates, Huguenots in the Dutch Republic discovered that being a religious refugee in early modern Europe was above all a complex and profoundly unsettling experience, fraught with socio-economic, religious and political challenges, rather than a clear-cut quest for religious freedom.
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Our rediscovery of a seventeenth-century postmasters' trunk in the Museum voor Communicatie in The Hague, containing some twenty-six hundred undelivered letters mostly sent from France, offers the opportunity to think from the ground up... more
Our rediscovery of a seventeenth-century postmasters' trunk in the Museum voor Communicatie in The Hague, containing some twenty-six hundred undelivered letters mostly sent from France, offers the opportunity to think from the ground up about what constitutes an archive and how to approach it. We argue that understanding the process of loss, destruction, and survival of collections is a crucial exercise for historians. Practicing this " archaeology of the archive " makes us keenly aware that the questions we ask are often dictated by the genesis and structure of the archive. Although document survival is often the result of intentional safekeeping, in other cases it can be attributed to sheer accident. Addressing questions of materiality, mobility, and preservation, this article explores the notion of the " accidental archive " to consider what best practices should be developed to ensure responsible access to this unique collection.
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Winner of the 2018 Nancy L. Roelker Prize for best article on sixteenth-century French history and the 2018 Harold J. Grimm Prize for best article on the legacy of the Reformation. The article examines how Protestant and Catholic... more
Winner of the 2018 Nancy L. Roelker Prize for best article on sixteenth-century French history and the 2018 Harold J. Grimm Prize for best article on the legacy of the Reformation. The article examines how Protestant and Catholic elites in early seventeenth-century France memorialized the Wars of Religion in purpose-built picture galleries. Postwar France remained a divided nation, and portrait galleries offered a sectarian memory of the conflict, glorifying party heroes. Historical picture galleries, on the other hand, promoted a shared memory of the wars, focusing on King Henry IV’s successful campaign against the Catholic League to unite the kingdom. This article argues that postwar elites made a sincere effort to manage religious tensions by allowing partisan memories to circulate in private while promoting a consensual memory in public.
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This article explores how painters responded to the crisis on the Antwerp art market in the 1580s. Although scholarship has stressed the profound crisis and subsequent emigration wave, prosopographical analysis shows that only a minority... more
This article explores how painters responded to the crisis on the Antwerp art market in the 1580s. Although scholarship has stressed the profound crisis and subsequent emigration wave, prosopographical analysis shows that only a minority of painters left the city. Demand for Counter-Reformation artworks allowed many to pursue their career in Antwerp, while others managed to survive the crisis by relying on cheap apprentices and the export of mass-produced paintings. Emigrant painters, on the other hand, minimised the risk of migration by settling in destinations that already had close artistic ties to Antwerp, such as Middelburg. Prosopographical analysis thus allows for a more nuanced understanding of artistic careers in the Low Countries.
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The French Protestant pastor and polemical author Jean Claude was one of the most prominent Huguenot leaders of the second half of the seventeenth century, who gained notoriety because of his unrelenting defense of the Calvinist faith in... more
The French Protestant pastor and polemical author Jean Claude was one of the most prominent Huguenot leaders of the second half of the seventeenth century, who gained notoriety because of his unrelenting defense of the Calvinist faith in France. This EMLO catalogue offers the metadata for 115 of his letters. The vast majority are kept at Leiden University Library, and are mostly addressed to his son Isaac, who served as refugee pastor in the Walloon church of The Hague. The weekly and intimate correspondence between father and son during the years 1684–1685 covers a wide variety of topics, including finances, family life, theological issues, news on the deteriorating position of the Huguenots in France, and detailed advice on sermons and biblical passages. Also of interest are a series of letters Claude sent to Abraham Tessereau, a former lawyer from La Rochelle who had settled in London, and to Louis Tronchin, a Huguenot minister and professor of theology in Geneva.
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2,600 recently rediscovered early modern letters to be analyzed in groundbreaking international digital humanities project.
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In 1926, a seventeenth-century trunk of letters was bequeathed to the Museum voor Communicatie in The Hague, then as now the centre of government, politics, and trade in The Netherlands. The trunk belonged to one of the most active... more
In 1926, a seventeenth-century trunk of letters was bequeathed to the Museum voor Communicatie in The Hague, then as now the centre of government, politics, and trade in The Netherlands. The trunk belonged to one of the most active postmasters of the day, Simon de Brienne, a man at the heart of European communication networks. It contains an extraordinary archive: 2600 letters sent from all over Europe to this axis of communication, none of which were ever delivered. The trunk freezes a moment in history, allowing us to glimpse the early modern world as it went about its daily business. The letters are uncensored, unedited, and 600 of them even remain unopened. The archive itself has remained virtually untouched by historians until it was recently rediscovered. Our international and interdisciplinary team of researchers has now begun a process of digitization, preservation, transcription, and editing that will reveal its secrets for the first time – even, we hope, those of the unopened letters.
Research Interests: History, Musicology, Humanities, Digital Humanities, Early Modern History, and 26 moreManuscripts and Early Printed Books, Book and Paper Conservation, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Seventeenth Century, Cultural Heritage Conservation, Manuscript Studies, Heritage Conservation, Archives, History of The Netherlands, Exile, Early Modern Literature, Diaspora Studies, Early Modern Intellectual History, Digital Archives, Republic of Letters (Early Modern History), 17th Century Dutch Republic, Dutch History, Ancient Seals and Sealings, Louis XIV, Manuscripts, Letters, The Glorious Revolution, Manuscript studies, codicology, palaeography, medieval paper, Chaucer, circulation of texts and books, history of the book, electronic editing and digital humanities, Huguenots, Texts and Textiles / Material Culture / Oriental Carpets / Textile Theory, and French Huguenots
L'histoire du Refuge huguenot se lise encore trop souvent comme une histoire close, qui isole les réfugiés du monde qui les entoure, et qui ne déborde pas le cadre de la grande histoire protestante. Souhaitant rompre avec cette approche... more
L'histoire du Refuge huguenot se lise encore trop souvent comme une histoire close, qui isole les réfugiés du monde qui les entoure, et qui ne déborde pas le cadre de la grande histoire protestante. Souhaitant rompre avec cette approche segmentée, ce colloque invite à repenser le Refuge aux Provinces-Unies de manière systémique, c’est-à-dire non plus de façon sectorisée mais au contact de tierces communautés, de milieux dissociés, et de ses préoccupations disparates. Il importe d’interroger les liens et la façon dont les migrants protestants dialoguent avec d’autres acteurs du Refuge, et de les saisir hors du seul monde des exilés. En d’autres termes, il s’agit d’extraire l’histoire du Refuge huguenot du monde franco-français et d’une lecture protestanto-centrée. Ce colloque encourage les chercheurs à considérer une histoire du Refuge néerlandais hors les murs, fondée sur des sources inédites, et privilégiant des domaines peu explorés dans l’optique d’une histoire résolument transnationale.
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The French Wars of Religion have fascinated historians ever since the opening shots were fired in a barn in Vassy in 1562. Over the centuries, scholars have explored the myriad political, religious, military, and social aspects of these... more
The French Wars of Religion have fascinated historians ever since the opening shots were fired in a barn in Vassy in 1562. Over the centuries, scholars have explored the myriad political, religious, military, and social aspects of these devastating civil wars. In recent years, however, researchers have also started to examine the memory of the Wars of Religion. They have asked how Catholics and Protestants looked back on the events they had experienced during the wars, how they recorded their memories, and what impact these memories had on post-war society. Most of the scholarship in this nascent field has focused on printed histories and elite memories, but we still know very little about the distinctions between local, national, and transnational memory practices; how memories varied throughout the social hierarchy, among individuals and groups, or within and between confessions; and what long-term impact traumatic memories had on early modern society. This conference aims to evaluate how the study of memory can reshape our understanding of the Wars of Religion.
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L'histoire du Refuge huguenot se lise encore trop souvent comme une histoire close, qui isole les réfugiés du monde qui les entoure, et qui ne déborde pas le cadre de la grande histoire protestante. Souhaitant rompre avec cette approche... more
L'histoire du Refuge huguenot se lise encore trop souvent comme une histoire close, qui isole les réfugiés du monde qui les entoure, et qui ne déborde pas le cadre de la grande histoire protestante. Souhaitant rompre avec cette approche segmentée, ce colloque invite à repenser le Refuge aux Provinces-Unies de manière systémique, c’est-à-dire non plus de façon sectorisée mais au contact de tierces communautés, de milieux dissociés, et de ses préoccupations disparates. Il importe d’interroger les liens et la façon dont les migrants protestants dialoguent avec d’autres acteurs du Refuge, et de les saisir hors du seul monde des exilés. En d’autres termes, il s’agit d’extraire l’histoire du Refuge huguenot du monde franco-français et d’une lecture protestanto-centrée. Ce colloque encourage les chercheurs à considérer une histoire du Refuge néerlandais hors les murs, fondée sur des sources inédites, et privilégiant des domaines peu explorés dans l’optique d’une histoire résolument transnationale.
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The French Wars of Religion have fascinated historians ever since the opening shots were fired in a barn in Vassy in 1562. Over the centuries, scholars have explored the myriad political, religious, military, and social aspects of these... more
The French Wars of Religion have fascinated historians ever since the opening shots were fired in a barn in Vassy in 1562. Over the centuries, scholars have explored the myriad political, religious, military, and social aspects of these devastating civil wars. In recent years, however, researchers have also started to examine the memory of the Wars of Religion. They have asked how Catholics and Protestants looked back on the events they had experienced during the wars, how they recorded their memories, and what impact these memories had on post-war society. Most of the scholarship in this nascent field has focused on printed histories and elite memories, but we still know very little about the distinctions between local, national, and transnational memory practices; how memories varied throughout the social hierarchy, among individuals and groups, or within and between confessions; and what long-term impact traumatic memories had on early modern society. This conference aims to evaluate how the study of memory can reshape our understanding of the Wars of Religion.
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Music was a crucial battleground in the Wars of Religion. In spite of this, historians and musicologists have rarely combined their approaches to understand the full significance that music had in the civil wars. Historians have primarily... more
Music was a crucial battleground in the Wars of Religion. In spite of this, historians and musicologists have rarely combined their approaches to understand the full significance that music had in the civil wars. Historians have primarily studied how music shaped confessional identities, for example, as Protestants sang the Psalms together in worship or on the battlefield, to express their solidarity and take comfort in their faith despite persecution. Musicologists, on the other hand, have tended to concentrate on the most important composers from this time (such as Eustache Du Caurroy or Pierre Guédron), the genres in which they wrote (like ballets or airs de cour), or issues associated with the performance of this repertoire.
This conference brings together historians and musicologists with the aim of overcoming the boundaries that still remain between these scholarly disciplines. It focuses on the various contexts within which music was used and considers its impact in the Wars of Religion. Who sang music and for what aims? What was the relationship (if any) between the performance of music in elite circles versus the use of this art form among the wider public? Did music solidify or traverse confessional divisions? Lastly, how far can modern performers recreate the soundscapes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Treating the age of the Wars of Religion across a whole century and using France as a focal point for making wider comparisons, the papers in this conference will explore the role of music from all sectors of society, from the royal courts to the city streets, and from both Protestant and Catholic perspectives.
This conference brings together historians and musicologists with the aim of overcoming the boundaries that still remain between these scholarly disciplines. It focuses on the various contexts within which music was used and considers its impact in the Wars of Religion. Who sang music and for what aims? What was the relationship (if any) between the performance of music in elite circles versus the use of this art form among the wider public? Did music solidify or traverse confessional divisions? Lastly, how far can modern performers recreate the soundscapes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? Treating the age of the Wars of Religion across a whole century and using France as a focal point for making wider comparisons, the papers in this conference will explore the role of music from all sectors of society, from the royal courts to the city streets, and from both Protestant and Catholic perspectives.
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The latest issue of the multidisciplinary Open Access journal Early Modern Low Countries (EMLC) is now available online! EMLC is dedicated to the study of the history and culture of the Low Countries between 1500 and 1830. It is published... more
The latest issue of the multidisciplinary Open Access journal Early Modern Low Countries (EMLC) is now available online! EMLC is dedicated to the study of the history and culture of the Low Countries between 1500 and 1830. It is published by Uopen Journals and appears twice a year. We will consider new contributions in the fields of history, literary studies, art history, and related areas of study.
Research Interests: Intellectual History, Cultural History, Early Modern History, Eighteenth Century History, Seventeenth Century, and 15 morePolitical History, History of The Netherlands, Medieval Low Countries, Social History, Renaissance literature, Republic of Letters (Early Modern History), The Age of Revolutions in the Atlantic World, Belgian History, Religious History, History of the Spanish-Habsburg Netherlands, Dutch History, Literary studies, 16th and 17th century Dutch and Flemish Art, Sixteenth Century History, and History of the Theater
The third issue of the multidisciplinary Open Access journal Early Modern Low Countries (EMLC) is now available online! EMLC is dedicated to the study of the history and culture of the Low Countries between 1500 and 1830. It is published... more
The third issue of the multidisciplinary Open Access journal Early Modern Low Countries (EMLC) is now available online! EMLC is dedicated to the study of the history and culture of the Low Countries between 1500 and 1830. It is published by Uopen Journals and appears twice a year. If you want to stay informed about new issues or other developments please take a few moments to register. EMLC is a peer-reviewed journal. We will consider new contributions in the fields of history, literary studies, art history, and related areas of study. We also welcome suggestions for book reviews or notes. If you want to contribute to EMLC please visit our website.