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

Israel agrees with Pieter Geyl “that there was no specifically Dutch or northern Netherlands identity before 1572, nor any specifically southern Netherlands awareness…Yet, despite this, political, economic, and geographical factors had rendered north and south separate entities long before the ‘Revolt of 1572.’ Seen against the backcloth of the later Middle Ages, and early sixteenth century, there is an important sense in which 1572, and the final separation of north and south, merely completed—were the logical outgrowth of—a duality which had, in reality, existed for centuries” (p. vi).

--“During most of the history of the United Provinces, allegiance and identity were based on provincial, civic, and sometimes also local rural sentiment rather than attachment to the Republic as a whole” (p., vi).

-Thus the loose federal structure that evolved was well suited to prevailing attitudes.

--The Dutch speaking provinces, including Flanders, Brabant and Limburg, constituted a single culture in language, art, and literature, which was broken by the Calvinist Reformation in the North. Catholic and Protestant cultures were antagonistic to each other.

--There was no hard and fast boundary between Germany and the Netherlands until the 18^th century.

--Contemporaries were impressed by the Republic’s innovations but not by its multiplicity of religions, the excessive liberties of women, servants and Jews, and the bourgeois flavor of its culture. Moreover, many saw the Republic’s culture as a seedbed of theological, intellectual and social promiscuity.

--Important features of the Dutch Republic

-1590 to 1740—primacy in world shipping and trade

-Technological leader in Europe

-Agricultural innovation

-Low levels of crime

-Military revolution from 1590s o 1648, and then from 1672 to 1713

-Many visitors came for intellectual and artistic pursuits—such as Descartes, Locke, Bayle, Lipsius, Spinoza, Grotius, Rembrandt, Vondel, Huygens, and Vermeer

-Freedom of thought and religion

-Freedom was the banner of the Revolt under William the Silent and freedom, Vryheid, was the reason given for the Perpetual Edict of 1667 that banished the hereditary Stadholder in Holland
2) ON THE THRESHOLD OF THE MODERN ERA
The Rise of Holland

Before about 1200, the principal towns north of the big rivers were Utrecht, Kampen, Deventer, Zwolle, Nijmegen and Zutphen. The low-lying areas from the Scheldt to the Ems estuary were thinly populated.

--Holland’s expansion began with the annexation of West Friesland and control over Zeeland in the late 13^th c.

--By the late 15^th c. Holland’s population was 44% urban, but Brabant and Flanders were still the most populous and highly developed.

--Holland’s maritime trade in the 15^th c was confined to the bulk carrying trade, grain in the Baltic and salt in France and Portugal, and herring, using fully rigged ships.