The prince of Orange's brilliant compromise with religion in the Netherlands
The flexible Orange and the rigid Calvinists. Religious pragmatism in the Early Modern period part 2: The Netherlands. How religious toleration came about and turned out to work quite well.
This article is about pragmatic motives for religious toleration in the Netherlands around 1600.
In 16th century France, as we saw last time, the debate was mainly about multiple religions in one kingdom. Most people did not like the idea of religious diversity, but the Protestant minority had become so large that oppression seemed impossible. If things cannot be done as they should be, then they should be done as they can be, argued French thinkers, the politiques, around 1560, and they advocated limited toleration for Protestants. A number of thinkers went even further. Jean Bodin believed that the king should be above the parties at all costs. Preferably as leader of the national religion. But if the country is religiously divided, the king must also be above the parties in religious terms, to force religious unity again. Sébastien Castellio even went one step further: he fundamentally saw no objection to a religiously divided country.
In France, Castellio's views fell on deaf ears. But there was room for innovation in the Netherlands, as a result of the uprising against the king in distant Madrid. There was room to shuffle the cards in the Low Countries. In this article we see how an unplanned religious toleration that was virtually unprecedented for that time arose. Apart from Castellio, political thinking had hardly preceded this. The situation arose mainly due to manoeuvres by the leader of the rebellion, the Prince of Orange, who had to deal with various power blocs. Everyone had to be rallied behind the fight against the king's troops.
In this episode we will see how the pragmatic Orange tackled this. And we will look at how the inhabitants of the Low Countries learned to deal pragmatically with religious differences and with the dominance of the Calvinist church, which had managed to manoeuvre itself into a preferential position.
The run-up to the uprising
In the Middle Ages there was no such thing as the Netherlands. The area consisted of a cluster of counties, bishoprics and duchies that were part of the immense, feudal German empire. Between 1384 and 1482, the dukes of Burgundy managed to significantly expand their territory. Through inheritance, marriages and purchase they managed to acquire various titles: Count of Holland and Zeeland, Duke of Brabant and Limburg, etc. Duchess Marie of Burgundy was married to the Habsburg Emperor Maximilian. In 1482, Marie died; their son Philippe Le Beau inherited the Burgundian empire. When Emperor Maximilian also died, Philippe was already dead. Philippe’s son Charles V, the grandson of Maximilian and Marie, therefore inherited the Burgundian estate. And just like his grandfather, he managed to acquire the emperorship of the German empire. Thus the Habsburg dynasty became not only emperor of the German empire, but also its own feudal vassal as count or duke of the bundle of lordships that was then called the Burgundian Netherlands.
Immediately upon his appointment as emperor in 1519, Charles had to struggle with the Reformation. Two years earlier, Martin Luther had published his 95 Theses, and his following grew rapidly. Luther had a certain following in the eastern Netherlands, but the Dutch were even more attracted to the Anabaptists, and later especially to the Protestant teachings of Calvin.
Charles had no interest in Protestantism and promised strict punishments for heresy. But he had such a huge empire to govern that the Netherlands received little attention. The Low Countries were also a distant corner for the Vatican; the level of organisation was low, and the Inquisition amounted to little. Charles left the administration of the Burgundy Netherlands to his sister, Marie of Hungary, whose function was similar to that of a viceroy. For her, combating Protestantism was low on the agenda. She had other concerns: there were constant military incursions by French troops on the southern border. And the emperor was in financial need: the tax revenue from the Netherlands had to increase.
In 1555, Felipe II succeeded his father Charles V as king of Spain and lord of the Burgundy Netherlands. He would not become German emperor: that prize went to his uncle. It was also questionable whether it had been such a success: the (partly Protestant) German princes did not like him much. But he had inherited the Netherlands as lord. The principle of cuius regio eius religio of the Peace of Augsburg did not apply to the Netherlands. But Felipe had no doubt about the fact that the monarch determines which religion is followed in his kingdom. In Spain he had already seen the most effective way to deal with these heretics: suppress them immediately. So he would also show that in the Netherlands. Protestantism in his area? Over his dead body! He gave the Inquisition a free hand, and the Vatican increased the number of bishops in the area from four to eighteen.
The rise of Wilhelm of Orange
If anyone in the Netherlands was pragmatic, it was Wilhelm of Orange. Born as the future count of the relatively insignificant German county of Nassau, he became his uncle's heir at a young age. He inherited a large amount of property in the Netherlands, a princely title (that of the French city of Orange, where he never showed himself) and a position as courtier of Emperor Charles. Charles took Wilhelm under his wing in his Brussels court; he saw something in that boy. Step by step, the talented Wilhelm rose in the Brussels pecking order. He grew into just about the most prominent 'Dutch' nobleman, with only the viceroy above him. When Emperor Charles was succeeded by his son Felipe, who started governing the country from Spain, Orange was quietly passed over more and more often; the real decisions were made by the viceroy and her coterie of confidants, in consultation with distant Madrid. Orange became the messenger who had to sell the unpopular policy, without having much influence on it. He gradually developed more and more affinity with the moderate regents in cities such as Antwerp and Amsterdam, rich trading cities that preferred to have as little trouble as possible from the royal cliques in Brussels and Madrid. Cities had no interest in religious fuss; that was bad for trade.
In the meantime, dissatisfaction grew in the Netherlands, mainly because of Felipe's religious policy. Protestant movements increased in size, also in the cities. It caused tensions, especially on the part of the straightforward Felipe, who did not tolerate heresy. Orange gradually became more and more convinced that a long-suffering attitude towards Protestants was the only prudent course. And - although Orange considered himself a Christian and a Catholic - he was averse to sectarianism. As far as he was concerned, the religious differences could be bridged, and the Catholic Church could do with a bit more open-mindedness.
Theology was not for Orange; he was not a theorist anyway. He was vaguely influenced by Erasmian ideas that were common in the Catholic Netherlands of his time, epitomised by the Flemish humanist Joris Cassander. This Catholic had put a lot of energy into the failed Colloquium of Poissy of 1561, a French ecemenic initiative that I wrote about last time. Orange's brother Ludwig of Nassau delved deeper into it, mainly hoping (in vain) for a reconciliation between Lutherans and Calvinists, especially to bring the German princes and the Dutch Calvinists into the same camp.
Isolation
When Orange became aware that he was being sidelined in the Brussels court, he started betting on several horses. He may have envisioned a greater role for himself in the Netherlands: perhaps as a new viceroy, perhaps in a high position when the Netherlands came under the control of the German Empire again. Or maybe even something high if the Netherlands split off.
Outwardly, ties with the Habsburgs remained cordial, but secret correspondence shows that they knew he was up to something. In Germany he began to establish ties with the high nobility, including through a marriage to the daughter of the Lutheran king of Saxony. Orange's Lutheran connections caused distrust in Brussels.
In the Netherlands, the nobility began to stir: the persecutions of heretics led to unnecessary polarisation, they felt, and they warned of a popular uprising. In 1566, 200 nobles drew up a petition, which they presented to the governor. The nobles asked for moderation of the religious persecutions. Orange had not signed, but his brother had worked on the text in the background. The plea was not well received, especially since the nobles began to build up troops secretly across the border, with Orange's knowledge.
When Protestants actually started plundering Catholic churches in many cities that same year, Felipe had reached the limit. He sent the Duke of Alba, a Spanish ironside, with a large army to the Netherlands to put things in order. Alba was secretly ordered to execute all Dutch high nobility, including Orange.
Meanwhile, Orange unsuccessfully plotted a coup to depose the viceroy. With Orange's knowledge, Calvinist forces attempted to take control of Antwerp. His position now became untenable; the Habsburgs were well aware of his double play. He fled to his ancestral castle in Nassau in 1567. That flight wasn't too early; his Dutch possessions were confiscated, and his old companions, the moderate counts of Egmont and Horne, met their end on the scaffold in Brussels.
Exile
Without his income and assets, Orange was now destitute in Germany. He had two options: acquiesce or fight back. If he acquiesced, he would lose his possessions forever. So that was not an option. Then fight back. But his contacts in the German Empire failed him. Protestant German princes had no desire to take on the powerful Habsburgs, and certainly not to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for the Calvinist Dutch. The moderate cities in the Netherlands promised Orange their support, but did not follow through. No one wanted to take up arms for religious toleration. Alba had already dealt with the Dutch nobles, so they remained only a weak power factor. The only ones Orange could count on were a number of predatory warlords and the Dutch Calvinists, militant but weak. This is how the religiously moderate Orange, still a Catholic, unintentionally ended up in the camp of the Calvinists.
Five difficult years would follow, with financial misery and military defeats. But Orange didn't give up. He spent his time expanding his network in the northern Netherlands, spreading propaganda in the Low Countries, attempting to raise money and men, and attempting to build alliances with German princes, the French king, the English queen, French Huguenots, and with dubious warlords. Orange only got the latter on his side, and they succeeded in making the first breaches in the hegemony under Alba. Alba concentrated his forces in the south, where French Huguenots applied pressure. Very hesitantly, the first northern cities decided not to admit any more Spanish troops. The mood in the cities was turning, mainly due to abrupt tax increases by Alba's regime. Even many Catholics supported the fight against Spanish terror. Very gradually the uprising now gained momentum.
Liberator of the Low Countries
In 1572, Orange saw the time was ripe to return to the Netherlands. That year, the rebellious cities in Dordrecht proclaimed him 'their' governor of Holland and commander of the rebel army. It was agreed that there would be freedom of religion: both Catholics and the colourful collection of Protestant movements could freely practise their religion. Moreover, money finally became available for a serious army. Now, the real war started.
Despite that war, the economy in the Netherlands flourished like never before. In 1581, Felipe was renounced as monarch by the provinces in the Act of Abjuration. Initially, an attempt was made to appoint a high foreign noble as a replacement ruler. But when that adventure failed, the provinces decided in 1587 to take matters into their own hands. The Netherlands formed a republic. Orange had already been assassinated by a Catholic Frenchman; the struggle was continued by his sons. But the Spanish Habsburgs did not simply give in. Fighting continued for decades until Felipe's grandson had to give up the fight in 1648 with the Peace of Munster.
Orange's shifting views on religious toleration
Orange's position on religious toleration gradually shifted. Initially, he followed in the footsteps of Charles V. The Catholic Church was the only permitted church. There was freedom of conscience, as long as you kept it discreet. If you started actively building a Protestant community, or even worse, organising a Protestant uprising, the state had to intervene. For example, in 1562, under pressure from the Pope, Wilhelm had a Huguenot uprising in his own principality of Orange suppressed in blood. It became a massive slaughter. On the other hand, on his orders the Huguenots were subsequently allowed to use one church building in Orange.
By the end of 1564, Orange already knew that his influence at court was dwindling. He was done with the cautious court culture and would tell it like it was once in the Council of State. His speech has not been preserved; we have to make do with the notes of councillor Viglius van Aytta. Given the shocked reactions of those present, one can assume that Orange no longer minced words here. Orange remained a staunch Catholic, that wasn’t the issue. But the Church of Rome had made itself impossible with its harsh attitude. The persecution of heretics had to stop, or at least be used very cautiously. He no longer wanted monarchs to “rule over the minds of the people and deprive them of their freedom of faith and religion.” This seems to distinguish Orange from the French politiques in several respects:
Whether the Catholic Church should still remain the state church remained unclear.
He did not talk about allowing Protestant churches as a temporary solution; that admission seemed fundamental and permanent.
He spoke not only about freedom of faith and conscience, but also of religion. It seems that he meant that Protestants should be able to practise their faith openly, in their own communities and in their own buildings, as he had allowed in his principality of Orange a year earlier.
Did Orange himself come up with the far-reaching religious freedom he advocated? That would have been remarkable. Orange was certainly not backward, and he had a wide network, but he was not a thinker. Yet he went further than L'Hospital and Bodin, and I have not come across any pleas for letting go of a dominant church among other thinkers of that time, with the exception of Castellio in his Conseil à la France désolée from 1562. It is conceivable that Orange knew the contents of that pamphlet when he gave his end-of-year speech of 1564; it had been published (anonymously) two years earlier, although it had not yet received wide distribution. With Orange's approval, Castellio's text was adapted for the Dutch situation in 1578 and published as a pamphlet. A daring move, because the Protestant Castellio had become persona non grata for Calvinists; they called him an instrument of Satan.
The fact that Orange really had religious freedom in mind can also be explained in a pragmatic sense. By taking sides he would alienate some of his supporters. Moreover, church movements were much of a muchness for Orange: born in a Lutheran family, raised as a Catholic at the imperial court, and 'converted' to Calvinism in 1573: Orange effortlessly exchanged one faith for another. Not necessarily out of opportunism, but because he probably deeply believed that his Christian faith transcended narrow-minded thinking, in line with the thinking of humanists like Cassander.
The establishment of a general reformed church
Very schematically, from 1570 onwards there were four major power blocs in the Netherlands:
The Catholics loyal to Spain and Rome. These were the opponents of the uprising.
Moderate, general Catholics who sympathised with the uprising. This was a fairly large group, which was also widely supported among intellectuals. Thinkers like Coornhert, for example, were on that side. Orange had quite a lot of affinity and contact with that upper layer.
Calvinists, initially about ten percent of the population, but from 1580 onwards that group slowly increased in size. There were also different gradations among Calvinists: from very strict pastors, straight in doctrine and faithful to the principles of Geneva and Heidelberg, to moderate Calvinist-inspired Protestants such as Philippe de Marnix and Pierre de Villiers, who also had quite a lot of influence in the court of Orange.
Libertines: citizens who actually had little interest in religious issues and who went to church merely for form's sake. This group was particularly overrepresented among regents and merchants of the cities. Orange also got along well with this group.
And then of course you also had the opportunists and the followers of the smaller religions. Lutherans were more likely to be found in the eastern provinces. The Anabaptists, who were mainly north of Amsterdam and in Friesland, had a bad reputation: sectarian, anarchist, rebellious.
Remember that a majority of the population was still Catholic, at least nominally. Also in the cities that had fallen into rebellious hands. Only a few percent of the population had registered as members of a Protestant church. Most of the people ignored the situation or were happy that they no longer had to go to church.
Yet within about ten years the Calvinist church became the official church in the northern Netherlands, a denomination that rapidly came under the control of the orthodox. That miracle is surprisingly poorly documented. I'm venturing into a reconstruction.
Due to Alba's terror, many Calvinists had taken refuge abroad, including the German city of Emden. In 1571, 29 Calvinist preachers met there for a synod; the theological foundations were aligned, and an organisational form was agreed. In no time, the Calvinists had a church organisation in place.
In 1572, some of the Dutch cities were in the hands of the Protestants; others were still Catholic and loyal to the king. The Protestant cities met in Dordrecht, in what they called the first free meeting of the States of Holland. In that meeting they decided, at Orange's proposal, "that it will be held free from religions, both the Reformed and the Roman religion, and that a citizen will use a free exercise of religion in public and in some churches or chapels." There is no mention of an official church. That was also practically unthinkable, because the country was religiously still deeply divided. It is not clear whether Orange was in favour of a universal church at the time. Orange was consistent in his plea for religious freedom. At his insistence, Catholics in Delft were allowed to reintroduce mass in 1572 in a prominent church building.
In February 1573, the Protestant cities of Holland reversed their decision. Cities were ordered to "surrender and cease the exercise of the Roman religion." Orange, always ambiguous about his religious preferences, demonstratively participated in the Calvinist communion in Dordrecht. Military violence was mainly responsible for this turnaround within just a few months. One by one, cities in Holland sided with the uprising, but Alba's troops sowed terror around them. Mechelen, Zutphen and Naarden were captured and massacred; Haarlem was on the verge of falling. Added to this was the news of St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in Paris, where the French Calvinist elite had been slaughtered. The mood in the cities polarised: not a single Catholic was trusted anymore. In Holland it was all hands on deck; Orange could not do without the support of combative Calvinist militias in the cities. Orange will have succumbed to that pressure. He was now officially in the Calvinist camp, and a Calvinist state church was in the offing.
The complications that followed were too chaotic to go into here. Not only was there a fierce military battle going on with the Spanish-minded troops, but religious toleration also varied from city to city, from region to region, and changed at every turn. In the meantime, the number of Calvinists gradually increased.
Religious unity out of patriotism
It was a time of religious polarisation. The battle was not only against the Spanish troops, but also domestic Protestants and Catholics stood head-to-head. Orange continued to frantically try to get everyone on the same page.
In 1576, Orange hired a French thinker, who published an pamphlet: Aux estats et seigneurs des Pays-Bas. The anonymous author, Philippe Duplessis-Mornay, a passionate Calvinist, pretended to be a Catholic. His plea fit neatly into Orange's vein.
In this country there are now two religions. If both may not be professed freely, we will surely make war upon each other. If this should happen, the country will be laid waste and we will lose everything. Let us then live in peace with each other, let us help each other to drive away the Spaniards and their adherents and let us come so close to each other that nothing will ever divide us.
— Philippe Duplessis-Mornay, Aux estats et seigneurs des Pays-Bas (1576), or: Discours sur la permission de liberté de religion, dicte Religions-vrede, au Païs-Bas (1578-1579)1
Castellio had not expressed it so explicitly pragmatically in his Conseil à la France désolée. Castellio emphasised that religious discord and violence were against God's will. He did not mention the national interest. He previously compared the religious disputes to a family quarrel between the children of France that got out of hand.
Mornay must have thought: what did the Protestants and Catholics have in common? Well, they lived in the same country. But national thinking was rare at that time. An average citizen first and foremost felt related to his fellow townsmen. A province was already an abstraction, let alone a country that had never existed, a swampy corner of the German empire.
We need religious toleration to cooperate in the interest of the country.
Duplessis-Mornay
The patriotism argument would not have been accepted in France, where Catholicism was dominant. Concord according to the French Catholic perspective was: unity under the leadership of the Pope and the King. But while Orange wanted two opposing religions to coexist, it was a convincing pragmatic argument if you thought in terms of national unity and prosperity. Could nationalism compensate for the lack of religious unity?
A propaganda machine consciously came into operation under Orange, which started to highlight a shared Dutch past. In 1576 he introduced the word fatherland in his vocabulary and started talking about patriots. Research started into the shared history of the area, the Germanic tribe of the Batavians was studied, and legends were formed about early Dutch heroes.
Freedom of religion under a public church
When the Union of Utrecht was concluded in 1579, in which the rebellious provinces made joint agreements, religious politics was left to the provinces. The bottom line was that only one religion was allowed per province; in practice that very soon came down to Calvinism. The degree of religious freedom for the Catholic Church varied per region, but individual freedom of conscience was enshrined in the Union of Utrecht: “that every private individual may remain free in his religion and that no one may be exposed or suppressed on account of his religion.” These provisions remained leading for the northern Netherlands. The southern regions, including Brabant, Flanders and Limburg, were conquered by the Spanish troops and became Roman Catholic again. It led to a new influx of Calvinists to the north.
This is how a remarkable construction came into being in the northern Netherlands. There was an official, public church: that of the Calvinists. But support remained limited. For membership you had to prove yourself to be a sincere believer. There was no compulsion to believe; there was no compulsion for those who did not want to join or had different beliefs. Foreigners and persons considered foreigners, such as Jews, were allowed to practise their religion freely, as long as they did not seek official recognition and did not want to open public houses of worship. The use of hidden churches by Mennonites, Lutherans, Remonstrants, and even by Catholics, was first opposed, but then turned a blind eye to, if their church community was wealthy enough, in return for payment of a bribe. Later they could buy an official permit by paying enormous sums of money annually, the so-called recognition fees.
What also played a role was that the public administration of the new Republic was a patchwork that could barely keep up with the unprecedented social dynamics.
For believers and non-believers, book writers and printers, it was not difficult to slip through the meshes of the net of laws, especially since the municipal and provincial administrators showed little inclination to actually implement provisions that they had taken out of respect for the Reformed Church. And finally, especially in the province of Holland, there was widespread awareness that a commercial community as diverse as that of the big cities, with so many immigrants and so many foreigners, simply could not afford to be intolerant. How could a metropolis like Amsterdam, the trading centre of Europe with its staple market and its global relations, impose uniformity on the colourful population that lived within its walls? Dutch toleration at that time was undogmatic, pragmatic, and only truly principled to a limited extent.
— Ernst Kossmann, Tolerantie toen en nu (1987)
And, did it work?
Religious toleration in the Netherlands was an experiment, an innovation. Were the French politicians right when they stated that it was not so much the coexistence of multiple religions that was a source of violence, but rather religious oppression from above? One would say so. Things were certainly not peaceful in the first, chaotic decades of the uprising. Unhinged warlords on the side of Orange raged like animals and wiped out entire monasteries. Pro-Spanish troops also behaved like war criminals: cities that had resisted them were put to the sword without reluctance.
On the other hand, once the battle was over, the situation was tense but stable. There were no more heretic persecutions. The civil authorities were on alert: insults could easily get out of hand, so even verbal religious violence was severely punished.
The fact that there was one official church, that of the Calvinists, had a stabilising effect. Catholics had no choice but to accept their loss. That loss was mitigated by the fact that they were given relatively much freedom to continue to practise their religion discreetly. They were also able to continue their economic and social life relatively undisturbed.
The situation also had a moderating effect for the Calvinists. They had won, so there was no more fighting to be done. Because the church had an official status, but did not have a mass following among the population, their position of power did not get out of hand in a totalitarian, Genevan way. In the 17th century, Calvinists also gradually began to realise that Europe would not convert en masse to Calvin's teachings. Especially when migration to Calvinist colonies in North America also became an option, the worst fanaticism abated.
Discord in the Reformed Church
The fact that the Calvinists now formed the official church ensured that it became a fairly broad society. For those who were generally Protestant, the Calvinist church was a logical choice, also for the liberal-minded regent class. If you weren't a member, you weren't an outcast, but there was a blemish attached to you.
The relationship between church and state nevertheless remained a source of tension. The church was financed from public funds. In return, the government wanted control over appointments of pastors and the like, but that power was controversial. On the other hand, the church did desire influence on government policy. For example, religious dissidents within the church had to be dealt with by the government. Not with torture and executions, which had already traumatised everyone under the Spanish, but with fines, a publication ban, prison or exile.
The broad protestant support quickly led to disagreement within the church over theological disputes. That conflict became so heated in the 1610s that it became a matter of state. Should the government intervene in the theological conflict that divided the church? Regents led by the brilliant statesman Van Oldenbarnevelt, a libertine, thought so. The Reformed Church had to remain a broad church, he thought, if necessary under duress. Orange's son and successor Maurits eventually didn't think so: let the church fight it out itself. Maurits won and had Van Oldenbarnevelt executed. Nassau's motive is a matter of speculation, but it could be that he could do better with an orthodox-Calvinist sanctuary as the official church than with a broad, divided state church. The orthodox Calvinists got their way and expelled the liberal minority from the church, who would continue to go through life as the Remonstrants. It was the first Dutch split in Calvinism; dozens more would follow over the centuries.
The existence of an official church sparked a discussion: what to do if you do not agree with the orthodox teachings? Although the death penalty for heresy was a thing of the past, you could still get into trouble. Don't underestimate that. Especially as a pastor or member of the church, you had to be careful: deviation from the catechism and the Canons of Dort could get you into serious trouble. And although there was considerably more freedom for non-Calvinists: you were not allowed to challenge the pastors in public. Even in 1668, the freethinker Adriaen Koerbach was sentenced to a fine of 4,000 guilders, ten years in a house of correction, and, if he survived, ten years in exile because of his theological ideas. Koerbach died from the hardships after just one year in the house of correction. Thinkers in Spinoza's circles were therefore extremely reluctant to publish their views.
Libertines and Nicodemites in the Netherlands
With the dominance of official Calvinism, Nicodemism came into vogue: adhere to orthodoxy to the outside world, but inwardly keep your own ideas for yourself. In a way, it was a reversal of toleration: disapprove of ideas, but don't speak out against them, because of the consequences, that is, out of pragmatism. Characteristic of Nicodemism was that one did not talk about it openly. So we don't know who had that attitude to religion, but there must have been quite a few.
The central figure in Dutch Nicodemism was Justus Lipsius, although he would never recognise himself in that qualification. Lipsius, we read about him before, hated religious fanatics. They had to be dealt with, to prevent religious polarisation. He warned that, as a citizen, one had to be careful not to get carried away by religious disputes. Lipsius published De constantia in 1584, an outspoken plea for a Stoic attitude to life. That book had influence throughout Europe in its time. It was mainly about living in a politically violent society. He hardly talked about religious disputes and intolerance, but a good listener knew enough. If an official theological position is imposed, accept it if you do not agree with it. Let it slide and just get on with your life.
The mathematician Simon Stevin wrote in Het burgerlijke leven (1590) that he also saw that most people did not believe in the doctrines of the Calvinists. But do you, as an ordinary citizen, really think that you can form an opinion about all kinds of theological subtleties? Be realistic, Stevin thought. Outwardly do what the church expects of you, while having your private thoughts about it. Religious unrest is in no one's interest. And if you really can't find it in your heart to resign yourself, then move to a country where your beliefs are practised.
Lipsius was probably a member of a mysterious society: the Familia Caritatis (the House of Love) of the mystic Heinrich Niclaes. That society had branches throughout the country, and had many members among the intellectual elite of the time. Membership was secret, and so were the activities. The society appealed to libertines who denied or strongly relativised the authority of the church over believers or society. To the outside world they kept up the appearance that they were a professing member of the church. But what really mattered was their personal relationship with God, or with the divine within themselves.
The groups that were referred to as libertine among Calvinists were in reality very diverse. On the one hand you had the group of believers who mainly considered themselves “generally Christian”. They paid as little attention as possible to dogmas imposed from above. They believed in an undivided church, a life according to their own conscience, according to Biblical instructions. Theological insights of church leaders, whether it was the Pope or Calvin, were largely considered ephemeral. Neo-Stoicism was popular among this group.
Then there were the spiritualists, which I was just talking about. Furthermore, there was the group that would later be referred to as Arminians or Remonstrants. I already wrote about that above. They were initially still professing members of the Reformed Church, but had strong disagreements with Calvinist orthodoxy. Paradoxically, they were ultimately expelled from the church because they envisioned a broad people's church, in which it should be possible to have theologically diverse viewpoints.
The last group consisted of hardcore Nicodemic libertines. Agnostics, perhaps even atheists, or followers of what the Dutch today call somethingism. Or they were libertines who felt that church morality was something for the masses, but did not apply to themselves. The top layer of the intellectual, commercial and administrative Netherlands was teeming with these Nicodemites from around 1580 onwards. With some empathy one might include father and son, Wilhelm of Orange and Maurits of Nassau, with their disinterest in theology and their licentious lifestyle. The leading statesman of his time, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt, openly had as his credo nil scire tutissima fides: knowing nothing is the safest belief. He only went to church if he really had no other option. The libertine poet, networker and administrator Pieter Cornelisz. Hooft hated religious fanatics and was strongly influenced by Lipsius' neo-Stoicism. Hooft translated a poem by the infamous French libertine Théophile de Viau. De Viau, who lived in the Netherlands in the 1610s, fought with the Catholics against the Huguenots out of opportunism, but anonymously published sexually and religiously highly offensive works. In 1626 he ended up on the scaffold in Paris for heretical views and his libertine lifestyle.
It seems that Calvinism was a masquerade for parts of the Dutch elite. Outwardly show yourself to be pious and loyal, but amongst gentlemen, dismiss it with a wink. Calvinism was dominant because there had to be a general religion, because morality without religion was still unthinkable, and also to keep the plebs under control. But a gentleman of rank was free to have completely different thoughts entre nous.
The merchant and the preacher
That there are two characters in the Dutch soul, the merchant and the preacher, has now become a platitude. But that doesn't make it any less true. We have now discussed the pragmatic merchant in detail. By the preacher I do not so much mean the orthodox Calvinist ministers, but in a broader sense the quarrelsome, dogmatic sectarians who think they have it all right. We discussed pragmatic toleration in the Netherlands. The dogmatic arguments for toleration have not yet been addressed. The dogmatic arguments of Dirck Coornhert, Hugo Grotius, Pierre Bayle and Baruch Spinoza will certainly be discussed later.
In addition to the well-known arguments derived from Jesus, stoicism and scepticism, two motives played the leading role: the very gradual unbundling of morality and faith, and the equally gradual unbundling of church and state. Both can easily be seen as the first throes of secularisation, a centuries-long process that is still ongoing in Europe. The core question was: won't the country descend into debauched chaos if church morality becomes an individual matter of conscience? This fear of chaos had gripped Europe since the Reformation, where the unity of religion was concerned. But the situation in the Netherlands since approximately 1580 has shown that the loss of religious unity was not so bad. Multiple faiths in one country actually turned out to function quite well.
Most of the pragmatic arguments for religious toleration have been discussed in this and the previous episode, but a number of them are still missing. I have not yet encountered dialectical arguments in particular: that conflicting views lead to a better insight. That argument played a major role in the Enlightenment, with Spinoza, Hegel and John Stuart Mill, among others. And the pragmatic argument that commercial interests require religious toleration has only been encountered since the end of the 17th century. And I have not yet looked at pragmatic arguments for toleration in England. If that provides enough material, I will combine those three topics in the next article. If not, we will further explore the dogmatic arguments for religious tolerance in the next episode. You'll see.
For further reading
Johannes Reitsma, Geschiedenis van de hervorming en de Hervormde Kerk der Nederlanden (1893)
Peter de Jong, The rise of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands, in: Peter de Jong (red.), Crisis in the Reformed Churches - Essays in commemoration of the Great Synod of Dort (1968)
Genootschap Orde van den Prince, Apologie van Willem van Oranje, hertaling en evaluatie na vierhonderd jaar 1580–1980 (1980)
Nicolette Mout, Het intellectuele milieu van Willem van Oranje, BMGN Low Countries Historical Review (1984)
Ernst Kossmann, Tolerantie toen en nu (1984)
Martin van Gelderen, The political thought of the Dutch revolt 1555–1590 (1992)
Jonathan Israel, The Dutch republic: its rise, greatness, and fall 1477–1806 (1995)
R. Po-Chia Hsia, Henk van Nierop (ed.), Calvinism and religious toleration in the Dutch Golden Age (2002)
Michiel Wielema, The march of the libertines: Spinozists and the Dutch Reformed Church 1660–1750 (2004)
Benjamin Kaplan, Divided by faith. Religious conflict and the practice of toleration in early modern Europe (2007)
Jan Kikkert, Maurits van Nassau (2008)
Catherine Secretan, Simon Stevin’s Vita politica. Het Burgherlick leven (1590). A practical guide for civic life in the Netherlands at the end of the sixteenth century, De Zeventiende Eeuw (2012)
Herman van Duinen, Statenvergadering en Unie van Dordrecht. Met welke bril kijken we?, Dordrecht Monumenteel (2013)
René van Stipriaan, De zwijger: het leven van Willem van Oranje (2021)
This was the fourteenth newsletter in a long series on Toleration and Christianity. An overview of all articles in this series can be found in the overview article Toleration in the history of Christianity.
To remain focused, I want to finish this series first, before we switch back to the series about Morality and Toleration.
Heraklion, 9 December, 2023
I couldn’t find Mornays Aux estats et seigneurs des Pays-Bas from 1576, but I did find a fragment from a pamphlet by the same author: Discours sur la permission de liberté de religion, dicte Religions-vrede, au Païs-Bas, allegedly from 1578-1579. Possibly it is the same text. The purport seems identical.