Outline and Notes on Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477-1806

--Political conflict of Cabeljauwen (cod) and Hoeks went on in Holland from 1350 to 1500, with the former eventually becoming identified with the upper classes,

Duke Philip the Good acquired Holland in 1428. Burgundy became the overwhelming power in the Low Countries.

--Created the States General, central Chamber of Accounts, and the order of the Golden Fleece.

--Built a ducal palace in Brussels in 1451 and a university in Leuven in 1425.

--Holland and Zeeland were placed under stadholders who served as provincial governors.

--Towns dominated Holland and Zeeland. The States of Holland, with no prince, served as cohesive governments for the six main towns—Dordrecht, Haarlem, Leiden, Amsterdam, Delft and Gouda.

-By the mid 15^th century, the more democratic elements of town government were repressed and the urban patricians became dominant.

-The Burgundian state reached its zenith under the harsh rule of Charles the Bold, 1467-77.

-Succeeded by Mary of Burgundy (1477-82), who was forced to grant the Grand Privilege, 1477, which allowed the Estates General to meet without her consent. This was accompanied by another Great Privilege, which excluded ‘strangers,’ chiefly Flemish and Brabanters, from office in Holland and Zeeland. The States of Holland also used only Dutch as their official language while the Habsburgs used French.

--Mary married Maxmillian of Habsburg (1459-1519), who sought to claw back some central authority with the support of some of the great nobles.

-Maxmillian was recalled to Vienna to be the Holy Roman Emperor. His son Philip, a Netherlander, was installed in Brussels in 1493.

-Upon Philip’s death, his son Charles was installed as Duke of Brabant and Habsburg ruler in the Netherlands in 1515. In 1516 he became king of Spain after the death of his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand of Aragon.

-Charles set up Council of State, whose members were 12 great magnates, a Secret Council run by professional bureaucrats, and Stadholders who served as the crown’s governors in each of the Provinces.

-The greatest of the Stadholders was Hendrik of Nassau’s son, who became Rene de Chalons, when he inherited the principality of Orange (in the south of France) in 1538. He was the first to have the title of Prince of Orange and was the uncle of William the Silent.

-The administration of the Netherlands was chiefly done with links between the central councils and the provincial high courts, the baljuws or drosten. In Holland, they gradually ceased to be nobles in the 16^th century and were the links between the provincial courts and rural districts. The schout served as the local agent, or police. In towns, the raad, or vroedschap, was headed by a burgomeester.

-Above these local officials were the provincial States and, for the Netherlands as a whole, the States General.

--Charles V’s revenues quintupled during his reign in a period when prices doubled.

Thus, the Netherlands constituted a formidable adjunct to Habsburg wealth and power.
3) HUMANISM AND THE ORIGIN OF THE REFORMATION, 1470-1520

North European Christian Humanism was one of the crucial cultural shifts in western history. It began in circa 1470 as the Devotio Moderna in Overijsel and Groningen. It originated with Geert Groote, a devout burgher in Deventer, during the late 14^th century. It stressed the inner development of the individual and did not involve itself in church dogma or organization.

-Thomas á Kempis (1379-1471), The Imitation of Christ, paved the way for Erasmus. The Devotio Moderna emphasized literacy and schooling but did not challenge conventional religious forms.

-Rudolph Agricola, born in Groningen, was the founder of northern humanism by spreading Italian humanist exegesis of scripture in the north.

-Christian humanism pervaded the civic Latin Schools in the northeast. Erasmus attended the Latin School in Deventer, 1475-84. He completed his education at the Latin School in s’Hertogenbosch. He stayed in Holland until 1493. He believed that a preoccupation with the ancients could lead to paganism and argued that a humanist scholar could only be purified with a zealous commitment to Christ. His Greek New Testament was published at Basel in 1516.

-Humanism captured the schools and found many adherents in civic government. In art, a passionate absorption with Christ emphasized the crucifixion of Christ, the Virgin and popular saints. The Northern Humanistic artistic tradition continued with Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden, who depicted a world of sacred happenings and gestures.

-In Haarlem, the first important center of painting in the North, Lucas van Leyden, Jan van Scorel, and Maarten van Heemskerk, rejected the emphasis on the old religious scenes and turned to biblical scenes of moral education during the 16^th century.

-Erasmus initially secretly supported Luther’s attacks, especially on monasticism, but feared his radicalism and to Christian humanist scholarship. In 1519 he deplored the anti-Luther campaign in Holland. He left Holland for good in 1521 and settled in Basel. His insistence that the that the exposition of scripture lay with the Christian humanist scholar had in fact usurped the claim of the Church that it had the sole authority to interpret scripture. His views had immense influence among the educated.

-Erasmus’ open break with Luther spread his influence in the Netherlands because its reformation was much more varied than that of the increasingly dogmatic and authoritarian Lutherans.
4) TERRITORIAL CONSOLIDATION, 1516-1559

Habsburg policy was to concentrate power in the Low Countries in Brussels. Flanders would not allow its resources to be used militarily north of the great rivers. Thus, it was Holland that led the consolidation of territory north of the rivers.