Transregional Territories: Crossing Borders in the Early Modern Low Countries and Beyond (Habsburg Worlds, 2) 9782503584935, 2503584934

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Transregional Territories

Habsburg Worlds volume 2 General Editor Violet Soen, KU Leuven Editorial Board Tamar Herzog, Harvard University Yves Junot, Université Polytechnique Hauts de France Géza Pálffy, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of History José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, Universidad de Murcia, Red Columnaria Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster Joachim Whaley, University of Cambridge

Transregional Territories Crossing Borders in the Early Modern Low Countries and Beyond

Edited by Bram De Ridder, Violet Soen, Werner Thomas & Sophie Verreyken

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Cover illustration: Peter Snayers, The Siege of a city, probably the Siege of Jülich by the Spanish Army under the command of Count Henri vanden Bergh, 5 September 1621-3 February 1622, c. 1622-1666, oil on canvas, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (© Rijksmuseum http://hdl.handle.net/10934/ RM0001.COLLECT.7033)

© 2020, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2020/0095/69 ISBN 978-2-503-58493-5 eISBN 978-2-503-58494-2 DOI 10.1484/M.HW-EB.5.117582 ISSN 2565-8476 eISSN 2565-9545 Printed in the EU on acid-free paper.

Table of Contents

Preface7 List of Illustrations 9 Introduction  ransregional History: New Perspectives on Early Modern T Borders and Borderlands in the Low Countries and the Habsburg Worlds Bram De Ridder and Violet Soen

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PART I Transregional Families  pper Guelders’s Four Points of the Compass: U Historiography and Transregional Families in a Contested Border Region between the Empire, the Spanish Monarchy, and the Dutch Republic Raingard Esser  ransregional Marriages and Strategies of Loyalty: The House T of Arenberg Navigating between the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs, 1630–1700  Sophie Verreyken

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PART II Cross-Border Circulations  egotiating Consensual Loyalty to the Habsburg Dynasty: N Francophone Border Provinces between the Low Countries and France, 1477–1659 Yves Junot and Marie Kervyn

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 ranche-Comté, the Low Countries, and the Catholic Backbone F of Seventeenth-Century Europe: Transregional and Cross-Border Circulations of Devotional Practices and Artistic Knowledge Patricia Subirade  ow Local Politics Became a Matter of Transregional Concern: H German and Dutch Pamphlets Calling Jülich Nobility to Assemble in Cologne, 1642–1651 Christel Annemieke Romein

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PART III Border Management  e Scheldt Estuary during the Dutch Revolt: War, Trade, and Th Taxation, 1572–1609 Victor Enthoven

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 order Management during the Eighty Years’ War: Passports for B Persons Crossing the New Habsburg-Dutch Border, 1568–1648 Bram De Ridder

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‘Cannon Law’ during the Politique des Réunions: French Power Politics at the Bidasoa Border and the Crisis of the Customary Law of Nations Fernando Chavarría Múgica Notes on Contributors Index of Names Index of Places

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Preface

The editors wish to express their warmest thanks to the FWO — Research Foundation Flanders and the KU Leuven BOF — Research Council for their project funding, which made it possible for the Early Modern History Research Group at the Faculty of Arts to establish www.transregionalhistory.eu in 2012. This joint research effort focuses on the study of early modern borders and borderlands, along three thematic axes. The scope of this volume relates foremost to investigations dealing with borders and territoriality. The FWO-doctoral fellowship of Bram De Ridder (Ph.D. 2016, supervisor Violet Soen) examined Strategies of border management: the evolution of the boundaries between the Habsburg Netherlands and the Dutch Republic, ca. 1580–1660, and his BOF-postdoctoral mandate of KU Leuven explored the notions of transregional territories in Between safe haven and common ground: assuming territorial neutrality in the civil wars of early modern Europe (KU Leuven PDM 3H160304, supervisor Violet Soen). Today, the focus on borders and borderlands is pursued within the perspective of applied history, through the Corvus-project, devoted to Developing historical societal consultancy as a strategic resource in times of change (FWO SBO-grant S003419N, supervisors Violet Soen, Bram De Ridder and Bart Willems). A second focus examines the fate of transregional families, both on the Franco-Habsburg border and in the wider Habsburg World. The FWO-project Hispano-Flemish elites in the Habsburg Netherlands. Transregional marriages and mixed identities, 1659–1708 (FWO 3H130582, supervisors Werner Thomas and Violet Soen, and Ph.D.-researcher Sophie Verreyken) finds its expression in the first part of the volume. The forthcoming edited volume by Violet Soen and Yves Junot, Noblesses transrégionales: les Croÿ et les frontières pendant les guerres de religion (France, Lorraine et Pays-Bas, xvi e-xvii e siècle) (Brepols) analyses the fate of one concrete noble house in the fractured borderlands between the Low Countries, France and Lorraine. Finally, the third research axe analyses transregional reformations. This was possible through the project The making of transregional Catholicism. Printing culture in the ecclesiastical province of Cambrai (KU Leuven OT/2013/33, supervisors Violet Soen and Johan Verberckmoes, and Ph.D. 2017, Alexander Soetaert). This group published Transregional Reformations: Crossing Borders in Early Modern Europe (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019), together with Wim François. The reworked version of Alexander Soetaert’s award-winning dissertation has appeared as De katholieke drukpers in de kerkprovincie

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Kamerijk: Contacten, mobiliteit & transfers in een grensgebied (1559–1659) in the KVAB series (Peeters). This edited volume on transregional territories follows an international conference titled Borders and Barriers in the Habsburg Worlds, hosted on 19 and 20 November 2015 in Leuven. H.S.H. the Duke d’Arenberg, the Arenberg Foundation and KU Leuven’s Doctoral School of Humanities and Social Sciences provided indispensable financial support for inviting both senior and junior scholars to Leuven. The editors wish to thank all who assisted in the preparation of this conference and volume, especially the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions, and Dr. Ryan McGuinness for his assistance in editing the linguistic aspects of this volume. They also thank the staff at Brepols Publishers, and especially Chris VandenBorre, for their continued support in mapping the early modern Habsburg Worlds. The Editors July 2019/January 2020

List of Illustrations

Fig. 2.1 Tetrarchia Ducatus Gelriae Rvraemvndensis, in Johannes Blaeu, Atlas maior, sive Cosmographia Blaviana, Qua Solvm, Salvm, Coelvm, Accvratissime Describvntvr, 11 vols (Amsterdam: Johannes Blaeu, 1662–1665), iv (1662), n.p. — p. 26–27 Fig. 3.1 Genealogical table of the Arenberg family — p. 56 Fig. 5.1 Religious Borders in Seventeenth Century Europe: the Catholic Limes (map) — p. 109 Fig. 5.2 École franc-comtoise, Notre-Dame Libératrice de Salins, c. 1650 — p. 112 Fig. 5.3 Eryci Puteani Diva Virgo Bellifontana in sequanis: Loci ac pietatis descriptio, originem (Antwerp: Ex officina Plantiniana Balthasar Moretus, 1631), title page — p. 115 Fig. 5.4 Philippe Chifflet, Histoire du prieuré Nostre-Dame de Bellefontaine au comté de Bourgogne (Antwerp: Ex officina Plantiniana Balthasar Moretus, 1631), title page — p. 116 Fig. 5.5 Anatoile Chastel, Engraving of the Triumphal Arch of Dole, 1609 — p. 121 Fig. 5.6 Crossing the Inter-Faith Boundary during the Ten Years’ War (1635–1644): Migration Flow from Franche-Comté (map) — p. 128 Fig. 5.7 Claude Fraichot (Fréchot), Vierge de Miséricorde, c. 1645 — p. 134 Fig. 5.8 A Cross-Border Workspace: Circulations of Artists between Franche-Comté and the Canton of Fribourg (map) — p. 136 Fig. 6.1 Iuliacensis et Montensis Ducatus = De Hertoghdomen Gulick en Berghe (Amsterdam: Wilhelm Janszoon Blaeu, 1635) — p. 141 Fig. 8.1 Brabantia, in Wilhelm Janszoon Blaeu, Toonneel des Aerdriicx Ofte Nievwe Atlas, Dat is beschryving van alle Landen, 2 vols (Amsterdam: Wilhelm Janszoon and Johannes Blaeu, 1635), i, n.p. — p. 191 Fig. 8.2 Fossa Sanctae Mariae, in Wilhelm Janszoon Blaeu, Toonneel des Aerdriicx Ofte Nievwe Atlas, Dat is beschryving van alle Landen, 2 vols (Amsterdam: Wilhelm Janszoon and Johannes Blaeu, 1635), i, n.p. — p. 192

Introduction

Bram De Ridder and Violet Soen 

Transregional History New Perspectives on Early Modern Borders and Borderlands in the Low Countries and the Habsburg Worlds Today, early modern history can no longer be considered to be borderless, as older studies about globalization and overseas trade may have suggested. Contemporary concerns have enticed scholars to reconsider their ideas about pre-modern connectivity and networks. Recent debates about walls, (il)legal migration, and territorial geopolitics reveal that even a highly globalized society such as our own does not stop to consider division and separation on a spatial basis, regardless of its interconnectivity. It was no coincidence that the 2017 American Historical Review Conversation focused on the topic of ‘Walls, Borders, and Boundaries in World History’.1 As such, historians currently question if the field of early modern global history might have placed too much precedence on connection over division and entanglement over disentanglement, or if it perhaps glossed over the territorial boundaries that were part and parcel of the early modern world. Largely preceding these present-day concerns, however, was a small subsection of early modernist historians who have already engaged with the classic historiographical debate concerning the origins of borders and territoriality. The commonly accepted starting point for this revival is Peter Sahlins’s 1989 book Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees, a work that discredited the idea that only central governments created national borders. Sahlins replaced the old top-down view on border formation with a story that paid particular attention to the interaction between rulers and their subjects in the borderlands, showing how nations and territories actually grow bottom-up.2 Gradually, a wider range of scholars adopted his argument

1 Uncoincidentally, the conversation opened with a reference to US President Donald Trump’s ‘build that wall’ mantra: Suzanne Conklin Akbari and others, ‘AHR Conversation: Walls, Borders, and Boundaries in World History’, The American Historical Review, 122 (2017), 1501–53. 2 Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). More recently: Frontiers and the Writing of History, 1500‒1800, ed. by Steven G. Ellis and Raingard Esser (Hannover: Wehrhahn, 2006); Les Sociétés de frontière de la Méditerranée à l’Atlantique (XVIe‒XVIIIe siècle), ed. by Michel Bertrand and Natividad Planas (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2011); and Charles S. Maier, Once within Borders: Territories of Power, Wealth, and Belonging since 1500 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016); Fronteras. Procesos y prácticas de integración y conflictos entre Europa y América (siglos XVI-XX), ed. by Valentina Favarò, Manfredi Merluzzi, and Gaetano Sabatini (Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2017). Transregional Territories: Crossing Borders in the Early Modern Low Countries and Beyond, ed. by Bram De Ridder, Violet Soen, Werner Thomas, and Sophie Verreyken, HW 2 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 13–19.

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by examining border formation in pre-modern and early modern societies, as these were periods when people were not yet (fully) wedded to the idea of the nation-state. More often than not, as Lauren Benton and Tamar Herzog make clear in their pivotal monographs of 2010 and 2015 respectively, agentdriven networks formed the basis for a renewed conception of early modern territoriality, one in which kings and governments appear as reactive forces when compared to their more proactive subjects.3 Moreover, the fundamental tension that existed between division and encounter is by now quite well known amongst modern and early modern historians, as the associated field of border(land) studies strongly emphasizes that territorial boundaries both separated and connected people, and usually did both simultaneously. The geographical location where two (or more) polities, religions, mentalities, or ethnicities split was also the place where they met, forcing border historians to incorporate all of these aspects into their work and to discuss the combined mechanics of dissociation and association. To capture the ambivalent impact of borders, most early modernists turned to transnational history as a useful methodological tool. This concept had been explicitly designed to study cross-border movements and connection from the early nineteenth century to more contemporary times, as it offered a powerful counter-narrative to dominant national histories of borders, as well as to the associated narrative that most countries have natural boundaries.4 However, this use of transnational history introduced a new ambiguity in early modern border research, namely the difference between pre-modernity and modernity. The fact that there were not yet fully developed nations in the sixteenth or seventeenth century makes it difficult to explain what exactly trans-national history is supposed to supersede for this period. Scholars such as Bartolomé Yun Casalilla argued that, in order for transnational history to apply before the nineteenth century, the notion of nation simply needs to be re-defined according to early modern principles. Despite such arguments, transnational history remains a borrowed term, one that was never intended to fully fit with the border mechanics of the early modern period.5 As such, instead of being a conceptual help, transnational history risks to distort our view of some key aspects of pre-nineteenth century territoriality.



3 Lauren Benton, A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400‒1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Tamar Herzog, Frontiers of Possession: Spain and Portugal in Europe and the Americas (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015). Compare with: Cátia A. P. Antunes, Cutting Corners: When Borders, Culture and Empire do not Matter, Inaugural lecture by Prof. dr. C. A. P. Antunes on her acceptance of the position of professor of History of Global Economic Networks: Merchants, Entrepreneurs and Empires at Leiden University on Friday, 9 June 2017. 4 Pierre-Yves Saunier, Transnational History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013); Bernhard Struck, Kate Ferris, and Jacques Revel, ‘Introduction: Space and Scale in Transnational History’, International History Review, 33 (2011), 573–84. 5 Bartolomé Yun Casalilla, ‘“Localism”, Global History and Transnational History: A Reflection from the Historian of Early Modern Europe’, Historisk Tidskrift, 127 (2007), 659–78.

i n t ro d u ct i o n : TRANSREGIONAL HISTORY

Over the past few years, members of the Early Modern History Research Group at KU Leuven have made it their shared endeavour to deal with these methodological, theoretical, and historiographical challenges.6 Through their research, they explored the advantages that the concept of ‘transregional history’ might offer for the study of barriers, borders, and borderlands. Transregional history points out that early modern boundaries were not the outcome of actions pursued at one spatial level (be it local, regional, national, transnational, or global), but simultaneously existed at multiple negotiated levels.7 This focus on multiple levels and different types of (overlapping) constructed spaces — which contrasts with the nation-oriented focus of transnational history — highly enriches our view of the open versus closed dynamics of the particular borders and borderlands under scrutiny. Effectively, by incorporating a spatial ‘sliding scale’, transregional history makes it possible to observe how one border meant different things to a variety of actors, ranging, for example, from government officials who unsuccessfully enforced control measures over religiously and commercially inspired book traders exploring cross-border markets to noblemen encountering cultural and linguistic boundaries associated with a territorial barrier. For some actors, a border could be temporarily ‘closed’, whereas for others it was permanently ‘open’. Moreover, while one could easily cross a territorial boundary at one place, one often found it difficult to circumvent at others. Transregional history thus avoids the periodical focus on national boundaries engrained in transnational history, even though it still requires the definition of the multiple spatial and social levels it encounters. In this sense, the transregional method avoids two particular biases: one that sees the early modern states and their borders as foreshadowing the strong divisions that we encounter today; and another that sees early modern globalization as easy and unhindered by territorial constraints. Within its shared focus on transregional history, the Early Modern History Research Group convened an international conference on 19 and 20 November 2015, titled Borders and Barriers in and around the Habsburg World, in order to experiment with the Low Countries as an apt ‘laboratory’ for



6 We recommend viewing our website www.transregionalhistory.eu to learn more about projects and publications related to the theme of crossing borders in early modern times, and our two corresponding conference volumes Transregional Reformations: Crossing Borders in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Violet Soen and others (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019), and Noblesses transrégionales: les Croÿ et les frontières pendant les guerres de religion (France, Lorraine et Pays-Bas, XVI e-XVII e siècle), ed. by Violet Soen and Yves Junot (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming 2020). 7 Violet Soen, Bram De Ridder, and others, ‘How to do Transregional History: A Concept, Method and Tool for Early Modern Border Research’, Journal of Early Modern History, 21 (2017), 343–64. The connection with borders and borderlands also makes this approach different from that of Mona Hassan, who used the term ‘transregional history’ for a study that was both geographically and temporally wider: Mona Hassan, Longing for the Lost Caliphate: A Transregional History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017).

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border formation and border management in the early modern era. We asked participants to reflect upon two guiding principles from our ongoing research. First, just as transnational history aims to negate or circumvent the dominant idea of the nation-state and its interest in creating and maintaining territorial divisions, transregional history wants to avoid a simplified focus on singular early modern separations, be they political, cultural, or confessional, by tracking what moved along and across these boundaries. This first transregional guideline served primarily as an invitation to question what transcended the boundaries of a region instead of highlighting how they separated one ‘unique’ area from the next. The second guideline requested that participants follow historical actors as they shifted from one course of action to another in dealing with the multiple borders of the Low Countries and their connected territories. For example, by following a single discontent inhabitant from the Low Countries in his or her dealing with the border, one can see how this boundary was perceived and operated by the inhabitant him- or herself, while also examining the judicial courts he or she solicited and the governor who had to instruct these courts. In other words, through this one actor, we not only observe how the border ‘worked’ at the local level, but also how it functioned at an intermediate level, and even at the level of the highest authorities within the Low Countries. Thus, the objective of the studies gathered in this volume is to reflect upon the case of the lowlands at the North Sea as borderlands and, by doing so, to (re-)evaluate the working and impact of early modern borders more generally. By the sixteenth century, the southern and eastern regions of the Low Countries had already existed as borderlands for centuries, as the area had functioned as a frontier since at least the Roman era. During the Middle Ages, the position of the Low Countries as borderlands of France and the Holy Roman Empire continued to shift, a process that culminated in the establishment of the Burgundian-Habsburg territory during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To the west and north of these lands lay the North Sea, which both separated them from and connected them to important trading partners in England, Scotland, Scandinavia, and the Baltic. Starting with the reign of Charles V, the Low Countries gradually transformed into the northern ‘bulwark’ of the polycentric Spanish monarchy and became gradually known as the ‘Seventeen Provinces’. Yet, a new border emerged when the Eighty Years’ War of 1568‒1648 came to separate the Dutch Republic of United Provinces from the remaining Spanish Habsburg Netherlands. Progressing on the example of earlier edited collections, this volume shows that the early modern Low Countries were indeed a region where borders constantly shifted due to incessant war; where new and old boundaries raised crucial questions of loyalty; and where ruling a territory depended upon constant administrative innovation based on the legitimacy of older laws and practices.8 8 Boundaries and their Meanings in the History of the Netherlands, ed. by Benjamin Kaplan, Marybeth Carlson, and Laura Cruz (Leiden: Brill, 2009); Networks, Regions and Nations: Shaping Identities in the Low Countries, 1300‒1650, ed. by Robert Stein and Judith Pollmann

i n t ro d u ct i o n : TRANSREGIONAL HISTORY

The contributions in this volume reveal when, where, and how actors, ranging from kings to carpenters and from merchants to artists, influenced the territorial divisions they encountered. With the Low Countries forming the geographical focal-point to this volume, the contributions circle around the region, offering a comprehensive view on how these lands were connected to and separated from other territories. In the east, Raingard Esser focusses on the contested border region of Guelders, whereas Annemieke Romein discusses the nearby German Duchy of Jülich. To the south, Yves Junot and Marie Kervyn debate the border between the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands and France. Even further south, Patricia Subirade discusses the Franche-Comté as a borderland, a region that was geographically detached from the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands yet had close connections with them through shared institutions. Looking westward, Victor Enthoven studies the North Sea and the Scheldt river as maritime borders between the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands and the Dutch Republic, a separation which Bram De Ridder also examines regarding the Habsburg-Dutch land border to the north and east. Finally, Sophie Verreyken and Fernando Chavarría Múgica go overseas and over rivers, as they discuss how the borders of the Spanish empire as a whole were enforced and overruled. Three conclusions emerge out of this geographical tour along and across the borders of the Low Countries. The first is that transregional history reinterprets territorial practices by connecting them to what is happening across the border. The chapters of Raingard Esser and Sophie Verreyken best illustrate this idea, and they are placed into a first part dedicated to transregional families.9 As transregional history seeks to connect what are otherwise strictly delineated territories with what is happening outside of them, Esser’s chapter exemplifies the impact of cross-border influences between the Low Countries and the neighbouring principalities of the Holy Roman Empire. The contribution of Esser shows how historiography in contested border regions, such as Habsburg Upper Guelders, proved to be important in creating open-ended accounts of changing borders in the past. As such, it accommodated the ambitions of and weathered the backlashes from local elite and noble families, which had become transregional because of the region’s ever-changing borders. Next, Sophie Verreyken highlights that especially the Arenberg dynasty, tied to both the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs, navigated the many boundaries of continental Europe to enhance its own glory, while the Spanish Crown



(Leiden: Brill, 2010). L’Identité au pluriel: Jeux et enjeux des appartenances autour des anciens Pays-Bas, XIVe‒XVIIIe siècles / Identity and Identities: Belonging at Stake in and around the Low Countries, 14th‒18th Centuries, ed. by Violet Soen, Yves Junot, and Florian Mariage (Villeneuve d’Ascq: Revue du Nord, 2014). 9 For more on this, also see Transregional and Transnational Families in Europe and Beyond: Experiences since the Middle Ages, ed. by Christopher H. Johnson and others (New York: Berghahn, 2011).

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was forced to recognize the mobility of the aristocracy and elites within its boundaries and tried to handle the multiple identities that resulted from this. The second conclusion is that transregional history allows us to analyse matters of identity together with social and spatial influences. This is primarily observable in the contributions of Yves Junot and Marie Kervyn, Patricia Subirade, and Annemieke Romein in the second part. These four authors illustrate the idea that territorial borders function as focal points for the separation and connection of (emerging) identities. Junot and Kervyn, for example, show that border identities in the French-speaking provinces of the Low Countries became an interesting laboratory for making or breaking loyalty to the dynasty. In the polycentric Spanish monarchy, ideological identification with both the Crown and Catholicism was crucial, but for those living in the border zones this identification was intertwined with their struggle against France, the dynasty’s arch-enemy. Nonetheless, consensual practices and cross-border migration mitigated some of the ideological divisions in these frontier societies. Likewise, Patricia Subirade shows how the Spanish monarchy might have formed the background of a shared Marial devotion between the Low Countries and the Franche-Comté, but at the same time she also illustrates how the concrete adaptations and variations of this devotion fostered new regional and local identities. Through this process, the border with Protestant Swiss cantons proved to be both a geographical and symbolic division, yet one that was transcended by Catholics in times of crisis, or by artists, specifically, in times of opportunity. Next, Annemieke Romein shows how Dutch elites became very interested in what appeared to be a matter of local concern in a neighbouring territory. A conflict between the nobility and the overlord of the Duchy of Jülich spilled over into next-door Cologne, where disgruntled Jülich nobles started to assemble, and into the Dutch Republic, since pamphlets discussing the Jülich crisis also targeted a Dutch audience. Hence, transregional history illustrates the complexity of social and geographical levels on which historical actors operated when dealing with borders. As a third conclusion, transregional history offers a unique multi-level view of governmental and institutional innovation through the lens of border management, which is illustrated in the last part of the volume. This argument connects the contributions of Victor Enthoven, Bram De Ridder, and Fernando Chavarría Múgica, as all authors of the third part show that the management of a border stimulates change in the political and legal administration of the adjacent territories. Given the fact that a state, whatever its form and purpose, cannot claim to exist without a territory, border management increasingly became a key focal point for many early modern governments. It is therefore no coincidence that Enthoven’s and De Ridder’s chapters, which deal with the creation of two new territorial entities (i.e. the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands), both observe that a variety of governing practices grew out of the need to defend and control the borders of these polities. This focus on two new territories should, however, not obscure

i n t ro d u ct i o n : TRANSREGIONAL HISTORY

the fact that border management in older states also led to political and legal innovations. Fernando Chavarría Múgica’s arguments concerning the Franco-Spanish border are illustrative, as he shows how a new French political and legal strategy forced the Spanish government to adapt its own management strategies and the narrative behind them. Crucially, all three authors also stress the role of local actors living along the border, as they not only reacted to the steps taken by governments, but also took action on their own and thereby affected the results of the confrontation between the states. Echoing arguments from recent early modern border studies as well as from studies on state-building from below, transregional history offers a new conception of ‘border-building from below’.10 Taken together, all of the volume’s authors demonstrate that the borders of the early modern Netherlands became a constituent part of the life of the people living along these frontier regions. The chapters combine to show that historical actors were highly conscious about the presence of borders and that these separations offered them both limitations and opportunities. In fact, all borders, even those sometimes considered as ‘natural’ frontiers, were clearly man-made. Since they were made by people, some used the separation to gain an advantage, whereas others sought to avoid or negate its influence. Hence, borders could be barriers as well as enablers, shaping early modern interaction in either case. Moreover, all of the chapters in this volume highlight what can be gained by applying transregional history to the study of the early modern period. They illustrate how the presence of levelled and multiple borders forced actors to choose between several options to cross, circumvent, contest, challenge, or ignore the territorial boundary. Since they had to decide on a course of action, borders, such as those of the Low Countries, offer a unique view into the operations of and changes within early modern society: some strategies of border management remained available during the early modern period, whilst others became gradually closed-off, and still others were newly established. It is this variation and variability that transregional history reveals.

10 Herzog, Frontiers of Possession: Empowering Interactions: Political Culture and the Emergence of the State in Europe 1300‒1900, ed. by Willem Pieter Blockmans, André Holenstein, and Jon Mathieu (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009).

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PART I

Transregional Families

Raingard Esser 

Upper Guelders’s Four Points of the Compass Historiography and Transregional Families in a Contested Border Region between the Empire, the Spanish Monarchy, and the Dutch Republic In his Historia Ecclesiastica Ducatis Geldriae, published in Brussels in 1719, Johannes Knippenbergh, then pastor of Helden, later dean of Kessel and dedicated amateur historian, wanted to set the record of his native country straight: so far, he argued, the history of the Duchy of Guelders had been dominated by accounts from the pens of Protestant authors, whose sarcasm and ridicule of the duchy’s Catholic past and present had overshadowed their writings.1 It was now time for a readjustment of their version of history and this was the aim of his study. Knippenbergh’s book was dedicated to the Bishop of Roermond, Count Angelo D’Ongnies et D’Estree. In his dedication to the bishop, Knippenbergh gave a brief survey of the current, complicated state of the duchy, highlighting the recent peace treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt and their consequences for the war-torn border region of the Dutch Republic, the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands and the Holy Roman Empire. Although Knippenbergh’s title suggested an ecclesiastical history of the Duchy of Guelders, it was mainly Upper Guelders which was at the centre of his study. Upper Guelders, the Overkwartier, had been a part of the Duchy of Guelders since the Middle Ages, and formed one of the four quarters of a territory which stretched from the Zuiderzee in the north to Montfort, bordering on the prince-bishopric of Liège, in the south. Characteristic for the medieval history of the duchy was its rulers’ policy of particularism vis-à-vis the centralizing strategies of their Burgundian and Habsburg neighbours.2 A landmark in the history of the duchy was the Treaty of Venlo between Emperor Charles V and the Estates of Guelders signed in 1543. As a result of a brief war between Charles and the designated heir of the duchy, Duke Wilhelm V of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, the duchy came under the direct rule of the House of Habsburg, but preserved many of its traditional medieval rights and privileges. In the Low Countries’s conflict with Charles’s successor, King Philip II of Spain, Upper Guelders sided with the Spanish House of Habsburg, while the three northern quarters eventually fought on the side of the House of Orange. During the Eighty Years’ War and also after the peace treaties of Westphalia

1 Johannes Knippenbergh, Historia Ecclesiastica Ducatis Geldriae (Brussels: Foppens, 1719). 2 On Guelders’s sense of particularism see, for instance: Aart Noordzij, Gelre: Dynastie, land en identiteit in de late middeleeuwen (Hilversum: Verloren, 2009). Transregional Territories: Crossing Borders in the Early Modern Low Countries and Beyond, ed. by Bram De Ridder, Violet Soen, Werner Thomas, and Sophie Verreyken, HW 2 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 23–41.

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the fate of the Overkwartier remained deeply uncertain. Around 1609, in the negotiations and following implementation of the Twelve Years’ Truce, the political allegiance of the region was highly contested and definitions of what was within and what outside the territory remained vague. Equally vague and unsatisfactory concerning the fate of the Overkwartier were the negotiations in the second half of the 1640s in the run-up to the peace treaties of Westphalia, again leaving contemporaries worried about the future course of events. Both the Estates-General on the one side, and on the other the Spanish government in Brussels, claimed their respective parts of the duchy as the true successor state to medieval Guelders and both parties laid claim to the ducal title for themselves. This was the reason why Knippenbergh could state that he was writing about the duchy, when, in fact, he was mainly writing about one region of the old duchy which comprised the bishopric of Roermond, which he had chosen as his geographical remit. The compromise fixed in separate negotiations in 1648 left the fate of the territory open to further changes: it was agreed that ‘Het Over-kwartier van Gelderlant sal worden gewisselt jegens een equivalent’ (the Overkwartier of Gueldres will be exchanged for an equivalent’).3 This exchange never happened. The War of the Spanish Succession led to further changes to the territorial integrity of this already rather patchy administrative unit. By 1702 the parts of Upper Guelders (roughly) east of the River Meuse were incorporated partly into the Prussian territories in the Rhineland and partly into the Duchy of Jülich-Berg. The territory was splintered even further after the treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt in 1713/14 and the barrier treaties of Antwerp in 1715, leaving only a rather small skeleton of former Upper Guelders in the possession of the now Austrian Netherlands.4 While dedicating the book to the Bishop of Roermond, Knippenbergh might also have aimed to address the new Prussian overlords of his native town of Helden. His book could serve as a reminder to the new Protestant masters that the territory had strong Catholic traditions in the past and in the present. Upper Guelders and its complicated history thus certainly provide an ideal laboratory for a study of citizens’ resilience in times of crisis, challenging religious orthodoxies, political allegiances, and territorial integrity over a period of time that spanned the lives of at least three generations of its inhabitants. Recent historians have expressed skepticism that there once existed a territorial entity such as Upper Guelders, which might have manifested itself in more than just a number of legal titles written down in peace treaties and negotiations about

3 Traectaet van Vrede beslooten den dertighsten Januarij des jegenwoordigen Jaers 1648 […] binnen de stadt van Munster (The Hague: Widow Jacobsz Hillebrand van Wouw, 1648), §52. 4 For further details of the complicated history of the region see: Hubertus H. E. Wouters, Grensland en Bruggehoofd: Historische Studies met betrekking tot het Limburgse Maasdal en, meer in het bijzonder, de stad Maastricht, Maaslandse Monografieёn, 11 (Assen: van Gorcum, 1970).

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judicial authorities and taxation rights.5 The population of the area was, for a good part of the sixteenth and most of the seventeenth century, confronted with warfare, sieges, and foraging armies and their entourage from many parts of Europe, soldiers with little sympathy for a civilian population that was expected to provide shelter and maintenance in war or in a precarious peace which rarely lasted for more than a generation. And if there was a quest for territorial identity, what territorial unit should be used as the ‘yardstick’ for inclusion and exclusion? One way in which these markers could be expressed was through historiography. The writing of history was a medium that had been extensively used in the second half of the sixteenth- and in the seventeenth-century Low Countries to demarcate senses of belonging and entitlement. This historiography reflecting on war and partition on a regional, provincial, or urban level has attracted much scholarly attention in recent years.6 The following pages will, therefore, outline the strategies applied by historians in Upper Guelders to address these thorny issues. While the writing of history might offer an anchor for identity formation, the effect of these texts on their readers is notoriously difficult to assess. In a second step, therefore, this chapter will look at the practices of the leading Upper Guelders families when confronted with the fortunes of war and changing borders. The overarching question addressed in these two different approaches concerns early modern strategies of border management from a constructivist and a praxeological perspective. This will have to be limited to a few case studies but it is hoped that some more general conclusions can be drawn on the subject of border societies and their wider political and cultural orientations.7 The strategy to combine what seem to be rather different approaches — historiography and familial networks — is based on theories by Willem Frijhoff on the construction of identities.8 According to Frijhoff, identity includes three elements: praxis, imagination, and identification. Frijhoff stresses the dynamic character of these three variables and their relationship. While praxis can be detected through the actions of, in this case, Upper Guelders’s leading families with a transregional agenda, imagination is both built upon and expressed through historiography (as well as memory and





5 See, for instance, Pierre J. H. Ubachs, Handboek voor de Geschiedenis van Limburg (Hilversum: Verloren, 2000), p. 229. 6 See, for instance, Raingard Esser, The Politics of Memory: The Writing of Partition in the Seventeenth-Century Low Countries (Leiden: Brill, 2012); Jasper van der Steen, Memory Wars in the Low Countries, 1566–1700 (Leiden: Brill, 2015). 7 For further discussions on the topic see, for instance: Raingard Esser and Steven G. Ellis, ‘Introduction: Border Regions in Early Modern Europe’, in Frontiers and Border Regions in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Raingard Esser and Steven G. Ellis (Hannover: Wehrhahn, 2013), pp. 7–18. 8 Willem Frijhoff, ‘Toeёigening als vorm van kulturele dynamiek’, Volkskunde, 104.1 (2003), 3–17.

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Fig. 2.1 Tetrarchia Ducatus Gelriae Rvraemvndensis, published in Johannes Blaeu, Atlas maior, sive Cosmographia Blaviana, Qua Solvm, Salvm, Coelvm, Accvratissime Describvntvr, 11 vols (Amsterdam: Johannes Blaeu, 1662–1665), iv (1662), n.p.

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(© Reproduced, without alteration to the material, with the permission of the National Library of Scotland under its CC-BY 4.0 Creative Commons licence. See https://maps.nls.uk/copyright.html)

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commemorative practices). As will be demonstrated, in Upper Guelders these orientations were the result of the decline of the traditional and strong link with the other three parts of the duchy. The pre-war political and cultural links had to be replaced by an alternative view on Upper Guelders’s positions both vis-à-vis its own past and concerning its political alliances in turbulent times.

Historiography in a Contested Border Region In his dedication to Bishop D’Ongnies et D’Estree Johannes Knippenbergh offered a survey of the different powers at work in the territory in the early eighteenth century. In his overview of the political parties involved in the fate of the region, he listed the Spanish Crown and its representatives in Brussels, their Austrian successors, the Prussian king and his advances from Cleves into Upper Guelders, the interests of the northern ‘Batavians’, i.e. the Dutch Republic, and the Catholic Church and its regional representatives.9 The dire realities of the peace treaties of the early eighteenth century had left only a small fraction of the former Overkwartier under Habsburg rule, now through its Austrian branch. This complicated situation, in which Upper Guelders had become the ‘small change’ on the bargaining table of the great European powers, together with his own personal and professional alliance to the Catholic Church, might have been the reason why Knippenbergh had devoted his study to the geographical framework of the bishopric. In the numerous negotiations of the early eighteenth century the diocese of Roermond had been left intact and provided, nearly 150 years after its controversial establishment, the most stable marker of identity and continuity in the area. It transgressed, however, the political boundaries of Upper Guelders stretching into the border area of Cleves. The ‘four points of the political and confessional compass’ (with the Dutch Republic and the Prussians to the north, the Duchy of Jülich-Berg to the east, the Spanish and later Austrian government in Brussels to the west, and Rome to the south) remained significant signposts throughout Knippenbergh’s voluminous book. They also reflect, as we will see below, the political orientation of the local elites over the period of the turbulent seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Knippenbergh’s damning assessment of a lack of a southern, Catholic version of the history of Guelders, and particularly its successor region Upper Guelders, was not unjustified. Neither was he the first critic of this deficit. As early as 1617, leading politicians of the Overkwartier, when meeting in Roermond, the capital of Upper Guelders, recognized the need to publicize their own version of the past. The Upper Guelders chancellor Hendrik Uwens was certainly aware of the importance of a written history in claiming the past and, therewith, the present of the territory. In tandem with his initiative 9 Knippenbergh, Historia, Epistola, n.p.

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to align the traditional legal codes and practices of the duchy with the legal requirements issued from Brussels, which culminated in the publication of the Gelderse Landrecht in 1620, he strongly promoted the appointment of a historiographer for the duchy.10 Like his contemporaries Uwens was well aware of the power of the past when fixing the rights of the present and future. Uwens was probably informed about similar initiatives in other parts of the Low Countries, where urban and provincial elites commissioned the writing of chorographical-topographical descriptions of their cities or provinces.11 In times of political change and a reorientation of the Low Countries into a southern and a northern part, a division which became increasingly manifest during the Twelve Years’ Truce, urban and provincial elites invested in the fixation of a narrative of tradition and belonging, which fitted their current political agenda. Of particular relevance for Upper Guelders was the project of such a history commissioned by the three northern quarters of the duchy. In 1597 the Estates of Nijmegen, Arnhem, and Zutphen had initiated such an enterprise, which, however, ran into difficulties, since two consecutively commissioned authors died before the eventual completion of the book in 1639.12 The Estates in Roermond might also have been familiar with the northern initiative and recognized the importance of investing in an alternative project for their part of Guelders. They responded positively to Uwens’s appeal. In January 1618 they approached the royal historiographer in Brussels and native son of Venlo (the second city of Upper Guelders), Erycius Puteanus, with this task.13 He was offered an advance of 200 guilders and the money was duly transferred on 4 May of the same year. Puteanus, however, never produced the desired text. Whether he could indefinitely prolong the delivery date of a manuscript or whether the Estates lost interest in the project with the challenges of renewed hostilities in 1621 is difficult to assess. Little is known about alternative projects in the Overkwartier. A later history of the duchy written by Nicolaus van Biesen, protocancellarius of the Hof of Guelders in Roermond, probably in 1634, and covering the period from 878 to 1598, is only preserved in handwritten copy. His Chronicon Ducatus Geldriae was, however, apparently known to contemporaries and later authors.14 The text was also

10 On the Gelderse Landrecht see: Aloysius M. J. A. Berkvens and Gerardus A. H. Venner, Het Gelderse Land- en Stadsrecht van het Overkwartier van Roermond 1620 (Arnhem: Stichting Tot Uitgaaf Der Bronnen Van Het Oud-Vaderlandse Recht, 1996). 11 For a discussion of these texts in the seventeenth century see: Esser, The Politics of Memory. 12 For further details of the northern project see: Esser, The Politics of Memory, pp. 247–62. 13 Venlo, Gemeentearchief, MS 21C1 20: ‘Afschrift van het voorstel en besluit om Er. Puteanus te benoemen tot Geschiedschrijver van Gelre, 1617–1618’. 14 Nikolaus Biesen, Chronicon ducatus Geldriae (878–1598), 1634 (Maastricht, Regionaal Historisch Centrum Limburg, Archief van de Staten van het Overkwartier van Gelre, Handschriftencollectie J. B. Syben, MS 1346; Roermond, Gemeentearchief, Afdeling VI, 6001/1 Handschriftenverzameling van J. B. Sivré, 1.1. no.26). His own account of the history of Guelders was based on secondary works listed in some detail at the beginning of his study.

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mentioned, for instance, in Knippenbergh’s historiographical survey.15 Histories of the eminent towns and cities in Upper Guelders remained equally scarce. A Kroniek der Stad Roermond written by the city scribe Jan van Ryckenroy, for instance, was only published in the nineteenth century, but it was also known by early modern contemporaries in manuscript form.16 Overall, Knippenbergh was thus correct when he bemoaned the historiographical silence in Upper Guelders. This might have been partly due to the precarious political situation in the territory. The above-mentioned van Biesen stated in his introductory chapter that he had been unable to use the relevant archives for his study.17 Partly, it might have also been a consequence of an unease of those in power to fix the boundaries between the four quarters of the duchy in writing and thereby confirming the separation of the territory, which formally remained elusive and whose borders were at least officially regarded as temporary. This gap was to some extent filled by the Catholic clerical elite in the territory. The bishopric of Roermond, encompassing the Overkwartier, was one of the rather unloved products of the highly contested diocesan reforms in the Low Countries in 1559. The seven predecessors of Bishop D’Ongnies et D’Estree in Roermond had been confronted with difficult financial and political circumstances and local resistance, and more than once the impoverished bishopric was threatened with dissolution. Even Bishop D’Ongnies et D’Estree, when appointed in 1702, had grave doubts about the future of his position.18 Historiography, but also hagiography, which developed as the ‘sacred branch’ of the writing of regional history in the seventeenth century, was recognized in the diocese as a means to confront local criticism, to respond to the Protestant challenges of the north and to implement the Counter-Reformation agenda of the seventeenth-century Catholic Church.19 Henricus Cuyckius, the second Bishop of Roermond (1596–1609), in particular, had shared Hendrik Uwens’s belief in the power of history and commissioned a series of publications with the aim to strengthen the Catholic identity of Upper Guelders. He also initiated the publication of a

15 Knippenbergh, Historia, Praefatio, n.p. 16 Kroniek der Stad Roermond 1568–1638, ed. by Friedrich Nettesheim, Publications de la Société Historique et Archéologique dans le Limbourg, 10 (1873), 97–344; 12 (1875), 249–352; republished by the British Library in 2011 as Kroniek der stad Roermond van 1562–1638, [probably by J. van Ryckenroy] uitgegeven door F. Nettesheim (London: British Library, 2011). Knippenbergh cites van Ryckenroy in his text. See, for instance, Knippenbergh, Historia, p. 215. 17 van Biesen, Chronicon ducatus Geldriae, n.p. 18 Peter Nissen and Hein van der Bruggen, Roermond: Biografie van een stad en haar bewoners (Hilversum: Verloren, 2014), p. 226. 19 For further details on the Catholic historiography in Upper Guelders see: Raingard Esser, ‘“Local Baronios” in a contested border region: History, historiography and politics in Upper Guelders in the seventeenth century’, in Frontiers, States and Identity in Early Modern Ireland and Beyond: Essays in honour of Steven G. Ellis, ed. by Christopher Maginn and Gerald Power (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2016), pp. 188–204.

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substantial commemorative volume on account of the fiftieth anniversary of the diocese in 1609. Arnoldus Havensius’s Commentarius de Erectione Novorum in Belgio Episcopatum became the standard work of the early history of the diocese and remained the best account of the period when the diocesan archive went up in flames in the devastating city fire of 1665.20 It was also mentioned in Knippenbergh’s historiographical survey.21

A Catholic History of Guelders Not only in the dedication to Bishop D’Ongnies et D’Estree, but throughout his work Knippenbergh referred to the above-mentioned ‘four points of the Guelders compass’. Other than the title indicated, the text did not only provide a church history of the Duchy of Guelders, but it also discussed both the political and the ecclesiastical past of the duchy. Knippenbergh wanted to challenge and correct earlier versions of Guelders’s history, particularly those written by Johannes Isacius Pontanus and Arend van Slichtenhorst, who had produced comprehensive histories of the duchy in Latin and Dutch respectively in 1639 and 1654.22 Neither of the two books focused on ecclesiastical history. They offered interpretations of Guelders’s political past. Knippenbergh’s aim in responding to these texts inevitably required an alternative survey of the politics of Guelders, and not just its ecclesiastical history. He also mentioned Werner Teschenmacher’s Annales Ecclesiastici Reformationis Ecclesiarum Cliviae, Juliae, Montiae, Marchiae, Ravensburgiae, a history of the Reformation in the Duchy of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, published in 1638, which he, likewise, deemed faulty.23 Setting out to challenge Teschenmacher’s account, therefore, stretched Knippenbergh’s survey beyond the political territory of the Duchy of Guelders. All of these texts, Knippenbergh argued, were written from an aggressively Protestant perspective ‘peppered with sarcasm and anti-Catholic anecdotes’ and, therefore, in need of correction.24 The aim to specifically respond to these authors also informed the arrangement and style of his book. The first four chapters, marked as ‘prodromus’, preface, echo the traditional introductions to historical-topographical writings of the seventeenth century, which were also presented in Pontanus’s and van Slichtenhorst’s works. They provided a survey of the land, the resident peoples, their mores and manners, and their

20 Arnoldus Havensius, Commentarius de Erectione Novorum in Belgio Episcopatum (Cologne: Zinckius, 1609). 21 Knippenbergh, Historia, Praefatio, n.p. 22 Johannes Isacius Pontanus, Historiae Gelricae libri XIV (Harderwijk: Janssonius, 1639); Arend van Slichten­horst, XIV Boeken van de Geldersse Geschiedenissen (Arnhem: van Biesen, 1654). 23 Werner Teschenmacher, Annales Ecclesiastici Reformationis Ecclesiarum Cliviae, Juliae, Montiae, Ravens­burgiae (Arnhem: van Biesen, 1638). 24 Knippenbergh, Historia, Praefatio, n.p.

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languages.25 In his own book Knippenbergh responded to the traditional references to the Roman tribes resident in the area, that had been part of the standard repertoire of historical writings in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century, but were no longer relevant in the historical conventions of his own time. While Pontanus and van Slichtenhorst had highlighted the achievements of the Batavians as the most important tribe in Guelders in Roman times, Knippenbergh focused his survey on the Sicambrians and Menapians, two premodern tribes contemporary to the Batavians, who were regarded as eastern immigrants to Guelders and who were also resident in neighbouring Jülich-Cleves-Berg.26 The emphasis on these forefathers rather than the Batavians is also visible in the laudatory poem by Knippenbergh’s friend Johannes Buchels, librarian in the ducal library in Düsseldorf, which starts with a reference to the Sicambrians.27 While these tribes provided a welcome alternative to the story of the Batavians, which was so strongly incorporated into the Dutch Republic’s narrative of their own ancestors, the Sicambrians could also be used as convenient predecessors for the close links that the Upper Guelders elite had established, particularly in the course of the seventeenth century, with their peers and the rulers of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, and, later, Jülich-Berg. The following chapters of the Historia covered the history of Christianity in the area, which was, in Knippenbergh’s version, firmly embedded in the missionary activities of the fourth-century Bishop of Cologne, St Maternus. These strong links to the region and also to his own spiritual roots in Cologne (Knippenbergh had studied at the University of Cologne and was also received into the priesthood in the city) presented a counterpoint to the Protestant narrative of the indigenous origins of Christianity proposed by van Slichtenhorst and by the Nijmegen historians, Johannes Smetius junior and senior, whom Knippenbergh explicitly cited.28 The strong Cologne theme was further elaborated with references to the city’s most important saints, the early Christian martyrs of the Theban legion, whose many relics were venerated in Cologne, but had also been widely distributed across the

25 Interestingly, this ‘prodomus’ was not included in the nineteenth-century Dutch translation of the Historia by Charles Guillion, who simply left the first pages of his handwritten annotations blank. Roermond, Gemeentearchief, Afdeling VI, Handschriftenverzameling, sectie 6000/1, no. 11: Joannes Knippenbergh, ‘Kerkelijke Historie van het Hertogdom Gelder in acht boeken, in de 19de eeuw in het Nederlands vertaald en geschreven door Charles Guillon’. 26 Knippenbergh, Historia, Prodomus, pp. 3–6. 27 Knippenbergh, Historia, Epigramma, n.p. 28 Johannes Smetius Snr., Oppidum Batavorum, seu Noviomagus etc. (Amsterdam: Blaeu, 1644); Johannes Sme­tius jr., Chronyck van de oude stadt der Batavieren (Nijmegen: Smetius, 1667). The passages on the indigenous origins of Christianity in Guelders in the books of Smetius junior and senior are cited by Knippenbergh on p. 19 of the Historia. On Smetius’s interpretation of the Christian origins in the city and in the duchy see: Esser, The Politics of Memory, pp. 137–58.

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border. Bones of the legionnaires were rated among the top relics in the Low Countries. Roermond’s cathedral, St Christoffel, for instance, had an impressive collection. The legionnaires appear in Knippenbergh’s text in the second chapter, immediately after the outline of St Maternus’s missionizing initiatives.29 Where Knippenbergh recorded political events, they complied with the standard repertoire of notable dates in the southern Netherlandish and Habsburg calendar. These included, on page 65, the reference to the First Crusade headed by Brabant’s top ancestor, Duke Godfrey of Bouillon; and, on page 67, St Norbert’s responses to the heresies of Tankhelm in twelfth-century Brabant. Neither of these events had a direct relation to the history of Guelders, but they provided a link to the allegiance of the duchy — or at least of the part that mattered for Knippenbergh — to their Habsburg overlords. Besides these references to the Habsburg legacy in the Low Countries he also mentioned key dates for the challenges to the Habsburg Catholic world such as the rise of Lutheranism, the Anabaptist rule in Münster and Martin Luther’s death in 1546.30 Knippenbergh likewise noted important dates in the political history of Upper Guelders itself, such as the Treaty of Venlo, the text of which was included verbatim in the vernacular in Chapter 10, with reference to the archive in Roermond’s city hall.31 Also recorded was the completion of the above-mentioned Gelderse Landrecht in 1620, a milestone in fixing traditional law codes and customs and accommodating both Guelders and Habsburg legal traditions.32 Other dates included the building works of the Fossa Eugeniana and a number of notable battles in the Eighty Years’ War such as the sieges of Ostend and ’s-Hertogenbosch.33 The ecclesiastical history of the duchy, focused on the bishopric of Roermond, only explicitly started on page 162, halfway through the book, with the establishment of the new diocese in 1559. While criticising the polemical tone of the northern authors, Knippenbergh himself was not free from confessional rhetoric. He occasionally mocked, for instance, Pontanus’s Protestant zeal, but seemed blind to his own Catholic rhetoric.34 The latter is particularly poignant in his entry for the year 1614, where he recorded the 29 Knippenbergh, Historia, p. 18. 30 Knippenbergh, Historia, pp. 144ff, 156. 31 Knippenbergh, Historia, pp. 152 ff. 32 Knippenbergh, Historia, p. 121. Knippenbergh might have highlighted this law compendium here, because during the negotiations about the political and legal organization of Prussian Guelders, the representatives of the territory managed to keep the Gelderse Landrecht as the law code for all parts of the former quarter of Upper Guelders. Likewise, the abovementioned reference to the archives in Roermond’s city hall might have been used as a reminder to these negotiations, which had also permitted the Guelders archive to remain in Roermond, a city which was the capital of the remaining small Austrian Habsburg part of Upper Guelders. For details see: Nissen and van der Bruggen, Roermond, pp. 228 ff. 33 Knippenbergh, Historia, p. 125, p. 223. 34 Knippenbergh, Historia, p. 140.

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conversion of Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm of Jülich-Cleves-Berg to Catholicism and the great public joy that accompanied his return to the Catholic Church.35 The conversion of the duke and the subsequent reinstallation of Catholic institutions in Jülich-Cleves-Berg were only one example, so Knippenbergh continued, for the wave of returnees to the folds of the ‘Mother Church’. Other converts on his list included King James II and VII of England and Scotland, the Saxon Elector Frederick Augustus, alias Augustus II the Strong, who converted to Catholicism in 1697 to become King of Poland, Duke Anton Ulrich of Wolfenbüttel-Brunswick and his daughter Elisabeth-Christine, who converted in 1709 and 1707 respectively, and, most notably, Anton Ulrich’s daughter Henriette-Christine, who converted in 1712 and spent the rest of her life in the Ursuline convent in Roermond.36 This information was then juxtaposed with accounts of the divisions in the Reformed Church of the northern Netherlands, notably the struggle between Arminians and Gomarists, thus indicating the rise of the old and the decline of the new Christian confession.37 Knippenbergh contributed with his own publications to the hagiographical agenda of the Counter-Reformation in his region. In 1706 he wrote a book in memory of the millennium jubilee of Upper Guelders’s early missionaries and saints, Wiro, Plechelmus, and Otgerus, which was published in Roermond.38 Next to the important local site of Sint Odiliёnberg, dedicated to these saints, the Marian pilgrimage shrine at Kevelaer featured prominently. Knippenbergh carefully recorded the development of the devotion to the Consolatrix Afflictorum in the town, which was part of the diocese of Roermond, but belonged politically to Cleves.39

Transregional Politics of Cross-Border Families So far, Johannes Knippenbergh has been recognized by historians as one of the founding fathers of the writing of ecclesiastical history in the region.40 His work has been used to shed light on the history of the diocese whose early records went up in flames in the devastating city fire of 1665, and of later ecclesiastical developments in turbulent times. His volume, however, covered much more

35 Knippenbergh, Historia, p. 218. 36 She has already been extensively mentioned in the dedication to Bishop D’Ongnies et D’Estree. 37 Knippenbergh, Historia, pp. 218 ff. 38 Johannes Knippenbergh, Duijsent-jaerigh Jubilé van de Glorieuse Apostelen Deses Gelderlandts, de H.H. Bis­schop­pen Wiro, Plechelmus ende Otgerus haeren diaecken, gehouden tot S.te Odiliebergh int jaer 1706 (Roermond: Petrus Vallen, 1706). 39 Knippenbergh, Historia, pp. 233–34. 40 See Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, ed. by Philip Christiaan Molhuysen and Petrus Johannes Blok, 10 vols (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1918), iv, pp. 847, 848.

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than the history of the Catholic Church in the diocese of Roermond. It was a political as well as a confessional text, which highlighted the forces of continuity, the Catholic Church and its earthly and heavenly personnel, in times of turmoil and political change. While officially targeting histories from the northern part of the formerly united Duchy of Guelders, the text paid relatively little attention to events in the three quarters of Nijmegen, Zutphen, and Arnhem. It emphasized the Catholic powers, praising the Habsburg rulers as well as the neighbouring dukes of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, later Jülich-Berg. There were comparatively few references to the three other, northern parts of the duchy. In his account Knippenbergh also left considerable room for the architects of Upper Guelders’s policy. In traditional chorographical fashion he listed the Upper Guelders chancellors at the end of the volume.41 He highlighted the activities of eminent men in the territory such as the above-mentioned Hendrik Uwens and his efforts for the Gelderse Landrecht, and the Erbmarschall Marquis von Hoensbroech, the speaker of the Upper Guelders’s Estates.42 Marquis Wilhelm Adriaan von Hoensbroech was specifically mentioned in the dedication to the bishop, as a defender of the Catholic Church at the peace negotiations in Utrecht. Under his leadership, the legal regulations and procedures of the new Prussian regime in their part of Upper Guelders were negotiated to follow established practices in the Overkwartier. The marquis was mentioned in line with the Count of Zinzendorf, the Imperial councillor at the negotiating table in Utrecht, and was, thus, highly regarded. Knippenbergh himself belonged to a noble family with connections to the political and ecclesiastical establishment in and outside Upper Guelders.43 It might therefore not be surprising that he wished to highlight the agency of the local nobility in the territory even in times when their fate depended on the politics of the great European powers. Knippenbergh’s perspective is, thus, transregional with respect to both the political and the ecclesiastical framework that he had chosen. It was based on the loyalty to the House of Habsburg and the Catholic Church, surpassing the political limitations of Upper Guelders by focusing on the diocese of Roermond which also encompassed parts of Cleves; it was oriented towards the Catholic powers firstly in Brussels, and then in the eastern neighbourhood of Upper Guelders. Moreover, it also rewrote the earlier history of the territory with a distinct transregional interpretation. This included the reframing of what the Guelders ancestors from the Batavians to the Sicambrian and the Menapians shared with the people of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, and the emphasis on eastern missionaries and martyrs, again from Jülich-Cleves-Berg bringing

41 Knippenbergh, Historia, pp. 287–88. 42 Knippenbergh, Historia, p. 269. 43 Peter J. A. Nissen, ‘Religie aan de Grens: Het onderzoek naar kerk- en religiegeschiedenis in Limburg’, in Religie aan de Grens: Aspecten van de Limburgse kerkgeschiedenis, ed. by R. M. de La Haye and others (Delft: Eburon 1997), pp. 19–36.

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Christianity to the region. It also awarded agency to the local men and the leading families in the area. Little is known of the reception of Knippenbergh’s volume. While it is frequently mentioned in the various catalogues concerning the ecclesiastical history of the region, the book seems not to have received a more detailed response, for instance from commentators of the three northern quarters of Guelders. This might have been due to the fact that by the first half of the eighteenth century the heyday of the writing of regional or provincial histories was over, and that historians focused on national, rather than regional histories.44 Knippenbergh’s Latin text could, therefore, be simply noted as an ecclesiastical history from a Catholic perspective and in line with similar Spanish Netherlandish enterprises. Was Knippenbergh’s vision of Upper Guelders’s past and present shared by the local elites? In the first part of the seventeenth century, there are indications that the urban elites kept in contact with their peers across the border in the northern quarters of Guelders. The magistrates of Roermond, for instance, shared information about legal practices, as recorded in letters by the magistrates of Arnhem and Nijmegen to their colleagues about their role in the Estates’ diet sent to Roermond in January 1630.45 The questions that were asked here touched upon an important aspect of power politics in Guelders dating back to the Treaty of Venlo. The political elites of the duchy on either side of the new borderline were confronted with an increasing influence of politicians in The Hague and Brussels. The uncertainties of war led to a rise of responsibilities and rights from centralizing powers challenging the traditional particularism of the duchy. References to a common past and common political practice on either side of the border have to be interpreted in this light and certainly require further attention.46 After 1648 the regional elite, the ridderschap, gradually parted from a common Guelders practice in its recruitment and admission policy. The meetings in Upper Guelders increasingly took their lead from their peers in the Duchy of Jülich and also from practices in Liège rather than from their northern colleagues. In 1660, for instance, it was decreed that the acceptance into the knight’s college should 44 On Netherlandish historiography in the eighteenth century, see: Tom Verschaffel, De hoed en de hond: Geschiedschrijving in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden, 1715–1794 (Hilversum: Verloren, 1998); De palimpsest: Geschiedschrijving in de Nederlanden, 1500–2000, ed. by Jo Tollebeek and others (Hilversum: Verloren, 2002). 45 For the correspondence see: Jan Baptist Sivré, Inventaris van het Oud Archief der Gemeente Roermond, 3e stuk (Roermond: J. J. Romen, [1874]), pp. 126–27. 46 For further details see, for instance: Gerardus H. A. Venner, ‘Het Hof van Gelre te Roermond 1580–1794: Enige aspecten van zijn geschiedenis, samenstelling en bevoegdheden’, Jaarboek Limburgs Geschied- en Oudheidkundige Genootschap, 145 (2009), pp. 115–204; see also: Aloysius M. J. A. Berkvens, ‘“In wesen sal het Tractaet van Venlo onderhalden werden …”: Het Tractaat van Venlo als fundamentele wet van Spaans en Oostenrijks Gelre 1580–1794’, in Verdrag en Tractaat van Venlo: Herdenkingsbundel 1543–1993, ed. by Frank Keveling Buisman and others (Hilversum: Verloren, 1993).

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follow criteria set up in Jülich in the previous year.47 In 1668, in a dispute about the rights and privileges of the Erbmarschall, the traditional head and speaker of the Estates, representatives at the Landdag, the Estates’ diet, discussed advice from their peers in the Duchy of Luxemburg.48 Procedures also differed from those in place for their peers in the other three quarters of Guelders with regard to the acceptance of members, who did not have their main domain within the territory but came from outside the Overkwartier and became part of the ridderschap through marriage and acquisition rather than lineage. While the knights of the northern quarters of Guelders became increasingly exclusive in their recruitment procedures, thus following examples in other provinces of the Estates-General such as Utrecht and Holland, Upper Guelders, not least because of its generally relatively small body of members, practiced a more open policy and allowed membership of knights whose main residence was in Jülich or Berg, and who also sent delegates to those diets. This practice was also untypical for procedures elsewhere in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands.49 Trying to spread their family’s influence on both sides of the territorial borders was a strategy which the leading gentry families in the region actively pursued. The House of Schaesberg, for instance, with possessions and rights in Wankum, Krickenbeck, and Erkelenz, on either side of the territorial border, sent delegates both to the meetings in Roermond and to the Düsseldorf diets.50 While the value of a knightly estate did not play a role in the application process, adherence to the Catholic Church was a criterion for inclusion or exclusion. Active members of the military profession were excluded in the north, but military service was not regarded as detrimental to the membership of the knightly council in Upper Guelders. Research into the politics and fortunes of these cross-border families certainly deserves more attention than it has hitherto attracted. The wars of the seventeenth century brought destruction, but also opportunities for aspiring members of the lesser gentry resident in the area. These families, however, have not been sufficiently studied in recent

47 These and the following information on the knights of Upper Guelders are taken from Gerardus H. A. Venner, ‘De ridderschap van het Overkwartier van Gelder 1590–1702’, Publications de la Société Historique et Archéologique dans le Limbourg, 134–35 (1998/1999), 267–426 (p. 274). 48 See Archief Kasteel Haag, MS 1503 (‘Erklärung des Erbmarschalls und enger Mitglieder des Rates des Herzogtums Luxemburg in Betreff der mit dem dortigen Erbmarschallamt verbundenen Vorrechte, 10. Juni 1670’). 49 For further details about recruitment policies see also: Gerardus H. A. Venner, ‘Die Ahnenprobe der Ritterschaft des Geldrischen Oberquartiers im 17. Jahrhunderts’, in Die Ahnenprobe in der Vormoderne: Selektion — Initiation — Repräsentation, ed. by Elizabeth Harding and Michael Hecht (Münster: Rhema, 2011), pp. 267–86. 50 Leo Peters, Geschichte des Geschlechtes von Schaesberg bis zur Mediatisierung, Maaslandse Monografieën, 16 (Assen: van Gorcum, 1972).

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years — a verdict that can be extended to the general lack of studies of early modern transregional families.51 So far, only the House of Schaesberg has been covered in the detailed monograph of Leo Peters which was published in 1972.52 Peters carefully delineates the changing political allegiances of his seventeenth-century protagonists, Johann Friedrich I von Schaesberg (1598–1671), his son Wolfgang Wilhelm (1633–1691), and his grandson Johann Friedrich II von Schaesberg (1663/64–1723).53 All three heads of the House of Schaesberg can be characterized as politicians with distinct transregional ambitions. For Johann Friedrich I the increasing prosperity and influence of his house was realized through his close connections to Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm of Jülich-Berg and his residence in Düsseldorf. In 1622 the duke appointed von Schaesberg to the position of drost — sheriff — in Brüggen, a border area of strategic significance in the renewed war in the Low Countries. In the same year, Johann Friedrich was also appointed as councillor to Wolfgang Wilhelm in Düsseldorf. He kept both offices until his death in 1671 and often commuted between these places. With Wolfgang Wilhelm’s patronage and through a lucrative marriage to Ferdinanda von Wachtendonk, Johann Friedrich could significantly increase his possessions both in the Duchy of Jülich-Berg and in Upper Guelders. As the only male heir to his father’s possessions in Valkenburg, he also ruled over rich territories in the Overmaas region. In Peters’s assessment Johann Friedrich’s greatest achievements were his service for the Duchy of Jülich-Berg, and notably his efforts to maintain Wolfgang Wilhelm’s policy of neutrality in this contested border area, which brought the family into contact with leading politicians of these troublesome times. Johann Friedrich liaised with high-ranking generals such as Ottavio Piccolomini and Jan van Werth, with Cardinal Infante Ferdinand of Austria and the Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia. In the 1630s he was sent on diplomatic missions to the court in Brussels and to Johann van Nassau’s camp in Nijmegen. The duke was apparently so impressed by the diplomatic calibre and the financial know-how of his councillor that he agreed to act as godfather to his son, Wolfgang Wilhelm, when he was born in June 1633. The latter, however, did not follow in his father’s footsteps in Düsseldorf, but focused his energies on his possessions in Upper Guelders. Through his marriage to Maria Florentina von Eynatten he extended his possessions in the Overmaas and Guelders region and spent more time in Roermond than in Düsseldorf. Before he inherited the possessions of his father, he had extended his political influence to the Estates of Liège, of which he became 51 For a discussion on transnational families in early modern society see: Transregional and Transnational Families in Europe and Beyond: Experiences since the Middle Ages, ed. by Christopher H. Johnson and others (New York: Berghahn, 2011). 52 Peters, Geschichte des Geschlechts von Schaesberg. 53 These and the following information on the Schaesberg family are taken from Peters, Geschichte des Geschlechts von Schaesberg.

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a member in 1666. Like many of his peers in the ranks of the lower gentry he could and did profit from the notorious lack of money in the Spanish coffers in Brussels. In the late 1660s and in the 1670s he could substantially expand his territorial possessions in Upper Guelders through purchases of territorial rights and privileges from the Spanish Crown. His son Johan Friedrich II turned his political activities again towards Düsseldorf. Here, he raised the status of the House of Schaesberg through high-ranking appointments in the ducal army and administration. He married into the Berg family Schöller and, after the death of his first wife Mechtild Maria, into the family of Elmpt-Burgau with possessions in the Duchy of Jülich-Berg. Like his grandfather and name-sake, Johann Friedrich II developed and maintained close contacts to the ducal family culminating in his appointment as governor general of Jülich-Berg in September 1715, a position which he could continue until his death in 1723, after a temporary dismissal during the regime change in Düsseldorf in 1716. In 1706 the family was also elevated into the Reichsgrafenstand, thus rising from gentry status to the high aristocracy, a promotion that was facilitated by von Schaesberg’s sponsor Duke Johann Wilhelm of Jülich-Berg. In 1712 this privilege was supplemented by the award of two reichsfreie — Imperial — territories, Kerpen and Loppersum, which again were the results of concessions and lobbying by the duke. In 1723, shortly before his death, Johann Friedrich was appointed Imperial councillor. His son, Johann Wilhelm (1696–1768) remained firmly embedded politically and socially in Düsseldorf elite circles. While maintaining traditional positions in Upper Guelders territories, his career was focused on politics in Jülich-Berg rather than west of the border. Peters’s insightful study is thoroughly based on original research. He has unearthed a wealth of material in a number of mainly German and Belgian, but also Austrian, Dutch, and Italian archives. He has certainly succeeded in bringing his protagonists, their familial aspirations, and inter-territorial networks to life. So far, his is the only more recent in-depth study of a transregional family of the lower gentry in this turbulent border region. However, his study is also, not surprisingly, embedded in the historiographical paradigms of his time. His assessment of the relationship between the Schaesberg family and the ducal house in Düsseldorf on the one hand, their early policy towards the Spanish Habsburgs and, in the eighteenth century, Prussian Guelders on the other, is informed by the master-narrative of early modern state formation. It is in this light that his final assessment of this transregional family as ‘conservative’ and detrimental to the forces of the ‘modern’ Prussian state in Guelders needs to be understood.54 Of the generations of the House of Schaesberg, those who devoted their times to the centralizing forces of larger political entities such as the Duchy of Jülich-Berg, and who kept close links with its ruler, were seen as more successful than those who focused their energies on the consolidation of positions in the politically fragmented and relatively disempowered border 54 Peters, Geschichte des Geschlechts von Schaesberg, p. 253.

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regions of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands. A new history of this cross-border family would, perhaps, interpret much of their policy in a different light. Throughout the book Peters draws comparisons to other important families in the region: the von Hoensbroechs, the Schenk von Nideggens, the SchellaertObbendorfs, and others are frequently mentioned in connection with the Schaesbergs. None of these families has yet been adequately researched. The House of Hoensbroech, in particular, would offer an interesting comparison to the family strategies of the von Schaesbergs. Other than the latter, the von Hoensbroechs were latecomers in Upper Guelders and only achieved knightly status in the Estates in 1619. Upon their arrival in the Overkwartier, they rose swiftly and steadily in wealth, power, and status with the acquisition of the positions of Erbmarschall of Upper Guelders — a post that Adriaan von Hoensbroech inherited in 1618 from his great-uncle Arnold van Boedberg, who also left him Haag Castle, the main residence of the family. In 1623 Adriaan was appointed to sheriff of Guelders. With these positions he also successfully claimed a seat in the Estates of Upper Guelders. Adriaan and his son Arnold Adriaan also furthered their careers in the diplomatic service of the Spanish Crown. Like the von Schaesbergs, they were able to acquire international aristocratic recognition as Reichsfreiherren (through Imperial degree in 1633), as marquises (by the Spanish king Charles II in 1675) and, in 1733, as Reichsgrafen. As mentioned earlier, as Erbmarschallen of Upper Guelders, they played a prominent role in the various peace negotiations in the early eighteenth century. While remaining closely aligned with the Habsburgs, both in the Spanish and, from the eighteenth century onwards, the Austrian branch, the von Hoensbroechs also made profitable arrangements with the Prussian government in Upper Guelders — Marquis Frans von Hoensbroech married into the German aristocratic family of Schönborn in 1720. Members of the von Hoensbroech family rose high in ecclesiastical office. Philip Damian von Hoensbroech became Bishop of Roermond in 1775 — as the first native Roermondenaar in this position. His cousin Caesar Constantin Frans von Hoensbroech became Prince-Bishop of Liège in 1784. These examples might offer a perspective on the strategies of cross-border families in turbulent times. Instead of interpreting them through the paradigm of state formation, their multilayered orientations which were also expressed in the spread of positions across emerging territorial borders might perhaps be seen as a marker of transregional and transnational identity and greater autonomy than has been hitherto acknowledged.

Conclusions The picture of a contested and increasingly fragmented border region that emerges from these observations allows, perhaps, a few conclusions. First, it demonstrates the complexity of orientations and allegiances of the elites in the territories. Many historians now acknowledge that the paradigm of state formation is perhaps too focused on dichotomies of ‘centres’ and

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‘peripheries’, which relegated to the status of border areas regions which were less connected to the centres of power and governments of the states under whose laws they operated and whose institutions offered their elites career opportunities.55 The examples of the families von Schaesberg and von Hoensbroech demonstrate that the border area of Upper Guelders and its noble families were by no means peripheral in the power politics of Brussels. Erbmarschall Adriaan von Hoensbroech carried the Guelders banner at the funeral procession of Archduke Albert in Brussels and was represented in the rich publications that were published at the occasion of this solemn event.56 Loyalty to the House of Habsburg was transferred from the Spanish to the Austrian branch, which offered career opportunities in the Holy Roman Empire, lucrative marriages into the Imperial aristocracy and extended territorial possessions in the east. Older alliances to the other three parts of the duchy disappeared. They were replaced by a transregional perspective and policy employed by the leading families in Upper Guelders, who not only fostered political relations in neighbouring territories of the Holy Roman Empire, but also accepted newcomers from these areas into their own circles. These observations are also reflected in the historiography of the area. For Knippenbergh, the boundaries of the duchy remained vague. Old alliances to the three northern quarters disappeared. Likewise, an earlier common ancestry in the old duchy was reframed to accommodate the ancient peoples resident in what became Jülich-Cleves-Berg. Political practices in these territories were also increasingly seen as comparable to Upper Guelders institutions. Borders in Continental Europe were, overall, not singularly defined, stable lines of demarcation. As the example of Upper Guelders shows, they were often characterized by overlapping and loosely maintained jurisdictions. They sometimes cut across traditional landholdings, which allowed for familial possessions to be spread across different emerging political states or princely territories. This open-endedness is also visible in the historiography of border territories, such as in Knippenbergh’s account. Rather than describing these areas and their inhabitants as ‘losers’ or stumbling blocks on the road to the nation states, their transregional agency might also be seen as a specific early modern feature.

55 See, for instance, Frontiers and Border Regions, ed. by Esser and Ellis. 56 Jacques Francart and Erycius Puteanus, Pompa Funebris Optimi Potentissimique […] (Brussels: Jan Mommaert, 1623).

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sophie Verreyken 

Transregional Marriages and Strategies of Loyalty The House of Arenberg Navigating between the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs, 1630–1700 In the historiography on early modern political bodies, such as composite or polycentric monarchies, scholars have identified the interdependence between the Crown and its local elites as the crucial element in the stability of this type of polity.1 Thus, they have recently turned their attention to the integration of local elites within the Habsburg realm, and, in particular, to the strategies employed by the Spanish Habsburgs to tie local elites to their dynastic authority. Overall, the Habsburgs carried out this integration on both a social and geographical scale. On the one hand, the elites needed to be anchored to local functions (through political or religious events, economic privileges, or the granting of noble titles), while, on the other, the Habsburgs had to incorporate them within their wider world (through the presence of a culturally flourishing sub-court, entrance into prestigious military orders, or missions as diplomats and viceroys). Subsequently, this integration is often studied through the lens of patronage, with the actions of local elites explained as part of a patron–client culture. In general, however, the types of relationships that the Habsburgs established or strengthened through granting favours were direct and personal; they formed a linear connection between the Crown and an individual (family). Were these links sufficient in providing long-term interdependence between the Habsburgs and their local elites as a social group? The evidence shows that this is only partially true, as the Spanish Crown simultaneously invested in the creation of exclusive networks of social interaction based on the status of its members within the Habsburg empire. The intimacy of court politics or the entry into the Order of the Golden Fleece serve as the best-known examples of the Spanish Habsburg strategy to maintain socio-political control by creating unity, while, at the same time, allowing for some internal division through hierarchy. The question therefore arises as to whether the Spanish Habsburgs took this process of integration one step beyond tying local elites directly to the



1 Helmut G. Koenigsberger, ‘Monarchies and Parliaments in Early Modern Europe: Dominium Regale or Dominium Politicum et Regale’, Theory and Society, 5 (1978), 191–217; John H. Elliott, ‘A Europe of Composite Monarchies’, Past & Present, 137 (1992), 48–71; Polycentric Monarchies: How Did Early Modern Spain and Portugal Achieve and Maintain a Global Hegemony?, ed. by Pedro Cardim and others (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2012). Transregional Territories: Crossing Borders in the Early Modern Low Countries and Beyond, ed. by Bram De Ridder, Violet Soen, Werner Thomas, and Sophie Verreyken, HW 2 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 43–69.

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Crown through acts of patronage or through the creation of institutions: Did the Habsburgs use transregional marriage to stimulate relationships with locals? The politicization of marriage is not a new finding, as historians and sociologists often employ the terms ‘family politics’ and ‘marriage politics’ to describe the fashioning of kinship relations. Royal marriages confirmed a newly established political alliance and could be successfully linked to foreign policy. In the early sixteenth century, Desiderius Erasmus already called into question the effectiveness of royal marriage politics. In fact, transregional royal marriages seem to have more frequently led to increased territorial conflict than peacekeeping.2 Even the trend towards the judicial regulation of Habsburg succession, known as ‘pragmatic sanctions’, never successfully met its purpose.3 However, the elite pursued marriage politics at all levels of early modern society, with partners frequently crossing not only socio-financial borders, but geo-political ones as well. Enrique Soria Mesa has demonstrated how transregional marriages formed a strong bond between elites across several parts of the Habsburg empire, although this form of integration was not always welcomed by the Crown.4 Still, as primus inter pares, the Spanish king exercised the authority to allow or prohibit marriages between his nobles, who occupied the highest rank within elite circles. Could the existence of transregional elites formed by cross-border marriages have been the outcome of a royal strategy to manage and maintain an expansive empire? The history of the noble Arenberg family will offer an answer to this question.5 The family makes for an interesting case study primarily because marriage caused them to settle in the southern Low Countries. The Arenbergs initially rose to prominence in the Holy Roman Emperor’s service. When the County of Burgundy became part of the Holy Roman Empire in 1034, the Arenbergs moved east and started appearing in the records as viscounts of Cologne. Throughout the late Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, the Arenbergs 2 Emile Telle, ‘Erasme et les mariages dynastiques’, Bibliothèque d’humanisme et renaissance, 12 (1950), 7–13. 3 Heinz Duchhardt, ‘Die dynastische Heirat’, European History Online (2010) [accessed 1 May 2018]. 4 Enrique Soria Mesa, ‘Family, Bureaucracy and the Crown: The Wedding Market as a Form of Integration among Spanish Elites in the Early Modern Period’, in Polycentric Monarchies, ed. by Cardim, pp. 73–89. For the Low Countries, see: Violet Soen and Hans Cools, ‘L’Aristocratie transrégionale et les frontières: les processus d’identification politique dans les maisons de Luxembourg-Saint-Pol et de Croÿ (1470–1530)’, in L’Identité au pluriel: Jeux et enjeux des appartenances autour des anciens Pays-Bas, xive–xviiie siècles / Identity and Identities. Belonging at Stake in the Low Countries 14th–18th Centuries, Revue du Nord, Hors série: Collection Histoire, 30, ed. by Violet Soen, Yves Junot, and Florian Mariage (Villeneuve d’Ascq: Presses Université Charles-de-Gaulle-Lille 3, 2014), pp. 209–28. 5 Arenberg in de Lage Landen: Een hoogadellijk huis in Vlaanderen & Nederland, ed. by Marc Derez and others (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002); Luc Duerloo, ‘Transformations of a Noble Family: Arenberg on the European Chessboard’, in Arenberg: Portrait of a Family, Story of a Collection, ed. by Mark Derez, Soetkin Vanhauwaert, and Anne Verbrugge (Turnhout: Brepols, 2018), pp. 28–37.

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expanded both in members and territorial possessions, spreading out across the Holy Roman Empire and the Netherlands. It was the La Marck–Arenberg branch that eventually settled in the southern Low Countries, outlasted the other branches of the family, and carried the Arenbergs into the eighteenth century. Crucial to this settlement was the 1547 marriage between Margaretha of La Marck-Arenberg and Jean of Ligne, Baron of Barbançon. At the time, Margaretha was one of the wealthiest noble matriarchs, both financially and territorially, in the Netherlands and she was the only La Marck-Arenberg to remain loyal to the Habsburg house, as her nephews defected to the French king. Therefore, Charles V likely orchestrated her marriage to a member of the Lignes, a distinguished noble family from Hainaut, to prevent further dissidence. The Arenbergs are also interesting because they frequently collided and colluded with the Spanish Habsburg dynasty throughout the seventeenth century, all the while maintaining a connection to the family’s Austrian Imperial branch.6 Was this dual attachment the result of Habsburg politics or the outcome of the family’s marriage strategies? Two moments of crisis in the Arenberg family’s history juxtapose their persistent implementation of a noble dynastic strategy with their efforts to maintain their political loyalty towards the Habsburgs. In this contribution, I will demonstrate how dynastic noble marriages along, across, and beyond the borders of the Habsburg empire functioned as an indirect strategy of loyalty that affirmed existing ties.7 The Habsburgs used royal intervention in noble marriages as a mechanism of control, rather than a reflection of an actively steered policy.

Marriage as a Strategy of Political Loyalty The Noble Conspiracy of the 1630s

In the early 1630s, Philippe Charles of Arenberg, Duke of Aarschot, became involved in a conspiracy of nobles against Habsburg rule in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands. François Carondelet, Archduchess Isabella’s ambassador to France, inspired a group of noblemen to negotiate a plan with Cardinal Richelieu to overthrow the Habsburg regime in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands and elected Arenberg as the head of their movement. The conspiracy of 1632 has been termed a breaking point in the political balance between the Crown and the local elite, as well as between the nobles and high-ranking officials in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands. The Flemish nobles’ grievances primarily



6 Violet Soen, ‘From the Battle of Heiligerlee to the Act of Cession: Arenberg during the Dutch Revolt’, in Arenberg: Portrait of a Family, ed. by Derez, pp. 88–94. 7 Violet Soen and others, ‘How to do Transregional History: A Concept, Method and Tool for Early Modern Border Research’, Journal of Early Modern History, 21 (2017), 343–64.

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concerned their alleged loss of power at all levels of political participation. Most importantly, they believed that the Spanish Crown deliberately orchestrated their diminished position.8 By the Archdukes Albert and Isabella’s reign, the Habsburgs had successfully eroded the Council of State’s position — long since the powerbase of the local high nobility — by channelling most of the decision power to the Secrétairerie d’État et de Guerre (Secretary of State and War) and to newly set up juntas. Since its creation in 1531, conflicts between nobles and Crown revolved around the Council of State’s position of power and membership. By 1540, a royal decree had already ordered that legists replace noble councillors, thereby allegedly sowing a seed of discord that would lead to the Dutch Revolt.9 Ever since his installation in Brussels in 1559, the Secretary of State



8 Between the mid-nineteenth century and World War II, only two historians conducted detailed studies of the 1632 noble conspiracy: Théodore Juste, Conspiration de la noblesse belge contre l’Espagne en 1632 (Brussels: Decq, 1851); and Auguste Leman, ‘Contribution à l’histoire de la conspiration des nobles belges en 1632’, in Mélanges de Philologie et d’Histoire publiés à l’occasion du cinquantenaire de la Faculté des Lettres de l’Université Catholique de Lille (Lille: Facultés catholiques, 1927), pp. 121–57. Their work has inspired four historians to further write on the event: Paul Janssens, ‘L’Échec des tentatives de soulèvement aux Pays-Bas sous Philippe IV (1621–1656)’, Revue d’histoire diplomatique, 92 (1978), 110–29; Paul Janssens, ‘La Fronde de l’aristocratie belge en 1632’, in Rebelión y resistencia en el mundo hispánico del siglo xvii, ed. by Werner Thomas and Bart De Groof, Avisos de Flandes, 1 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1992), pp. 23–40; René Vermeir, ‘Le Duc d’Arschot et les conséquences de la conspiration des nobles (1632–1640)’, in Beleid en bestuur in de Oude Nederlanden. Liber Amicorum prof. dr. M. Baelde, ed. by Hugo Soly and René Vermeir (Ghent: Universiteit Gent, 1993), pp. 477–89; Wouter De Donder, ‘De adellijke samenzwering in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden (1632–1634) en de invloed ervan op het patrimonium van een edelman’ (unpublished master’s thesis, KU Leuven, 2000); Alicia Esteban Estríngana, ‘Desleales rehabilitados leales: el príncipe de Barbançon, Albert de Ligne, autor de “El amigo verdadero y leal”, y la construcción de lealtades colectivas en el siglo xvii’, in Los hilos de Penélope: Lealtad y fidelidad en la monarquía de España, 1648–1714, ed. by Cristina Bravo Lozano and Roberto Quirós Rosado (Valencia: Albatros Ediciones, 2015), pp. 39–55. All historians who have studied the conspiracy in detail seem to have reached a consensus on the causes, the course, and its consequences, although they each emphasize different elements. In the historiography on the 1632 noble conspiracy, Janssens and De Donder emphasize the local councils’ opposition to the ‘espagnolisation’, while Vermeir stresses the contrast between the noblesse de robe and the noblesse d’épée. 9 Michel Baelde and René Vermeir, ‘Raad van State’, in De centrale overheidsinstellingen van de Habsburgse Nederlanden, ed. by Erik Aerts, 2 vols (Brussels: Algemeen Rijksarchief, 1994), i, pp. 267–69, 272, and 275. As the authors indicate, there is still little to nothing written on the Council’s seventeenth-century workings. Hugo de Schepper has included a list of the Council of State’s members between 1580 and 1660 in: Hugo de Schepper, ‘De overheidsstructuren in de Koninklijke Nederlanden 1580–1700’, in Algemene Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, ed. by Dirk P. Blok and others, 15 vols (Haarlem: Fibula-Van Dishoeck, 1977–1983), v (1980), pp. 396–99. In 1630, the Council of State consisted of Pierre Roose, president of the Privy Council; Guillaume of Steenhuys, councillor of the Privy Council; Ferdinand of Boisschot, chancellor of Brabant; Adriaan Thomassin, president of the Parliament of Dôle; Jacob Boonen, Archbishop of Malines; Antoon Triest, Bishop of Ghent; Philippe Charles of Arenberg, Duke of Aarschot and provincial governor of

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and War operated both as a secretary to the governor-general as well as an informant to the Spanish king. Until the eighteenth century, the secretary was, without fail, a Castilian who was generally in charge of foreign policy and the Habsburg army in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands. Yet, as the secretary’s duties were not well-defined throughout the seventeenth century, officials in Madrid required him to advise the governor-general on internal affairs. Consequently, he often collided with local high-ranking functionaries, such as the audiencier, the Privy Council’s most important official.10 Moreover, Alonso de la Cueva, Marquis of Bedmar, headed the two new juntas. De la Cueva had been Spanish ambassador to Brussels since 1619 and was a keen supporter of a strong Spanish presence at the archducal court in Brussels.11 Thus, it should be no surprise that both juntas were primarily filled with Habsburg protégés. One junta was in charge of military defence, and consisted of Don Diego Mexía Felípez de Guzmán, Marquis of Leganés; Francisco de Moncada, Marquis of Aytona; the Marquis of Mirabel; and Don Carlos de Coloma.12 The other junta, composed of Engelbert Maes, president of the

Namur; Maximilian, Count of Sint-Aldegonde and provincial governor of Artois; Claude of Oignies, Count of Coupigny and president of the Council of Finances; Jean of Croÿ, Count of Solre and councillor of the High Council for the Netherlands in Madrid; Henri, Count vanden Bergh and provincial governor of Guelders; Guillaume of Melun, Count of Épinoy; Diego de Mexía, Marquis of Leganés and president of the High Council for the Netherlands in Madrid. 10 On the Secretary of State and War see: Arthur Gaillard and Em De Breyne, Inventaire sommaire des archives de la Secrétairerie d’État et de Guerre, Inventaires sommaires des archives de anciens gouvernements des Pays-Bas, conservées aux Archives générales du Royaume à Bruxelles, 1 (Brussels: Guyot, 1906); Joseph Lefèvre, La Secrétairerie d’état et de guerre sous le régime espagnol (1594–1711), Mémoires de l’Académie royale de Belgique: Classe des lettres et des sciences morales et politiques, 36 (Brussels: Palais des Académies, 1934); Piet Lenders, ‘Secretarie van State en Oorlog’, in De centrale overheidsinstellingen, ed. by Aerts, i, pp. 386–97. Miguel Ángel Echevarría has compiled a list of the secretaries of war and state between 1592 and 1702: Miguel Ángel Echevarría, Flandes y la Monarquía Hispánica 1500–1713 (Madrid: Silex, 1998), p. 396. Piet Lenders completed the list for the eighteenth century: Lenders, ‘Secretarie van State en Oorlog’, p. 394. 11 Dries Raeymaekers, One Foot in the Palace: The Habsburg Court of Brussels and the Politics of Access in the Reign of Albrecht and Isabella, 1598–1621 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2013), pp. 178–79; Luc Duerloo, Dynasty and Piety: Archduke Albert (1598–1621) and Habsburg Political Culture in an Age of Religious Wars (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 79–81, and 440. Alonso de la Cueva succeeded the Marquis of Guadalest as ambassador to Brussels and arrived in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands in November 1619. He had previously held the ambassadorship in Venice. 12 The ad hoc nature of the junta is apparent from a letter sent between Philip IV and Isabella after Wesel and ’s-Hertogenbosch fell in August and September 1629 respectively, and they had to rally the members of the junta back to Brussels: Correspondance de la Cour d’Espagne sur les affaires des Pays-Bas au xviie siècle (=CCE), ed. by Henri Lonchay, Joseph Cuvelier, and Joseph Lefèvre, 6 vols (Brussels: Kiessling et Imbreghts, 1923–1937), iii (1930), p. 481, no. 1485. Diego Mexía Felípez de Guzmán, Marquis of Leganés, the son of a lady-in-waiting to Archduchess Isabella and nephew of the Count-Duke of Olivares, had grown up at the Brussels court as menino. He had saved Archduke Albert’s life at the battle of Nieuwpoort

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Privy Council, Ferdinand of Boisschot, chancellor of Brabant, and Guillaume of Steenhuys, alcalde of the court, took on the tasks normally handled by the Council of State.13 At the court in Brussels, Spanish nobles also dominated the most prestigious functions, even if more Flemish nobles were admitted to the royal chambers during the seventeenth century.14 Specifically, the Habsburgs seem to have pushed the old noble lineages aside in an apparent effort to tighten their control. The new generation of noblesse de robe, now favoured over the traditional noblesse d’épée, further undermined the traditional noble position by securing a majority in the government body. For one, the members of the Junta de Estado only consisted of recently ennobled men who owed their careers entirely to royal appointments. Beginning in 1595, Habsburg politics of ennoblement had in 1600 and received the honour of primer caballerizo of the archducal household in 1615. See: Raeymaekers, One Foot in the Palace, pp. 85, 172, and 187–88; Duerloo, Dynasty and Piety, p. 120. Francisco de Moncada y Cardona, Marquis of Aytona, had started his career as Spanish ambassador to the Viennese court from 1624 to 1629, when his superiors called him away to the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands to replace Alonso de la Cueva as ambassador to Brussels. During his stay in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, he became the main advisor to Archduchess Isabella until her death in 1633 and stayed on as governor-general ad interim until the arrival of the Cardinal-Infant Ferdinand of Austria in 1634. See René Vermeir, ‘Francisco de Moncada, markies van Aytona’, Nationaal Biografisch Woordenboek, 23 vols (Brussels: Paleis der Academiën, 1964- ), xvi (2002), pp. 574–81. Antonio Dávila y Zúñiga, Marquis of Mirabel, was the Spanish ambassador in Paris from 1621 until 1629. He became master of Cardinal-Infant Fernando of Austria’s household and governor-general of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands in the 1630s. See Robert A. Stradling, Philip IV and the Government of Spain 1621–1665 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 337. Carlos Coloma, Marquis of Espinar, had been the Spanish ambassador in London from 1622 to 1624 and from 1629 to 1631, serving as military commander in Flanders and Italy between his two ambassadorships. He married the Flemish noblewoman Marguerite of Gavere-Liedekercke. See José Pablo Alzina, Embajadores de España en Londres: Una guía de retratos de la embajada de España (Madrid: Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, 2001), pp. 103–04. 13 Baelde and Vermeir, ‘Raad van State’, p. 268; Janssens, ‘L’Échec des tentatives’, p. 111; Janssens, ‘La Fronde de l’aristocratie’, pp. 31–32; Vermeir, ‘Le Duc d’Arschot’, p. 477; De Donder, De adellijke samenzwering, pp. 39–40. Catherine Thomas wrote a biography on Ferdinand of Boisschot, Engelbert Maes, and Guillaume of Steenhuys in her prosopography. She does not, however, mention their involvement in the temporary junta. Catherine Thomas, De l’Affection, avec laquele je me dispose de la servir toute ma vie: Prosopographie des grands commis du gouvernement central des Pays-Bas espagnols (1598–1700) (Brussels: Algemeen Rijksarchief, 2011), pp. 182–84, 506–07, and 690–91. 14 Raeymaekers, One Foot in the Palace, pp. 151–60; Birgit Houben, ‘Wisselende gedaanten: Het hof en de hofhouding van de landvoogden Isabella Clara Eugenia (1621–1633) en de kardinaal-infant don Fernando van Oostenrijk (1634–1641) te Brussel’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Ghent, 2009), pp. 203–16; Werner Thomas, ‘The “Spanish Faction” at the Court of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella’, in A Constellation of Courts: The Courts and Households of Habsburg Europe, 1555–1665, ed. by René Vermeir and others, Avisos de Flandes, 15 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2014), pp. 167–222; José Eloy Hortal Muñoz and Koldo Trápaga Monchet, ‘The Royal Households in the Habsburg Netherlands after the Departure of the Household of Burgundy: From the Entourages of the Governors-General to the Maison Royale de Bruxelles’, Dutch Crossing, 39 (2015), 3–25.

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shifted from a process of social assimilation to royal favouritism. Service to the Crown replaced birth as one of the main criteria for ennoblement.15 In 1598, the Archduchess Isabella, Philip II’s daughter, and her husband, Archduke Albert of Austria, assumed power and ruled the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands as a ‘separate yet conditional sovereignty’.16 However, in preparation for the ‘return’ of the territory to the Spanish Crown, Philip III and his advisors took careful measures to keep the local elites true to the Habsburg cause. Not only did he offer them with honorary titles and court functions, but he also kept his Spanish advisors and confidants close to the archdukes in Brussels. As Alicia Esteban Estríngana has argued, the Habsburg court worked hard to apply a new model of patronage to its elites, rewarding the middling nobles, while controlling the higher ranks by keeping them closer to court.17 At the same time, Habsburg leaders increasingly assigned noble titles to a family name rather than to a territory. Philip IV (1621–1665), in particular, granted an increasing number of noble titles. This policy clearly affected both the existing class of noble families — as more titles of high nobility were issued — as well as a growing group of government officials.18 A large majority of the magistrates in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands’s central government were men who had already acquired experience working in local institutions as jurists. Some fifty-six per cent of these magistrates succeeded in obtaining a title of nobility.19 This newly ennobled social group gradually pushed the old noble families out of (political) office. Esteban Estríngana has pointed out how the period between 1629 and 1634 represented ‘a critical step in the process of reincorporation’ of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands into the Spanish empire.20 After the Twelve Years’ Truce (1609–1621), the Spanish Crown and the Dutch Republic resumed their earlier conflict. At first, Ambrogio Spinola’s successful military campaigns in the Dutch Republic and the north-western German territories between 1621 and 1625 had temporarily restored faith in Habsburg control over political, economic, and military life. Yet, the conflict’s renewal strained the royal treasury, while the Italian Peninsula simultaneously required military attention. In addition, the Dutch were recovering from an economic recession in the early 1620s. The scales quickly tipped again, as Dutch troops were pushing at the 15 Paul Janssens, De evolutie van de Belgische adel sinds de late middeleeuwen (Brussels: Gemeentekrediet van België, 1998), pp. 194–208; Catherine Thomas, Le Visage humain de l’administration: Les grands commis du gouvernement central des Pays-Bas espagnols (1598–1700) (Brussels: Académie Royale, 2014), p. 162. 16 Alicia Esteban Estríngana, ‘The Principality of the Archdukes: Project and Reality of a Separate Sovereignty’, in Early Modern Sovereignties: Theory and Practice of a Burgeoning Concept in the Netherlands, ed. by Werner Thomas, Erik De Bom, and Randall Lesaffer (Leiden: Brill, forthcoming). 17 Esteban Estríngana, ‘Desleales rehabilitados leales’, pp. 54–55. 18 Janssens, De evolutie van de Belgische adel, pp. 124 and 203. 19 Thomas, Le Visage humain, pp. 23–58 and 171. 20 Esteban Estríngana, ‘Desleales rehabilitados leales’, p. 39.

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Spanish Habsburg Netherlands’s frontier by the end of the 1620s. The Spanish monarchy, however, failed to convince the local elites of its continuous and firm support against this northern threat. The siege and seizure of ’s-Hertogenbosch in 1629 proved a turning point, with the Flemish political elite pressing to negotiate with the Dutch Republic.21 They sent Jean of Croÿ, Count of Solre and court favourite, to Madrid to persuade the king to allow the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands to parley with the Dutch. The political alliance between the Dutch Republic and the French monarchy stymied any peace agreement with the Spanish Habsburgs and increased the fear of a two-front war in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands.22 However, the count returned empty-handed from the Iberian Peninsula, with nothing to show for his negotiations but some vague promises of future military and financial aid.23 That same year, Archduchess Isabella personally loosened the reigns on local politics by suspending the two juntas in favour of a Council of State. Francisco de Moncada, Marquis of Aytona, replaced the Marquis of Bedmar as head of the Secretary of State and War. Aytona heralded a short-lived attempt at restoring the archducal policy of promoting local aristocrats to local positions, but decision-makers in Madrid quickly prevented any endeavour in this direction from taking shape.24 As negotiations with the Dutch proved slow and laborious throughout the early 1630s, the accumulation of individual grievances and the ambassadors’ persuasiveness convinced certain nobles to conspire with the Dutch and French against Habsburg rule in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands.25 By spring 1632, two cooperative factions of discontented nobles had formed and were attempting to recruit troops at the borders. To the east, Count Henri vanden Bergh and René of Renesse, Count of Warfusée, persuaded the Prince of Orange to fund military support. To the west, a ‘Walloon league’ instigated 21 Throughout this text, I have opted to use the adjective ‘Flemish’ to denote individuals born in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, rather than using ‘Southern Netherlandish’. ‘Flemish’ fits into the early modern Spanish geo-political term ‘Flandes’ which was used to indicate the Habsburg territories in the Low Countries. 22 On the negotiations between the French and the Dutch, see: Peter De Cauwer, Tranen van bloed. Het beleg van ’s Hertogenbosch, 1629 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2008), pp. 263–69. 23 Victor Brants, ‘Solre ( Jean de Croy, second comte de)’, in Biographie Nationale, 44 vols (Brussels: Thiry-Van Buggenhoudt, 1866–1986), xxiii (1924), pp. 121–26; Joseph Lefèvre, ‘Croy-Solre ( Jean de)’, in Biographie Nationale, xxx (1959), pp. 303–06; Alicia Esteban Estríngana, ‘Afición, entendimiento y celo al servicio de Su Majestad: el conde de Solre, Jean de Croÿ, y la unión hispano-flamenca en el reinado de Felipe IV’, in Agentes e identidades en movimiento: España y los Países Bajos siglos xvi–xviii, ed. by René Vermeir and others (Madrid: Silex, 2011), pp. 195–230. 24 De Donder, De adellijke samenzwering, p. 42. 25 On the negotiations between the Estates-General and the Dutch Republic, see: De Donder, De adellijke samenzwering, pp. 41–42 and 67–82; Bram De Ridder, ‘Lawful Limits: Border Management and the Formation of the Habsburg-Dutch Boundary, ca. 1590–1665’ (unpublished doctoral thesis, KU Leuven, 2016), pp. 193–210.

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by François of Carondelet, dean of Cambrai, won the support of Guillaume of Melun, Prince of Épinoy; Alexandre of Bournonville, Count of Hénin; Albert of Ligne, Prince of Barbançon; and Count Louis of Egmont. To attract the lower nobility to the cause, the conspirators agreed they needed to add a strong and popular leader to the movement. The choice fell on Philippe Charles of Arenberg, Duke of Aarschot.26 Surprisingly, in September 1632, Archduchess Isabella allowed the elites to independently discuss the crisis under the Duke of Aarschot’s presidency in the Estates-General, even though Philip III had explicitly forbidden its convocation.27 By this time, however, the noble conspiracy had dried up. France withdrew its support for an uprising as the return of the exiled Duke of Orléans demanded its attention. The Dutch Estates-General announced that they preferred a negotiated peace to a new military campaign. Any conspiratorial plans lost momentum when Arenberg renewed his allegiance to Archduchess Isabella in an attempt to keep opposition to Spanish decisions ‘within the law’.28 In 1633, the Estates-General delegated Arenberg to Maastricht and The Hague to continue peace negotiations with the Dutch Republic. During the discussions, the Dutch demanded a renewal of the official documents that allowed the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands’s deputies to negotiate in the name of the Spanish king. As a result, the Duke of Aarschot left for Spain on 16 November and arrived at court in December 1633. During his voyage to Madrid, an English diplomat named Balthasar Gerbier and Abbot Scaglia, agent to the Duke of Savoy, sold information concerning the underground conspiracy to the Count-Duke of Olivares, right hand to the Spanish king. Until April 1634, the king kept the Duke of Aarschot busy at the Madrid court, while Spanish councillors tried to uncover his involvement in the conspiracy. Eventually, they found enough to arrest and imprison him.29 Meanwhile, Arenberg received the news that Archduchess Isabella, his main supporter, had passed away. In 1634, the Spanish king started to persecute the alleged conspirators in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands. He sentenced Count vanden Bergh, who had previously openly pledged allegiance to the Dutch cause, to death

26 De Donder describes how participation in the conspiracy snowballed: De Donder, De adellijke samenzwering, pp. 50–57. 27 Robert Wellens, ‘Staten-Generaal’, in De centrale overheidsinstellingen, ed. by Aerts, i, pp. 65–75. The Estates-General of 1632 was made up of the representatives from society’s three established tiers (nobles, clergy, citizens) from all provinces of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands. De Donder added a list of all the delegates present to his thesis: De Donder, De adellijke samenzwering, Appendix 7. 28 Janssens, ‘L’Échec des tentatives’, p. 114; Vermeir, ‘Le Duc d’Arschot’, p. 479; De Donder, De adellijke samenzwering, p. 58. 29 Louis-Prosper Gachard, ‘Arenberg (Philippe-Charles)’, in Biographie Nationale, i (1866), pp. 389–95.

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and imprisoned Albert of Ligne, Prince of Barbançon in Antwerp, while the Prince of Épinoy and the Counts of Hénin and Egmont fled to France. The governor-general, the Marquis of Aytona, did not include any of these individuals in the royal pardon he issued in April 1634.30 Given the lack of further peace negotiations between the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands and the Dutch Republic, the French and Dutch agreed to a division of the former. They signed a treaty of alliance in February 1635, thereby turning the Habsburg fear of a two-front war in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands into a reality. Only the Treaty of Munster of 1648 brought an end to the war with the Dutch, while the Treaty of the Pyrenees brought peace with the French. The conspiracy’s miscarriage demonstrates how the high nobility had to admit defeat in the face of the ever-growing political power of the ennobled jurists, as they came to dominate the central government in Brussels. In addition, the failed conspiracy clearly indicates that the Crown no longer perceived the high nobility as a genuine political threat. The Spanish Crown acknowledged that a territory’s political loyalty could be secured through a new class of nobles, the noblesse de robe, who still stood to gain from royal patronage. It therefore did severely sanction the nobles, as the court persecuted and incarcerated them, but did not behead them. Instead, it honourably reinstated their children into the highest circles of Habsburg society. However, this does not provide a satisfactory explanation for the Crown’s attitude towards the sons of the conspiring nobles. Even if the conspiracy never turned into a public revolt and most Flemish nobles remained loyal to Habsburg authority, the Walloon League’s conspirators had all been Knights of the Golden Fleece and provincial governors of regions bordering France. Their high social status still translated to local influence and access to significant military and financial means, even if they had been politically exiled. Surprisingly, the Habsburgs installed their sons into their former positions. How could they be certain that, by not depriving them of any privileges, the door to new conflict was not left ajar? Son of a Conspirator

Four years after the arrest and imprisonment of Philippe Charles of Arenberg, his wife, Duchess Maria Cleopha of Hohenzollern–Sigmaringen, managed to travel to Madrid in the company of Philippe François, his son.31 However, her

30 De Donder, De adellijke samenzwering, pp. 92–94. 31 Maria Cleopha of Hohenzollern (11/6/1599–21/2/1685) married Johann Jakob of Bronckhorst-Batenberg, Count of Anhont (d. 1630) in 1618. She remarried the Duke of Aarschot in Cologne on 23 March 1632. The marriage produced two children who reached adulthood: Charles Eugène (1633–1681) and Marie-Thérèse (1639–1705). Detlev Schwennicke, Europäische Stammtafeln: Stammtafeln zur Geschichte der Europäischen Staaten (=ES), 29 vols (Marburg: Verlag von J. A. Stargardt, 1980–2013), xviii (1998), p. 100; Peter Neu, Arenberger Frauen, Fürstinnen, Herzoginnen, Ratgeberinnen, Mütter: Frauenschicksale

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plea for her husband’s release was in vain. When Philippe Charles passed away in 1640, his widow returned to the Arenberg estate in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, accompanied by a newly born daughter. The Consejo de Estado granted her permission to leave Madrid after judging her ‘[…] A saintly woman, incapable of a venial sin and even less of being a cause for concern for the king’.32 Moreover, the duchess had decided to retire to the Arenberg family domains in the Holy Roman Empire.33 The late duke’s fifteen-year-old son Philippe François, born out of his second marriage to Isabelle Claire of Berlaymont, Countess of Lalaing, was now the seventh Duke of Aarschot, and stayed behind in Madrid. The young Duke of Aarschot received his education at the Spanish court from 1640 until 1647.34 In Madrid, Juan Muñoz, a capuchin confidant of his stepmother, acted as his guardian.35 Here, the duke formed part of the close-knit inner circle that formed around Crown-Prince Balthasar Carlos.36 At the age of nineteen, he became commander of the royal archers in the Burgundian guard and the king knighted him as a member of the prestigious Order of the

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Im Hause Arenberg in Sieben Jahrhunderten (Koblenz: Verlag der Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz, 2006), pp. 110–23. The collection of Hispano-Flemish art purchased by Philippe Charles of Arenberg during his time in Madrid has attracted the attention of art historians. Most recently, see: José Juan Pérez Preciado, ‘Aarschot and Croÿ: The Collections, Patronage, and Influence in Spain of two Flemish Noblemen’, in Sponsors of the Past: Flemish Art and Patronage, 1550–1700, ed. by Hans Vlieghe and Katlijne Van Der Stighelen (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), pp. 17–36. The recent volume that appeared for the Arenberg festival in Leuven strongly focusses on the family’s art patronage and lifestyle: Arenberg: Portrait of a Family, ed. by Derez. CCE, iii (1930), p. 420: Consult of the Consejo de Estado, 11/4/1641: ‘[…] une sainte femme, incapable d’un péché véniel et encore bien moins de créer des ennuis au Roi’. Her dowry included the lordships of Kerpen and Kasselburg in the Eiffel region, which adjoined the Duchy of Arenberg. Jan Engelbert d’Arenberg, ‘De heren, graven, prins-graven en hertogen van Arenberg’, in Arenberg in de Lage Landen, ed. by Derez, p. 34; Johannes Mötsch,‘Die Herrschaften Kerpen, Kasselburg, Fleringen un die Vogtei Gillenfeld’, in Die Arenberger: Geschichte einer europäischen Dynastie, 2 vols (Koblenz: Verlag der Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz, 1987), i, pp. 97–120. Philippe François of Arenberg (30/7/1625–17/12/1674): Schwennicke, ES, xviii (1998), p. 100; Louis-Prosper Gachard, ‘Arenberg (Philippe-François, prince-comte d’)’, in Biographie Nationale, i (1866), pp. 405–10. Jean Muñoz was canon of Avesnes, Leuze, St Waldetrudis in Mons, and St Goedele in Brussels. After the return of the Arenbergs to the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands from 1659 to 1681, he watched over the Arenberg estate as intendant in the service of Marie Madeleine de Borja. Jean-Pierre Tytgat, ‘De relatie tussen de kartuizers van Herne en de familie d’Arenberg aan de hand van de persoonlijke briefwisseling’, in De Kartuizers te Herne 1314–1783 (Herne: Het Oude Land van Edingen en Omliggende, 1983), p. 73; Luc Duerloo, ‘Arenberg in de Habsburgse Nederlanden’, in Arenberg in de Lage Landen, p. 134. Peter Neu, Die Arenberger und das Arenberger Land, 6 vols (Koblenz: Verlag der Landesarchivverwaltung Rheinland-Pfalz, 1989–2001), ii (1989), pp. 84–109.

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Golden Fleece at the age of twenty-one.37 On the 14 of July 1642, Philippe François married Maria Magdalena de Borja y Doria.38 Muñoz, Philippe’s guardian, and Cardinal Gaspar Borja y Velasco, the bride’s great-uncle, had arranged the alliance and served as the only representatives of the two families in Madrid when officials drafted the prenuptial contract in the presence of Manuel Rodríguez de Velasco, the royal secretary of the Inquisition.39 According to some sources, the king had pushed for the arrangement.40 The Borja — or Borgia — family’s reputation had been somewhat tainted by a series of decadent cardinals and popes during the late-fifteenth and early-sixteenth centuries, yet, at the time of the marriage in 1642, the family was at the height of their political and financial power within the Habsburg realm. The marriage was one of social, but not necessarily financial, equals. 37 On the election and nomination of Philippe François of Arenberg as captain of the noble guard of the archeros de corps, see: José Eloy Hortal Muñoz, Las Guardas Reales de los Austrias Hispanos (Madrid: Polifemo, 2013), pp. 192–201. The archive in Enghien holds the patent letter of the knighthood of the Golden Fleece: Enghien, Archief en Cultureel Centrum van Arenberg (=ACA), Honneurs, box 39, fol. 83: Copy of the patent letter of the Order of the Golden Fleece for Philippe-François of Arenberg, 2/9/1646. 38 Maria Magdalena de Borja y Doria (16/12/1627–21/6/1700) was the daughter of Francisco III de Borja y Doria, Duke of Gandía and Grande of Spain (Schwennicke, ES, xviii (1998), p. 100; Neu, Arenberger Frauen, pp. 125–37). 39 Enghien, ACA, État Civil, box 32, no. 33: Prenuptial contract of Philippe François of Arenberg and Maria Magdalena de Borja, Gandia, 11/6/1642 (sealed). A first draft was signed in Madrid on 19 May 1642, then ratified by the Duke of Gandia, two representatives of the Duchess of Gandia (her mayordomo, Pedro de Villegas, and her secretary, Estevan Delgado) and Maria Magdalena de Borja in the family’s castle in the Barony of Castellón on 7 June 1642. Finally, the royal notary of Valencia authenticated the document by his signature ‘por quanto por la distantia de los lugares muchas vezes se suele dudar de la fidelidad y legalidad de los notarios y escrivanos’ (‘because of the distance of the locations on several occasions one could doubt the loyalty and legality of the notaries and scribes’) (fols 10v–11r); Enghien, ACA, État Civil, box 32, no. 33: Copy of the marriage contract of Philippe François of Arenberg and Maria Magdalena de Borja, Madrid, 19/5/1642 (unsealed). 40 Few details from the Arenberg–Borja marriage survive, as Peter Neu writes that no records remain in the Borja family archive in Valencia that refer to the wedding (Neu, Arenberger Frauen, p. 131). He states that rumour suggested that the king and the Count-Duke of Olivares had arranged for the marriage to take place. Neu, Die Arenberger, p. 87: ‘Die Ehe war angeblich durch König Philipp IV. und dessen Minister Olivarez gestiftet worden’. However, Neu only vaguely refers to sources in his text, stating this as ‘Nach spanischen Quellen’, which has impeded cross-checking (Neu, Die Arenberger, p. 87; Neu, Arenberger Frauen, p. 128). Christiane Donkers repeats this anecdote and instead refers to the records of a lawsuit between Marie-Henriette of Cusance de Vergy and Maria Magdalena de Borja before the Great Council of Malines between 1687 and 1694 to indicate active royal interference in forming the marital bond. See Christiane Donkers, ‘Het tijdperk van de vrouwen, een cruciale periode in de Arenberggeschiedenis: De figuur en het voogdijschap (1691–1708) van Marie-Henriette del Carretto (1671–1744), een case-study naar de grondslagen en waarden van de aristocratie’ (unpublished master’s thesis, KU Leuven, 2000), pp. 89–92. This source, drafted within the framework of a dispute over the inheritance of the childless Philippe François of Arenberg, and any reference to the role of the king in it should, however, be considered in that context.

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Maria Magdalena’s father endowed her with a dowry of as much as 100,000 ducats, while in his correspondence to Maria Cleopha, his stepmother, the young duke worried of not being able to even afford a diamond necklace (estimated at 3000 ducats) for his fiancée.41 In March 1648, the young duke received permission to return to his estates in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands with his bride.42 He never went back to Castile. Upon his arrival, he requested to be named provincial governor of Namur, and later of Luxemburg, as this title had long been a privilege reserved for the Arenberg family.43 Governor-general Leopold Wilhelm advised against the appointment and called on his age and inexperience as the main argument for refusing him the position. Philippe François first had to climb the ranks through a military career.44 He achieved this goal by 1663, when he became provincial governor and bailiff of Hainaut, the most important governmental post in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands.45 The duke’s rapid ascent meant that he stood in a close relation to the governors-general. Not only does the duke’s remaining correspondence testify to regular communication, but he also often travelled throughout the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands as part of the

41 Neu, Arenberger Frauen, pp. 125–31. 42 Neu, Die Arenberger, p. 89. The French king granted the Duke of Aarschot a passport to pass through the kingdom from the Iberian Peninsula to the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands: Enghien, ACA, Biographie, box 30/22, no. 15: Passport of Louis XIV for Philippe François of Arenberg, 1648. 43 The governorship of the Duchy of Luxemburg and the County of Chimay had been a privilege accorded to members of the Arenberg house since 1478, starting with Engelbert of La Marck’s governorship (1478–1479). However, the governorship passed from noble family to noble family throughout the sixteenth century. The Arenbergs held the position without interruption from 1649 until 1684, when Luxemburg became French territory. A similar scenario unfolded for the governorship of Namur. Philippe Charles of Arenberg had been provincial governor of Namur in 1626 and held the post until his death in 1640. During his imprisonment in Madrid in 1634, Charles of Longueval, Count of La Motterie, replaced him. Yet, from 1649 to 1654, and from 1675 to 1692, a member of the Arenberg house held the governorship. See Edmond Poullet, Les Gouverneurs de province dans les anciens Pays-Bas catholiques (Brussels: Hayez, 1873), pp. 151–55 and 170–75. 44 Gachard, ‘Arenberg (Philippe-François)’, p. 408; Neu, Die Arenberger, p. 105. Neu cites the letters of approval sent between the courts in Madrid and Brussels. Philippe François started as an inspector of a Spanish infantry regiment, until governor-general Archduke Leopold Wilhelm nominated him to serve as commander of a German cavalry regiment in 1651. In 1656, he was promoted to chef et général d’hommes d’armes, and in 1660 to capitaine général de l’armée navale de Flandre (Enghien, ACA, Honneurs, box 39, fol. 86v: Copy of the patent letter for chef et général d’hommes d’armes for Philippe François of Arenberg, 17/8/1656; and fol. 89: Copy of the patent letter for capitaine général de l’armée navale de Flandre for Philippe François of Arenberg, 26/7/1660). 45 Enghien, ACA, Honneurs, box 39, fol. 91v: Copy of the patent letter of bailiff of Hainaut for Philippe François of Arenberg, 26/5/1663; Enghien, ACA, Honneurs, box 39, fol. 95: Copy of the patent letter of provincial governor of Hainaut for Philippe François of Arenberg, 4/6/1663.

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s o p h ie V e r r e y ke n Jean of Ligne (1525-1568) Baron of Barbançon X Margaretha of La Marck-Arenberg (1527-1599) Countess of Arenberg

Robert of Ligne (1564-1614) Prince of Barbançon

Charles of Arenberg (1550-1616) Count of Arenberg

Philippe Charles of Arenberg (1587-1640) Duke of Aarschot X (1) Anne of Melun (2) Isabella of Berlaymont (3) Maria Cleopha of Hohenzollern

Philippe François of Arenberg (1625-1674) X Maria Magdalena de Borja (1627-1700)

Ernestine of Arenberg (1589-1653) X Guillaume III de Melun (1588-1635) Prince of Épinoy

Albert of Ligne (1600-1674) Prince of Barbançon

Ernestine Françoise of Arenberg (1628-1663) X Alexandre Hippolyte of Bournonville (1616-1690)

Fig. 3.1 Genealogical table of the Arenberg family (only family members which are mentioned in this chapter appear)

governor-general’s entourage.46 During the period between 1660 to 1664, for example, the Duke of Arenberg appears in the Marquis of Caracena’s company three times as a part of his travelling court that stopped over in Bruges.47 This symbolic presence reinforced the public image of the (renewed) noblemen’s loyalty to the Spanish regime. Philippe François and Maria Magdalena never had a child that survived past the age of eleven. Once it seemed unlikely that there would ever be a healthy heir, Philippe François transferred his title of Duke of Aarschot to his younger stepbrother, Charles Eugène. Philippe François, the Duke of Aarschot’s son, was not the only individual to regain Habsburg trust. Three patterns emerge when taking a closer look at the consequences of the noblemen’s choices. First, Philippe Charles of Arenberg had not only been perceived as a natural leader among the conspiratorial nobles, but he actually served as his generation’s kingpin in the family network that connected the Houses of Arenberg, Ligne, Melun,

46 For the letters sent to Aarschot by several governors-general between 1663 and 1675, see: Enghien, ACA, Correspondance, 337, 100 (40/9), n. 165, 334, 339, 346, and 400. 47 Bruges, Stadsarchief, Ancien Régime Archief, no. 87: Expense accounts for the sovereign’s reception (or his governor-general).

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and Bournonville. Philippe Charles of Arenberg and Albert of Ligne were first cousins through their communal grandfather, Jean of Ligne. Philippe Charles’s sister, Ernestine, had married Guillaume III of Melun in 1615. In 1656, Alexandre II of Bournonville, son of the Count of Hénin, married Philippe Charles’s daughter, Ernestine Françoise of Arenberg. Thus, three of the five nobles in the Walloon League were already closely related before the conspiracy had even started in the 1630s. Secondly, the choice for supporting either the French or Dutch side in the conspiracy had a significant impact on the next generation and its relation to the Spanish Crown. Alongside Philippe Charles of Arenberg, the Crown identified and accused four other Knights of the Order of the Golden Fleece of plotting with France: Guillaume III of Melun, Prince of Épinoy; Alexandre of Bournonville, Count of Hénin; Louis, Count of Egmont; and Albert of Ligne, Prince of Barbançon. Only Albert of Ligne’s situation, however, shows any resemblance to the Duke of Aarschot’s story, perhaps because the Habsburg authorities also captured and imprisoned him in Antwerp’s citadel from 1634 to Christmas Eve 1642. After his release, the king appointed him councillor in the Secretary of State and War and allowed him to resume his official function as Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Officials did not, however, allow Ligne to return to his former military post as captain of the artillery until 1658, during the governorship of Juan José of Austria. Meanwhile, Madrid councillors discussed the possibility of bringing him and his family closer to court. In the 1670s, Barbançon left the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands and took up a position as councillor in the High Council of the Low Countries in Madrid.48 It is striking that his son, Octave Ignace of Ligne, accompanied him to the Madrid court and married Teresa Maria Manrique de Lara, a Spanish noblewoman. Octave Ignace was nearly thirty years old when he followed his father to the Iberian Peninsula and had never previously been married.49 Upon his return to the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, he followed in his father’s footsteps, becoming provincial governor of Namur and entered the

48 Louis-Prosper Gachard, ‘Barbançon (Albert de Ligne prince de)’, in Biographie Nationale, i (1866), pp. 686–97; Esteban Estríngana, ‘Desleales rehabilitados leales’, pp. 45–52. 49 He had been reprimanded in 1664 for breaking a marital promise to the daughter of the Count of Thiennes. A royal letter of approval from the queen-regent to the governor-general the Count of Monterrey for the marriage of Octave Ignace of Arenberg to Theresa Maria Manrique de Lara is kept in the archives of the Privy Council: Brussels, Archives générales du Royaume, Conseil Privé, register no. 2, fol. 47v: Letter of approval to marry (Referenced in CCE, v (1935), p. 128, no. 308). Furthermore, Albert of Ligne had just one daughter, Isabella, who had been married — and widowed — twice by 1672, to Albert François of Lalaing, Count of Hoogstraten (d. 1643), and to Ulrich of Württemberg (d. 1671). See Schwennicke, ES, xviii (1998), p. 104.

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Order of the Golden Fleece in 1682. Albert of Ligne remained in Madrid, where he died in April 1674.50 Épinoy, Hénin, and Egmont all fled to France in 1634.51 Even though none of them ever returned to the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, their sons did. Guillaume III of Melun’s sons rose to prominence within the Habsburg ranks. Alexandre Guillaume of Melun, Prince of Épinoy, managed to regain Spanish favour, but ultimately chose to side with Louis XIV during the War of Devolution. Henri of Melun, Marquis of Richebourg, became colonel of a Walloon infantry regiment in Spanish service. He died at a young age in 1664. François Philippe of Melun, Marquis of Richebourg, obtained the positions of governor of Valenciennes, Guelders, and Mons, and bailiff of Hainaut, while also becoming a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece.52 Alexandre II of Bournonville, Count of Hénin, served in the Imperial army until 1648, when the Crown pardoned his family and allowed it to reclaim Spanish favour. In 1658, he became Prince of Bournonville and graduated to the governorship of Artois and the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1672. He then moved to Madrid, where he became a military councillor to King Charles II and, in succession, viceroy of Catalonia (1678) and Navarra (1686).53 Philippe Louis of Egmont received similar honours. Beginning with invitations to become both a Knight in the Order of the Golden Fleece (1672) and a Grande of Spain, he eventually rose to the position of viceroy of Sardinia. In Brussels, the Marquis and Marquise of Caracena, the former serving as the governor-general of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, presented their oldest son at the baptismal font.54 By the end of the 1670s, all descendants of the conspiratorial nobles held important local and supra-regional positions within the Habsburg realm. It is especially striking that the oldest sons of Arenberg and Ligne, both of whom had accompanied their fathers during their respective stay at the Madrid court, went on to marry Spanish noblewomen, while the sons of the nobles 50 Louis-Prosper Gachard, ‘Barbançon (Octave-Ignace de Ligne-Arenberg, prince de)’, in Biographie Nationale, i (1866), pp. 697–703. Octave Ignace of Ligne-Arenberg married Theresa Maria Manrique de Lara in 1672 in Madrid. She was one of the ladies-in-waiting to the Spanish queen Mariana of Austria. 51 For a detailed account on the lives of each of the members of the Walloon League, see: Gachard, ‘Arenberg (Philippe-Charles)’, pp. 388–401; Gachard, ‘Barbançon (Albert de Ligne)’, pp. 686–97; Charles Rahlenbeck, ‘Bournonville (Alexandre, duc de)’, in Biographie Nationale, ii (1868), pp. 860–62; Joseph Lefèvre, ‘Melun (Guillaume de, prince d’Épinoy)’, in Biographie Nationale, xxx (1959), pp. 572–75; Joseph Lefèvre, ‘Egmont (Louis, comte d’)’, in Biographie Nationale, xxxi (1962), pp. 289–91. 52 Jean-Charles-Joseph De Vegiano and Jacques De Herckenrode, Nobiliaire des Pays-Bas et du Comté de Bourgogne, 4 vols (Ghent: Gyselynck, 1862–1868), iii (1870), pp. 1332–36. 53 Julián de Pinedo y Salazar, Historia de la insigne Orden del Toyson de Oro (Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1787), pp. 406–08. 54 De Vegiano and De Herckenrode, Nobiliaire des Pays-Bas, ii (1865), pp. 713–14.

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who had fled mostly married into Flemish noble families such as Béthune, Croÿ, Gand dit Vilain, Lalaing, Glymes-Berghes, etc. A transregional marriage seems to have been a side effect of physical proximity to the court, as well as a strategy used by officials to ensure political loyalty. Lastly, the counts vanden Bergh were the only nobles to defiantly shun Habsburg authority. Significantly, in contrast to the members of the Walloon League and to the Count of Warfusée, neither Count Henri vanden Bergh nor any of his children married into Habsburg families. The Count of Warfusée, who had been lynched in the city of Liège in 1637, had married the sister of Count Louis of Egmont, Anna Alberte of Egmont. Their daughters married into the noble families Lalaing, Glymes-Berghes and the prominent Neapolitan Carafa family.55 Ultimately, the conspiracy had few long-lasting consequences for the relationship between the Crown and the Flemish nobles. It had mostly uncovered the strained relationship between the Flemish high nobility, the so-called noblesse d’épée, and the favoured noblesse de robe, who dominated the local political scene. The model of diffusion of royal favour between the levels of the Habsburg elites, as discussed by Alicia Esteban, seemed effective in preventing unity among the ruling classes. The conspiracy’s collapse and the disclosure of the schemes and the schemers seemed to have neither negatively impacted the long-term loyalty bond between the king and the high nobility, nor strengthened any ongoing resistance on the part of the nobles. The sentences were, on average, light, and the next generation of Flemish nobles remained in Habsburg service. The high nobility did not regain a voice in local political institutions but retained their role and status by serving in high military and vice-royal positions. Moreover, the monarchy was certainly aware of the fact that kinship was by no means synonymous with harmony, and that it had the potential to divide rather than unite. The Flemish nobles involved in the plotting were already connected through family bonds — something which, according to Wouter De Donder, explains the snowball effect of their involvement — but, in the end, their lack of unity as a group contributed to the conspiracy’s failure. The sons of the Duke of Arenberg, the Count of Egmont, and the Prince of Ligne would later regularly clash during their individual struggle for positions at the Brussels court. During the Thirty Years’ War’s decisive confrontation at the battle of Rocroi in 1643, for example, Egmont had gotten severely injured while fighting a duel with Arenberg off the battlefield.56

55 Schwennicke, ES, xvii (1998), p. 106; Schwennicke, ES, xviii (1998), p. 36. 56 Neu, Die Arenberger, p. 109; Gachard, ‘Arenberg (Philippe-François)’, pp. 405–10.

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Marriage as a Strategy of Dynastic Flexibility Celebrating a Double Wedding

Philippe François of Arenberg and Maria Magdalena de Borja left the Mediterranean coastal city of Gandia on the Iberian Peninsula in the summer of 1648 in the company of Isabella Clara Eugenia, their four-year-old daughter. The couple had lost their firstborn son, Philippe François, five years previously, as bringing healthy children into the world turned out to be very difficult. When the eleven-year-old Isabella passed away after a short illness in 1655, and no new pregnancy led to a surviving child, the Arenberg family took precautions to ensure dynastic continuity.57 By the mid-1650s, the duke began to prepare his younger half-brother, Charles Eugène of Arenberg, for a potential succession as the next Duke of Aarschot. First, Charles Eugène gave up his career as a clergyman and joined the military. He married the widowed Marie-Henriette of Cusance de Vergy in 1660 and provided a son and prospective heir, Philippe Charles François, to the Arenberg estate three years later.58 In 1667, the Duke of Arenberg drafted his last will at the age of forty-two, naming his half-brother Charles Eugène as his sole heir.59 The testament became effective at the passing of Philippe François in 1674. Up until that moment, each of the Arenberg brothers had headed the government of a Habsburg province or provincial town. The Duke of Aarschot operated from Brussels and Enghien as bailiff and provincial governor of Hainaut, while Charles Eugène held the post of governor of Besançon, where he and his family often resided between 1667 and 1671.60 Besançon had been an Imperial free city until 1664 and stood at the heart of the Habsburg county of Franche-Comté. Louis XIV’s eastward ambitions resulted in ongoing border conflicts throughout the region, as French troops invaded the area in 1668 and conquered it in 1674.61 When Charles Eugène became the eighth Duke of 57 ‘Dynastic’ is used within this text in the context of strategies chosen in function of the lineage of the noble house, as Mirella Marini and Liesbeth Geevers refashioned the term, ‘Introduction: Aristocracy, Dynasty, and Identity in Early Modern Europe, 1520–1700’, in Dynastic Identity in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Liesbeth Geevers and Mirella Marini (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015), pp. 1–22. Schwennicke, ES, xviii (1998), p. 100: (1) Philippe François (b. Gandia, 5/9/1643 – d. Gandia, 10–11/9/1643); (2) Isabella Claire Eugénie (b. Gandia, 12/7/1644 – d. Enghien, 5/10/1655). Gachard, ‘Arenberg (Philippe-François)’, pp. 405–10. 58 Louis-Prosper Gachard, ‘Arenberg (Charles-Eugène d’)’, in Biographie Nationale, i (1866), pp. 410–11. 59 Neu, Arenberger Frauen, p. 134. 60 François Pernot, La Franche-Comté espagnole à travers les archives de Simancas: Une autre histoire des Franc-Comtois et de leurs relations avec l’Espagne, de 1493 à 1678 (Besançon: Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté, 2003), pp. 294–98. Increasing dissatisfaction with Arenberg’s governorship by the Comtois people led the Spanish Habsburgs to replace him in July 1671 with Don Gerónimo Benavente de Quiñones. 61 For a concise history of the relations between the Spanish Crown and Franche-Comté, see: La Franche-Comté et les Anciens Pays-Bas, xiiie–xviiie Siècles, ed. by Laurence Delobette and Paul Delsalle, 2 vols (Besançon: Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté, 2010).

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Aarschot in 1674, he succeeded his brother as bailiff and provincial governor of Hainaut and Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece.62 Ultimately, Charles Eugène held the title of Duke of Aarschot for only seven years. When the eighth duke died in 1681, his three children, Philippe Charles François (b. 1663), Alexandre Joseph (b. 1664), and Marie-Thérèse (b. 1666), were approaching a marriageable age. In 1682, a unique opportunity arose when a new governor-general, Otto Henri del Carretto, Marquis of Grana, arrived in the Low Countries, accompanied by his oldest daughter, Marie-Henriette. The governor-general’s wife, Maria Theresia of Herberstein, had died shortly before the start of his term of office in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, leaving seven- and eleven-year-old daughters in his care. The marquis had recently turned fifty-four, but wanted to find a new wife.63 Philippe Charles François of Arenberg was about to turn nineteen and, given his new position as Duke of Aarschot, must have been a sought-after match. Soon, a double wedding took place, as the governor-general took Arenberg’s sister, Marie-Thérèse, as his new bride, while the young Duke of Aarschot married Marie-Henriette del Carretto. Peter Neu, who has performed a detailed examination of Arenberg marital negotiations during the seventeenth century, demonstrates that it is difficult to tell who instigated this double wedding. He argued that it was Marie Madeleine de Borja, aunt to both Arenberg siblings, who dusted off old family ties between the Borja’s and the Carretto’s. In 1646, Leopold del Carretto intervened on behalf of Philippe François of Arenberg at the Madrid court. Indeed, a rumour had spread that his father, Philippe Charles, had been a supporter of the Count of Wallenstein, who the Austrian Habsburgs had found guilty of treason, in the wake of the failed noble conspiracy in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands. Leopold del Carretto was the older brother of Otto Henri del Carretto and captain of the Imperial guard. He died in Flanders in 1648.64 62 Gachard, ‘Arenberg (Charles-Eugène d’)’, pp. 410–11; Schwennicke, ES, xvii (1998), p. 100. 63 The Spanish Crown officially appointed the Marquis of Grana as governor-general on 12 March 1682 and greeted him in Brussels on 30 March 1682 (CCE, v (1935), p. 374, no. 928). 64 Neu, Arenberger Frauen, p. 132; Donkers, Het tijdperk van de vrouwen, pp. 36–45. Donkers indicates that little has been written on the Carretto family, as the relevant documents likely went up in flames in 1695 during the bombing of the Coudenberg Palace in Brussels. For a genealogy of the Carretto family, see: Johannes Brichieri Colombi, Tabulae Genealogicae Gentis Carrettensis Marchionum Savonae, Finarii, Clavexanae, etc. (Vienna: Kaliwoda, 1741). The text has been digitized and can be consulted through [accessed 1 May 2018]. Furthermore, no correspondence from or to Maria Magdalena de Borja for the period between 1680 and 1685 survives in the Arenberg archives in either Enghien or Brussels to elaborate on this point. A collection of personal family documents from 1498 until 1766 is kept in the manuscript collection at the University of Pennsylvania (MS 788) and has been completely digitized: [accessed 1 May 2018]. As far as I was able to tell, due to the lack of precise source referencing in the works of both authors, there were no active family alliances between the Borja and Carretto families in the seventeenth century.

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After Arenberg and the Marquis of Grana received the royal approval to marry, they had the proper prenuptial agreements drafted.65 The marriage negotiations were a family affair, as three of the four parties in the double wedding were underage and thus needed parental consent to marry.66 Their mother, Marie-Henriette of Cusance de Vergy, their aunt, Maria Magdalena de Borja, and their cousin, the Prince of Vaudemont, acted as witnesses to both Duke Philippe Charles and his sister, Marie-Thérèse.67 Close family members assisted the two Arenberg children, as well as the young daughter of Carretto, during the formalities, whereas the governor-general chose to have Francisco Antonio de Agurto and the Marquis of Bedmar, two of the highest-ranking military men in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, as his best men. The lack of familiarity with local elites, except for ‘Spanish’ military men, is an indication of the recent arrival of the Carretto family in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, both physically and socially. The two marriage contracts contained similar rights and conditions. MarieThérèse’s dowry included the lordships of Perwijs and Beersel, estimated at the value of 100,000 florins each, but with the provision that these would return to her brother after her death. In case the Marquis of Grana predeceased his wife, she would receive a widow’s pension of 9000 florins every year, 1000 of which were set aside to rent accommodation. Carretto gave the Austrian lordships of Schonkerchen and Tozenbach as collateral.68 Marie-Henriette received a dowry of the same value, 200,000 florins, payed in instalments to the Duke of Aarschot. Her widow’s pensions included 8000 florins annually and the use of the Arenberg estate in Heverlee, or an additional 1000 florins if she preferred to reside elsewhere. In order to ensure that the amount would be available, the Duke of Arenberg gave up the lordships of Enghien

65 Arenberg wrote to Madrid on 22 March 1683 and received an ‘os apruevo’ on 31 March. Otto Henri del Carretto received his letter of approval on 10 June 1683. Enghien, ACA, État civil, box 32, no. 70: Royal approval of marriage for Philippe Charles of Arenberg, Madrid, 31/3/1683; Enghien, ACA, État civil, box 31/34, no. 5: Royal approval of marriage for Otto Henri del Carretto, Madrid, 10/6/1683. The two sides drafted and signed the marriage contracts on 5 May 1683. In the contract concerning Otto Henri del Carretto and MarieThérèse, a blank space had been left to fill out the date of the royal approval, as the marriage contract preceded the letter from Madrid. See footnote 71 for complete details on the different dates. 66 In May 1683, Marie-Thérèse of Arenberg was sixteen, Philippe Charles of Arenberg had just turned twenty, and Marie-Henriette del Carretto was only eleven. The age of majority for men and women had been set at twenty-five and twenty respectively. 67 Henri of Lorraine, Prince of Vaudemont, was the illegitimate son of Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine, and Béatrix of Cusance de Vergy. Béatrix was the sister of Marie-Henriette of Cusance. Born in Brussels, the Prince of Vaudemont had served the Spanish Habsburgs in the wars against France, was a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and general of the cavalry in the Southern Netherlands. 68 Enghien, ACA, État civil, box 31/34, no. 5: Copy of the marriage contract of Otto Henri del Carretto and Marie-Thérèse of Arenberg, Enghien, 14/5/1683.

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and Rebecq as collateral.69 Both women would also be entitled to keep their jewellery, clothing, and upholstery in their rooms in addition to a carriage with six horses. The similarity of the conditions of the marriage contracts is illustrative of the alliances taking place between social equals. One year after the arrival of the Marquis of Grana in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, the official newspaper Relations Véritables reported that ‘[…] Le 15. avant le jour Monseigneur l’Archéveque de Malines fit la ceremonie de son mariage avec Mademoiselle d’Aremberg […]’.70 The governor-general and young Marie-Thérèse were married at the Arenberg estate in Enghien, near Brussels, on 15 May 1683.71 The impending marriage had been a favourite topic of discussion among the Brussels bourgeoisie since Grana had arrived in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands. When the newly wed Marquis of Grana returned to the capital the day after his wedding, he fiercely insisted on delaying any celebrations: ‘Le Magistrat & la Bourgeoisie, aussi bien que tout le Pays ont voulu temoigner leur joye, par beaucoup de desmonstrations publiques, mais Elle le leur a defendu d’une maniere, qu’ils n’ont pas osé y

69 Enghien, ACA, État civil, box 32, no. 70: Copy of the marriage contract of Marie-Henriette del Carretto and Philippe Charles of Arenberg, Brussels, 12/2/1684. 70 Relations Véritables, 1683, no. 40: De Bruxelles, le 19 May 1683, fol. 320: ‘[…] The 15th before sunrise the Archbishop of Malines held the ceremony of his wedding to Miss Aremberg […]’. 71 Relations Véritables, 1683, no. 40: De Bruxelles, le 19 May 1683, fol. 320. Historiographically, several marriage dates circulate. Hortense Renard dated the marriage of the governor-general to 10 June 1683, and that of his daughter to the Duke of Aarschot to 12 February 1684. See Hortense Renard, ‘Le gouvernement d’Alexandre Farnese et du marquis de Grana dans les Pays-Bas espagnols, 1680–1685. Histoire externe’ (unpublished master’s thesis, KU Leuven, 1944), pp. 16–17. Peter Neu placed Grana’s marriage on 1 October 1683 and Marie-Henriette’s on 12 February 1684 (Neu, Arenberger Frauen, pp. 162–63). Christiane Donkers claims the couples signed their marriage contracts and celebrated their weddings on 14 May 1683. See Donkers, Het tijdperk van de vrouwen, pp. 47–51. The confusion regarding the marriage dates is related to the documents that passed between Enghien, Brussels, and Madrid leading up to the actual wedding celebrations. The Arenberg family archive at Enghien conserves the historical documents that clarify the dates. On 7 April 1683, the Marquis of Grana asked for royal permission to marry Marie-Thérèse of Arenberg, which the king granted on 10 June (Enghien, ACA, État civil, box 31/34, no. 5: Letter of the king to the Marquis de Grana, Madrid, 10/6/1683). In the meantime, the marriage contract had already been signed (Enghien, ACA, État civil, box 31/34, no. 5: Copy of the marriage contract of Otto Henri del Carretto and Marie-Thérèse of Arenberg, Enghien, 14/5/1683). The marriage negotiations between Marie-Henriette del Carretto and Philippe Charles of Arenberg and the Madrid court preceded those of the governor-general’s, but the young couple married a year later, in 1684. In March 1683, the queen-regent expressed her delight at the match (Enghien, ACA, État civil, box 32, no. 70: Letter of the queen-regent to the Marquis of Grana, Buen Retiro, 16/3/1683). The king granted the Duke of Aarschot permission to marry two weeks later (Enghien, ACA, État civil, box 32, no. 70: Letter from the king to the Duke of Aarschot, Madrid, 31/3/1683). They signed their marriage contract one year later (Enghien, ACA, État civil, box 32, no. 70: Copy of the marriage contract of Marie-Henriette del Carretto and Philippe Charles of Arenberg, Brussels, 12/2/1684).

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contrevenir’.72 Four days later, the couple appeared in public and received congratulations from all the courtiers, nobles, and magistrates in their private chambers at the Coudenberg Palace.73 The newlyweds received a series of fine tapestries, designed by David III Teniers and valued around 12,000 guilders, as a wedding gift from the local magistrate of Brussels.74 One year later, on 12 February 1684, the Duke of Arenberg married MarieHenriette del Carretto at the Brussels court. A similar scenario unfolded as the couple entered into matrimony ‘sans aucune ceremonie ou pompe publique’, receiving well-wishers the following day.75 Both ceremonies had been very sober and intimate, much to the local elites’ despair. By the time of the wedding, Arenberg had been made commander of a regiment of Burgundian cavalrymen and captain of the archers of the guard of King Charles II. After the wedding, the Duke of Aarschot travelled to Madrid, where the king granted him membership in the Order of the Golden Fleece.76 Unfortunately, this new-found happiness was short-lived for the two newlywed couples, as both men died within a couple of years of the celebrations. The governor-general passed away, presumably of old age, on 19 June 1685. The Duke of Aarschot died in 1691, while serving with Imperial forces in a battle against the Ottomans. The Arenberg family was left with a single, albeit very young, male heir.77 For a period of almost twenty years, women ran the Arenberg estate. For Marie-Henriette del Carretto, constant conflict dominated the last decade of the seventeenth century. Burdened with having been named the sole and universal heir to the Carretto inheritance, her relationship with her stepmother and sister-in-law, Marie-Thérèse of Arenberg, turned sour. Having to run the Arenberg estate in the absence of a male family member of age, while also providing for four Arenberg widows, proved to be problematic. Christiane Donkers has conducted a detailed study on how Marie-Henriette managed the estate during the guardianship of her son from 1691 until 1707. She primarily relied on a network of intendants, who ran the large number of Arenberg territories in the Spanish Habsburg

72 Relations Véritables, 1683, no. 40: De Bruxelles, le 19 May 1683, fol. 320: ‘The Magistrature & the Bourgeois, as well as the whole country had wanted to show their joy, with many public demonstrations, but he had opposed in such a way that they did not dare to contravene’. The correspondent added: ‘[…] Dont la voix publique avoit parlé depuis son arrivée’ (‘[…] whereof the public opinion had talked since his arrival’). 73 Relations Véritbales, 1683, no. 41: De Bruxelles, le 22 May 1683, fol. 328. 74 Guy Delmarcel, ‘Wandtapijten’, in Arenberg in de Lage Landen, ed. by Derez, p. 349; Donkers, Het tijdperk van de vrouwen, pp. 47–51. The Belgian Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage’s (KIK-IRPA) database offers pictures of the tapestry online: [accessed 1 May 2018]. The physical object hangs in the Capuchin convent in Enghien. 75 Relations Véritables, 1684, no. 14: De Bruxelles, le 16 Fevrier 1684, fol. 112: ‘without any ceremony or public festivities’. 76 Neu, Die Arenberger, pp. 119–24; Donkers, Het tijdperk van de vrouwen, pp. 47–51. 77 Neu, Die Arenberger, pp. 119–26.

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Netherlands, the Franche-Comté, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Italian Peninsula. Despite being faced with the difficulties brought on by constant warfare, Marie-Henriette not only managed to uphold the dynasty’s main source of income, but also succeeded in securing her son’s rightful position. She re-established the presence of an Arenberg in the highest political and military circles in 1700, when she secured the nine-year-old Duke Leopold Philippe of Arenberg a nomination as a Knight in the Order of the Golden Fleece. By 1706, he had become colonel of a Walloon infantry regiment, chamberlain to the Archduke Charles III (the future Emperor Charles VI), and captain of the royal Burgundian guard. In 1709, a member of the Arenberg family re-obtained the title of Great Bailiff of Hainaut.78 A Family Caught between the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs

The Arenberg dynasty knew how to diversify their transregional marital bonds. During the seventeenth century, the family married into the highest circles of the Habsburg nobility, with an ostensible preference for Spanish Netherlandish (Melun, Berlaymont, Egmont, Merode, Hornes, Isenbourg, Montmorency, Bournonville, Hénin-Liétard, Ligne), Italian (Spinola, Visconti, Borgia, Carretto, Gonzaga), and Germanic (Waldburg, Fürstenberg) partners. By the end of the seventeenth century, Ernest Alexandre of Arenberg, Prince of Chimay and viceroy of Navarra, a great-nephew of Philippe Charles and Marie-Thérèse, was the only Arenberg to marry an ‘Iberian’ noblewoman, Antonia de Cárdenas Ulloa y Balda Zúñiga y Velasco.79 It seems that the arrival of the governor-general the Marquis of Grana caused the Arenbergs to seize the opportunity to further secure their position within the highest ranks of government. In addition, they kept close ties with the Austrian, rather than the Spanish, branch of the Habsburgs. The Carretto family had migrated from the Iberian Peninsula to the island of Sicily in the sixteenth century. The Spanish Habsburgs bestowed them with lordships in the Piedmont region, close to the city of Genoa, and granted them the titles of Marquis of Grana and Count of Savona, among others. However, on the northern side of the Alps, Vienna’s influence was stronger, and closer, than Madrid’s. By the seventeenth century, members of the family had entered the Hofburg’s inner circles. Otto Henri’s father, Francesco del Carretto, had served as the Imperial ambassador to the Madrid court and had married Margaretha Fugger zu Kirchberg, member of the notorious Fugger banking family and lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court. Otto Henri married into the prestigious Herberstein family, who held the title of Imperial counts. The governor-general’s two daughters, Marie-Henriette and Marie-Gabrielle,

78 Donkers, Het tijdperk van de vrouwen, pp. 129–41 and 196–206. 79 Schwennicke, ES, xviii (1998), p. 100; De Vegiano and De Herckenrode, Nobiliaire des PaysBas, iii (1868), pp. 234–35.

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were consequently born and raised in Vienna. Otto Henri del Carretto had been present at the peace negotiations at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1668 as a delegate of Leopold I and corresponded a great deal with former governors-general of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, such as the Count of Monterrey and the Marquis of Villahermosa. He left his position as Imperial ambassador to the Madrid court when he became governor-general of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands in 1682.80 The connection of the Arenbergs to the House of Carretto offered a powerful and direct link to the Austrian branch of the Habsburg dynasty. Historians like Martin Wrede regard the double wedding as a step towards switching political loyalties or, better still, priorities. Indeed, the Arenberg family increasingly allied itself with the Austrian Habsburgs rather than the Spanish Habsburgs.81 Wrede identifies the turning point for the Arenberg family as the combination of political (the failure of the noble conspiracy in 1632) and demographic (several sons voluntarily entered into Capuchin convents, thereby endangering the survival of the noble house) crises.82 The resulting reversal began with the conflict that arose when the Holy Roman Emperor granted the family the title of Duke of Arenberg in 1644. To the Spanish Crown, the combination of their ennoblement with the Imperial title of Duke of Arenberg proved irreconcilable from the outset. The Spanish Habsburgs, therefore, tried to prevent the dukes from carrying both titles on several occasions. In the end, however, they never enforced it and eventually even used it in their own correspondence. Oddly enough, it was a member of the Carretto family — field marshal Francisco del Carretto — who had negotiated with the emperor to grant the Duke of Aarschot the additional title of Duke of Arenberg.83 The Imperial patent letter legitimized the title by tracing the House of Arenberg to Charlemagne, the common dynastic ancestor of the Habsburg branches.84 It was this strategy of identification that led the Arenbergs to position themselves as more independent and rising above a

80 Marie-Gabrielle del Carretto was born in Vienna in 1675 and died in Brussels before 1700. In 1690, she had married Charles François of la Barre, Count of Erquelinnes and Olloy, and Baron of Hierges. Brichieri Colombi, Tabulae Genealogicae Gentis Carrettensis; Renard, ‘Le gouvernement d’Alexandre Farnese’, pp. 16–24; Neu, Arenberger Frauen, pp. 162–63; Donkers, Het tijdperk van de vrouwen, pp. 36–46. 81 Martin Wrede, Ohne Furcht und Tadel: Für König und Vaterland. Frühneuzeitlicher Hochadel zwischen Familienehre, Ritterideal und Fürstendienst (Ostfildern: Thorbecke, 2012), pp. 152–87; Klaas Van Gelder, ‘Incontournable! Arenberg in the Habsburg Netherlands’, in Arenberg: Portrait of a Family, ed. by Derez, pp. 106–14; Violet Soen, ‘Aristocratische dynastieën in de vroegmoderne tijd: Identiteitsbeleving op het kruispunt tussen verleden en heden’, Virtus, 21 (2014), 213–15; Mirella Marini, ‘From Arenberg to Aarschot and Back Again: Female Inheritance and the Disputed “Merger” of Two Aristocratic Identities’, in Dynastic Identity in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Geevers and Marini, pp. 103–29. 82 Wrede, Ohne Furcht, pp. 159–64. 83 Gachard, ‘Arenberg (Philippe-François)’, pp. 405–06. 84 Wrede, Ohne Furcht, p. 174.

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longstanding connection to a single political entity, which Wrede termed their ‘Alleinstellungs- und Unabhängigkeitsmerkmal’.85 In his study on the practices of memory within high noble families, he argues that the Arenbergs presented an unusual image of being a successful and newly ennobled family to protect their status (and territories) throughout western Europe. The favour shown towards the Austrian Habsburgs reached its climax in the 1680s and 1690s. It was not a coincidence, for example, that the new generation of Arenbergs bore the names of both the Spanish king and the emperor: Marie-Anne (b. 1689) and Leopold Philippe (b. 1690).86 More importantly, the dukes of Aarschot were now serving, and dying, in the Austrian military. The governor-general the Duke of Villahermosa had given Philippe Charles of Arenberg, husband to Marie-Henriette del Carretto, the high command of a German infantry regiment in 1678, when he was just fifteen years old. He died in the service of the emperor fighting off the Ottomans in the battle of Slankamen in 1691. His younger brother, Alexandre Joseph of Arenberg, had perished in 1683 during the siege of Vienna at the age of 19.87 Like his father Philippe Charles, Leopold Philippe preferred Austrian to Spanish Habsburg military service, eventually fulfilling the traditional family posts of bailiff and governor of the province of Hainaut and of the fortified city of Mons when the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands came under Austrian Habsburg rule.88

Conclusions Nearly fifty years after the Arenberg family’s involvement in the conspiracy of nobles against Spanish Habsburg authority, its members had succeeded in maintaining the presence of the house and restoring its socio-political reputation within the Habsburg realm. The dukes of Aarschot, by carefully choosing their marriage partners, were able to expand their familial wealth, possessions, and local influence throughout western Europe and gain closer proximity to Habsburg power. The marriage in the 1640s to a member of the Borja family had provided the Arenbergs with the socio-political and financial boost they needed in the aftermath of Archduchess Isabella’s reign. The marriage had reconnected the Arenberg family to the royal court in Madrid, at first only physically, but later, and more importantly, symbolically. Even if it remains unclear as to

85 Wrede, Ohne Furcht, p. 187. 86 For a detailed biography on Marie-Anne and Leopold Philippe, see: Donkers, Het tijdperk van de vrouwen, pp. 96–172; Jan Van Den Meersche, ‘Tussen woord en zwaard: Leopold-Filips, hertog van Arenberg (1690–1754) en de diplomatie in de Oostenrijkse Successieoorlog’ (unpublished master’s thesis, KU Leuven, 2000). 87 Schwennicke, ES, xviii (1998), p. 100. 88 Arenberg, ‘De heren, graven, prins-graven en hertogen van Arenberg’, p. 38; Donkers, Het tijdperk van de vrouwen, pp. 129–46.

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what extent or end the king and his close advisors pushed for the alliance, the mere rumour of royal interference — in both late-seventeenth century court cases and current historiography — and the close relationship that ensued between the Duke of Aarschot and the governors-general of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands successfully created the image of a noble family returned to favour. The marriages from the 1680s to the Carretto family illustrated that such ties could redirect political loyalty. On this occasion, the marriage was one of equals in status and wealth, negotiated and concluded in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, and merely ratified in Madrid. The Spanish king and his court seemed to have had little to do with forging the relationships between the two noble houses. Instead, it was the family’s women and their representatives who played an important role as brokers in the creation and maintenance of these ties. The Arenbergs remained rooted in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands and loyal to the House of Habsburg throughout the seventeenth century. Yet, when marrying into the Carretto family meant both territorial expansion within the Austrian Habsburg domain and a more direct link to nobles in the Viennese entourage, the dukes of Aarschot and Arenberg transformed into Austrian servicemen. Was the existence of transregional elites formed by cross-border marriages the outcome of a royal strategy to manage and maintain an expansive empire? Historians argue that it was. Entertaining a mix of meninos at court or placing ‘foreign’ viceroys or governors-general in the different territories of the Habsburg empire encouraged a sense of loyalty to the empire, uprooted individuals from local interests, and forged stronger ties to the monarchy. However, I argue that looking more closely at these marriages at the highest level of political patronage shows that transregional marriages were indirect representations of loyalty, driven by personal interest rather than imperial strategy. There was minimal royal agency in establishing concrete ties between individuals or families. The creation of such bonds heavily relied upon the agency of confidants. If there was a top-down strategy of mixing elites, it was very much an indirect system. The Arenberg family had the good fortune to be able to count on the services of Muñoz, a Capuchin monk. Not only did he serve as guardian to the duke when he was a minor in the 1640s, and as confidant and steward to the widowed Borja in the 1680s, he also operated as a link between court and family. Later, the Arenbergs benefitted from their close connection to the different governors-general who were put in charge in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands. These governors-general were not ‘new’ to the territory they were now responsible for administering, but, especially during the last decades of the seventeenth century, were military men with a record of years of service to the Habsburgs, often in Flanders. However, due to their mobile profession, they inevitably had to depend on the expertise of local elites at a political level. Governor-general Carretto’s search for a familial bond with one of the prestigious families of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands turned his weakness into a strength. Moreover, since

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Carretto had Francisco Antonio de Agurto and the Marquis of Bedmar sign as witnesses to his marriage contract, the new bond connected the close-knit network of Habsburg military high officers to the local elite. Both soon moved on to become governors-general themselves. The Spanish king, other than approving the already arranged wedding, did not interfere with any of the arrangements. Moreover, any royal preoccupation focused on controlling and strengthening existing ties of loyalty rather than trying to win over any lost sheep. The Arenberg family was a noble house with a long-standing attachment to the House of Habsburg. They consistently married into well-established noble families and maintained — and received — a visible affection to both branches of the dynasty. Despite the small fall from grace in the 1630s, their loyalty to the Habsburg cause does not seem to have been questioned by either the king or his ministers, including when they shifted their interests into Austrian, rather than Spanish, military service near the end of the century. Members of other noble families instigated and negotiated the Arenberg family’s transregional marriages. While the Spanish king approved them, these opportunities also provided the Flemish nobles the ability to diversify their interests within the Habsburg realm, to supersede service to just one prince, and to be a servant of at least two imperial masters.

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PART II

Cross-Border Circulations

Yves Junot and Marie Kervyn 

Negotiating Consensual Loyalty to the Habsburg Dynasty Francophone Border Provinces between the Low Countries and France, 1477–1659 Although the Low Countries made up a small part of the greater-European continent, the region became an important site of military confrontation between western Europe’s major powers between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries.1 In addition, the Low Countries represented a new crossroads for the different divisions running through western European Christianity from 1517 onwards, as the Spanish monarchy turned these hereditary lands into a battlefield for its protection of Catholicism and a symbol for the spiritual reconquest of both Europe and the world.2 These complementing dynamics within the geopolitical and religious sphere ensured that the Low Countries’s francophone border provinces were constantly renegotiating their loyalty to the Habsburg dynasty. Adopting a transregional approach, this chapter will show how expressions of loyalty to the prince were negotiated on different levels in these border provinces.3 As we will argue, loyalty most often required







1 On the Low Countries’s role within early modern European conflicts: José Alcalá Zamora y Queipo de Llano, España, Flandes y el Mar del Norte (1618–1639): La última ofensiva europea de los Austrias (Madrid: Centro de estudios políticos y constitucionales, 2001); Alicia Esteban Estríngana and José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, ‘El gobierno político y militar de los Países Bajos: la gestión administrativa e institucional de un territorio “periférico” de la monarquía católica (siglos xvi–xvii)’, Relaciones, 73.19 (1998), 115–67; Lucien Bély, ‘Les Pays-Bas au carrefour des tensions internationales: le témoignage des envoyés français au temps de l’infante Isabelle’, Revue du Nord, 377 (2008), 657–70; Alicia Esteban Estríngana, Guerra y finanzas en los Países Bajos católicos: De Farnesio a Spínola (1592–1630) (Madrid: Laberinto, 2002); René Vermeir, En Estado de guerra: Felipe IV y Flandes, 1629–1648 (Cordoba: Universidad de Córdoba, 2006); Monique Weis, Les Pays-Bas espagnols et les États du Saint Empire (1559–1579): Priorités et enjeux de la diplomatie en temps de troubles (Brussels: Éditions de l’Université de Bruxelles, 2003). 2 Etienne Bourdeu and others, La Péninsule Ibérique et le monde (1470–1650) (Neuilly: Atlande, 2014); Pedro Cardim and others, Polycentric Monarchies: How Did Early Modern Spain and Portugal Achieve and Maintain a Global Hegemony? (Oregon: Sussex Academic Press, 2012); Manfredi Merluzzi, ‘Impero o monarchia universale? Il caso della Castiglia tra xvi e xvii secolo’, in Comprendere le monarchie iberiche: Risorse materiali e rappresentazioni del potere, ed. by Gaetano Sabatini (Rome: Viella, 2010), pp. 73–106. 3 Violet Soen and others, ‘How to do Transregional History: A Concept, Method and Tool for Early Modern Border Research’, Journal of Early Modern History, 21.3 (2017), 343–64; Tomás Mantecón Movellán and Susana Truchuelo García, ‘Las fronteras exteriores e interiores de la Monarquía Hispánica: perspectivas historiográficas’, Historia Crítica, 59 (2016), 41–60; JeanPaul Zúñiga, Espagnols d’outre-mer: Émigration, métissage et reproduction sociale à Santiago du Transregional Territories: Crossing Borders in the Early Modern Low Countries and Beyond, ed. by Bram De Ridder, Violet Soen, Werner Thomas, and Sophie Verreyken, HW 2 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 73–102.

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consensus-making: (1) by town and countryside; (2) during repeated episodes of civil and religious war; (3) and as a reaction to the constant fluxes of cross-border migration. Before unravelling our argument, it is necessary to better understand the dual role that the Low Countries played as a buffer zone in the many dynastic and religious wars of the period. With regard to the dynastic aspect, after 1477 the Habsburg heirs of the dukes of Burgundy used the region as a containment area directed against French hegemony. Eventually, the Spanish monarchy relied upon war and diplomacy to define the political and jurisdictional boundaries of this particular territorial component; this whole process strengthened the incorporation of the so-called ‘Seventeen Provinces’ as a ‘state in the making’.4 Eventually, the local demarcation and the boundary between France and the Low Countries became part of a global negotiation effort related to the dynastic fighting across Europe. The Treaty of Le Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559, for one, marked the end of the Italian Wars as well as Spain’s rise to power, while the Peace of Vervins in 1598 largely confirmed the previous treaty’s clauses.5 New French expansionist ambitions motivated the declaration of war against Spain in 1635, even though the two monarchies had already been involved on opposite sides in the Thirty Years’ War. The Peace of the Pyrenees temporarily ended the confrontation in 1659, but the loss of large parts of the southern provinces of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands forced Madrid to renounce its primacy in Europe in favour of France. The French king took full advantage of this new dynamic of territorial conquest and used the breakthrough to further expand his territory at the





Chili au 17e siècle (Paris: Éditions de l’EHESS, 2002), preface; Fronteras: Procesos y prácticas de integración y conflictos entre Europa y América (siglos xvi–xx), ed. by Valentina Favarò, Manfredi Merluzzi, and Gaetano Sabatini (Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica and Red Columnaria, 2017). 4 Élodie Lecuppre-Desjardin, Le Royaume inachevé des ducs de Bourgogne (xive–xve siècles) (Paris: Belin, 2016); José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, ‘La integración de los Países Bajos en la Monarquía Hispánica’, in Las Indias Occidentales: Procesos de incorporación territorial a las monarquías ibéricas (Siglos xvi a xviii), ed. by Óscar Mazín and José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez (Mexico: Colegio de México, 2012), pp. 109–52; Robert Descimon and José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, ‘La imagen de Felipe II en la Liga radical francesa (1589–1598)’, in Felipe II (1527–1598): Europa y la Monarquía Católica, ed. by Manuel Rivero Rodríguez (Madrid: Parteluz, 1998), pp. 111–36; María Cruz de Carlos Varona, La imagen religiosa en la monarquía hispánica: Usos y espacios (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2008); Laura Manzano Baena, ‘Los fundamentos de la obediencia: la religión como máximo vínculo entre los reinos de la monarquía católica. El ejemplo de los Países Bajos en la década de 1640’, in Servir al rey en la monarquía de los Austrias: Medios, fines y logros del servicio al soberano en los siglos xvi y xvii, ed. by Alicia Esteban Estríngana (Madrid: Sílex, 2012), pp. 147–61. 5 Bertrand Haan, Une Paix pour l’éternité: La négotiation du traité du Cateau-Cambrésis (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2010); José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez and Ana Díaz Serrano, ‘CateauCambrésis, 1559: ¿Hacia una Europa confesional o hacia la hegemonía de la Monarquía Hispánica?’, Pedralbes: Revista de Historia Moderna, 29 (2009), 63–94.

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expense of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands.6 It was only the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, which ended the War of the Spanish Succession, that stabilized the geographical situation of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands and prevented further territorial decline under the Austrian rule.7 A similar logic applied to the religious troubles of the period. Faced with the Reformation, the Habsburg dynasty viewed the Low Countries as a bulwark from which to fight and ‘eradicate’ Protestantism.8 This perspective was not only an important matter in the Spanish monarchy’s relationships with the Holy Roman Empire (which had been following the principle of cujus regio, ejus religio since 1555), England, and the Dutch Republic, but also with France. The French religious wars, the accession of a Calvinist king in 1589, and the kingdom’s bi-confessional status (granted by the Edict of Nantes in 1598 and in force until 1685) led to increased international tension and enhanced the definition of identities and belongings on both sides of the border, including for the refugees and exiles located in the region.9 Due to the continued military and religious confrontations with France that occurred throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, war became an intrinsic yet dynamic element in the configuration of the local socio-political space. The experience of the border, however, also depended on the contingencies of neighbourhood relationships, in an area where the sovereign could not exert significant leadership. Thus, the different ways in which the border society expressed its loyalty to the prince and his dynasty reflected the consensual and balanced result of the dialogue between local actors and the Spanish monarchy. Along with the violence that accompanied international competition and confessional division, the manner in which local inhabitants experienced political boundaries depended upon a large number of different

6 Daniel Nordman, Frontières de France: De l’espace au territoire, xvie–xixe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1998), pp. 230–53. 7 Lucien Bély, ‘La Frontière entre France et Pays-Bas espagnols: vers la paix d’Utrecht’, in Guerre, frontière, barrière et paix en Flandre, ed. by Olivier Ryckebusch and Rik Opsommer (Ieper: Stadsarchief Ieper, 2014), pp. 175–86. 8 Church, Censorship and Reform in the Early Modern Habsburg Netherlands, ed. by Violet Soen, Dries Vanysacker, and Wim François, Bibliothèque de la Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 101 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017). 9 Yves Junot and Violet Soen, ‘La Révolte des Pays-Bas habsbourgeois: reconsidérations à partir du cas des provinces francophones (Hainaut, Artois, Flandre wallonne, 1566–1579)’, in Paradigmes rebelles: Pratiques et cultures de la désobéissance à l’époque moderne, ed. by Gregorio Salinero, Águeda García Garrido, and Radu G. Paūn, Histoire des mondes modernes, 5 (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2018), pp. 203–34; Robert Descimon and José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, Les Ligueurs de l’exil: Le refuge catholique français après 1594 (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2005); Violet Soen, ‘Exile Encounters and Cross-Border Mobility in Early Modern Borderlands: The Ecclesiastical Province of Cambrai as a Transregional Node (1559–1600)’, Belgeo. Revue Belge de Géographie / Belgian Journal of Geography, 2/2015 (online 15 July 2015); Yves Junot and Violet Soen, ‘Huir y volver durante la guerra de Flandes (1566–1609)’, in Refugiados, Exiliados y Retornados, ed. by José Javier Ruíz Ibáñez and Bernard Vincent (Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica and Red Columnaria, 2018), pp. 29–53.

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affiliations.10 These affiliations were linked to local civic, social, and economic structures, which accommodated the perception of demarcation in terms of both sovereignty over individual and collective interests and the demands connected to cross-border movement.11

The Configuration of Socio-Political Space in the War-Torn Borderlands The dialogue between the Habsburg dynasty, its subjects in the Low Countries, and their neighbours in France turned into a determining element for the definition of the boundary, not only as the outcome of a geo-political process, but also as the configuration of a concrete social space.12 The institutional configuration of the Spanish Habsburg empire forced the monarch to maintain good relations with his subjects, but local practices and the appreciation of actors on the borders helped to balance and facilitate the key channels of communication between the ruler and the ruled, or the central administration and the inhabitants of the border.13 On the southern demarcation of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, the distinction between membership and

10 José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, ‘Vivir en el campo de Marte: población e identidad en la frontera entre Francia y los Países Bajos (siglos xvi–xvii)’, in Les Sociétés de frontière: De la Méditerranée à l’Atlantique, ed. by Michel Bertrand and Natividad Planas (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2011), pp. 165–75; Yves Junot and Marie Kervyn, ‘La Question des appartenances au long de la frontière sud des anciens Pays-Bas (fin xve–fin xviie siècle): les enjeux des identifications’, in L’Identité au pluriel: Jeux et enjeux des appartenances autour des anciens Pays-Bas, xive–xviiie siècles / Identity and Identities: Belonging at Stake in the Low Countries, 14th–18th Centuries, ed. by Yves Junot, Florian Mariage, and Violet Soen (= Revue du Nord, Hors série, Collection Histoire, 30 (2014)), pp. 229–48; Daniel Nordman, ‘Préface’, in Frontières oubliées, frontières retrouvées, ed. by Michel Catala, Dominique Le Page, and Jean-Claude Meuret (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2011), pp. 13–20; Giovanna Paolin, ‘Se rencontrer à la frontière: marchands et inquisition dans l’Italie du nord est’, in Commerce, voyage et expérience religieuse, xive–xviiie siècle, ed. by Albrecht Burkardt (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2007), pp. 371–84; Natividad Planas, ‘La Frontière franchissable: normes et pratiques dans les échanges entre le royaume de Majorque et les terres d’Islam au xviie siècle’, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 48.2 (2001), 123–47; Natividad Planas and José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, ‘Coexistences en questions’, Siècles, 26 (2007), 3–19. 11 Renaud Morieux, Une Mer pour deux royaumes: La Manche, frontière franco-anglaise (xviie– xviiie siècles) (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2008), p. 384; Raingard Esser and Steven G. Ellis, Frontier and Border Regions in Early Modern Europe (Hannover: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2013), p. 264; Yves Junot, ‘Construcción de fronteras, pertenencias y circulaciones en los Países Bajos españoles (1477–1609)’, in Las Fronteras del Mundo Atlántico (siglos xvi–xix), ed. by Susana Truchuelo and Emir Reitano (La Plata: Universidad Nacional de La Plata, 2017), pp. 141–81; William Zartman, Understanding Life in the Borderlands: Boundaries in Depth and in Motion (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010), Introduction. 12 Junot and Kervyn, ‘La Question’, pp. 231–44. 13 Esteban Estríngana and Ruiz Ibáñez, ‘El Gobierno’, pp. 115–67.

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subjection, as well as a good relations with the French neighbour (even if many deemed France an enemy), eventually appeared to local inhabitants as an opportunity to open up a dialogue with their prince.14 Defense Mechanisms: Between Princely Duty and Local Initiative

During the early modern period, incipient states showed the need for more clearly defined limits, and military frontiers marked by border fortifications became the most visible sign of this development.15 Yet, even if war was considered a princely domain, a frontier’s defence often turned into a common dynastic goal, involving the dynasty’s armies and administrators as well as the local elites and commoners from both town and country. Developments in the Franco-Burgundian, later Franco-Habsburg, border region were no exception to this rule. While Picardy eventually fell under the French Crown, intermediary institutions in francophone provinces from Artois to Luxemburg supported the Burgundian, later Habsburg, prince.16 Hence, the geopolitical challenge for Charles V and Philip II, and their representatives in Brussels, was to establish basic control of the border in order to prevent the enemy from raiding and devastating the hinterland. In 1595, shortly after war had been declared against France, the Count of Fuentes, appointed as governor-general in the Low Countries, wrote to Philip II: ‘it is in any case advisable to prevent this both for the damage to and the contentment of the vassals’.17 Behind the image of the sovereign as warlord, a crucial element of political imaginary prevailed: the prince had to provide a satisfactory feeling of security to his vassals and subjects. The spatial configuration of the border, which was a stretched line consisting of a few towns lacking natural separators, made it impossible for the armies of the Spanish monarchy to offer full protection along this frontline. 14 Hastings Donnan and Thomas Wilson, ‘Border and Border Studies’, in A Companion to Border Studies, ed. by Hastings Donnan and Thomas Wilson (Oxford: Blackwell, 2012), p. 1; Bertrand and Planas, Les Sociétés, pp. 2–8. See also Claudia Moatti and Wolfgang Kaiser, Gens de passage en Méditerranée de l’Antiquité à l’époque moderne: Procédures de contrôle et identification (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 2007), Introduction; Peter Sahlins, Frontières et identités nationales: La France et l’Espagne dans les Pyrénées depuis le xviie siècle (Paris: Belin, 1996). 15 Esser and Ellis, Frontier and Border Regions, p. 10; Geoffrey Parker, ‘The Military Revolution, 1550–1660 — A Myth?’, in Spain and the Netherlands 1559–1669: Ten Studies, ed. by Geoffrey Parker (London: Collins, 1979), pp. 86–103. 16 David Potter, War and Government in the French Provinces: Picardy, 1470–1560 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993); Steven Gunn, ‘War and Identity in the Habsburg Netherlands, 1477–1559’, in Networks, Regions and Nations: Shaping Identities in the Low Countries, 1300–1650, ed. by Robert Stein and Judith Pollmann (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp. 151–72. 17 ‘Conviene prevenir en todo caso assi por el daño como por el contento de los vassallos’: Simancas, Archivo General de Simancas (henceforth AGS), Estado 609, 17, Fuentes to Philip II, 18 April 1595.

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Regional defence rested on several elements, such as the urban forces and, in times of war, stationed troops. There, the provincial governors (as officers of the prince), the provincial Estates (as representatives of the local clergy, nobility, and townspeople), the towns (as fortified points with garrisons and a civic militia), and even the inhabitants of the rural areas became actors in protecting the border against France. The local and regional players at the ever-changing border were acutely aware of their responsibility and steered towards a continuous dialogue with the authorities of the central government. As shown for Picardy in France or Northumberland and Meath in England, the delegation of border defence by the monarchy led to various outcomes, as the Habsburgs relied (successfully or not) on local landowners and county communities for the organization of border security.18 The role of the aristocracy, gentry, and governors in Artois still needs to be defined more clearly, although we know that in some cases the funding of a fortified church tower was the result of seigneurial action. The villagers were also requested to organize a watch from the church tower at their own expense.19 Often, border towns could count on real protection thanks to the modernization of their fortifications and the revitalization of their compagnies bourgeoises (citizen companies), which served as operative forces in the service of the homeland and Catholicism after the Dutch Revolt.20 Before the FrancoSpanish War (1595–1598) the provincial governor of Artois occasionally gave villagers permission to take up arms against French pillaging, due to a lack of professional troops in the province.21 Yet, the establishment of a rural militia seemed unusual and did not become permanent in nature, while professional

18 Potter, War and Government; Steven G. Ellis, Defending English Ground: War and Peace in Meath and Northumberland, 1460–1542 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 61–112; Violet Soen and Hans Cools, ‘L’Aristocratie transrégionale et les frontières: les processus d’identification politique dans les maisons de Luxembourg-Saint-Pol et de Croÿ (1470–1530)’, in L’Identité au pluriel, ed. by Soen, Junot, and Mariage, pp. 209–28; Violet Soen, ‘La nobleza y la frontera entre los Países Bajos y Francia: las casas nobiliarias Croÿ, Lalaing y Berlaymont en la segunda mitad del siglo xvi’, in Fronteras, ed. by Favarò, Merluzzi, and Sabatini, pp. 427–36. 19 Hugues Dewerdt, ‘La Peur du soldat: réactions de défense en milieu rural (Nord, Pas-deCalais, Somme, xvie–xviiie siècles)’, in Sociabilité et politique en milieu rural, ed. by Annie Antoine and Julian Mischi (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2009), pp. 321–23. 20 José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez and Manuel Herrero Sánchez, ‘Defender la patria y defender la religión: las milicias urbanas en los Países Bajos españoles, 1580–1700’, in Las milicias del rey de España: Sociedad, política e identidad en las Monarquías Ibéricas, ed. by José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez (Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2009), pp. 268–96; Yves Junot, ‘Les Milices bourgeoises au temps des guerres civiles: force de déstabilisation ou instrument de pacification de la société urbaine? (Valenciennes, anciens Pays-Bas espagnols, 1560–1600)’, in Les Milices dans la première modernité, ed. by Serge Brunet and José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2015), pp. 35–46. 21 Brussels, Archives générales du Royaume (henceforth AGR), Audience 1803/4, Guernonval to Mansfeld, 15 August 1592: the governor of Gravelines reported that ‘les paysans y ont prins les armes par ordre du marquis de Warembon [the provincial governor] pour leur conserver

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armies were only deployed or, more exactly, concentrated in strategic places or areas.22 These circumstances gave way to a private form of guerrilla warfare that provided an opportunity for soldiers of any creed, but threatened people living near the border. Hence, the Estates of Artois solicited to contribute to the defence of their border with France during the repeated wars on their territory, as they sought to voice their precarious position in their negotiations with the Habsburg prince. After their final incorporation into the Burgundian sphere of influence in 1493, the Estates had repeatedly used the argument that their province represented a militarized front against France and should be recognized as such. As the local taxes levied for its defence were continuous and higher than those of other provinces closer to the capital, Artois used to call on the solidarity of these other regions.23 The Estates’ claim rested on a valid basis, as in 1553 spending on the fortifications of Artois represented a third of the total fortification costs in the Low Countries.24 Yet, the requested solidarity between the provinces for the protection of the Low Countries barely existed. The core provinces of Holland and Brabant were more sensitive to their eastern borders and their independent and belligerent neighbours in the Duchy of Guelders (before its incorporation into the Low Countries in 1543). Thus, Artois had to provide its own financing for maintaining and building fortifications, with some help from the adjacent County of Flanders. Even so, within this constellation the prince’s duty to protect his subjects created a close connection between the monarch and the provincial Estates located along the dangerous border. The Estates could request the ruler’s protection or even submit a petition to demand the siege of an enemy border town. The Estates of Artois and Hainaut did not hesitate to do this, clamouring for the recapture of Cambrai, a Habsburg satellite-state, after its fall to a French warlord in 1581. This pressure would eventually contribute to the military operations that led to the seizing of Cambrai in 1595, whereby the Estates managed the fiscal negotiations and the eventual tax levy to pay

contre les pilleries journalière des franchois’ in the land of Brédenarde near the border with Calais (‘the farmers there have taken up arms on the orders of the Marquis of Warembon in order to preserve them from the daily pillaging of the French’). 22 See the maps of garrisoned troops in Artois under the supervision of Charles of Croÿ, Duke of Aarschot ‘pour empescher les ravagements de l’armée francoises’ in September–October 1596 (‘to prevent the ravaging done by the French army’): Albums de Croÿ, ed. by Jean-Marie Duvosquel (Brussels: Crédit Communal de Belgique, 1990), xxiii, Comté d’Artois vii, pp. 233–53. 23 Charles Hirschauer, Les États d’Artois de leurs origines à l’occupation française 1340–1640, 2 vols (Paris: Champion, 1923); Helmut G. Koenigsberger, Monarchies, States Generals and Parliaments: The Netherlands in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 97 and 115–16. 24 Pieter Martens, ‘La Destruction de Thérouanne et Hesdin en 1553’, in La Forteresse à l’épreuve du temps: Destruction, dissolution, dénaturation, xie–xxe siècle, ed. by Gilles Blieck and others (Paris: CTHS, 2007), p. 94.

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for the war. They also supported inquiries on war damages.25 Crucially, one of the results of this combination of defence and protection via provincial representation was the building consensus between the sovereign and his subjects. This helps to explain the population’s unwavering support for the Spanish monarchy against French armies after 1635, despite the many defeats the Habsburgs suffered.26 Still, despite the prince’s protection, villagers and countrymen often relied upon their own resources to defend their communities. Negotiating safeguards thereby came to constitute a particular ‘resource of the weak’.27 The various outcomes of the pacts of neutralization between the peasants and their attackers led to the early development of a local self-defence system. The rural communities, with the support of their lords, realized operative means of defence by fortifying local churches or by digging underground shelters called muches (hiding places), with the aim of temporarily protecting villagers and their goods, cattle, and seeds against looting. The refuge usually consisted of a church with a tower that had almost no openings and contained withdrawal rooms on the upper floors. Yet, the need to secure even more people and property led to the creation of additional underground refuges, as described by the Venetian ambassador Federico Badoaro in 1557, with their presence and location being kept secret by their occupants.28 These hidden refuges consisted of a tunnel lined with familial and privately-owned cells which reproduced the village morphology and its social structures. There is a clear correlation between border insecurity and the growth of rural self-defence systems from the sixteenth century onwards. The location of the muches in Artois and Picardy as well as that of Thiérache’s fortified

25 Potter, War and Government, pp. 283–93. 26 Alicia Esteban Estríngana, ‘El consenso como fundamento de la cohesión monárquica: la operatividad política del binomio protección–defensa en los Países Bajos del siglo xvii’, in Lo conflictivo y lo consensual en Castilla: Sociedad y poder político (1521–1715), ed. by Francisco Javier Guillamón Álvarez and José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez (Murcia: Universidad de Murcia, 2001), pp. 327–76; Vermeir, En Estado de guerra, p. 335. 27 José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, ‘La Guerre, les princes et les paysans: les pratiques de neutralisation et de sauvegarde dans les Pays-Bas et le nord du royaume de France’, in Les Ressources des faibles: Neutralités, sauvegardes, accommodements en temps de guerre (xvie–xviiie siècle), ed. by Jean-François Chanet and Christian Windler (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2009), pp. 187–204. 28 Relations des ambassadeurs vénitiens sur Charles Quint et Philippe II, ed. by Louis-Prosper Gachard (Brussels: C. Muquardt, 1856), pp. 84–85: ‘luoghi sotteranei, fatti da’ popoli per conservar le genti, gl’animali e le robbe a tempo di scorrerie […], con camere et stalle […], al qual segreto sono eletti alcuni de principali tra loro et costretti di giuramento a non dir mai’ (‘There exist spacious underground shelters with rooms and stables, constructed by the communities in order to protect their people, animals, and possessions against incursions […] and in order to keep the existence of these shelters a secret, some of the most prominent members of the communities are chosen, and they are committed to each other by a vow of secrecy’).

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churches, effectively illustrate the spatial extent of the border region as an area of significant insecurity.29 Countryside: Pillaging and Protection

Two centuries of conflict profoundly transformed the border region’s demographic and social structures and led to a new configuration of civil-military relations, especially in the countryside.30 Both soldiers in service and on leave crossed the border on a daily basis to loot or to smuggle. The soldiers truly constituted a mixed band, as the Spanish army contained troops from several different ‘nations’. Sometimes, they crossed the border as deserters seeking asylum from the other side or cautiously attempting to begin a new life elsewhere.31 Soldiers also affected life on the border through informal or undirected actions, including harassment, rape, and looting. Importantly, these repertoires of soldierly behaviour often constituted an alternative method of collecting wages for the poorly paid troops and coexisted with simpler forms of destruction and pillaging. Soldiers occasionally disguised themselves in enemy uniforms to go out plundering, and even the Spanish troops housed in formal lodgings frequently stole food, extorted money, horses, and grain, or plundered from those travelling on public roads.32 The lack of discipline exercised by both Spanish and French troops became the subject of complaints

29 See the map in Dewerdt, ‘La peur’, p. 320. 30 Jean-Pierre Bois, ‘Les Villageois et la guerre en France à l’époque moderne’, in Les Villageois face à la guerre (xive–xviiie siècle), ed. by Christian Desplat (Toulouse: Presses Universitaires du Mirail, 2002), pp. 185–207; Dewerdt, ‘La Peur’, pp. 317–29; Stéphane Gal, ‘Gens de guerre et gens des villes, entre haine et nécessité: l’exemple de la défense de Grenoble dans la seconde moitié du xvie siècle’, in Le Peuple des villes dans l’Europe du Nord-Ouest, ed. by Philippe Guignet, 2 vols (Lille: Centre de recherche sur l’histoire de l’Europe du Nord-Ouest, 2003), ii, pp. 185–97; Philippe Guignet, ‘L’Armée dans la ville: ville et société militaire. Des rencontres aux multiples configurations’, in L’Armée et la ville dans l’Europe du Nord et du Nord-Ouest du xv e siècle à nos jours, ed. by Philippe Bragard and others (Louvain: Université catholique de Louvain, 2006), pp. 5–17; Myron P. Gutmann, War and Rural Life in the Early Modern Low Countries (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), p. 311; John A. Lynn, Women, Armies and Warfare in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), p. 239; Davide Maffi, ‘Ejército y sociedad civil en la Europa de la Edad Moderna: nuevas perspectivas historiográficas’, in Extranjeros en el Ejército: Militares irlandeses en la sociedad española, 1580–1818, ed. by Enrique García Hernán and Óscar Recio Morales (Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa, 2007), pp. 37–59; Markus Neumann, ‘Comment les conflits entre militaires et civils étaient-ils réglés au xviie siècle? Les exemples du nord de la France et du duché de Magdebourg’, in L’Armée et la ville, ed. by Bragard and others, pp. 89–100. 31 Dainville, Archives départementales du Pas de Calais (henceforth ADPC), 2B 771, fol. 227r (16 March 1622), fol. 288v (11 October 1624), fols 441v–442r, and fol. 422r, 26 August 1631. 32 In 1597, the Estates of Artois reported that ‘ledit pays est particulierement fort travaillé, vollé et pillé, quelques fois par noz soldatz propres desguisez en francois s’entendans a cest effect avecq l’enemy […] et plus souvent par les franchois desguisez en bourgoignons’, AGR, Audience 686, fol. 252r (‘the said land has been particularly worked, plundered and sacked,

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from local representatives and a matter of negotiation between the Estates and the Spanish king. The war’s irregularity, the impossible autarky of garrison life, and the preponderance of uprooted soldiers led to heterogeneous social practices intertwining with civil-military relations. The passage of troops, the sieges, the requirements of a standing army, and the material and financial burdens war placed on both cities and civilians alike indeed resulted in the civil and military spheres sharing a number of contacts and social ties. The soldiers, as well as the women, the health and administration personnel, the artisans, and the servants orbiting around a standard garrison all served as potential links with the local population. In particular, the regular lack of pay gradually eroded the soldiers’ relationship with the royal power who employed the army, and the resulting emotional needs and problematic living conditions pushed them to weave complementary professional or familial ties with locals.33 Next to their military activities, many soldiers eventually adhered to the local communities at the border and inscribed themselves in civil life there. Control measures put in place by the administration made this clearly visible: surveys conducted to identify Habsburg inhabitants with relatives in the service of the French enemy showed a multitude of families who had members employed by the rival Crown or who worked on either side of the political boundary.34 Deserting to and/or enrolling in the army of the rival power constituted another form of social opportunity for soldiers, especially after 1635. This phenomenon was a by-product of the military-economic conjuncture, based on the main abilities of many men of war and their need for work and retribution, no matter under which banner. The provincial authorities of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands regularly tried to prevent this practice by forbidding it or, inversely, by offering leniency for deserters. Yet, despite the legal arsenal of prohibitions, both Spanish and French soldiers regularly

sometimes by our own soldiers disguised as Frenchmen, for which purpose they keep contact with the enemy […] and often with the French disguised as Burgundians’); AGR, Conseil d’Etat 274, September 1635. 33 On insertion modalities in the agricultural, domestic, or commercial sectors: Vincent Goudron, ‘Aux cœurs de la sociabilité villageoise: une analyse de réseau à partir du choix des conjoints et des témoins au mariage dans un village d’Île-de-France au xvie siècle’, Annales de démographie historique, 109 (2005), 61–94; Vincent Gourdon, ‘Les Témoins de mariage civil dans les villes européennes du xixe siècle: quel intérêt pour l’analyse des réseaux familiaux et sociaux?’, Histoire, économie et société, 2 (2008), 61–87; Jacques Hantraye, ‘L’Intégration en ville des étrangers venus en France par les faits de guerre (première moitié du xixe siècle)’, in L’Armée et la ville, ed. by Bragard and others, pp. 117–27; Jean Imbert, ‘Les Témoins de mariage du Concile de Trente à 1792 en France’, in Le Droit de la famille en Europe: Son évolution de l’Antiquité à nos jours, ed. by Rolland Ganghofer (Strasbourg: Université de Strasbourg, 1993), pp. 307–13. 34 Or, in 1596, a Norman widow who lived in the Flemish port of Dunkirk paid tribute to her deceased husband, a sailor for the Spanish fleet native to Calais, by relying on a French entourage. AGS, Contaduría Mayor de Cuentas, II, 714, 1596.

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moved from one banner to another.35 Even after the annexation of Lille in 1668, Louvois, Louis XIV’s minister, denounced the inhabitants’ support of the ‘newly French’ soldiers who decided to serve under Spanish banners.36 Simultaneously, the government attempted to implement several enrolment strategies to swell the ranks of ‘uprooted’ staff and to integrate new vassals from rival armies.37 In addition, the rehabilitation of subjects and the hosting of armed men who were not loyal to the opposing Crown reflected the will of the sovereign power to assert itself politically. Border Towns: Destructions and Foundations

The Burgundian-Valois, later Hispano-French, wars involved a specific type of violence against the towns and cities along the borders. This process was partially related to an older pattern of punishment that a prince would use towards rebellious towns. By the fifteenth century, however, this same method of punishment now served to show other inhabitants of the border zone what could be the consequences of resistance to the projection of a ruler’s sovereignty over a region or the acceptance of the protection of another ruler.38 In 1468, Charles the Bold decreed not only the sacking of the city of Liège, but also its complete destruction. The Burgundian army set the city on fire after sacking it and demolished its burned remains, ramparts, and the bridge over the Meuse. This methodical annihilation of the city was a radical interpretation of the laws of war. The inhabitants of Liège had to pay dearly for their refusal to accept the Duke of Burgundy’s supervision, as their rebellion

35 ADPC, 2B 771, fols 529v–530r, 23 March 1638. Upon resumption of conflict in 1635, a royal decree communicated that ‘plusieurs […] subiectz et habitans de […] pardeca s’oubliant de leur debvoir se sont mis en service militaire de l’ennemy ou de princes d’estatz estrangiers et que plusieurs aultres tant originaires d’estrangiers aiant servy en noz armees de pardeca auroient faict de mesme’ (‘several […] subjects and inhabitants of the […] Low Countries, who have forgotten their obligations, have entered the military service of the enemy or of princes of foreign states and several others, of foreign origin who have served in our armies of the Low Countries, have done the same’). 36 Alain Lottin, Chavatte, ouvrier lillois: Un contemporain de Louis XIV (Paris: Flammarion, 1979), p. 175. 37 Catherine Denys, ‘Frontière juridique et pratiques judiciaires transfrontalières entre la France et les Pays-Bas au xviiie siècle’, in Frontière et criminalité, 1715–1815, ed. by Catherine Denys (Arras: Artois Presse Université, 2000), pp. 104–05. 38 Marc Boone, ‘Destroying and Reconstructing the City: The Inculcation and Arrogation of Princely Power in the Burgundian-Habsburg Netherlands (14th–16th centuries)’, in The Propagation of Power in the Medieval West, ed. by Martin Gosman, Arjo Vanderjagt, and Jan Veenstra (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1997), pp. 1-33; Violet Soen, ‘¿Más allá de la leyenda negra? Léon Van der Essen y la historiografía reciente en torno al castigo de las ciudades rebeldes en los Países Bajos (siglos xiv a xvi)’, in El Ejército Español en Flandes, 1567–1584, Léon Van der Essen ed. by Gustaaf Janssens (Yuste: Academia de Yuste, 2008), pp. 45–72.

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had been aimed at a prince-bishop who was Charles the Bold’s client, and for their connection to the King of France.39 This pattern of urban destruction also inscribed itself in the making of a new territorial agglomeration on the border between France and the Holy Roman Empire. The Burgundian aggregation of principalities led to a high level of tension in the contact zone with French power. When Charles the Bold died at the battle of Nancy, King Louis XI took the city of Arras, capital of Artois, a province which had always been a part of the Burgundian project. In 1479, the French king decided to expel all of the town’s inhabitants because of their rebelliousness, carrying out a policy of repopulation by requesting the main French towns to send families to Arras and pay for their journey and settlement. This project mimicked an act of colonial foundation and resulted in new inhabitants (all native to France and faithful subjects of the king), a new municipal organization (Franchise), and tax exemptions and other economic privileges aimed at expanding the Arras’s textile manufacturing. Still, this resettlement project eventually failed and King Charles VIII gave permission for settlers to return home and for the original inhabitants to resettle in Arras.40 These singular episodes of destruction and reconfiguration of border towns occurred with a higher intensity during the sixteenth century. First, Charles V eliminated the French enclaves within the Habsburg dominion. A constitutional change concerning municipal power led to the incorporation of Tournai into the Low Countries in 1521 and left it under the prince’s direct supervision.41 King Philip II applied a similar process to Cambrai in 1595: the full integration of this ‘neutral’ principality of the Holy Roman Empire into the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands required the loss of the archbishop’s temporal sovereignty, which was accomplished by having the ‘burghership’ (citizenry) transfer his sovereignty to the King of Spain.42 Charles V, on the

39 Alain Marchandisse, Irène Vrancken-Pirson, and Jean-Louis Kupper, ‘La Destruction de la ville de Liège (1468) et sa reconstruction’, in Destruction et reconstruction de villes, du moyen-âge à nos jours, Crédit Communal: Collection Histoire in-8°, 100 (Brussels: Crédit Communal de Belgique, 1999), pp. 69–96; Jacques Paviot, ‘La Destruction des enceintes urbaines dans les anciens Pays-Bas (xive–xve siècles)’, in La Forteresse à l’épreuve du temps, ed. by Blieck and others, pp. 19–28. 40 Werner Paravicini, ‘Terreur royale: Louis XI et la ville d’Arras, avril 1477’, Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire, 89.2 (2011), 551–83; Henri Stein, ‘Les Habitants d’Evreux et le repeuplement d’Arras en 1479’, Bibliothèque de l’école des Chartes, 84.1 (1923), 284–97. 41 Philippe Guignet, ‘Tournai (Temps Modernes)’, in Les Institutions publiques régionales et locales en Hainaut et Tournai/Tournaisis sous l’Ancien régime, ed. by Florian Mariage (Brussels: Archives générales du Royaume, 2009), pp. 483–94; Christian Dury, ‘Le Siège de Tournai en 1513’, in 1513. L’Année terrible: Le siège de Dijon, ed. by Laurent Vissière, Alain Marchandisse, and Jonathan Dumont (Dijon: Faton, 2013), pp. 72–77. 42 José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, Felipe II y Cambrai, el consenso del pueblo: La soberanía entre la práctica y la teoría política (1595–1677) (Madrid: Sociedad Estatal para la Conmemoración de los Centenarios de Felipe II y Carlos V, 1999).

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other hand, decided in 1553 upon a more radical strategy of obliteration to deal with the issue of the French urban enclaves inside Artois. Thérouanne, a bishop’s see and a town whose walls had already been razed and rebuilt during previous conflicts, was successfully besieged and entirely destroyed in order to eliminate it as a base from which the French garrison organized its pillaging of the neighbouring villages. From the moment the siege ended, the governor of Aire recruited 8000 local workers and razed all houses, the city walls, and even the cathedral within the span of a few weeks. The emperor prohibited the construction of new buildings on the site.43 The same fate affected Hesdin. This Carthaginian scenario, which wiped out two borderland towns, had nothing to do with Liège’s destruction in 1468, except in its planning. Whereas Charles the Bold wanted to punish the city for a crime of lese-majesty and spared the churches, Charles V wanted to prevent once and for all the return of the French garrisons to the heart of Artois, effective from the moment that peace with France should be concluded. The Peace of 1559 indeed endorsed this position and ensured that the prohibition on rebuilding Hesdin was strictly enforced by the provincial administration.44 Meanwhile, the intensification of the mid-sixteenth century wars led to the creation of fortified outposts intended to prevent French incursions. The government reconfigurated the border by founding new towns with names that referred to members of the Habsburg dynasty, such as Mariembourg (1546) or Philippeville (1555). New Hesdin, or Hesdinfert eventually replaced its destroyed namesake and occupied a superior defensive position.45 These small settlements were designed to provide better security along the border’s

43 Laurent Vissière, ‘Le Siège et la destruction de Thérouanne en 1553’, in 1513. L’Année terrible, ed. by Vissière, Marchandisse, and Dumont, pp. 66–71; Martens, ‘La Destruction’, pp. 63–117; Cambrai, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 1135, Antiquitez et mémoires de la très renommé et très fameuse ville et comté de Valentienne […] par sire Simon Le Boucq escuier prevost dudit Valentienne, fols 78v–79r: Thérouanne was ‘saccagé, bruslé et rasé jusques aux fondemens mesmes les esglises et aultres places en général tant murailles fortifications jusques aulx extrémitez des fondations voire jusques aux chauchies des rues de sorte qu’on la renda comme si jamais n’y eult eu ville car tous les matériaux furent par après transporté en ville voisine […] mesme affin que ladite place ne fut rebastie à l’advenir par le traicté et paix depuis ensuivie entre notre prince et le roy de France at esté expressément conditionné d’à l’advenir permectre que l’on y feroit aulcuns edifices ce qui s’est observé’ (‘sacked, burned and razed to foundations, even the churches and other places in general, also walls fortifications right to the extremities of the foundations, meaning right to the streets, in such a way that it was rendered such as if there had never been a city, because all materials were afterwards transported to the neighbouring town […] even so that the said place would not be rebuilt with bastions in the future by means of the treaty and the following peace between our prince and the French king, by which it was purposely conditioned to permit in the future that there would be no buildings made, which is being observed’). 44 AGR, Audience 1703/2, Council of Artois to Alba, 10 March 1568. 45 AGS, Secretarías Provinciales 2595: ‘discurso sobre el bien gobierno y policia que ha de establecerse en una ciudad con motivo de haber mandado el emperador construir la ciudad de Hesdinfert para defensa de la bailia de Hesdin’ (‘discourse about the good governance

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weakest points (the River Meuse, the access road to the principality of Liège, and along Artois), following Italian poliorcetic engineering with modern bastions and a central square directly connected to the fortifications.46 These new outposts constituted the local elements of the overall defensive system against France, and ranged from the North Sea to Luxemburg. Despite the sixteenth-century wars, and with the exception of the aforementioned enclaves, few towns experienced a long-lasting annexation. The strengthening of the urban fortifications system on the borders complicated the seizure of towns after the 1540s, thus leading to peace negotiations that were based on the principle of mutual restitution of conquests. Calais, a point of contention for England, Spain, and France, represents a special case. In 1558, King Henry II of France seized the town and expulsed all inhabitants, putting an end to English sovereignty over the city. Philip II of Spain, however, was at that time Mary Tudor’s husband and King-Consort of England, and he viewed the port of Calais as a cornerstone of the HispanoEnglish alliance against France and vital for the defence of the Low Countries. This political configuration changed unexpectedly with the death of Queen Mary, causing Philip II to dissociate Calais from his peace talks with France. The French never returned the town to Queen Elizabeth I either, but its capture remained an important policy goal for the Spanish king.47 In 1596, Philip II gained possession of Calais, which led to the French population fleeing, and intended to convert it into a new Hispanic settlement facing France, England, and the Dutch Republic.48 The king’s aim was to develop it into a naval base and a hub for the Spanish maritime trade between the Iberian Peninsula and northern Europe. Therefore, governor Juan de Ribas received a commission to repopulate the town. Similarly to Louis XI’s policies for Arras in 1479, Archduke Albert — Philip II’s governor-general in Brussels — suggested in 1596 ‘to fatten up the trade of this town by every possible way and to populate it with Spanish people, thus of those who are from here and also who are from the coast of Guipúzcoa and Biscay and other parts of the kingdoms’.49

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and police which have to be established in a city, with the motive of the emperor having mandated the construction of the city of Hesdinfert, for the defence of the bailief of Hesdin’). Piet Lombaerde, ‘La Place publique urbaine dans les anciens Pays-Bas aux 16e et 17e siècles: place du marché ou place d’armes?’, in La Place publique urbaine des anciens Pays-Bas à l’Europe occidentale (xiie–xxie siècle), ed. by Laurence Baudoux-Rousseau, Philippe Bragard, and Youri Carbonnier (Arras: Artois Presses Université, 2007), pp. 53–59. Geoffrey Parker, Felipe II: La biografía definitiva (Barcelona: Planeta, 2013), pp. 307–26; Haan, Une paix, pp. 96–100. José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, ‘Bellum omnium contra omnes: las posibilidades y contradicciones de la guerra económica por parte de la Monarquía Hispánica en la década de 1590’, Studia histórica, Historia Moderna, 27 (2005), 85–109. AGS, Estado 611, 61, Albert to Philip II, 1 May 1596: ‘han se hechado bandos para que los que son vecinos de la villa vuelvan a sus cassas los que quisieren quedar en ella y a los demás se les da sus pasaportes y el villanaje que se havia recogido aquí se ha vuelto tan bien a sus

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Moreover, in order to preserve such an important place the king needed to ‘put in good seeds so that the trade should keep growing’, in this case by relying on Basque merchants and their boats.50 However, in reality, the war rendered the location commercially unattractive, forcing governor Ribas to prioritize supplying the garrison.51 With the signing of a peace agreement in 1598, Calais reverted back to France, putting an end to this singular experience of ‘colonial’ settlement. During the seventeenth-century French wars in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, the experience of violence against towns and the urban population seemed to be moderate, as leaders no longer equated conquest with urban destruction and changes of population (even though Louis XIV still chose to sack the Palatinate in 1688–1689).52 Improvements in military discipline likely represented one of the reasons as to why this occurred, but another was that the King of France also now desired to incorporate local populations into French sovereignty through a negotiated framework that respected local privileges. Put differently: it became easier to take on the duty of protecting the King of Spain’s former subjects than to organize a policy of repopulation. In 1666, the Marquis of Castel Rodrigo founded the military outpost of Charleroi on the Sambre because the Spanish monarchy had to reorganize the defence of its retracted borders after the Peace of the Pyrenees. On the other side of the annexations, in 1670 Louis XIV settled a professional French-speaking community of fishermen and seamen (from the Calais area) at Mardyck, a former Spanish fort, to strengthen the neighbouring Flemish

cassas es necessario engrossar el comercio desta villa por todas las vías que se pudiere y poblarla con spañoles, assi de los que ay por aca como los de la costa de la mar de Guipuzcoa y Vizcaya y otras partes de los reynos que a los tales aquí se les haría toda comodidad y se les podría poner en consideración que viniesen por aca algunos con sus baxeles y otros a residir aquí’ (‘they have created bands in order to have those who are neighbours of the town return to their homes, those who want to stay in them and the rest are given their passports and the villagers that have been gathered here have also gone to their homes, it is necessary to fatten up the trade of this town by every possible way and to populate it with Spanish people, thus of those who are from here and also who are from the coast of Guipuzcoa and Biscay and other parts of the kingdoms, such that those here are given all commodity and they can be asked to consider that some of them come here with their vessels and others to reside here’). 50 AGS, Estado 611, 99, Albert to Philip II, 9 June 1596: ‘es muy necesario poner mucho cuidado porque ha quedado casi despoblado el lugar y conviene yr poniendo en el buenas plantas para que vaya creciendo el comercio y todo lo demás que es bien para su mayor conservación’ (‘it is very necessary to be very careful because the place has remained nearly depopulated and it would be advisable to put good factories in it in order to grow the commerce and everything else that is good for its great conservation’). 51 AGR, Audience 1865/1, Juan de Ribas to Moriensart, 26 January 1597. 52 Jean-Philippe Cénat, ‘Le Ravage du Palatinat: politique de destruction, stratégie de cabinet et propagande au début de la guerre de la Ligue d’Augsbourg’, Revue historique, 633.1 (2005), 97–132; Catherine Denys, ‘Quelques réflexions sur la régulation de la violence de guerre dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux aux xviie et xviiie siècles’, Les Ressources des faibles, ed. by Chanet and Windler, pp. 212–13.

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port of Dunkirk.53 These small-scale initiatives did not, however, change the new pattern of local societal preservation on the changing borders between the Low Countries and France.

Cross-Border Dynamics during the Civil and Religious Wars In the same way that the institutional configuration of the Spanish empire forced the monarch to maintain good relations in the social space of the borderlands, consensus also became a key component of cross-border dynamics during civil and religious wars. On the one hand, the Spanish monarch had to deal with local jurisdictional and religious claims of authority, as well as with Protestant ‘infiltrations’ coming from both within and without the Low Countries. On the other hand, the central authorities decided to use international conflicts with France as a means of asserting their defence of Catholicism, for one through the political reception of French refugees and migrants — even though the monarchy established clear ties of subordination with these migrant populations — and by guaranteeing the viability of the cross-border economic space. This led to a complex, but logical, configuration of political and confessional interactions between different authorities and populations in the border provinces. Contested Borders during the Dynastic Wars

The construction of a Burgundian-Habsburg state as third territorial entity between France and the Holy Roman Empire became a reality in the mid-sixteenth century. This territorial aggregation of the Low Countries, however, also sharpened the problems caused by feudal and ecclesiastical jurisdictions along the borderlands, and created controversies between the population’s geographical culture and its political action, its intertwined and shared rights, and the spheres of influence and neighbourly relations it held with the French and German monarchies.54 For one, the delineation of the boundaries of this new entity was contested until 1559. In 1548, the Transaction of Augsburg established a Circle of Burgundy within the Holy Roman Empire, while the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549 appointed a single heir, Philip of Spain, to these territories. Since the division of the Carolingian empire, the Counties of Flanders and Artois were theoretically part of the French kingdom, and, 53 Anne Philippart, ‘La Construction de la forteresse espagnole 1666–1667’, in Charleroi était forteresse 1666–1871: Notice historique (Charleroi: Société royale d’archéologie de Charleroi and Ville de Charleroi, (1986), pp. 13–16; Maurice Millon, ‘Les Ouvrages militaires de Mardyck’, Revue du Nord, 198 (1968), 411–16. 54 Léonard Dauphant, Le Royaume des quatre rivières: L’espace politique français (1380–1515) (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2012).

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for this reason, the French king expected their counts to pay homage to him. Even if the Habsburgs did not fulfil this ceremonial expectation, their Flemish and Artesian subjects could nevertheless appeal to the Parliament of Paris. Diplomatic agreements between Spain, France, and the Holy Roman Empire settled a large proportion of the quarrels concerning borders and jurisdictions. The treaties of Madrid (1526), Cambrai (1529), and Le CateauCambrésis (1559) provided a solution to the Burgundian question.55 The Habsburgs formally surrendered their claims to the Duchy of Burgundy that had been lost after the death of Charles the Bold, but, in return, received full and complete sovereignty over Flanders and Artois from the King of France. The territorial reorganization of the Low Countries’s bishoprics served to reinforce the resulting change in feudal heritage: Philip II severed the ecclesiastical links that connected his dominions with France and the Holy Roman Empire in 1559.56 Therefore, the bishoprics of Artois and Hainaut were not subordinated to the higher siege of Reims in France but became part of the newly erected ecclesiastical province of Cambrai. This policy led to the better incorporation of the inhabitants of the borderland provinces in the Burgundian-Habsburg state, as they could rely on their own judicial, fiscal, and ecclesiastical institutions. The context of civil war during the last third of the sixteenth century, however, threatened the local consensus that had developed around sovereignty and its limits. In 1559, the reform of the bishoprics of the Low Countries led to the suppression of the seat of Thérouanne, the territory of which was divided between the new seats of Boulogne and Saint-Omer. The political and religious borders, however, did not correlate: some inhabitants of villages in Artois, for example, were subject to the temporal power of the Spanish king, but they fell within the French bishop of Boulogne’s spiritual sphere of power. Such a border scenario constituted a case of friction between the two antagonistic monarchies. In the early 1570s, the provincial court of law and the Estates of Artois drew the Duke of Alba’s attention to a specific summons sent by the Bishop of Boulogne that was referred to among Philip II’s subjects. The Spanish king could not ‘allow that his subjects would be placed or pulled beyond the limits of his obedience’ and requested, without success, the creation of an ecclesiastical court (officialité) by the French bishop in the

55 David Potter, ‘The Frontiers of Artois in European Diplomacy (1482–1560)’, in Arras et la diplomatie européenne xve–xvie siècles, ed. by Denis Clauzel, Charles Giry-Deloison, and Christophe Leduc (Arras: Artois Presses Université, 1999), pp. 261–75; Jesús María Usunáriz, España y sus tratados internacionales (Pamplona, Universidad de Navarra, 2006), pp. 78–114; Haan, Une paix, 125–29. 56 Edouard de Moreau, Histoire de l’Église en Belgique: L’Église des Pays-Bas 1559–1633 (Brussels: Edition universelle, 1952), p. 5; Violet Soen and Laura Hollevoet, ‘Le Borromée des anciens Pays-Bas? Maximilien de Berghes, (arch)évêque de Cambrai et l’application du Concile de Trente (1564–1567)’, Revue du Nord, 419 (2017), 41–65.

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Artesian parts of his diocese.57 The borders between the Duchy of Luxemburg, located in the eastern part of the Low Countries, and the Electorate of Trier, an ecclesiastical principality of the Holy Roman Empire, were the object of discussion in 1548, when Charles V set up the Burgundian Circle. The emperor and the Archbishop of Trier solved this jurisdictional problem by instituting an arbitration commission which was chosen ‘on the one side and on the other’ with the intention of maintaining mutual ‘good neighbouring and friendship’. Nonetheless, in 1575, the Archbishop of Trier complained to the King of Spain about the initiatives of the Count of Mansfeld, provincial governor of Luxemburg.58 The archbishop accused the count of usurping some bordering seigneuries and capturing the castle of Sumerau ‘using force with war people’. Why did the provincial governor decide to break the arbitration system with his neighbour? As the king’s authority was collapsing due to the on-going Dutch Revolt, the provincial governor maintained his position as a powerful aristocrat in Luxemburg, one of the few provinces that remained loyal to the Spanish monarchy.59 Philip II could not disown this crucial officer: Luxemburg was a throughway for the ‘Spanish road’, which connected the Mediterranean with the Low Countries through the principality of Trier and allowed for the movement of Spanish and Italian soldiers. Consequently, the prince-archbishop appealed to his own supporters in the Empire, including the other electors and Emperor Maximilian, the latter of whom wrote to the King of Spain. This local quarrel thus had the potential to turn into a European-wide dispute between the Spanish monarchy and the Holy Roman Empire.60 Philip II did not want to see his cousin interfering in a local matter, so he ordered the Council of State in Brussels to stop the provincial governor of Luxemburg from acting by voie de fait (i.e. assault). The regulation of the border dispute was returned to the arbitration process, but its temporary decommissioning showed how a local political actor could actively oppose the Habsburg’s demarcation policy. Borders as a Testing Ground for the Reformation

From the sixteenth century to the first half of the seventeenth century, the Spanish monarchy self-defined through its adherence to and protection of Catholicism. Central and local authorities, both civic and ecclesiastical, aimed to prevent Protestant antagonism coming from both inside and outside the

57 ‘Souffrir que ses subjectz soient citez ou tirez hors des limites de son obéissance’: AGR, Audience 1703/2, correspondence of the Council of Artois, 1570 to 1574. 58 AGS, Secretarías Provinciales 2596. 59 Gustaaf Janssens, ‘Le Comte Pierre Ernest de Mansfeld: loyal serviteur de Charles V et de Philippe II et la guerre aux Pays-Bas. Une esquisse biographique’, Zeitschrift für luxemburger Geschichte / Revue d’histoire luxembourgeoise, 56.4 (2004), 379–88. 60 Etienne Bourdeu, Les Archevêques de Mayence et la présence espagnole dans le Saint-Empire (xvie–xviie siècle) (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2015), pp. 27–33.

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Spanish dominions.61 The government generally monitored mobility at the urban level and used declarations for housing to prevent vagrancy and deviant ways of life.62 Starting in the sixteenth century, no foreigner could obtain authorization to reside in the borderland provinces without first reporting his last residence to the local magistrates and municipal officers. Newcomers next had to prove their ‘good and Catholic life’ and take an oath to behave according to the Church’s established ordinances.63 Criminal records also attest as to the major suspicions that authorities maintained against migrants who had been travelling through Protestant countries. Municipal boards thus questioned and criminalized individuals who had either attended Anglican churches or had been married or baptized their children in England or the Dutch Republic. The imperial hegemonic expansion associated with post-Tridentine Roman Catholicism led the Spanish government to develop an ultra-Catholic front in the Low Countries. Facing England, France, the Dutch Republic, and the Holy Roman Empire, those regions became a safe haven for Catholic refugees. The Recusants, along with the Irish and Scottish Catholics, refused to attend the Church of England and to respond to the Acts of Supremacy, gathering in convents, seminaries, and colleges in border towns such as Douai and Saint-Omer. During the Dutch Revolt, exiles from Calvinist republics joined the aforementioned Catholics, whether in adjacent Flanders or Brabant, or as a part of the new regimes in the Union of Utrecht’s rebel territories. Finally, there were French Ligueurs, most of them from Picardy and the Boulonnais, who refused the Catholicism observed by Henry IV, as they considered him to

61 Soen and Hollevoet, ‘Le Borromée des anciens Pays-Bas’, pp. 41–66; Alain Lottin, ‘La Mise en œuvre de la réforme catholique, à travers les conciles provinciaux de Cambrai (1565, 1586, 1631)’, in Conciles provinciaux et synodes diocésains du Concile de Trente à la Révolution française: Défis ecclésiaux et enjeux politiques?, ed. by Marc Aoun and Jeanne-Marie TufferyAndrieu (Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 2010), pp. 167–86. 62 Yves Junot, ‘Heresy, War, Vagrancy and Labour Needs: Dealing with Temporary Migrants in the Textile Towns of Flanders, Artois and Hainaut in the Wake of the Dutch Revolt (1566–1609)’, in Gated Communities? Regulating Migrations in Early Modern Cities, ed. by Bert De Munck and Anne Winter (Farnham–Burlington: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 61–80. 63 Charles Terlinden, Listes chronologiques des édits et ordonnances des Pays-Bas: Règnes de Philippe IV (1621–1665) et de Charles II (1665–1700) (Brussels: Goemaere, 1909), 29 novembre 1623: ‘Aulcuns estrangiers ou aultre personne y vienne demourer a prendre residence ne soit quilz facent auparavant apparoistre ausditz officiers et magistratz par attestations des superieurs de l’estat et des magistrats du lieu ou dernierement ils ont reside, quilz sont de bonne et catholicque vie et conservation et presentent […] serment de se comporter suivant les ordonnances de nostre mere la Saincte eglise’ (‘some strangers or other persons come to stay there in order to take up residence, as long as they appear beforehand before the officers and magistrates by attestation of the superiors of the state and the magistrates of the place where they last resided, if they are of a good catholic life and conservation, and present […] an oath to behave in accordance to the ordonnances of our Mother the Holy Church’).

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have falsely converted. All of these migrants hoped for the spiritual reconquest of their own country and sought Philip II’s military and financial support.64 The civil war in France raised tensions concerning the territorial definition of sovereignty and subjection. In 1593, King Henry IV renounced his Calvinist faith and became a Catholic, opening the way to papal absolution and rallying France’s high clergy. Claude-André Dormy, the exiled Bishop of Boulogne residing in Montreuil, was one of those who abandoned the Catholic League and joined the Béarnais: the king thus allowed him to return to Boulogne, where the governor, the Duke of Epernon, had remained loyal to Henry IV.65 Philip II, however, did not recognize the King of France’s conversion and carried on supporting ultra-Catholic factions as a means of projecting Spanish influence in French affairs.66 The King of France responded in kind, maintaining a similar policy throughout Burgundian territory. Some inhabitants of Artois, taking advice from the Bishop of Boulogne, officially admitted the legitimacy of Henry IV. Shortly before the declaration of war against France in 1595, the Bishop of Saint-Omer, Jean du Vernois, revealed this problem to the Habsburg governor-general Archduke Ernst and suggested that the situation should be taken care of. Vernois described the French clergy as ‘schismatic’ and suggested that a bishop from the Low Countries — himself in this case — could appoint parish priests in the villages concerned ‘as long as the schism lasted’.67 On a local scale, parishioners and bishops near the border replicated the dispute about the legitimacy of the King of France. As 64 Igor Pérez Tostado and José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, ‘Introduction’, in Los exiliados del rey de España, ed. by Igor Pérez Tostado and José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez (Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2015), pp. 9–52; Junot and Kervyn, ‘Los Países Bajos’, pp. 209–33; Descimon and Ruiz Ibáñez, Les Ligueurs de l’exil; Soen, ‘Exile encounters’; Alexander Soetaert, ‘Transferring Catholic Literature to the British Isles: The Publication of English Translations in the Ecclesiastical Province of Cambrai (c. 1600–50)’, and Violet Soen, ‘Containing Students and Scholars Within Borders? The Foundation of Universities in Reims and Douai and Transregional Transfers in Early Modern Catholicism’, in Crossing Borders: Transregional Reformations in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Violet Soen and others (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019), pp. 157–86 and 267–94 resp. 65 Nicolas Le Roux, La Faveur du roi: Mignons et courtisans au temps des derniers Valois (Seyssel: Champ Vallon, 2000), pp. 556–58. 66 José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, ‘Henri IV, la Ligue ou l’Artois? La ville d’Ardres et l’établissement de la domination espagnole (1596–1598)’, in Le Bon Historien sait faire parler les silences: Hommage à Thierry Wanegffelen, ed. by Fabien Salesse (Toulouse: Méridiennes, 2012), pp. 221–33; José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, ‘Devenir et (re)devenir sujet: la construction politique de la loyauté au roi catholique en France et aux Pays-Bas à la fin du xvie siècle’, in L’Identité au pluriel, ed. by Junot, Mariage, and Soen, pp. 267–80. 67 AGS, Estado 609, 118, junta de estados of Archduke Ernest, 18–19 January 1595: ‘en esos casares se cometían muchas desordenes, por donde es menester meter ay curas, y tener el ojo abierto procurando con la sancta sede appostolica, que durante este schisma la cura de tales parroquias del condado de Artoes azia Santomer quede encommendado a algunos obispos de por aca, y que lo mismo se haga quanto a los casares del diocesi o juridiccion del obispado de Amiens’ (‘many disturbances have taken place in these villages, which is why it is necessary to put priests there, and keep our eyes open, and try, together with the Holy See,

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such, these local debates demonstrated the existence of a (fluid) confessional border, the defence of which the King of Spain prioritized. During wartime, the reaffirmation of the Habsburg’s religious posture would also be associated with the political danger embodied by non-natives who had their residences in the border area. Since the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands faced the problems that resulted from France’s situation of ambiguous religious coexistence (as promulgated by the Edict of Nantes), as well as those stemming from its conflict with the Dutch Republic, the government of the Habsburg Archdukes Albert and Isabella increased the monitoring of religious practice within their own realm. Between 1595 and 1597, the Habsburgs also increasingly confiscated goods from French natives in order to prevent ‘heretics’ and followers of Henry IV from blending in with migrants from the League or those already settled in Artois.68 In parallel to these measures, literary works created imagery that paired foreigners and heretics, which conversely elaborated the characteristics that defined the good and loyal subject in the Low Countries. The siege of Valenciennes in July 1656 illustrated how the French enemy could be associated with a weak Huguenot figure. Spanish troops commanded by Don Juan José of Austria forced Turenne’s French troops to lift the siege — an accomplishment that was considered Spain’s last great victory in the seventeenth century. Simon Le Boucq, alderman of Valenciennes, described Turenne in local chronicles as a helpless Protestant at the service of a king allied with the Great Turk. Moreover, he hypothesized that the French defeat might have resulted from a combination of Catholic strength and the Virgin’s desire to intercede on behalf of the town.69 Nonetheless, in order to better understand the daily relationships within border provinces, it is important to note that the era’s social actors had instrumentalized the idea of ‘Frenchness’. For example, when a naturel de France appeared as subject of a complaint in the corporative sphere, the argument raised by his competitors was highly circumstantial and revealed a protectionist attitude in the face of other potential competitors. Thus, the masters of a corporation, native subjects of the Low Countries, based their that during this schism the care for these parishes of the County of Artois near Saint-Omer is in the hands of some bishops from over here, and the same should be done in the case of the villages belonging to the diocese or jurisdiction of the bishopric of Amiens’). 68 Aline Goossens, ‘Les Pays-Bas méridionaux, refuge politique et religieux à l’époque du traité de Vervins’, in Le Traité de Vervins, ed. by Jean-François Labourdette, Jean-Pierre Poussou, and Marie-Catherine Vignal (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2000), pp. 203–32. See also Malcolm R. Thorp and Arthur Slavin, Politics, Religion and Diplomacy in Early Modern Europe (Kirksville: Northeast Missouri State University, 1994), pp. 143–60. 69 Maurice Hénault, Récit du siège de Valenciennes en 1656, publié d’après le manuscrit original de Simon Le Boucq (Valenciennes: Bonenfant, 1889), p. 117: concerning Turenne’s bombing, ‘on s’apercevoit de plus en plus qu’estions batu par un hereticque qui n’espargnoit les maisons de Dieu moins que celle de particulier’ (2 July 1656) (‘one sees more and more that they were beaten by a heretic who did not spare the houses of God nor those of private persons’).

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case on the political or religious risk embodied by the French candidate at the moment he aspired to have access to the rank of master, even if he had been practicing at their side for many years without any problem regarding his ‘naturality’.70 Borders Testing Rural Economies: Borderless Peasants and Cattle

Despite the almost permanent state of war, the southern area of the Low Countries maintained a cross-border economy with daily movement of people and goods between the two states. Rural actors would ignore or overcome the jurisdictional constraints created by the representational power of political authorities: in fact, they placed themselves under specific political, social, and economic orders that often transcended the political borders. Furthermore, cross-border and transregional life often received a boost from the conflicts between the French and Spanish Crowns. After the pacification of the southern provinces by the Prince of Parma, the Spanish government sought to redefine the region’s religious and economic framework to build peace within the reconciled provinces. From 1583, this revival was promoted by the integration of French families from Boulonnais and Picardy, victims of the Wars of Religion, into rural enclaves within Artois and Flanders where they helped to restore cropland: Spanish royal authority protected hundreds of Catholic refugees and migrants who had crossed the border.71 Authorities did not consider these families’ French origin a problem, as the Catholic component of their identity mattered more and permitted them to establish a jurisdictional tie with the Habsburg sovereign. In rural areas, local adaptations and compromises were expressed at the individual level as well. Records mention neighbourly relations and communication with the ‘political enemy’ in both times of peace and war. In 1647, the aldermen of Martinpuich (in Artois) had to respond to the Council of State. The aldermen asked permission to pursue their activities because ‘the place being located at the extremity of the border and almost landlocked in France, it was impossible for them to survive without trading with the French neighbour who employed their plowmen and artisans and provided them work’. In 1656, burghers from Avesnes in Hainaut agreed with those from Guise and Landrecies (newly conquered by Louis XIV’s troops) on the free

70 See, for example, AGR, Conseil Privé Espagnol 180/A, 5, 17 December 1678: case of Guillaume du Val, a native Frenchman established in Mons at the time of the siege of 1678. 71 Yves Junot, ‘Les Migrants, un enjeu? Pacification religieuse et relance économique de part et d’autre de la frontière entre la France et les Pays-Bas espagnols (c. 1580–c. 1610)’, in Religione e istituzioni religiose nell’economia europea, 1000–1800, ed. by Francesco Ammannati (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2012), pp. 779–91.

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exercise of their trade, on pasturing their cattle on land, and on their respective sovereign’s jurisdictions, all without being allowed to communicate directly.72 Similar to the collective and individual actions of the border populations, royal authorities also made numerous compromises and adaptations at the local rural level, especially during periods of conflict. In 1693, during the Nine Years’ War (1688–1697), the Council of State in Brussels inquired into the permeability of Hainaut’s border by contacting its provincial authorities. Following a theft committed by soldiers of a Spanish company against a merchant from Tournai, the Council required the provincial council in Ath to assess the situation regarding the apanage of sheep around the towns and villages associated with each country. The provincial council responded that permitting a shared use of the land was a common practice around Valenciennes, Tournai, and the various enclaves of the châtellenie of Lille. The censier in charge of paying the royal denarius invoked the benefits of a flexible attitude, as trade and the circulation of people and cattle could also increase the Crown’s rights.73 In all of those cases, leaders balanced the maintenance of order and the mistrust of local authorities against the consideration of economic survival and particular interests.

The Redefinition of Dynastic Loyalty in the Border Provinces Alongside the Habsburg dynasty’s preoccupation regarding the confessional consolidation and the economic viability of the border provinces, the making of ‘the borders’ also applied to the delimitation of symbolic and moral limits of the community of subjects. The affirmation of royal authority could not have been credible without mechanisms (re)defining loyalty and, therefore, tacit or explicit agreements (in the sense of ‘social contracts’) that incorporated individuals into this political community. Appearing at various levels of the dialogue between individuals and royal authorities, these contracts were always consolidated ‘from below’ and by relying on the immediate socio-political experience of the actors involved. Merging Status: ‘Foreigners’ as ‘Subjects’ in Artois during the 1595–1598 War

With the resumption of war in 1595, French natives living in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, especially those in Artois, found themselves in an awkward position. A legal safeguard ensured that they could keep their freedom and properties. Hence, the war did not cause mass exodus or arrests

72 AGR, Conseil d’Etat 487, 23 and 26 May 1656. 73 AGR, Conseil d’Etat 484, February 1693.

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among people of French origin, despite the fact that they were being regarded with suspicion. Earlier, by the time of the confrontation between Francis I and Charles V, arrangements for the individual neutralization of foreigners had already become widespread: the merchants of the Low Countries had previously claimed the King of France’s protection as former subjects who had been under his suzerainty in Flanders or Artois.74 In the wake of a declaration of war, a foreigner could also apply to the governor or the judicial council of the local province in order to obtain the protection and safeguard of the King of Spain. On 6 March 1595, the Count of Fuentes, governor-general of the Low Countries ad interim, replied to Henry IV’s declaration of war. From 9 March, the first French residents in Artois carried out the administrative procedure to procure their own safety, likely motivated by fear. The government allowed them to stay in the province for two years, whilst prohibiting natural subjects of the king from molesting them. This self-willed procedure did not please the Spanish king, and a royal measure (placard) obliged all French residents to declare themselves to local officers in November 1595. For this reason, the Déclaration des français vivant aux Pays-Bas was drafted for the Artesian County of Saint-Pol in February 1596.75 It is the most elaborate and detailed declaration of this type stored within the archives. It contains a very extensive biographical narrative of each declarant (identity, place of birth, age, identity of the parents, occasion of arrival in the Low Countries, migratory past, professional occupation, marriage, children, conditions of housing, properties, attendance at mass), their witnesses’ statements (from neighbours, fellow workers, parish priests), and at last, a record of the declarant taking an oath to behave like a ‘good and faithful subject’. Officials did not class foreigners as natural subjects by right, but through their loyal behaviour. Such positive narratives towards French people can surprise, especially when one considers the frequent French incursions into the region and the population’s xenophobic fear of Huguenots. In fact, there is no written trace of a rejection or act of hostility shown to these individuals. The foreign resident instead put forward a sincere desire to become incorporated into local society, the proof of which could be found in the damages their property suffered at the hands of French soldiers. The declaration operated as a well-functioning discourse between foreigners, local administrators, and native inhabitants.76 This three-way relationship was one element responsible for the consensus. In this borderland, society recognized the French foreigner’s pledged loyalty to the King of Spain because native

74 Junot and Kervyn, ‘La Question des appartenances’, pp. 240–41. 75 AGR, Audience 1398/7, Register from Saint-Pol. 76 Yves Junot, ‘Servirse de la frontera: grupos sociales y estrategias transfronterizas en los Países Bajos españoles (c. 1580–c. 1610)’, in Fronteras, ed. by Favarò, Merluzzi, and Sabatini, pp. 417–26.

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people acted as witnesses during the procedure. It was their indispensable agreement that defused the officers’ suspicions. Changing Status: From ‘Foreigner’ to ‘Natural Subject’

Since no legal or administrative formalities existed when crossing the border between the Low Countries and France, the naturalization of foreigners allowed the prince to transform a stranger into a ‘natural subject’, ensuring that this legal and administrative procedure replaced provincial processes of acceptance.77 Codes and declarations of loyalty to the prince were gradually established to promote the Spanish monarchy’s sanctification and dominance, as well as the specialization and regionalization of the government’s administration. Natural law’s common vocabulary facilitated the weaving of legal links between host communities and migrants.78 Combining political loyalty with Christianity, two traits common in both France and the Low Countries, also favoured the connection. The King of Spain’s desired understanding of the law and the Catholic community’s interests, therefore, generated a coherent space of communication between the Habsburg sovereign power, the municipal institutions, and the French immigrants.79 Likewise, naturalization was a significant political issue at the border. First, it appeared that the procedure almost exclusively concerned the border provinces of the Low Countries and the County of Burgundy.80 Secondly, this procedure emerged at a key moment of the applicants’ administrative life. Those French applicants who had been in the Habsburg Netherlands for five to twenty-five years suddenly felt the urge to rely on this process, as they needed to legitimate their ability to live in Spanish dominions once the war began to undermine their rights (for example, inheritance rights). They also needed to be viewed as legal naturels to receive a civil or an ecclesiastical office. In both cases, applicants hoped to be treated as subjects and protected by the sovereign and his officers. The legal and political ideal would then

77 Marie Kervyn, ‘Légiférer sur l’immigration française dans le sud des Pays-Bas méridionaux: logiques souveraines et traditions d’autonomie’, in Actos del Congreso Felipe II y Almazarrón: La construcción local de un Imperio global (22–24 nov. 2012), ed. by José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez (Murcia: Red Columnaria, 2013), pp. 366–78. For additional ‘spaces’ within the Spanish empire, see: Tamar Herzog, ‘Naturales y extranjeros: sobre la construcción de categorías en el mundo hispánico’, Cuadernos de Historia Moderna, 10 (2011), 21–31. 78 Louis Le Charondas le Caron, Responses ou decisions du droicts francois: confirmées par arrests des cours souveraines de ce royaume et autres, comme aussi des Conseils d’Estats et Prive du Roy et Gran Conseil, enrichies de singulieres observations du droict romain (Paris: Pierre Chevalier, 1605), Book x, p. 27; Martin Hübner, Essai sur l’Histoire du Droit Naturel depuis le temps de Grotius jusqu’à nos jours, ou l’Histoire de la Jurisprudence Divine (London, 1757), p. i. 79 Pierre Bonolas, ‘La Question des étrangers à la fin du xvie siècle et au début du xviie siècle’, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 36.2 (1989), 304. 80 AGR, Conseil Privé Espagnol 1414–1417: This archive contains more than 450 naturalization letters.

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be confirmed through standard social practices. Particularly in times of war and according to the jus precipiendi, factual elements would be considered as proof of one’s attachment to the local community and as a response to the codes of the belonging to the community of subjects of the prince. The evidence — or the argument — supporting the legitimacy of a claim to naturalization and the attachment to a community consisted of proof of leading a ‘good Catholic life’, marriage to a native woman, and a profession, all of which municipal and parochial authorities had to confirm.81 Nonetheless, by the end of the sixteenth century, the Spanish empire’s overall transformation and definition of the French enemy encouraged the monarchy to appropriate the recognition and the assimilation of foreigners. Naturalization and burghership would coexist until the sixteenth century, one not being conditional to the other, but in border provinces such as Artois the central authorities induced a hierarchy and imposed naturalization upon French migrants before they could register as burghers. Long after the Peace of Vervins, officials denied the right of citizenship in Arras, Saint-Omer and Aire-sur-la-Lys to some applicants for being naturels de France. Brussels tried to control who might become burgher and ranked subjection to its sovereignty before any other civic affiliation. It did claim this prerogative in the name of security, which had become a kingly prerogative more than a municipal one.82 Naturalizations in the French town of Ardres, temporarily governed by Spanish troops between 1596 and 1598 in support of the League, also help to identify the political consequences of establishing a ‘Spanish-Burgundian regime’ and what it meant to ‘share global political culture’ on a volatile border.83 Philip II oriented his imperial policy by allowing the local population to preserve its goods and property by formally promising to respect their privileges, and by allowing soldiers and French burghers who wished to leave the city to do so (unlike the cases of Doullens, Calais, and Amiens in 1595, 1596, and 1597 respectively). The ordinary administration continued to operate during the occupation and made it possible to establish a mutually faithful relationship with the new prince. The latter conducted a collective naturalization, on behalf of the reinstatement of his territorial rights to Artois on Ardrésis, which had been Burgundian from 1435 to 1482. Unlike the ‘heretics’ and ‘suspects’ who refused to comply, the population individually took the oath in a specific order: first the clergy; then the nobility; the judiciary; and finally the burghership. In doing so, conquered populations, while resting on pre-existing structures, theoretically became reliable subjects who could develop a mystic and dynastic affection for a prince who presented himself as the ‘Defender of the Faith’.

81 See also Peter Sahlins, Unnaturally French: Foreign Citizens in the Old Regime and After (London: Cornell University Press, 2004). 82 Junot and Kervyn, ‘La Question des appartenances’, pp. 244–46. 83 Ruiz Ibáñez, ‘Henri IV, la Ligue ou l’Artois?’, pp. 221–33.

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Urban Experience of the Border, Memory, and Glorification

The high degree of daily violence in Artois, whose inhabitants commonly possessed and used firearms and knives, possibly due to its proximity to the border and the international conflict, resulted in serious discussions concerning social behaviour.84 However, official inquiries regarding French residents in Artois do not reveal tensions or local inhabitants desiring rejection: the war did not break foreigners’ contracts of incorporation into border societies. They were considered as good neighbours and loyal individuals under the protection of the King of Spain. In turn, this begs the question if violence was more prevalent between local soldiers and civilians or between a village’s different social groups. A deeper understanding of the border experience might help to differentiate between urban and rural situations due to the unique political and military issues experienced within a town. Towns were of great strategic importance for their role within a region’s overall defence and therefore constituted a major target for conquest during the Hispano-French confrontation. Their security, in the hands of both the governor and municipal authorities, generated a recurrent fear of a ‘surprise’ (an enemy infiltration). Until 1559, war enforced support of supra-provincial identities with the intensified application of treason law, the punishment of plotting to betray towns, and the search for spies.85 In the wake of the Dutch Revolt and the civil war of the 1570s this fear was strengthened, especially by the actions of Calvinists and inhabitants in close relation with the French Huguenots. This generated a high level of tension inside many urban societies, such as Mons and Valenciennes in 1572 or Arras in 1578.86 The presence of Spanish garrisons following the Duke of Alba’s arrival represented another obstacle in the relationship between town councils and the sovereign since it broke with traditional notions of urban self-defence.

84 Robert Muchembled, La Violence au village: Sociabilité et comportements populaires en Artois du xve au xviie siècle (Turnhout: Brepols, 1989); Isabelle Paresys, Aux marges du royaume: Violence, justice et société en Picardie sous François Ier (Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 1998). 85 Gunn, ‘War and Identity’, p. 156; Florian Mariage, ‘Jehan de Tenremonde, capitaine de Tournai, et la conspiration de 1527’, Mémoires de la Société Royale d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Tournai, 12 (2007), 85–118. 86 Valentín Vázquez de Prada, ‘Philippe II et la France. De Cateau-Cambrésis à Vervins: quelques réflexions, quelques précisions’, in Le Traité de Vervins, ed. by Jean-François Labourdette, Jean-Pierre Poussou, and Marie-Catherine Vignal (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2000), pp. 143–45; Hugues Daussy, ‘Louis de Nassau et le parti huguenot’, in Entre calvinistes et catholiques: Les relations religieuses entre la France et les Pays-Bas du Nord (xvie–xviiie siècle), ed. by Yves Krumenacker (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2010), pp. 31–43; Frédéric Duquenne, ‘La contestation des échevinages à Douai et Arras en 1577 et 1578’, in Des Villes en révolte: Les ‘Républiques urbaines’ aux Pays-Bas et en France pendant la deuxième moitié du xvie siècle, ed. by Monique Weis (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010), pp. 53–63.

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The urban mutinies that occurred during the 1570s produced a deep feeling of rejection of Philip II’s ‘foreign’ troops, especially those who were not naturals of the Low Countries. Particularly in Holland and Zeeland, forming the core of the Dutch Republic, the memory of the ‘Spanish furies’ became a medium to shape new identities on both the local and national levels.87 In the southern provinces (Artois, Hainaut, and Walloon Flanders), the reconciliation pact concluded at their own instigation with Philip II in 1579 promoted the confusion between the old antagonism against the kings of France and the defence of the Catholic faith. The Catholic elites chose to negotiate for reconciliation based on the departure of Spanish troops and the reactivation of the civic militias. The Union of Arras ( January 1579) and the following Peace (May 1579) allowed the ostentation of a renewed municipal identity that involved the pro-active exclusivity of Catholicism, the defence of the border against France, and a recognized subjection to the Spanish monarchy.88 The fear of Calvinist subversion fostered this reconciliation: in November 1578, moments after a failed Protestant coup in Arras, governor-general Alexander Farnese cautioned the Catholic aldermen of the city against a Calvinist and Huguenot ‘surprise’ similar to that which had happened in 1479, when Arras lost its name, liberties, and population.89 Farnese was calling on the city’s memory of its enemies, equating the French with the heretics. Twenty years later, the municipal council of Arras ordered a painting that commemorated a specific instance of the civil militia’s prowess during the last war: armed burghers repelled a French military detachment that tried to capture one of the city’s gates in the presence of Henry IV in March 1597.90 Town officials

87 Marianne Eekhout, ‘Furies in beeld: Herinneringen aan gewelddadige innames van steden tijdens de Nederlandse Opstand op zeventiende-eeuwse schilderijen’, De Zeventiende Eeuw, 30.2 (2014), 243–66; Erika Kuijpers, Judith Pollmann, and Johannes Müller, Memory before Modernity: Practices of Memory in Early Modern Europe (Leiden: Brill, 2013); Alessandro Buono and Gianclaudio Civale, Battaglie: L’evento, l’individuo, la memoria (Palermo: Associazione Mediterranea, 2014). 88 Violet Soen, Vredehandel: Adellijke en Habsburgse verzoeningspogingen tijdens de Nederlandse Opstand (1564–1581) (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2012); Ruiz Ibáñez and Herrero Sánchez, ‘Defender la patria y defender la religión’, pp. 275–78; Junot and Soen, ‘La Révolte des Pays-Bas habsbourgeois’, pp. 218–22. 89 AGR, Audience 1800/3, Farnese to the aldermen of Arras, 11 November 1578: ‘vous debvez singulièrement estre sur vostre garde, de ne vous laisser surprendre par aulcuns qui peuvent insidier et tascher sur vous et vostre liberté […] signament de ceulx qui par tant d’années se sont efforcez tant par armes, practiques que trahisons vous mectre en leur pouvoir et dont les enffans de ceulx qui ont expérimenté leurs cruaultez il y a cent ans peuvent avoir souvenance par ce qu’ilz en ont entendu de leurs pères’ (‘you have to be particularly on your guard, to not let you surprise by some who can undermine and attack you and your liberty, specifically those who have for years tried by arms, practices, or betrayals to place you in their power and because the children of those who have experimented with their cruelties since a hundred years might have memories because they have heard from their parents’). 90 Adolphe Guesnon, La Surprise d’Arras tentée par Henri IV en mars 1597 et le tableau de Hans Conincxloo (Arras: Ségaud, 1907).

n eg oti ati n g co n s e n s ual loyalt y to t he hab sb u rg dynast y

commissioned Hans Conincxloo to paint ‘the city, suburbs together with the attack made by the French’ on a wood panel, measuring 1.33 x 1.66 meters, which they hung in the town hall until the French conquest in 1640.91 The involvement of cities in the defence of the border against France became a way of self-promotion for the municipal elites, while the Spanish king’s agents used this strategy to secure local loyalty. Spanish officials also celebrated Philip IV’s exemplary protection and the burgher’s faithfulness to the cause by commemorating the lifting of the siege at Valenciennes and Louis XIV’s withdrawal in 1656. Don Juan’s entourage likely ordered a painting from David II Teniers, measuring 1.77 x 2.05 meters, that represented a topographical overview of the event, topped by a protective Virgin, and surrounded by the bust of the King of Spain crowned with laurels, the portraits of Don Juan and the Prince of Condé (in the service of the Spanish monarchy after the Fronde), an allegory of the Leo Belgicus crushing the Gallic rooster, and war trophies.92 The aldermen, who collectively received letters of nobility from the King of Spain, requested a similar work from Adam Frans Van der Meulen. This artist made a 3.62 x 7.75 meter canvas for the town hall, which contained a representation of Valenciennes and the flood zone for its defence, Don Juan on a horse, and Condé next to him.93 In other words, the King of Spain was not the only one who ordered battle scenes for the glorification of the Spanish monarchy to be placed in either the Escorial’s Hall of Battles or the Hall of the Kingdoms of the Buen Retiro Palace.94 Since they were at the forefront of the war against France, the municipal councils of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands employed a similar method of representing their military exploits. The defence of the border allowed the local urban Catholic elites to share with their sovereign the label of ‘Protectors of the Homeland’.

Conclusions Starting in the sixteenth century, border environments became an indispensable laboratory for redefining loyalty and adherence within the Spanish monarchy’s global empire. The increasing desire to define one’s loyalty since the 1550s strengthened the idealized notions of a subject loyal to a sovereign

91 Notice on the database Musenor: webmuseo.com/ws/musenor/app/collection/ record/12665. 92 The painting is currently located in the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp (Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen): kmska.be/nl/catalogus/index.html. 93 Hénault, Récit du siège, pp. 172–74. Van der Meulen’s painting was likely destroyed in 1940. 94 Carmen García-Frías Checa, ‘Las series de batallas del Real Monasterio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial: frescos y pinturas’, in La imagen de la guerra en el arte de los antiguos Países Bajos, ed. by Bernardo José García García (Madrid: Editorial Complutense, 2006), pp. 138–55; Jonathan Brown and Geoffrey Parker, A Palace for a King: The Buen Retiro and the Court of Philip IV (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980).

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who was becoming more distant and an antagonistic neighbouring France, which represented a dual symbolical threat as enemy of the royal dynasty and a potential source of heresy. Nevertheless, consensual social practices counterbalanced the religious and political ethos of the Spanish monarchs, whose authority was strongly linked to the involvement of local actors.95 The relationship between the Spanish monarchy and the Low Countries, especially in the later’s francophone border provinces, requires one to combine different scales of analysis, insofar as local reactions and events were a product of a global political project as much as of local political and administrative policies or economic needs. In the case of Artois or Hainaut, the defence against France became an incontestable basis for consensus and cooperation, which allowed provincial assemblies, local elites, and anonymous countrymen to experience their prince’s protection and to understand their role within the Spanish monarchy. Even the religious revolt of the 1560s and the civil war of the 1570s did not pose in-depth challenges to this socio-political consensus. The Peace of Arras, signed in 1579 at the instigation of the border provinces, returned the provinces to the King of Spain’s authority, but did little to negate the population’s unwavering support of the monarchy during the seventeenth-century wars. The creation of a border that separated the global Spanish empire from France in this region of the Low Countries seemed to be highly dependent on flexible local management within the border provinces. Native subjects and their neighbours, who claimed to be part of the local community in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, entered into a complicated dialogue that involved different aspects of administrative and political recognition. It allowed integrative social regulation in a space plagued by its secular confrontation with France. The heroization of local military exploits and the population’s periodic suffering due to the war became highly visible parts of the border provinces’ involvement with the Spanish monarchy.

95 José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez and Gaetano Sabatini, ‘Monarchy as Conquest: Violence, Social Opportunity, and Political Stability in the Establishment of the Hispanic Monarchy’, The Journal of Modern History, 81.3 (2009), 501–36.

Patricia subirade 

Franche-Comté, the Low Countries, and the Catholic Backboneof SeventeenthCentury Europe Transregional and Cross-Border Circulations of Devotional Practices and Artistic Knowledge From the end of the fifteenth century onwards, the Franche-Comté (also known as the County of Burgundy) existed as a border-state, located along a political boundary that separated Habsburg territory from lands attached to the Duchy of Burgundy, which was itself attached to France. Historians have traditionally considered the border between the two Burgundies as a diplomatic and military as well as an anthropological boundary.1 The Franche-Comté came under Burgundian (and later Habsburg) rule after the Treaty of Senlis in 1493, until Louis XIV’s victory in 1674 and the Treaty of Nijmegen in 1678 claimed it for France.2 Because it was a legacy of the Burgundian state attached to the Low Countries, the Franche-Comté also belonged to the Circle of Burgundy and was thus, theoretically, a part of the Holy Roman Empire. Although it was subject to Imperial investiture, it had been judicially and financially independent since 1548.3 Thereafter, and with the notable exception of the city of Besançon, which remained under direct Imperial rule until 1664, the Franche-Comté came under the Spanish Habsburgs’s rule when Charles V divided the Holy Roman Empire.4 As such, it was a border province par essence. The County of Burgundy was an isolated, peripheral, and autonomous possession of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty, which reigned over a vast array of

1 La Guerre des Deux Bourgognes (1595–1678), ed. by Jérôme Loiseau (= Annales de Bourgogne, 86 (2014)), pp. 2–3; Kathryn A. Edwards, Families and Frontiers: Recreating Communities and Boundaries in the Early Modern Burgundies (Boston: Brill, 2002). 2 Maurice Gresset, ‘La Franche-Comté des Habsbourg’, in Histoire de la Franche-Comté, ed. by Jacques Gavoille and others (Besançon: Cêtre, 2006), pp. 119–44. 3 Matthias Schnettger, ‘Le Saint-Empire et ses périphéries: l’exemple de l’Italie’, Histoire, économie et société, 1 (2004), 7–23 (pp. 10–11); Henri Pirenne, ‘The Formation and Constitution of the Burgundian State’, American Historical Review, 14 (1908–1909), 477–502 (p. 474); Lucien Bély, Les Relations internationales en Europe, xviie–xviiie siècles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2001), pp. 6–9. 4 Maurice Gresset, ‘Des Habsbourg aux Bourbons: vers l’oligarchie municipale à Besançon 1646–1715’, in État et société en France aux xviie et xviiie siècles, ed. by Jean-Pierre Bardet (Paris: Presses Universitaires de Paris, 2000), pp. 289–300; Maurice Gresset, ‘De la ville impériale à la capitale de la Franche-Comté: Besançon dans la seconde moitié du xviie siècle’, in Pouvoir, ville et société en Europe (1650–1750), ed. by Claude Livet and Bernard Vogler (Paris: Ophrys, 1983), pp. 591–98. Transregional Territories: Crossing Borders in the Early Modern Low Countries and Beyond, ed. by Bram De Ridder, Violet Soen, Werner Thomas, and Sophie Verreyken, HW 2 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 103–138.

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territories, nations, and cultures as a model of aggregation and interrelations.5 Seventeenth-century Comtois elites who supported Spanish rule described the province as an ‘isle lost among foreign lands’.6 The historian and military quartermaster Girardot de Nozeroy defined it as a province ‘enclosed inside France’, while Claude-Étienne Bigeot, author of several anti-French pamphlets, argued that it was ‘a small island between the duchy and Alsace’ that was alone in resisting French attacks.7 This strategic image fails to acknowledge the possibility of relationships between the Franche-Comté and both its neighbouring countries and the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands. Furthermore, even today the Comtois remain highly attached to their freedoms and argue that their history features two distinct Golden Ages, namely the reign of Charles V (1515–1555) and the rule of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella (1598–1633). The province was also a bastion of Catholicism, with its archbishop publishing and promulgating the Tridentine Decrees in 1571, relatively late in the Habsburg World.8 This was followed by the botched Surprise of Besançon in 1575: Calvinists from the French city of Mâcon, along with other attackers from Protestant neighbourhoods, failed in their attempt to capture Besançon, the province’s Catholic capital city. The Franche-Comté was actually bounded by inter-faith boundaries with the Lutherans of Montbéliard, the Calvinists in the County of Neuchâtel in the Swiss Confederation, and the diocese of Basel. Franche-Comté was thus situated along the limes, or backbone, of Catholic Europe, a twentieth-century concept that, although quite remote from the daily experience of early modern Europeans, has informed the recent anthropologically oriented scholarly work by Peter Sahlins and others.9









5 Bernardo José García García, ‘Presentación’, in La monarquía de las naciones: Patria, nación y naturaleza en la Monarquía de España, ed. by Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño and Bernardo José García García (Madrid: Fundación Carlos de Amberes, 2004), pp. 19–20; John H. Elliott, ‘A Europe of Composite Monarchies’, Past & Present, 137 (1992), 48–71. 6 Roland Fiétier, Histoire de la Franche-Comté (Toulouse: Privat, 1985), p. 206. 7 Annonciade de Cambolas, ‘La Frontière duché-comté productrice d’histoire connectée’, in La Guerre des Deux Bourgognes, ed. by Loiseau, pp. 125–26; Claude-Etienne Bigeot, Le Bourguignon intéressé (Cologne: Pierre d’Egmont, 1668), p. 125; Girardot de Nozeroy, L’Histoire de dix ans de la Franche-Comté de Bourgogne (1632–1642) (Besançon: OutheninChalandre, 1843), p. 13. 8 Ignacio Fernández Terricabras, ‘The Catholic Reformation and the Power of the King: Implementation of the Decrees of the Council of Trent in the Absolute Monarchies’, in The Council of Trent: Reform and Controversy in Europe and beyond (1540–1700), ed. by Wim François and Violet Soen, 3 vols (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018), ii, pp. 221–24. On the interrelatedness with events in the Low Countries see: Violet Soen, ‘The Council of Trent and the Preconditions of the Dutch Revolt (1563–1566)’, in The Council of Trent, ed. by François and Soen, ii, pp. 255–78. 9 Patricia Subirade, ‘La Franche-Comté du temps des Archiducs à la Révolution française: aspects religieux et artistiques (xviie–xviiie siècles)’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Paris 1–Panthéon Sorbonne, 2005), pp. 229–30; René Taveneaux, ‘Réforme catholique et Contre-Réforme en Lorraine’, in L’Université de Pont-à-Mousson et les problèmes de son temps, Annales de l’Est, 47 (Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1974),

Franche-Comté, the Low Countries, and the Catholic Backbone

This chapter applies an anthropological perspective to transregional histories, borders and cultural transfers, and histoire croisée. Initially, the seventeenth-century province of Franche-Comté met the definition of a ‘region’ in several ways: first, as a ‘country’ with its own geography, inhabitants, and environment (according to the Annales school); second, as an identity-based construction (according to anthropologists Pierre Nora and Benedict Anderson); and third, as a distinct legal and institutional space (as shown by studies such as those conducted by Daniel Nordman).10 Furthermore, by the seventeenth century, the term frontière or border had shifted from defining a wide zone of separation to denoting a demarcation line, and eventually to being used as a legal term for governance, war, or power relations between political entities.11 It is only this last definition that has been retained in early-modern dictionaries.12 Rather than viewing the border solely as a legal or military construct, an anthropological perspective calls attention to the ways in which the stakeholders on each side used borders and the social practices surrounding them. This approach follows that of Wolfgang Kaiser,

pp. 389–400, reprints in René Taveneaux, Jansénisme et Réforme catholique: Recueil d’articles (Nancy: Presses Universitaires de Nancy, 1992), p. 6; Frédéric Meyer, ‘La Dorsale catholique, xvie–xviiie siècles: mythe, réalité, actualité historiographiques’ in Dorsale catholique, Jansénisme, Dévotions, xvie–xviiie siècles: Mythe, réalité, actualité historiographique, ed. by Gilles Deregnaucourt and others (Paris: Riveneuve editions, 2014), p. 323; Olivier Christin, ‘Les Topographies sacrées de la période moderne et l’espace de la catholicité’, in Dorsale catholique, ed. by Deregnaucourt and others, p. 191; Peter Sahlins, Frontières et identités nationales: La France et l’Espagne dans les Pyrénées depuis le xviie siècle (Paris: Belin, 1996). 10 Stephen Jacobson and others, ‘What is a Region? Regions in European History’, in Regional and Transnational History in Europe, ed. by Steven G. Ellis and Iakovos Micheaelidis (Pisa: University of Pisa Press, 2011), pp. 14–16; Benedict Anderson, L’Imaginaire national: Réflexions sur l’origine et l’essor du nationalisme (Paris: La Découverte, 1996); Jacques Revel, ‘La Région’, in Les Lieux de mémoire, ed. by Pierre Nora, 3 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 1984–1992), iii–1 (1992), pp. 850–83; Lucien Febvre, Philippe II et la Franche-Comté: Étude d’histoire politique, religieuse et sociale (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1912), pp. 13–31. 11 Lucien Febvre, ‘Frontière: le mot et la notion’, Revue de synthèse, 45 ( June 1928), reprints in Pour une histoire à part entière (Paris: École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 1962), pp. 11–41; Daniel Nordman, ‘Préface’, in Frontières oubliées, frontières retrouvées: Marches et limites anciennes en France et en Europe, ed. by Michel Catala and others (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2011), p. 13; Daniel Nordman, Frontières de France: De l’espace au territoire, xvie–xixe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1998), pp. 25–66. 12 Antoine Furetière, Dictionnaire universel: Contenant generalement tous les mots françois tant vieux que modernes, et les termes de toutes les sciences et des arts, sçavoir, 3 vols ([The Hague and Rotterdam]: [Arnoud Leers and Reinier Leers], [1689]). The entry for ‘Frontière’ mentions: ‘L’extrémité d’un Royaume, d’une Province, que les ennemis trouvent de front quand ils y veulent entrer’ (‘the extremities of a Kingdom, a province, which the enemies find in front when they want to enter there’). The first edition of the Dictionary of the French Academy gives this definition in 1694: ‘Les limites, les confins d’un pays, d’un Estat’ (‘the limits, the borders of a country, of a state’): Le Dictionnaire de l’Académie française dedié au Roy, 2 vols (Paris: la veuve de Jean-Baptiste Coignard and Jean-Baptiste Coignard, 1694). Jacques Lévy and Michel Lussault, entries ‘Confins’ and ‘Frontière’, in Dictionnaire de la géographie, ed. by Lévy and Lussault (Paris: Belin, 2013), pp. 221–22 and 413–16.

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who described borders as a ‘human creation’, and accords with that of Michel de Certeau, who argues that borders represented an ‘imposed constraint’.13 Likewise, Nordman considers borders as artefacts that are co-constructed by engineers, topographers, and local stakeholders.14 According to Antonio Stopani (with respect to Tuscany) and Sahlins (concerning Cerdanya), communities play a critical role in shaping and defining official and national borders.15 This view is also relevant for inter-faith borders, as it helps to avoid a reductionist, institutional perspective that would construe borders primarily as boundaries between governments or ecclesiastical institutions.16 Since the 1990s, historians of the early modern period have begun to differentiate an ‘institutional, external, localisable approach’ of religious boundaries from boundaries as a ‘horizon of experience’ that yields an imminent, subjective reality. This more anthropological conception has been successfully applied to the Holy Roman Empire, where overlapping religious borders had important ramifications. Étienne François, for example, has explored the ‘invisible frontier’ between Lutherans and Catholics at Augsburg, and Christophe Duhamelle has examined the way in which villagers experienced the border in the Eichsfeld region, where Catholic identity developed in close proximity to Protestantism during the Enlightenment.17 Such historical approaches have helped to demonstrate the subtle interplay that tended to prevail between different faiths (or what Jacques Revel has termed an ‘interplay of scales’ or ‘un jeu d’échelles’).18 The notions of cultural transfer and histoire croisée are the building blocks for the present study of transregional history, as they help to keep the focus on the daily social experiences of the communities and individuals living, working, and worshiping along the region’s borders. First applied to the German-speaking world in the 1980s and 1990s by Michel Espagne, this perspective emphasizes the movement of objects, books, artworks,

13 Wolfgang Kaiser, ‘Penser la frontière: notions et approches’, Histoire des Alpes / Storia delle Alpi / Geschichte der Alpen, 3 (1998), 63–74 (p. 71). 14 Nordman, ‘Préface’, p. 16. 15 Antonio Stopani, La Production des frontières: États et communautés en Toscane (xvie–xviiie siècles) (Rome: L’École française de Rome, 2008); Sahlins, Frontières et identités nationales. 16 See the different contributions in Transregional Reformations: Crossing Borders in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Violet Soen and others (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019). 17 Etienne François, ‘La Frontière intériorisée: identités et frontières confessionnelles dans l’Allemagne dans la seconde moitié du septième siècle’, in Les Frontières religieuses en Europe du xve au xviie siècle, ed. by Robert Sauzet and others (Paris: J. Vrin, 1992), pp. 51–53; Etienne François, Protestants et catholiques en Allemagne: Identités et pluralisme, Augsbourg (1648–1806) (Paris: Albin Michel, 1993); Christophe Duhamelle, La Frontière au village: Une identité catholique allemande au temps des Lumières (Paris: École des hautes études en sciences sociales, 2010). 18 Jacques Revel, Jeux d’échelles: La micro-analyse à l’expérience (Paris: Gallimard, 1996).

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people, populations, words, ideas, and concepts between two autonomous systems and cultural spaces — including governments, nations, ethnic groups, and cultural or religious areas — with particular emphasis on the role of networks.19 Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann employed histoire croisée in recent transregional studies to emphasize the reciprocity of transfers into every culture involved in a process of exchange.20 Histoire croisée belongs to the family of relational approaches that examine the link between various historically constituted formations, manifested in the social sphere or simply projected there. It thus provides historians with a historical ‘tool box’. The transnational or transregional scale is not meant as a supplement to be added to history at the local, regional, or national level, but produces its own logic.21 This chapter underlines how, on the scale of Spanish possessions, the Habsburg Netherlands and the Franche-Comté shared a similar position along Europe’s Catholic limes. This position explains the formation of the image of a Warrior Virgin who, in the first case, served the interests of the Habsburg dynasty as a whole and, in the second, those of the Franche-Comté proper. This Catholic boundary was also the source of the devotional practices related to Notre-Dame de Montaigu (Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel) that spread throughout the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands and towards the Franche-Comté, where, under a series of different patrons, they evolved into a widespread, identity-based set of practices. The second section of the chapter demonstrates the ways in which discourses, images, and the sacred landscape supported the symbolic construction of an inter-faith boundary between Catholics and the Swiss Calvinists, both at the provincial level and among border parishes. The third and final part of this analysis ultimately reveals that the border was simultaneously open and closed. The Swiss Calvinist cantons served as a refuge for Catholic Comtois after the Ten Years’ War (1635–1644), while, at the same time, Comtois Catholic artists developed long-lasting cross-border artistic activities and networks in the Franche-Comté and in the Catholic canton of Fribourg.

19 Gérard Noiriel and Michel Espagne, ‘Transferts culturels: l’exemple franco-allemand. Entretien avec Michel Espagne’, Genèses, 8 (1992), 146–54; Michel Espagne, Les Transferts culturels franco-allemands (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1999), p. 286. 20 Raingard Esser and Steven G. Ellis, Frontier and Border Regions in Early Modern Europe (Hanover: Wehrhahn Verlag, 2013), pp. 7–9; Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmermann, ‘Penser l’histoire croisée: entre Empire et réflexivité’, Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, 58 (2003), 7–36 (p. 15). 21 Michael Werner and Bénédicte Zimmerman, ‘Beyond Comparison: Histoire Croisée and the Challenge of Reflexivity’, History and Theory, 45.1 (2006), 30–50 (pp. 31, 33, and 43).

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Transregional Habsburg Connections: The Rise of the Marian Cults along the European Catholic limes Transregional relations in the Habsburg world historically relied upon professional, familial, and cultural networks between the Low Countries and Franche-Comté, directly contradicting Lucien Febvre, who denied the presence of Flemings in Franche-Comté’s Parliament and bailliages, or among the military, financial, and judicial officers under the rule of Charles V and Philip II.22 Moreover, there were also similar patterns between the two provinces in terms of cultural transfer and the spread of religious practices.23 Indeed, the seventeenth-century spread of the cult of the Virgin Mary formed an integral feature of transregional cultural history, exemplifying similarities between broader patterns of circulation and cultural transfer of the cult of the Virgin Mary and the distribution of the Warrior Virgin along the European Catholic limes. Religious, political, and military factors augmented the intercessory and protective powers ascribed to the Virgin during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.24 Notre-Dame Libératrice de Salins was a fighting Virgin who protected her flock against the twin threats of war and Protestantism. Notre-Dame de Gray effectively illustrates the transfer of practices from Montaigu and the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands towards Franche-Comté. The images of the Comtois Virgins of Salins and Gray — the official protectresses of the province — project both an apologetic and a political attitude, thus representing, in Febvre’s terms, ‘national religious signs’.25 Their local appeal also links Franche-Comté’s political and religious identities, although seventeenth-century theologians preferred to describe the Virgin Mary as a patrona universalis and a patrona omnium rather than a patrona specialis.26 Similar identity-related features of the cult of the Virgin Mary also existed in both the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands and in France throughout the seventeenth century.27

22 Raingard Esser, ‘Flandria Illustrata: Flemish Identities in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period’, in Regional and Transnational History, ed. by Ellis and Micheaelidis, pp. 213–32; Febvre, Philippe II, p. 48. 23 Paul Delsalle, ‘Sur la route des Flandres: les liens entre les Pays-Bas méridionaux et le comté de Bourgogne’, in La Franche-Comté et les anciens Pays-Bas xiiie–xviiie siècles: Aspects politiques, diplomatiques, religieux et artistiques, ed. by Laurence Delobette and Paul Delsalle, 2 vols (Besançon: Presses Universitaires de Franche-Comté, 2009), i, pp. 43–52. 24 Klaus Schreiner, ‘Schutzherrin und Schirmfrau Maria’, in Patriotische Heilige: Beiträge zur Konstruktion religiöser und politischer Identitäten in der Vormoderne, ed. by Dieter R. Bauer, Klaus Herbers, and Gabriela Signori (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2007), p. 132. 25 Paris, École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Archival Collection of Lucien Febvre, C 37, organized by periods, 1477–1789. 26 Schreiner, ‘Schutzherrin’, pp. 253–308.

Franche-Comté, the Low Countries, and the Catholic Backbone

Fig. 5.1 Religious Borders in Seventeenth Century Europe: the Catholic Limes (© Patricia Subirade 2017)

27

27 Annick Delfosse, ‘La Dévotion mariale, facteur d’identification dans les Pays-Bas espagnols’, in Identités, appartenances, revendications identitaires, ed. by Marc Belissa and others (Paris: Nolin, 2005), pp. 65–74; Annick Delfosse, ‘Quand Marie entre en politique: la Vierge et l’État moderne’, in Marie, figures et receptions: Enjeux historiques et théologiques, ed. by JeanPierre Delville, Joseph Famérée, and Marie-Élisabeth Henneau (Paris: Mame-Desclée, 2012), pp. 59–70; see also the ‘Chronique’ in Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, 130.2 (2008), 750–51; Bruno Maës, Le Roi, la Vierge et la Nation: Pèlerinages et identité nationale entre guerre de Cent ans et Révolution (Paris: Publisud, 2002).

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The Construction of the Warrior Virgin: Notre-Dame Libératrice de Salins

Beginning in 1477, the Comtois were asked to pray against war to Notre-Dame Libératrice de Salins, as French troops besieged Dole and Salins. The Virgin’s protective role was further strengthened during the Ten Years’ War (1635–1644), when the town of Salins issued three vows against war, the plague, and famine in 1639, 1640, and 1642 respectively. Her influence was further extended through the construction of a chapel dedicated to her between 1642 and 1662. The people also appealed to the Virgin of Salins in 1640 to protect other Comtois cities under attack by French and Swedish troops. Finally, Gray placed its principal church under her patronage by embellishing it with an image of Notre-Dame de Salins, while the people of Besançon dedicated a chapel to her inside the cathedral of Saint-Étienne, and the city of Dole commissioned a painting of her for its church.28 Dole’s military victory in the Ten Years’ War meant that these privileges and freedoms continued under Spanish rule and that the Virgin’s protection was extended to the entire province. In 1674, the provincial Estates again invoked Notre-Dame de Salins to shield the province against the threat of a French victory.29 The identity-related protective function of the Warrior Virgin’s victory over Protestantism also extended to other Catholic frontiers throughout the early seventeenth century. The Habsburg and Bavarian governments named the Virgin of Victory as protectress in order to symbolize their triumph, along with their allies, the Wittelbachs, over Protestantism. She was also credited with the victory at White Mountain in 1620, and intensive efforts by the Jesuits ensured her influence over the Low Countries.30 Unlike other Warrior Virgin figures that later dispensed with their war-like features, such as those in the eighteenth-century Low Countries and Cologne, Notre-Dame de Salins retained her martial bearing throughout the centuries, despite the lack of political or military threats against the Franche-Comté. Numerous representations of her on banners, statues, engravings, and paintings provide evidence of her continuing role as a defining feature of provincial identity.31

28 Subirade, ‘La Franche-Comté’, pp. 588–94; Pierre-André Pidoux de la Maduère, Notre-Dame Libératrice, patronne de Salins et de Franche-Comté (Dole: Courbe Rouzet, 1939), p. 41. 29 Corinne Marchal, ‘Rassurer, protéger, convertir: les fondements de la piété mariale en Franche-Comté aux xviie et xviiie siècles’, Mémoires de la société d’émulation du Doubs, 50 (2008), 61–91 (p. 70). 30 Olivier Chaline, La Bataille de la Montagne Blanche, un mystique chez les guerriers (Paris: Noésis, 1999), pp. 511–48; Annick Delfosse, ‘Une Vierge guerrière au service des Habsbourg et de l’Eglise catholique dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux’, in La Dévotion mariale de l’an mil à nos jours, ed. by Bruno Béthouart and Alain Lottin (Arras: Artois Presses Université, 2005), pp. 337–45. 31 Delfosse, ‘Une Vierge guerrière’, pp. 337–45; Cordula van Wyhe, ‘Reformulating the Cult of Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel: Marie de’ Medicis and the Regina Pacis Statue in Cologne (1635–1645)’, The Sixteenth Century Journal, 22.1 (2007), 42–75 (pp. 53–60).

Franche-Comté, the Low Countries, and the Catholic Backbone

The Minimes, a religious order that was influential in the Catholic Reformation, developed and supported the specific devotional practices surrounding Notre-Dame Libératrice. As was true in the early seventeenth-century Low Countries, intellectual circles close to the Habsburgs that were involved in creating devotional practices for the people developed an image of the Virgin Mary as a warrior.32 The cult’s devotional literature filled a secular literary void concerning the war, while also addressing the spiritual needs of a society deeply scarred by conflict.33 In 1619, the Minims received authorization from Archduke Albert and Archduchess Isabella to settle in the Franche-Comté, and in the wake of the Thirty Years’ War the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand III, appealed to the Comtois Minims to re-establish convents in Germany.34 The Minima Jean Nicolas Fau supported the cult’s expansion. He was a preacher, theologian, and native of Besançon, depended on the provincial of Germany, Bohemia, and Moravia, and was likely attached to the convent of Munich.35 Fau dedicated his book of offices, Sancta Maria Liberatrix, Seu Pacifica Poësis Cantans Officium Paruum S. Mariae Liberatricis, to Cardinal Bernardino Spada, protector of the Order of the Minims. The book presents a theological justification for the title ‘Libératrice’ and introduces the cult to Franche-Comté.36 It contains five engravings by Ioan Sadeler that portray the Virgin liberating the Comtois from heresy, sin, poverty, and war, an allusion to the three vows of Salins: one against war in 1639; a second against the plague in 1640; and the third against famine in 1642. Later artists based their iconographic representations on the frontispiece’s famous engraving, which Sadeler derived from the vision of Gilles Marmet, a Cistercian canon of the church of Sainte-Anatoile de Salins. Marmet had proposed to issue the three vows after the Protestant armies of Bernard de Saxe-Weimar had abandoned the siege of the city, an attack that Richelieu had ordered in 1639.37 The model is identical to a depiction in a painting from 1640, which that artist had based on a drawing by Father Marmet, and still currently hangs in Dole.38

32 Delfosse, ‘Une Vierge guerrière’, p. 344; Annick Delfosse, La ‘Protectrice du Païs-Bas’: Stratégies politiques et figures de la Vierge dans les Pays-Bas espagnols (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009), pp. 208–14. 33 Raingard Esser, ‘A “Lost Quarter” or the “Four Seasons” of Guelders: Narratives of Belonging in the Eighty Years War’, in Frontier and Border Regions, ed. by Esser and Ellis, pp. 188–89. 34 Abbé P. Sonnet, L’Ermitage de Notre-Dame de Consolation (Besançon: Jacquet, 1861), pp. 115 and 158. 35 Joseph François Michaud and Louis Gabriel Michaud, Biographie universelle, ancienne et moderne, 2nd edn, 85 vols (Paris: L. G. Michaud, 1811–1862), xiv (1815), pp. 187–88. 36 Jean-Nicolas Fau, Sancta Maria Liberatrix, Seu Pacifica Poësis Cantans Officium Paruum S. Maria Liberatricis (Munich: Sadeler, 1644). 37 Fau, Sancta Maria Liberatrix, frontispiece and pp. 1, 24, 38, and 52. 38 Dole, Archives municipales, Municipal deliberations of 26 June 1640, cited in Pidoux de la Maduère, Notre-Dame Libératrice, p. 29.

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Fig. 5.2 École franc-comtoise, Notre-Dame Libératrice de Salins, c. 1650, oil on wood, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dole, Dole (© Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dole)

The painting’s military and political objective was to celebrate the Virgin’s 1639 victory over the Swedish Lutherans and the allies of the King of France. The work portrays the Virgin surmounting a shield under the Comtois crown, thus signifying her position as the patron saint of Franche-Comté, and in possession of a sheaf of weapons, the white flag of the French, and the red flag

Franche-Comté, the Low Countries, and the Catholic Backbone

of the Comtois. Holding the Infant Jesus in her left arm and a sceptre in her right hand, Notre-Dame Libératrice offers protection to the entire province, just as the Comtois’s 1639 military victory in the Ten Years’ War signified the continuation of liberties and privileges under Spanish rule. This type of iconography represented each community that had placed itself under the Virgin’s protection with an identifying element, including the forts of Saint-André and Châtel-Belin, the armorial bearings of the city of Salins, the chapel dedicated to Notre-Dame that was completed in 1662, the Carmel for Salins, the city of Pontarlier, the Belvoir castle, and the abbey and village of Château-Châlon.39 The ex-voto of Morteau, painted by Blaise Richard around 1670, depicts the Virgin Mary surrounded by St Joseph and St Francis de Sales standing over a downed warrior.40 This form of worship lasted through the eighteenth century, aided by the Minims’s unwavering support.41 The Circulation of Devotional Practices: Notre-Dame de Gray

Unlike the Virgin of Salins, the origins of the devotional practices at Notre-Dame de Gray, located outside of the Franche-Comté, are linked to the spread of the cult of Notre-Dame de Montaigu (Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel) that the Archdukes Albert and Isabella had promoted throughout the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands following their 1604 victory at Ostend. The construction of a sanctuary in her honour initiated the national and international spread of the cult as far as Spain, the German-speaking territories of the Holy Roman Empire, and Italy.42 Since it takes into account the factors and strategies associated with cultural importation and the contexts surrounding its origins, as well as the circumstances of reception, vectors, and go-betweens, a historical method focused on cultural transfer enhances our understanding of how the cult spread

39 Pidoux de la Maduère, Notre-Dame Libératrice, pp. 29–41; Subirade, ‘La Franche-Comté’, pp. 590–95; Jean-François Ryon, ‘Notre-Dame Libératrice de Salins-les-Bains: une dévotion développée au cœur de la guerre de Trente Ans’, in Splendeurs baroques en pays de Revermont: Les arts au service de l’Église catholique (1571–1789), ed. by Jean-François Ryon, Emmanuel Buselin, and Justine Sève (Arbois: Musée d’Arbois and Musée d’Art hôtel Sarret de Grozon, 2014), pp. 104–13; the same text is published by Jean-François Ryon in Religion et piété au défi de la guerre de Trente Ans, ed. by Bertrand Forclaz and Philippe Martin (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2015), pp. 243–54. 40 Isabelle Jeanningros, ‘La Représentation de la Vierge en peinture dans le département du Doubs du xiiie à la fin du xixe siècle à partir d’Adrien Richard’ (unpublished master’s thesis, University of Besançon, 1984–1985), pp. 31 and 145. 41 Besançon, Archives départementales du Doubs, engraving of Sainte-Agathe, Besançon, 0.34 cm x 0.21 cm, 1 Fi 930; Pidoux de la Maduère, Notre-Dame Libératrice, p. 42. 42 Luc Duerloo, ‘Scherpenheuvel–Montaigu: un sanctuaire pour une politique emblématique’, XVIIe siècle, 240.3 (2008), pp. 423–40.

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to Franche-Comté.43 Local adaptations of this dynastic cult were the result of a compromise with Comtois identity that projected identity-based powers onto the figure of Notre-Dame de Gray, which differed greatly from the forms of veneration shown to the Virgins of Montaigu within the Franche-Comté. As the cult spread, it became concentrated around approximately twenty statues in Besançon (1606 and 1607), Arbois, Ornans (1606–1608), Dole (1608 and 1610), Lons le Saunier (1610), Salins (1611), Gray (1613), and Mièges (1613).44 The cult of Montaigu is linked to the archdukes’ territorial policies and the military victories over the Calvinists from the Dutch Republic at ‘s-Hertogenbosch (1603) and Ostend (1604). The archdukes’ expressions of piety achieved their greatest ostentatiousness in the sanctuary at Montaigu.45 Sales of images, medallions, and carved oaken Montaigu statues to pilgrims also contributed to the cult’s dissemination, as did indulgences from Pope Paul V. In 1614, the Montaigu priest was granted a monopoly over sales of statues carved by a local artisan, with the permission of the local archbishop, the parish priest, and wardens.46 Treatises on the pilgrimage and miracles by the theologians and historians Justus Lipsius, Philippe Numan, and Erycius Puteanus also helped transform Montaigu into a deeply symbolic religious and political site.47 Other stakeholders that contributed to the cult’s success in Franche-Comté included troops from Brabant, travellers, and Comtois Parliament members, as well as diplomats, priests, and pilgrims. Furthermore, in certain cases, the archduke himself donated statues, although these are not listed among the other generous gestures he provided to the Franche-Comté.48

43 Béatrice Joyeux-Prunel, ‘Les Transferts culturels: un discours de la méthode’, Hypothèses, 6.1 (2003), 149–62 (p. 152). 44 Paul Delsalle, ‘La Diffusion en Franche-Comté des statuettes de la Vierge de Montaigu (Brabant) à l’époque des Archiducs Albert et Isabelle (1598–1633)’, in La Dévotion mariale de l’an mil à nos jours, ed. by Bruno Béthouart and Alain Lottin (Arras: Artois Presses Université, 2005), pp. 104 and 124; Bénédicte Gaulard, ‘Le Culte et les images de NotreDame de Montaigu dans le Jura au xviie siècle’, in Travaux 2003 de la société d’émulation du Jura (Lons-le-Saunier, 2004), 9–21. 45 Margit Thøfner, ‘The Bearing of Images: Religion, Femininity and Sovereignty in the Spanish Netherlands, 1599–1635’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Sussex, 1996), pp. 155–205. 46 Ordinance of 9 December 1614, published in Victor Brants, Recueil des ordonnances des Pays-Bas: Règne des archiducs Albert et Isabelle (1597–1621), 2 vols (Brussels: J. Goemaere, 1909–1912), ii, cited in Delsalle, ‘La diffusion en Franche-Comté’, pp. 103–04. 47 Justus Lipsius, Diva Sichemiensis Sive Aspricollis: Nova eius Beneficia & Admiranda (Antwerp: Officina Plantiniana, 1605); Philippe Numan, Histoire des miracles advenuz a l’intercession de la glorieuse Vierge Marie, au lieu de Montaigu, prez la ville de Sichem au Duché de Brabant (Brussels and Leuven: Rutger Velpius, Joannes Baptista Haesten and Petrus Zangrius, 1622); Annick Delfosse, ‘La Vierge comme protectrice des Pays-Bas méridionaux dans les livrets de pèlerinage marial au xviie siècle’, Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire, tome 80.4 (2002), 1229–41. 48 Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS Chifflet 97, fol. 386: Letter from Laurent Chifflet to Philippe Chifflet, 6 March 1634.

Franche-Comté, the Low Countries, and the Catholic Backbone

Fig. 5.3 Erycius Puteanus, Eryci Puteani Diva Virgo Bellifontana in sequanis: Loci ac pietatis descriptio, originem (Antwerp: Ex officina Plantiniana Balthasar Moretus, 1631), Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris (© Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Photography © Patricia Subirade)

Notre-Dame de Gray, the most important Comtois religious site, began with a miraculous piece of oak brought back from a pilgrimage to Montaigu by a Comtoise in 1614. From there, Philippe Chifflet introduced the Virgin of Brabant to Bellefontaine, partly in pursuit of a family strategy and partly in support of the archdukes’ political strategies. After his assignment as chaplain

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Fig. 5.4 Philippe Chifflet, Histoire du prieuré Nostre-Dame de Bellefontaine au comté de Bourgogne, (Antwerp: Ex officina Plantiniana Balthasar Moretus, 1631), Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Paris (© Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, Photography © Patricia Subirade)

Franche-Comté, the Low Countries, and the Catholic Backbone

of the Oratorium and subsequently court chaplain of the archducal chapel in Brussels, in 1628, the Archduchess Isabella appointed Chifflet as prior of Bellefontaine, where he installed a statue of Montaigu in the priory church. Following in the footsteps of microstoria and the social history of cultural practices, Marc Jacobs has demonstrated the extent to which Chifflet’s social prestige, based on social and familial networks in Franche-Comté and the Low Countries, enabled him to introduce a hybrid form of the Virgin of Montaigu. In fact, Chifflet became an important agent in the distribution of relics from Notre-Dame de Montaigu.49 Philippe Chifflet and Erycius Puteanus, historiographer to the King of Spain in the service of Archduke Albert after 1606, both wrote histories of the priory in 1631 that featured the same engraving of ‘Nostre Dame de Bellefontaine du chesne miraculeux de Montaigu’ (Notre Dame of Bellefontaine of the miraculous oak of Montaigu).50 Chifflet merged two iconographic traditions by fusing this imported statue with the local cult.51 An inscription at the base refers to the first statue of Bellefontaine and its miraculous water fountain. According to Erycius Puteanus, who donated the statue to Chifflet, the political association between miraculous water and oak — both Eucharistic symbols — signified that the Franche-Comté and Brabant belonged to the unique body of Christ and the Catholic Church.52 The spread of the cult of the Virgin from Brabant to Gray enacted the memorial and historical strategy of two of the Catholic Reformation’s active orders: the Capuchins and the Jesuits. Their intention was to oversee popular religion, while promoting miracles along the Catholic Church’s borders.53 They also wished to construct a ‘place of remembrance’ by consecrating a deeply popular and specifically Comtois form of worship.54 Similar memorial practices contemporaneously existed in the Low Countries.55 A statuette from Montaigu was placed in the Capuchin’s chapel in Gray in 1613, and began to develop the ‘archivist memory’ of veneration in 1620.56 This was based on the first formal reports of miracles, according to a diocesan investigation, and on the desire to

49 Marc Jacobs, ‘Parateksten, netwerken en conventies in de Spaanse Nederlanden en FrancheComté (1621–1678): De familie Chifflet uit Besançon’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, 1999), pp. 13–15 and 480–519. 50 Erycius Puteanus, Diva Virgo Bellifontana in Sequanis: Loci ac Pietatis Descriptio, Originem Incrementa, Seriemque Hierotoparcharum Complectens (Antwerp: Balthasar Moretus, 1631), p. 9; Philippe Chifflet, Histoire du prieuré Nostre-Dame de Bellefontaine au comté de Bourgogne (Antwerp: Balthasar Moretus, 1631), p. 11. 51 van Wyhe, ‘Reformulating’, p. 45. 52 Cordula van Wyhe, ‘Introduction’, in Jean Terrier, Portraicts des SS. Vertus de la Vierge, contemplées par Feüe S.A.S. M. Isabelle Clere Eugénie, infante d’Espagne (Glasgow: Glasgow Emblem studies, 2002), pp. xxv–xxvii. 53 Delsalle, ‘La Diffusion en Franche-Comté’, p. 120. 54 Pierre Nora, ‘Présentation’, in Les Lieux de mémoire, vol. 1: La République, ed. by Pierre Nora (Paris: Gallimard, 1984), p. xxvi. 55 Esser, ‘A “Lost Quarter”’, p. 176. 56 Delsalle, ‘La Diffusion en Franche-Comté’, p. 120.

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print the first miracle book in 1623.57 According to the Jesuit Aymon de Montépin in 1757, ‘La tendre dévotion des Comtois espagnols, pour la sainte Relique, est consacrée dans les annales par une multitude innombrable de faits édifians qui ont passé jusqu’à nous’ (‘The tender devotion of the Spanish Comtois for the Holy Relic is consecrated in the annals by an numberless multitude of edifying deeds that have been handed down to us’).58 Although the first printed history of the pilgrimage was an anonymous opuscule republished seven times between 1735 and 1781, a Capuchin monk compiled a more complete history in 1765, while the Jesuits also published their own books about the pilgrimage.59 François Poirey, an early seventeenth century Comtois moralist dedicated to serving the Virgin, was among the first to cite the cult’s success in 1630.60 In 1755, Aymon de Montépin wrote his Histoire abrégée des merveilles opérées dans la Sainte Chapelle de Notre Dame de Gray.61 A Jesuit priest named Hugon organized the centenary celebration of the shrine at Gray in 1720.62 These religious orders developed a local ‘reformulation’ of the devotional practices of Notre-Dame de Montaigu, just as the Carmelites of Cologne had done after they received a statue of Marie de’ Medici in the seventeenth century.63 The statue became the protectress of Gray and eventually of the entire province of Franche-Comté. The engravings helped establish a strong connection to provincial identity, as this form of worship presented a crowned Virgin holding a sceptre and the Infant Jesus crowned with a cross-capped globe and sitting on top of a dragon. After the late-seventeenth century, she either appeared under a baroque canopy or a simple altarpiece, with the pilgrims and the town of

57 Gray, Archives parroissiales, Diocesan investigation: ‘Procès-verbal de l’enquête sur l’origine et l’état de l’Image miraculeuse, et pièces de l’enquête’, 14 September 1623, cited in FrançoisHippolyte Villerey, Notre-Dame de Gray, étude sur la vie religieuse à Gray après 1620 (Paris: C. Amat, 1904), pp. 231–45. 58 Aymon de Montépin, Histoire abrégée des merveilles opérées dans la Sainte Chapelle de NotreDame de Gray avec une instruction préliminaire sur les miracles, l’origine et l’état présent de la dévotion à cette Image, l’établissement de la Confrérie en l’honneur du cœur de Marie; & diverses pratiques pour honorer le Sacré Cœur (Besançon: Couché, 1757), p. 56. 59 Origine de l’image miraculeuse de Notre-Dame de Gray (Besançon: Bogillot, 1750); Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 827: Ludovic de Faverney, Nouvelle histoire des Hosties miraculeuses de Faverney et des miracles de Notre-Dame de Gray ou les dogmes de l’Église catholique touchant l’Eucharistie et la dévotion à la Sainte Vierge justifiés par les prodiges arrivés en cette province (1765), fols 25–59. 60 Francisco Elias de Tejedas, La Franche-Comté hispanique (Vaux: J. Bongrain, 1977), pp. 89–94; François Poiré, Triple couronne de la bienheureuse vierge Mère de Dieu (Paris: Sébastien Cramoisy,1656, 1st edn 1630), pp. 188–89. 61 Aymon de Montépin, Histoire abrégée des merveilles opérées dans la Sainte Chapelle de Notre Dame de Gray (Gray, 1757). 62 Villerey, Notre-Dame de Gray, p. 120. 63 van Wyhe, ‘Reformulating’, pp. 52–67.

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Gray in the background.64 Eventually, this local interpretation of the worship ceremony thus effaced the reference to Montaigu.

A Closed Border: Constructing a Religious and Symbolic Boundary inside a Province According to Lucien Febvre, border zones structure social organization, local experience, and the collective will to belong to a national entity.65 According to Anderson’s anthropological definition, the Comtois ‘nation’ can be considered an ‘imagined political community’.66 The Franche-Comté, located along the European Protestant-Catholic border-zone, was the locus of a collective sense of identity rooted in a sense of Catholic belonging and confrontation with the Other, i.e., their Protestant neighbour. As Fredrik Barth phrases it, this ‘Us’ was opposed to ‘Others’, confirming that groups define themselves by social, as opposed to territorial, boundaries through processes of identification and hybridization.67 The next section will decipher the ways in which the border was used, interpreted, and manifested in Comtois society. Recent studies of borders that emphasize social history have, logically, called for scholars to renew their attention to a borderland’s social functions.68 Nordman, for example, envisions a border as ‘an idea, an oral or written representation, geographical or even cartographic’ that is inseparable from the sense of a frontier.69 An anthropological perspective on Franche-Comté’s borders must consider the social stakeholders’ local discursive and iconographic practices, such as the Eucharistic devotional practices at Faverney. In the first place, these stakeholders were the ecclesiastics, historians, and Parliament members involved in the construction of an internal religious boundary within a bastion of Catholicism.70 The section that follows describes their practices as an illustration of the construction of a symbolic border dividing the Catholic Franche-Comté from Protestant Switzerland, both in terms of the region’s landscape and its sacred topography. 64 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Estampes, Va 70, ‘Notre-Dame de Gray’ (Besançon: Rigoine, 1685–95); Besançon, Archives départementales du Doubs, 2 Fi 279, ‘Notre-Dame de Gray’ (Besançon: Micaud, 1780). 65 Peter Schöttler, ‘Introduction’, in Lucien Febvre, Le Rhin: Histoire, mythes et réalités (Paris: Perrin, 1997, 1st ed. 1935), p. 42. 66 Anderson, L’Imaginaire national, p. 19. 67 Fredrik Barth, Théories de l’ethnicité, ed. by Philippe Poutignat and Jocelyne Streiff-Fenart (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1995), pp. xxii and 203–06. 68 Michel Bertrand and Natividad Planas, ‘Introduction’ in Les Sociétés de frontière de la Méditerranée à l’Atlantique (xvie–xviiie siècle), ed. by Michel Bertrand and Natividad Planas (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2011), pp. 6–7. 69 Nordman, ‘Préface’, p. 13. 70 François, ‘La Frontière intériorisée’, pp. 51–57.

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Constructing an Internal Border: The Eucharistic Cult at Faverney

By examining variables such as family, the political system, and the community that extended beyond religious beliefs and practices, Keith Luria and other scholars have discussed the ways in which societies constructed their own religious identities.71 The rise of the Faverney Eucharistic cult, following a 1608 miracle in this small town in the northern Franche-Comté demonstrates how members of the Dole Parliament created and sustained a specifically Comtois Catholic identity that excluded Protestants. Clerics, members of Parliament, and the provincial political elite all celebrated the miracle at Faverney, which took place in close proximity to Protestant communities. After obtaining a miraculous host, Dole — the political capital and seat of Parliament — celebrated the event with an annual festival featuring artistic displays, theatre, and literary events. In 1609, a member of Parliament named Jean Boyvin described the process in detail: numerous engravings and elaborate decorations, including nine triumphal arches and an obelisk, portrayed the miracle and the translation of the host.72 All of the events and celebrations were financed by Parliament and the city.73 The decorations were also notable for their apologetic aspects, since Protestants contested miracles, and because they depicted scenes that promoted Tridentine Eucharistic worship via the tabernacle and the altarpiece. Boyvin also described the miraculous communion host — the paladium or ‘sacred shield’ — that protected the province and the city of Dole against Protestantism during a French siege in 1636.74 The engravings and decorations for the 1609 celebration bore the insignia of Burgundy, Franche-Comté, and Dole.75 As celebrations of Comtois Catholic identity, these festivities did not preclude more discreet expressions of loyalty towards the Habsburg dynasty, including the Habsburg coat-of-arms in Anatoile Chastel’s engraving, which recalls the archdukes’ decisive attribution of the host to Dole instead of Besançon. One example from the 1609 arches

71 Keith Luria, Sacred Boundaries: Religious Coexistence and Conflict in Early-Modern France (Baltimore: The Catholic University of America Press, 2005), pp. xv–xxvi. 72 Jean Boyvin, Relation fidèle du miracle du Saint Sacrement arrivé à Faverney en 1608 suivie de la description des arcs de triomphe, des emblèmes et des réjouissances que firent les Dolois (Besançon: Outhenin-Chalandre, 1839). 73 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Estampes, Va 39, Nicolas Spirinx, ‘Représentation de la ste hostie de Dole’ (1609); Besançon, Archives départementales du Doubs, 1 Fi 974: Anatole Chastel, ‘Déclaration de l’entrée du st sacrement, gravure sur cuivre’ (1609); Dole, Bibliothèque municipale, 2711 (III): Anatole Chastel, ‘Monument construit pour l’arrivée de la ste hostie à Dole’ (1609); and 2711 (III), ‘Obélisque élevé à Dole pour la réception de la ste hostie de Faverney’ (1609). 74 Boyvin, Relation, p. 25; Jean Boyvin, Le Siège de la ville de Dole capitale de la Franche-Comté et son heureuse deliverance (Dole: Antoine Binart, 1637), p. 152. 75 Boyvin, Relation, p. 60.

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Fig. 5.5 Anatoile Chastel, Engraving of the Triumphal Arch of Dole, 1609, Bibliothèque municipale de Dole, Dole (© Médiathèque de l’agglomération du Grand Dole)

also illustrated the story of Rudolf of Habsburg, a reference to the dynastic cult of the Eucharist that reinforced under the archdukes.76 These bipartite local and dynastic roots were also present in the cult of the Virgin within the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands.77

76 Boyvin, Relation, p. 48; Luc Duerloo, ‘Archiducal Piety and Habsburg Power’, in Albert and Isabella: Essays, ed. by Werner Thomas and Luc Duerloo (Turnhout: Brepols, 1998), pp. 267–68; Jean Bérenger, ‘Pietas austriaca: contribution à l’étude de la sensibilité religieuse des Habsbourg’, in Mélanges offerts à Pierre Chaunu, ed. by Jean-Pierre Bardet and Madeleine Foisil (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1993), pp. 409–11. 77 Delfosse, ‘La Dévotion mariale’, p. 70.

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Identity Construction along Micro-Boundaries: The Mountainous Border as a Functional March

The Comtois border also functioned as a functional boundary for the construction of sentiments along the landscape’s geographical features, especially the mountains.78 Although the Comtois religious frontier was constructed from within, it corresponded to the physical boundary that divided them from Protestant Switzerland. The geographer Friedrich Ratzel (1840–1904) contended that borders resembled living organisms, describing them as a ‘displacement in space’.79 Frederick Jackson Turner considered the nineteenth-century American frontier, for example, more as a ‘form of society’ or social organization than a ‘geographical region’.80 Historians of the medieval period, despite reservations concerning Turner’s position, envisioned the marche-frontière, or the frontera at the time of the Spanish Reconquista, as entailing ‘a process of formation of a whole society, as well as the strategic site at which a collective consciousness of the nation’s construction occurred’.81 In this sense, the border along the Jura Mountains was established in the early modern period.82 The Comtois religious border, however, predated the political border, having developed before the eighteenth century, while the frontiers between the territories of Morteau and the County of Neuchâtel were still being negotiated, a process that continued into the eighteenth century.83 The boundary functioned as a marche, or space of Catholic conquest, from the sixteenth- to the eighteenth-centuries, populated with inhabitants who appropriated the Catholic Reformation and transformed the sacred landscape of the high plateau and the mountains to the east. Similar phenomena were observable throughout the Holy Roman Empire.84

78 François Walter, Les Figures paysagères de la nation: Territoire et paysage en Europe (XVIe–XXe) (Paris, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 2004), pp. 175 and 178. 79 Anne Brogini, Malte, frontière de chrétienté: 1530–1670 (Rome: École française de Rome, 2006), p. 2; Friedrich Ratzel, Pierre Rusch, and Charles Hussy, Géographie politique (Paris: Economica, 1988, 1st edn Politische Geographie, 1897), pp. 334–36. 80 Frederick Jackson Turner, La Frontière dans l’histoire des États-Unis (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1963), p. 178; Jean-Michel Durafour, ‘“Cette frontière qui battait sans cesse en retraite”: Turner et le cas américain’, Cités, 31.3 (2007), 47–58. 81 Pierre Toubert, ‘Le Concept de frontière’, in Identidad y representación de la frontera en la España medieval (siglos xi–xiv), ed. by Philippe Josserand, Pascal Buresi, and Carlos de Ayala Martínez (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2001), pp. 1–4; Pierre Toubert, ‘Frontière et frontières: un objet historique’, in Frontière et peuplement dans le monde méditerranéen, ed. by Jean-Marie Poisson (Rome: École française de Rome, 1992), pp. 9–17. 82 Bernard Olivier, ‘Introduction. Une frontière, deux États: la partition de l’Arc jurassien’, in L’Arc jurassien: Frontière ou interface? (Rochez-les-Beaupré: Estimprim, 2012), pp. 5–9. 83 Suzanne Daveau, Les Régions frontalières de la Montagne jurassienne: Étude de géographie humaine (Trévoux: J. Patissier, 1959), p. 85. 84 Christine Lebeau, L’Espace du Saint-Empire, du Moyen Âge à l’époque moderne (Strasbourg: Presses Universitaires de Strasbourg, 2004), p. 10.

Franche-Comté, the Low Countries, and the Catholic Backbone

The religious border zone of Franche-Comté was situated amid the high plateau and rugged mountains of the eastern Jura. The history of the mountains in the early modern period shows a slow evolution towards their increasingly positive perception, but not at a rate that could erase negative eighteenth-century perceptions. The negative images of the regions’ inhabitants began to shift during the Catholic Reformation, when efforts were made to convert them to Catholicism from what were still thought to be superstitious pagan beliefs. The diocese of Besançon also sponsored and participated in the intense proselytizing activities of the Tridentine clergy.85 Beginning in the nineteenth century, geographers and historians portrayed the mountains as a frontier zone that the geographer Ratzel described as a natural topographical barrier.86 The Jura Mountains were still rough and isolated throughout the sixteenth century, as ‘the life of man there was nothing but a struggle: struggle against the climate, the cold, the snow, […], against beasts, wolves, […], large bears’.87 Most importantly, the proximity of Protestant Switzerland meant that the mountains were among the areas in the province that experienced high numbers of conversions during the sixteenth century. Indeed, the Dole Parliament filed a series of legal proceedings against Protestants in the 1570s that lasted until the inhabitants of Besançon crushed the Reformation in 1675.88 Several Protestant pastors also travelled to the Val de Morteau, including Guillaume Farel, who was forced to flee in 1532. Hence, the Comtois border also functioned as a site for the construction of national sentiments rooted in the landscape’s geographical features.89 Parishes were distributed over a vast area in the Jura because the population had been widely dispersed among the vaux (synclinal and longitudinal valleys of the Jura) in medieval times. The transformation of the sacred landscape of the Val de Morteau between the sixteenth- and eighteenth-centuries, despite the best efforts of the prior and his monks in Morteau, fragmented the original parish. The building of fourteen chapels contributed to this process, as pressure from local residents and clusters of fervent Catholics caused their transformation into parish and vicarage churches. Claude Binetruy, for example, constructed a chapel in the Bassots in 1682, Pierre Bobillier Chaumont, a Swiss Catholic, built another chapel in Cornabey in 1691, and Michel Pargot, the descendant of a Swiss Catholic, built a third in Cerneux-Péquignot in 1690. Although the relative density of chapels in the mountains is associated with a disjointed perception of sacred space due to geographical distances, the founders cited

85 Walter, Les Figures paysagères, pp. 245–46. 86 Ratzel, Géographie politique, pp. 349–50; Alessandro Pastore, ‘Introduzione’, in Confini e frontiere nell’etat moderna: Un confronto fra discipline, ed. by Alessandro Pastore (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2007), p. 15. 87 Febvre, Philippe II, p. 23. 88 Lucien Febvre, Notes et documents sur la Réforme et l’inquisition en Franche-Comté: Extraits des archives du parlement de Dole (Marseille: Laffitte, 1976), p. 142. 89 Walter, Les Figures paysagères, pp. 175 and 178.

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the proximity of heretics as justification for building them.90 After the late seventeenth century and the eighteenth century, the concentration of religious buildings along Franche-Comté’s eastern border dedicated to Notre-Dame d’Einsiedeln further reinforced the symbolic barrier against Protestantism.91 The establishment of this inter-faith border recalls François Walter’s assertions regarding the social uses of landscapes, which other scholars corroborated in studies that covered a variety of similar boundaries, especially within the Holy Roman Empire, where the Baroque Church established new pilgrimages during the eighteenth century that led to the proliferation of new buildings in Catholic landscapes. This stood in sharp contrast to their relative rarity in Lutheran landscapes.92 A network of small religious monuments — crosses, small chapels, and calvaries — that were constructed in the archbishopric of Cologne during the seventeenth- and eighteenth-centuries gave the landscape an explicitly Catholic aspect.93 Beginning with the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), the demarcation between faiths was thus concretely expressed, joining ‘symbolic networks’ that were visibly inscribed in the physical landscape of the borderlands along the length of the European Catholic limes.94 This interpretation of the early modern sacred landscape along the Franche-Comté border-zone represents a response to Anderson’s characterization of the nation as an ‘imagined community’ — otherwise a merely discursive entity or a collection of strategies — by re-inscribing it in a tangible, concrete reality and by emphasizing that the nation is not reducible to the 90 Ulrich Pfister, ‘Croyance et espace dans le contexte alpin: les Grisons, xviie et xviiie siècles’, Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 52.2 (2005), 49–63 (p. 56); Roger Devos, ‘Chapelles et dévotions populaires dans le diocèse de Genève–Annecy aux xviie et xviiie siècles’, in Vie religieuse en Savoie: Mentalités Associations (Annecy: Académie salésienne, 1988), pp. 139–47; Serge Brunet, La Vie, la mort, la foi dans les Pyrénées centrales sous l’Ancien Régime: Val d’Aran et diocèse de Comminges (Aspeth: Pyrégraph, 2001), pp. 312–15; Alain Cabantous, Entre fêtes et clochers: Profane et sacré dans l’Europe moderne, xviie–xviiie siècle (Paris: Fayard, 2002), p. 152; Besançon, Archives départementales du Doubs, G 2290: Acte de fondation de la chapelle des Bassots, 8 May 1690, fol. 1. 91 Subirade, ‘La Franche-Comté’, pp. 866–68; Patricia Subirade, ‘Espace, identité religieuse, identité provinciale dans la Franche-Comté à l’âge baroque (xviie–xviiie siècles)’, in Topographien des Sakralen: Religion und Raumordnung in der Vormoderne, ed. by Susanne Rau and Gerd Schwerhoff (Munich: Dölling und Galitz Verlag, 2008), pp. 362–64. 92 Duhamelle, La Frontière au village, p. 115. 93 Uta Scholten, ‘Überlegungen zu Struktur, Funktion und Entwicklung der rheinischen Sakrallandschaft im xvii. und xviii. Jahrhundert’, in Hirt und Herde: Religiosität und Frömmigkeit im Rheinland des XVIII. Jahrhunderts, ed. by Horst Günter Zehnder (Cologne: Dumont, 2000), p. 126. 94 Pierre Toubert, ‘L’Historien sur la frontière’, in L’Histoire grande ouverte: Hommages à Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, ed. by André Burguière (Paris: Fayard, 1997), p. 225; Olivier Christin and Fabrice Flückiger, ‘L’Atlas Marianus de Wilhelm Gumppenberg: une topographie sacrée à l’âge de la science classique’, in Marie mondialisée: L’Atlas Marianus de Wilhelm Gumppenberg et les topographies sacrées de l’époque moderne, ed. by Olivier Christin and others (Neuchâtel: Alphil and Presses universitaires suisses, 2014), p. 21.

Franche-Comté, the Low Countries, and the Catholic Backbone

level of pure abstraction. The ethnologist Arnold Van Gennep had already formulated this limitation earlier by arguing that belonging to a nation was necessarily represented ‘in a way that could be felt.’95 Although conceived of as cultural constructs, nations are nevertheless grounded in physical elements like maps, natural boundaries, and images that suggest an effect of a barrier, such as mountains or the linear shapes of rivers.96 By anchoring the idea of the nation in elements of the material landscape, this approach remedies one of the principal limitations posed by Anderson’s and Eric Hobsbawm’s excessively abstract ideas.97

An Open Border: Cross-Border Relations between Franche-Comté and the Swiss Confederation Although the inter-faith boundary was primarily symbolic, it also constituted a line of convergence, for which both Ratzel and Georg Simmel argued that trans-border relational networks functioned as social boundaries — ‘social facts’ in Simmel’s words — despite them being expressed in spatial terms.98 Individuals either fleeing the Ten Years’ War or looking for employment in the Catholic canton of Fribourg crossed the Comtois border, as seeking refuge or work were the primary motivations for traversing borders at the time. Seeking Shelter: Crossing the Inter-Faith Boundary during the Ten Years’ War, 1635–1644

While the border between the Jura and Switzerland had nearly been effaced during the fifteenth century, a new inter-faith boundary emerged when the Swiss border region embraced the Protestant Reformation after the subordination of Vaud by Bern in 1535 and the arrival of Guillaume Farel in the bishopric of Basel and the County of Neuchâtel in 1629.99 On the micro-territorial scale, which is a typical point of focus for recent studies of frontier societies, this border should not be considered airtight. Legal efforts in the 1570s by the Comtois Parliament to seal the borders against neighbouring heretics halted mixed marriages and prevented citizens of the Franche-Comté from following preachers into Switzerland or the Val de Travers, Locle, Bulle, and

95 Walter, Les Figures paysagères, p. 178. 96 Walter, Les Figures paysagères. p. 175. 97 Walter, Les Figures paysagères. p. 315; Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). 98 Kaiser, ‘Penser la frontière’, p. 66; Georg Simmel, Sociologie: Études sur les formes de la socialisation (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2010), pp. 605–09. 99 Daveau, Les Régions frontalières, pp. 85–88.

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Chaux-de-Fonds.100 This is corroborated by documents in the archives of the Valangin seigniorial consistory in the County of Neuchâtel, which contain evidence of individual contacts with Catholic parishes in Franche-Comté and mixed marriages with Comtois Catholics from Morteau.101 The Ten Years’ War (1635–1644) began with an attack by Louis XIII’s armies on the Spanish possession of Franche-Comté, leading to the 1639 invasion of the last secure area — the mountains — by Swedish forces under the leadership of Saxe-Weimar. The troops destroyed and burned Morteau, Pontarlier, Mouthe, and Saint-Claude on their way through the province, while most of the local inhabitants sought refuge in Italy, the Duchy of Savoy, or the Swiss cantons.102 Indeed, both political and religious borders were open to refugees during the period.103 Louis has identified two groups of Comtois who migrated to Switzerland: temporary refugees, and those who remained abroad, often for extended periods, only returning to Franche-Comté years after the fighting had ended. The first refugees entered Protestant zones along the border such as the canton of Vaud, the Principality of Neuchâtel-Valangin, and the more distant Catholic canton of Fribourg. The presence of refugees was not easy to accept for the officials in the Principality of Neuchâtel, and the Council of State even debated preventing Burgundians from being admitted to the territory, seizing their assets, and forbidding trade with them on three occasions: December 1638; June 1639; and January 1641.104 Armed raids by Comtois peasants from the Val de Morteau (adjacent to the County of Neuchâtel) and Comtois incursions into the Val de Travers represented the true sources of the conflict. In late January 1641, the Council of State of Neuchâtel authorized the resumption of trade between the two countries and ruled that travellers equipped with passports could enter the principality. The Dole Parliament debated the matter with great earnest and the Marquis de Saint-Martin, the military governor of the Franche-Comté, ordered neighbouring garrisons to help the tax prosecutor of Pontarlier capture the guilty parties. The real rationale behind these initiatives was the will to maintain grain supplies entering Franche-Comté from Neuchâtel, Bern, and Fribourg.105 100 Bertand and Planas, ‘Introduction’, pp. 2–7; Febvre, Notes et documents, pp. 142–48. 101 Michèle Robert, ‘L’Image des rapports supraconfessionnels dans les régions rurales de Neuchâtel par le biais de leur répression consistoriale (1547–1706)’, in L’Expérience de la différence religieuse dans l’Europe moderne, xvie–xviiie siècles, ed. by Bertrand Forclaz (Neuchâtel: Alphil and Presses universitaires suisses, 2012), pp. 233 and 242–43. 102 Gérard Louis, La guerre de Dix Ans (1634–1644) (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1988), pp. 45–53. 103 Louis, La guerre de Dix Ans, pp. 206–15; Bertrand Forclaz, ‘Solidarités supraconfessionnelles: le refuge dans l’arc jurassien pendant la Guerre de Trente ans’, Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Geschichte / Revue suisse d’histoire / Rivista storica svizzera, 62.3 (2012), 373–89. 104 Daveaux, Les Régions frontalières, p. 146. 105 Besançon, Archives départementales du Doubs, Parlement de Dole, Correspondence, 2 B268, 2 B270, and 2 B282, cited in Albéric de Truchis de Varennes, Le Prieuré de Saint-Pierre et Saint-Paul de Morteau: suivi du Livre noir ou recueil des franchises, lois et règlements particuliers

Franche-Comté, the Low Countries, and the Catholic Backbone

As early as 1639, a second important group of migrants — artists who had mastered their trade in family studios — established themselves in the Catholic canton of Fribourg to take advantage of the political and religious solidarity. In fact, artistic ties between the canton of Fribourg and Franche-Comté predated the Ten Years’ War. In the late-sixteenth century, the Fribourg government had asked several painters from Besançon to execute a new altarpiece for the collegiate church of Saint-Nicolas. One painter was paid 60 pistoles to paint a large altarpiece in 1579.106 Between 1584 and 1585, the brothers Pierre le Vieux (1540–1608) and Pierre le Jeune (1546–1620) d’Argent, well-known artists working for Cardinal Granvelle, the city, and the chapter of Besançon, painted canvases of the choir for the substantial sum of 630 écus. It is likely that artists from Besançon were selected for the project because Sebastian Werro, the priest and provost of the Saint-Nicolas de Fribourg from 1577 to 1580, was originally from the city.107 In 1639, the small town of Estavayer-le-Lac in the canton of Fribourg was sheltering 157 refugees, including a number of families that had travelled from parts of the Franche-Comté ravaged by war and plague, including Clerval, Baume-les-Dames, Sainte-Ursanne, Morteau, Château-Châlon, Vesoul, and Pontarlier.108 This tide of refugees, which also included a certain number of ‘traffickers’, had a significant impact upon Fribourg in 1641.109 A number of religious communities also sought asylum in the canton of Fribourg, including the Annonciades from Nozeroy, who arrived in Romont in 1636, the nuns of Notre-Dame de la Visitation from Besançon in 1638, the Augustinians from Pontarlier in 1640, and the Capuchins from Pontarlier in 1641 (after Swedish troops sacked the city in 1639).110 Several waves of artists also migrated with family members practicing the same profession, including the painters Claude Fraichot (Fréchot) from Morteau, his brother Étienne, and his b­ rother-in-law

106 107 108

109 110

du Val de Morteau et de pièces justificatives, 2 vols (Besançon: Jacques and Demontrond, 1925), i, pp. 277–82. Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Manual 118, 24 August 1579; Paul Brune, Dictionnaire des artistes et des ouvriers d’art de la Franche-Comté (Paris: Bibliothèque d’art et d’archéologie, 1912), p. 5. Verena Villiger, Pierre Wuillermet (Fribourg and Bern: Musée d’Art et d’Histoire and Benteli Verlag, 1993), p. 11. Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Livre des ordonnances 27, fol. 215v, 7 May 1635; Philippe Grangier, Annales d’Estavayer-le Lac, ed. by Fridolin Brülhart (Estavayer-le-Lac: Butty, 1905), p. 69; Bernard de Vevey, ‘Immigration bourguignonne dans le canton de Fribourg’, Mémoires de la société pour l’histoire du droit et des institutions des anciens pays bourguignons comtois et romands, 11 (1946–1947), 181–86; Fribourg, Bibliothèque cantonale et universitaire, Collection Gérard Pfulg (ACGP), L 43–44. ACGP, Registre des arrêtés du petit conseil, 23 and 28 May, and 1 and 18 June 1641. ACGP, L43–4; ACGP, Manual 187, 30 September 1636; Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Livre des ordonnances 27, fols 223 and 395v; Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Manual 189, fol. 187v, 20 October 1638: ‘les religieuses de la Visitation Sainte Marie de Bourgogne par la guerre et troubles réfugiées’.

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Fig. 5.6 Crossing the Inter-Faith Boundary during the Ten Years’ War (1635–1644): Migration Flow from Franche-Comté (© Patricia Subirade 2017)

Claude Pichot.111 Pierre Crolot from Pontarlier and the wood sculptors François Cuenot from Bélieu and Georges de la Seigne from Le Russey also arrived during the Ten Years’ War (1635–1644), while the painter Courtois 111 Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Manual 203, fol. 92r, 11 April 1652: ‘Maistre Claude Fraichot peintre bourguignon qui a esté réfugié avec sa famille en ceste ville’.

Franche-Comté, the Low Countries, and the Catholic Backbone

from Saint-Hippolyte, the glazier and painter Nicolas Limet, and the painter Guillaume Perrin from Salins arrived in the 1650s.112 Finally, a sculptor from Saint-Claude and a painter from Besançon were working in the Chartreuse of Valsainte by 1653.113 In the late seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries, numerous Comtois also moved to Freiburg, some specifically for work. In 1698, the Balanche-Richarde sisters, daughters of Blaise Balanche-Richarde, who had spent the Ten Years’ War in exile in Switzerland and Italy, received permission to permanently settle in Fribourg near Morteau in 1698, where they painted until 1740. Their brother, Gaspard, also tried to migrate to Fribourg in 1698, but could not gain residency and had to leave.114 Their family dynasty of painters, originally from Grand Combe Châteleu, was active around Morteau. Originally from the high plateaux and mountains of the eastern Franche-Comté, such migratory artists founded dynasties of sculptors who also worked in Dole, the provincial capital. They primarily arrived in the 1660s, after work orders again began to increase, before eventually moving to Besançon, the new French provincial capital, after 1676.115 Unlike the labour migrations of the Comtois, workers tended to migrate from Fribourg to Franche-Comté only after the end of the Ten Years’ War. The Comtois who had become Fribourgers forty years earlier thus reverse-migrated back to their native lands. In fact, a list of every male resident of Burgundy from 1702 reveals that some individuals maintained connections with their country of origin even after forty years of residence in the canton of Fribourg.116 A Cross-Border Workspace: Circulations of Artists between Franche-Comté and Fribourg

According to Jean-Yves Grenier, labour migration under the ancien régime consisted of the migration of either unskilled labourers or workers skilled enough to work independently (a group that included numerous Comtois artists).117 Depending on their specialization, skilled workers from the Franche-Comté entered Fribourg’s local labour markets in two different ways. According to

112 ACGP, L 43–4; Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Manual 205, fol. 199, 19 May 1654. 113 ACGP, 88 L 43–2, Archives de la Chartreuse de La Valsainte, Dissertation of 1653. 114 Jules Gauthier, ‘Documents pour servir à l’histoire des peintres franc-comtois’, Annuaire du Doubs, (1889), p. 77; Ivan Andrey, ‘Les Saints augustins des peintresses Richard 1723/1724’, Patrimoine fribourgeois / Freiburger Kulturgüter, 3 (1994), 46–54. 115 Patricia Subirade, ‘Artisans et décoration des lieux de culte dans les campagnes de FrancheComté aux xviie et xviiie siècles: réseaux professionnels et stratégies sociales dans une province périphérique’ in Framespa (in preparation). 116 Daveau, Les Régions frontalières, pp. 164–66. 117 Jean-Yves Grenier, L’Économie de l’Ancien Régime: Un monde de l’échange et de l’incertitude (Paris: Albin Michel, 1996), p. 250.

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Josef Ehmer, each occupation formed its own labour market and depended upon a specific, qualified workforce.118 Artists, in particular, migrated to the Swiss canton of Fribourg for three major reasons, the first of which was simply geographical proximity. The second was a lack of work, explained by the post-war devastation and poverty that led to a shortage of money among their primary clients (mainly rural communities and pious confraternities). The countryside indeed remained largely uninhabited and was slow to repopulate from 1664 onwards, with some villages only resettling by the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries.119 The flow of commissions increased only after Catholic reforms took effect, which were first initiated in 1663 by Antoine-Pierre de Grammont, the energetic Archbishop of Besançon. By the 1680s, the reforms had inspired an intensive period of church construction and renovation, which led to a flood of artistic commissions for altarpieces and paintings.120 The third reason why artists migrated to the canton of Fribourg was because in 1630 it became a centre for post-Tridentine and baroque art, a position so unique in western Switzerland that it attracted German and Italian artists in addition to those from the Franche-Comté.121 The most substantial commissions came from either religious institutions or, ironically, patricians made rich by the war. This latter category included, for example, a portrait commission by François Koenig, a Swiss mercenary and colonel in the Imperial army, given to the painter Claude Fréchot.122 The labour market for woodcarvers was different from the one experienced by painters. Indeed, it was difficult for wood sculptors to compete against Jean-François Reyff ’s baroque sculpture studio in Fribourg, where he also served as the superintendent of government buildings after 1645, leading a dual career as sculptor and architect. Like other early modern European cities, Fribourg’s guilds were influential in regulating the artistic labour markets.123 Beginning in 1505, for example, the guild of Saint-Luc controlled the artistic labour market, uniting the painters, sculptors, and glaziers of Fribourg, and gained responsibility for issuing permits to artists who practiced in the city. The painter Guillaume Perrin requested authorization to ply his trade from the Fribourg town council ‘nonobstant les vexations que luy sont faicts par des 118 Josef Ehmer, ‘Worlds of Mobility: Migration Patterns of Viennese Artisans in the Eighteenth Century’, in The Artisan and the European Town, 1500–1900, ed. by Geoffrey Crossick (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1997), p. 174. 119 Louis, La guerre de Dix Ans, pp. 266–76. 120 Subirade, ‘La Franche-Comté’, pp. 95–105. 121 Gérard Pfulg, Jean-François Reyff, sculpteur fribourgeois et son atelier (Fribourg: Imprimerie Fragnière frères, 1950), pp. 50–54. 122 Verena Villiger and Jean Steinauer, ‘Sous le manteau de la Vierge: peintres bourguignons, jésuites et marché de l’art’, Annales fribourgeoises, 68 (2006), 103–13. 123 Bert De Munck and Anne Winter, ‘Regulating Migration in Early Modern Cities: An Introduction’, in Gated Communities? Regulating Migration in Early Modern Cities, ed. by Bert De Munck and Anne Winter (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), pp. 6–10.

Franche-Comté, the Low Countries, and the Catholic Backbone

nouveaux peintres qui le recherchent sous pretexte d’une confrérie’ (‘despite the vexations done to him by new painters who are seeking him under the pretext of the guild’), while the guild accepted Champagne, another painter, on 15 May 1654.124 Foreign artists were not able to sign contracts and were consequently forced to accept supervision of a member of the guild of SaintLuc, as reflected in a receipt from the sculptor François Cuenot. The guild authorized Cuenot to ‘pouvoir continuer sa demeure audit Gruyère en qualité de réfugié’ in 1641 (‘to be able to continue to reside in the aforementioned Gruyère as a refugee’) and ‘pouvoir travailler de son mestier pour ceux qui le mettront en besogne […] lui deffendant par expres de ne préoccuper aucune besogne contre le contenu de l’ordre requis, nÿ d’advantager sur les autres contre la raison et coustume du lieu’ (‘be able to ply his trade for those willing to give him work […] expressly forbidding him from performing any work against the contents of the established order, or from taking advantage of others in violation of the reason and customs of the place’).125 Artists did not always respect the verification requirement, such as in the case of Cuenot, who was likely the unnamed sculptor mentioned in a conflict with another Fribourg artist that was mediated by Jean-François Reyff.126 In 1641, another conflict erupted concerning the fabrication of an altar in the Sâles church. This example pitted Jacques Gachet, a painter and burgher of Fribourg, and his assistant — the same François Cuenot — against Jean-François Reyff and Valerian du Pasquier, another painter and resident of the city of Gruyère. The record of this clash offers further evidence that town guilds closed their artistic commissions to foreign competition and that foreigners could encounter xenophobic attitudes: ‘les Estrangers refugiez en ceste ville [de Gruyère] entreprenoient toutes sortes de trafficqs, estats et travails au preiudice des bourgeois, habitants et suiects naturels, mesme s’advançoit sur leurs taches par les subtilitez accoustumeez et frauds’ (‘the Foreigners sheltered in this city [Gruyère] undertook all sorts of traffic, statutes, and jobs, at the expense of the burghers, inhabitants, and natural subjects, even advancing their work through their customary subtleties and frauds’), as Jacques Gachet acted ‘par ruse frauduleuse et subtile’ (‘by fraudulent and subtle ruses’). These accusations served as an excuse for Cuenot to sign an agreement with the inhabitants of Sâles.127 The petitioners cited a burgher’s rights to justify their demand that they be assigned work, explaining to the Council of Fribourg that they were happy for foreigners to work — as long as they worked as servants.128 The Council ruled against the Sâles residents, 124 ACGP, 88 L 43–2; Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Manual 205, fol. 199, 19 May 1654; and fol. 298, 15 May 1654. 125 Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Registre des arrêtés du conseil 28, fols 122v and 123r, 20 March 1641, letter of reception. 126 Pfulg, Jean-François Reyff, p. 19. 127 ACGP, Fa–2 b, Sâles, Archives paroissiales, 20 March 1641. 128 Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Manual 192, 20 March 1641, fol. 105v.

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and a new contract was signed with Jean-François Reyff. On 20 March 1641, the residents of Gruyère asked the Council of Fribourg to admit Cuenot and supported his application to become a subject of the canton and, later, a burgher of Gruyère.129 Nevertheless, it cannot be argued that the guild of Saint-Luc, with support from the Council of Fribourg, was an entirely protectionist entity that uniformly excluded immigrants. In 1632, for example, the painter Valerain du Pasquier had been accepted as a Fribourg burgher ‘à cause de sa science et de sa bonne qualité’ (‘because of his knowledge and high quality’).130 Guild statutes drafted in 1666 allowed foreign painters, sculptors, and glassmakers to work after paying an admission fee of four écus.131 A more anthropological — as opposed to economic — perspective suggests that instead of being an obstacle, work in an ancien régime society could be considered as a resource for individuals who deployed a mixture of different strategies and economic choices, and had flexibility towards pursuing a variety of legal or illegal labour activities.132 A newly arrived artist such as Cuenot was not necessarily seeking to join a guild, which entailed both obligations and privileges while limiting his own choices. Unlike sculptors, Comtois painters dominated the painting labour market beginning in the early 1640s, eclipsing less gifted local artists trained by Adam Küniman (who died in 1617), Pierre Wuilleret, and François Reyff (who died in 1646), the father of the aforementioned sculptor and architect.133 Claude Fréchot’s family studio executed important commissions for religious communities, including thirty-eight canvases, the altar-piece for the SaintIgnatius chapel in the Jesuit college of Fribourg in 1638–1640, the paintings in the Jesuit chapel in Gruyère in 1644–1645, thirty-eight large paintings for the church of Saint-Nicolas in Fribourg in 1651, and fifty-three canvases depicting the life of Saint Bernard in 1658–1659 for the abbey in Hauterive.134 Pierre Crolot collaborated with the sculptor Jean-François Reyff to complete the paintings for the altarpieces, co-signing the contracts. He was also awarded a prestigious commission by the Council of Fribourg for the Book of the Flags of the city, a work memorializing the flags and banners that Fribourg troops removed during the campaigns of Sundgau, Burgundy, and Italy from the 129 Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Manual 192, 20 March 1641, fol. 105; ACGP, Fa–2b, Sâles, Archives paroissiales, 20 March 1641. 130 Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Registre des arrêtés du conseil 28, fol. 126v, 29 January 1632; David Bourceraud, ‘La Gruyère, la France, le Valais, Fribourg… Itinéraire de Loys Vallélian’, Annales fribourgeoises, 68.121 (2006), 120–30 (pp. 122–23). 131 Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Registre des arrêtés du conseil 29, fol. 682, 30 September 1666. 132 On the concept of ‘strategy’ see Laurence Fontaine and Jürgen Schlumbohm, ‘Household Strategies for Survival: An Introduction: From the Study of Poverty to the Study of Survival Strategies’, International Review of Social History, 45 (2000), 1–17 (pp. 6–7). 133 Villiger and Steinauer, ‘Sous le manteau’, pp. 104–05. 134 Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Manual 203, fol. 92, 16 April 1652; Verena Villiger, ‘Der Bernhardszyklus von 1658/59’, Patrimoine fribourgeois Freiburger Kulturgüter, 11 (1999), pp. 66–71.

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late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. (The flags were displayed in the College Saint-Nicolas and were removed during renovations to the chapel of Saint-Michel.)135 This inter-regional labour environment that developed between FrancheComté and the canton of Fribourg resembled other ‘regional technological pools’ that united religious areas and resulted from the geography of skilled eighteenth-century journeymen.136 It would be wrong, however, to interpret this tendency of migration to be driven by a particular faith, or to attempt to explain it exclusively in religious terms, since it primarily resulted from labour market fluctuations.137 Comtois who specialized in furnishing and decorating churches, for example, did not receive any commissions in the Calvinist County of Neuchâtel, except in the Seigneurie du Landeron, the region’s only remaining Catholic enclave, where Etienne Fréchot painted the Crowning of the Virgin in 1640 for the main altarpiece of the Saint-Laurent church.138 Comtois artists exhibited diverse professional trajectories. The sculptor Cuenot’s career, for example, was highly mobile: he left Fribourg in the late 1630s to travel to the Vaud, the Valais, and Savoy, where he was appointed the official architect/engineer in 1660. The international span of his career contrasted with the trajectories of most of his colleagues, who were primarily artists and members of family dynasties working in the cross-border zone in the canton of Fribourg and Franche-Comté beginning in the late 1650s. Back in Morteau in 1654, Claude Fréchot was asked to return a valuable painting to the Saint-Nicolas de Fribourg church, and his wife, who had remained behind in Fribourg, was threatened with imprisonment.139 Fréchot later worked for the abbey of Hauterive in Fribourg from 1658 to 1659. The wood sculptor Estevenard Georges de la Seigne enjoyed a third kind of career working in the canton of Fribourg from 1640 to 1650, later returning definitively to FrancheComté, where he became a burgher of Dole in 1667. There is also a fourth scenario. Some Comtois settled permanently in Fribourg in the latter-half of

135 Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Manual 197, fol. 126, 22 March 1646; Marcel Strub, Les Monuments d’art et d’histoire du canton de Fribourg, vol. 2: La Ville de Fribourg: Les monuments religieux (deuxième partie) (Basel: Birkhäuser, 1965), pp. 143 and 152–53. 136 Stephan R. Epstein, ‘Labour Mobility, Journeyman Organizations and Markets in Skilled Labour in Europe xivth–xviiith Centuries’, in Le technicien dans la cité en Europe occidentale 1250–1650, ed. by Mathieu Arnoux and Pierre Monnet (Rome: École française de Rome, 2004), p. 266; Ulrich-Christian Pallach, ‘Fonctions de la mobilité artisanale et ouvrière — Compagnons, ouvriers et manufacturiers en France et aux Allemagnes (xviie–xixe siècles). Première partie: De la fin du xviie siècle au début de l’époque révolutionnaire en 1789’, Francia, 11 (1983), 365–406 (pp. 374–76). 137 Yves Junot, ‘Les Migrants, un enjeu? Pacification religieuse et relance économique de part et d’autre de la frontière entre la France et les Pays-Bas espagnols (c. 1580–c. 1610)’, in Religione e istituzioni religiose nell’economia europea, ed. by Francesco Ammannati (Florence: Firenze University Press, 2012), pp. 779–91. 138 Villiger, Pierre Wuillermet, p. 31. 139 Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Manual 205, fol. 198, 18 May 1654.

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Fig. 5.7 Claude Fraichot (Fréchot), Vierge de Miséricorde, c. 1645, oil on canvas, Musée d’art et d’histoire de Fribourg, Fribourg (© Musée d’art et d’histoire de Fribourg)

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the seventeenth century, including the two Balanche-Richarde sisters from Morteau, who executed significant quantities of paintings for the parishes throughout the late 1720s, while other members of their prolific family dynasty worked in the Franche-Comté. Beginning in the late-seventeenth century, Claude-Adrien Richarde, their brother, was active in the Franche-Comté and worked for the Dominicans of Estavayer-le-Lac, near Fribourg. The histoire croisée method offers an effective means of analysing artistic exchanges between Franche-Comté and the canton of Fribourg because it moves beyond the mere focusing on cultural transfer and points to the deeply reciprocal nature of these exchanges. There is no doubt that transfers of technical and artistic knowledge took place along the vast trans-border labour zone. Comtois painters introduced new practices into Fribourg painting by drawing on Flemish engravings, such as Titian for the Saint-Laurent of the master altarpiece in Estavayer-le-Lac, and Paul Pontius (1623–1658) for Saint-Sébastien in the Marly chapel. Both can be interpreted as a sign of the connection between the Franche-Comté and the Low Countries.140 Fribourg artists also worked in the Franche-Comté: the mentioned sculptor, municipal architect, and building superintendent (1645–1660) Jean-François Reyff developed a blend of Gothic and Renaissance styles that influenced the design of several Fribourg buildings.141 In 1647, he placed a Bramante-inspired ribbed dome over a Gothic floor plan at Notre-Dame de Lorette, and in 1653 he covered the nave of the Ursuline chapel with Corinthian columns and cross-ribs, adopting a floor-plan based on four apses crowned with a cupola. In the same year, he also developed Gothic vaults with a curved baroque façade for the church of the Visitation. Reyff travelled to Salins in the Franche-Comté several times between 1646 and 1659, completing the chapel of Notre-Dame Libératrice, removing its original circular floor-plan in order to turn the building into the first elliptical Comtois edifice, blending late-Gothic and classical architecture.142 It has been hypothesized that Reyff sub-contracted the Salins construction project to a local architect.143 Ribs radiate outwards from keystones in the chapel’s vaulted ceilings, while the separation between the areas set aside for worshipers and those for the clergy could explain why his model was not adopted for other Comtois parish churches. Nevertheless, Notre-Dame Libératrice served as an inspiration to the Besançon Jesuits, who

140 Villiger, Pierre Wuillermet, p. 59. 141 Pfulg, Jean-François Reyff, pp. 21–44; Roland Ruffieux, Histoire du canton de Fribourg, 2 vols (Fribourg: Commission de publication de l’histoire du canton de Fribourg, 1982), ii, p. 675. 142 ACGP, L 43–6; Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Manual 210, 30 May 1659 and 25 June 1659; Manual 211, 29 February 1660 and 12 August 1660. 143 Elisabeth Castellani-Stürzel and Walter Tschopp, ‘Die Künsterfamilie Reyff: Bemerkungen zu entscheidenden architektonischen und bildauerischen Leistungen des Freiburgischen 17. Jh.’, Freiburger Geschichtsblätter, 61 (1977), 67–146 (pp. 99–103).

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Fig. 5.8 A Cross-Border Workspace: Circulations of Artists between Franche-Comté and the canton of Fribourg (© Patricia Subirade 2017)

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ordered plans for their local college’s chapel around 1670.144 The chapel of Refuge in Besançon, built in 1739, features an elliptical floor plan.145

Conclusions In conclusion, this chapter offers a set of methodological insights into barriers and borders both inside and outside of the Habsburg world through the lens of the Franche-Comté, a quintessential borderline. On the one hand, it has provided evidence of the socially constructed nature of prevailing early modern boundaries at different scales, while, on the other, highlighting the specific cultural and religious identities in which these borders originated or which they created. The spread of the devotional practices surrounding Notre-Dame de Montaigu (Our Lady of Scherpenheuvel) from the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands to Franche-Comté and along the European Catholic backbone, or limes, is one excellent example of transregional cultural transfer that experienced significant local re-interpretation. Hence, the boundary between Catholicism and Protestantism constituted a kind of border-zone that was symbolically constructed at the local and provincial levels through discourse and social practices, particularly those of political and ecclesiastical elites.146 At the micro-level, then, this boundary was more concretely represented in the sacred landscape and in the devotional practices of local stakeholders. Following Certeau’s analysis, one could thus argue that the border zone was a ‘practiced space’ in which stakeholders combined their efforts for the ‘production of locality’ (as according to Arjun Appadurai, who studies the history of the techniques involved in construction these notions).147 Despite the transregional connections, there were also obvious differences between the County of Burgundy and the Low Countries.148 While the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands did not represent a regional periphery, the Franche-Comté undeniably was. Constructed and conceived as a barrier against Protestant enemies to the north, the Franche-Comté developed into an ultra-Catholic bastion under the discreet encouragement of its distant sovereigns in Spain and their representatives in the Low Countries, who 144 Séverine Pégeot and Emmanuel Buselin, ‘La Création architecturale dans le Revermont (xve–xviiie siècles): entre gothique et classicisme’, in Splendeurs baroques, ed. by Ryon, Buselin and Sève, pp. 41–53. 145 Fribourg, Archives de l’État, Manual 210, 23 May 1659, fols 201 and 202; Manual 210, 25 June 1659, fols 245–47; Castellani-Stürzel and Tschopp, ‘Die Künsterfamilie Reyff ’, pp. 99–103; Pégeot and Buselin, ‘La création architecturale dans le Revermont’, pp. 41–53. 146 Bertrand and Planas, ‘Introduction’, p. 11. 147 Michel de Certeau, L’Invention du quotidien, 2 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 1990), i, p. 173; Arjun Appadurai, Après le colonialisme: Les conséquences culturelles de la globalisation (Paris: Payot, 2001), p. 262; Angelo Torre, ‘Les Lieux de l’action: transcription documentaire et contexte historique’, Les Dossiers du Grihl (2008), pp. 2–3 DOI: 10.4000/dossiersgrihl.2842. 148 Esser, ‘Flandria Illustrata’, pp. 213–32 (esp. pp. 224–25).

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expressed their allegiance to the Crown and Catholicism through discourses and iconography. While Flanders’s provincial elites and the orders of the Catholic Reformation created a ‘Hispano-Flemish’ identity simultaneously rooted in the province’s unique character and its place within the broader Habsburg world, the Franche-Comté clearly considered itself as an autonomous entity separate from a broader ruling body, especially the Circle of Burgundy in the Holy Roman Empire. Along with this local conception of a community separate from larger units, and its border mentalities with regard to the political, cultural, and religious spheres, this chapter showed that stakeholders on both sides of the border created an open frontier through personal ties and trade, resulting in a unique and open trans-border social fabric.149 During wartime Catholic Comtois refugees crisscrossed the border, seeking shelter in either the Protestant cantons of Switzerland or the Catholic canton of Fribourg. This created a ‘frontier economy effect’ that persisted from the end of the sixteenth to the first half of the eighteenth centuries.150 Relevant stakeholders revealed the vibrancy of this local cross-border economy through their original practices and the creation of a religiously-based, trans-border artistic workspace between Franche-Comté and the canton of Fribourg. In this workspace, a cross-border artistic knowledge was built through the confluence between local tradition and the importation of foreign skills. As such, the transregional circulation of devotions between the Low Countries and the Franche-Comté on the one hand, and the concrete cross-border circulation between the Franche-Comté and the Swiss cantons on the other, combine to make the puzzle of border mentalities within the Habsburg world even more complex.

149 Bertrand and Planas, ‘Introduction’, p. 13. 150 Philippe Minard, ‘Présentation’, in Les Territoires de l’économie, xve–xixe siècles (= Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, 48.2 (2001)), pp. 7–10.

Christel Annemieke Romein 

How Local Politics Became a Matter of Transregional Concern German and Dutch Pamphlets Calling Jülich Nobility to Assemble in Cologne, 1642–1651 This chapter examines how the local politics of the Duchy of Jülich attained supra-local interest from 1642 until 1655, a period coinciding with the latter part of the Thirty Years’ War and the years immediately following the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia.1 This inquiry, representing an exercise into transregional analysis, first examines how the small principality of Jülich used its borderland position within the regional Niederrheinisch-Westfälischer Reichskreis and the Holy Roman Empire. It then considers how its location close to the Imperial border also led to political exchange with the adjacent early modern Low Countries, both under Habsburg rule and the Dutch Estates-General’s authority.2 This chapter focuses on how the native Jülich nobility perceived the war and wrote about their opposition to ducal taxation in published pamphlets. In order to escape the control of their overlord, the nobility started to assemble in the free Imperial city of Cologne, which lay outside of Jülich’s jurisdiction, but still remained in close proximity to the duchy and fell within the Empire’s borders. In order to provide a more thorough analysis, the pamphlets, as narrative sources, will be supplemented with information retrieved from the handwritten material in the Akten der Jülicher Landstände, which are located in the Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen in Duisburg. Rainer Walz, who wrote a monograph on the Landstände of Jülich and Berg during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, has previously analysed these Akten.3 Walz did not specifically focus on either the (handwritten) pamphlets or the vocabulary





1 The author has previously published on this topic, though these articles specifically focus on the rhetorics of ‘patriotism’: e.g. Christel Annemieke Romein, ‘Fatherland rhetoric and the nobility’s loyalty in German principalities Jülich-Berg (1642–1652) and Hesse-Cassel (1646– 1655)’, in Los hilos de Penélope: Lealtad y fidelidades en la Monarquía de España (1648–1714), ed. by Roberto Quiros Rosado and Cristina Bravo Lozano (Valencia: Albatros Ediciones, 2015), pp. 57–66; and ‘Gulik: dynastieke belangen, oorlog en welvaart. De woordkeuze van de getrouwe patriot 1642–1652’, Handelingen van de Koninklijke Zuid-Nederlandse Maatschappij voor Taal-, Letterkunde en Geschiedenis, 68 (2014), 139–52. 2 Violet Soen and others, ‘How to do Transregional History: A Concept, Method, and Tool for Early Modern Border Research’, Journal of Early Modern History, 21.3 (2017), 343–64. 3 Rainer Walz, Stände und frühmoderner Staat: Die Landstände von Jülich-Berg im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Neustadt an der Aisch: Ph. C. W. Schmidt, 1982). Transregional Territories: Crossing Borders in the Early Modern Low Countries and Beyond, ed. by Bram De Ridder, Violet Soen, Werner Thomas, and Sophie Verreyken, HW 2 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 139–159.

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used in them, but has written a descriptive history of the cooperation and antagonism between the duke and the nobility. Crucial for this chapter’s transregional approach, some of the pamphlets addressed to local Jülich nobility also appeared in Dutch. Local Jülich nobility were aware of the political concerns and interests that rulers across the borders had about Jülich and maintained a variety of cross-border relations, especially with the Dutch Republic. In 1605–1606, the Spanish Habsburg commander Ambrogio Spinola Doria, Marquis of the Balbases, invaded the Dutch Republic by crossing the Rhine. This Italian general, serving in a Spanish command, had shown that the United Provinces were most vulnerable along their eastern flank and that a force could invade by crossing the rivers along this front. Therefore, the Dutch Republic had a legitimate cause for concern about the situation in neighbouring German territories such as Jülich.4 In order to deal with this cross-border interaction, the chapter is divided into four parts. The first part explains the escalation of the antagonism between the nobility and the duke in the Duchy of Jülich, while the second shows how the nobility preferred to meet outside Jülich’s jurisdiction in Cologne. The third section reveals how the nobles used German broadsheets to defend their decision. Finally, the text demonstrates that some of these broadsheets appeared in Dutch, highlighting that the Jülich situation had indeed become a matter of transregional and cross-border concern.

Political Escalation between the Duke and his Nobility, 1642–1655 The Duchy of Jülich was a small principality situated at the Rhine river, and formed a part of the Lower Rhine Area (Niederrheingebiet). Geographically, it had the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands and Dutch Republic to its west, and the rest of the Holy Roman Empire to the east.5 With only approximately 275,000 inhabitants, its significance came from its natural resources: agriculture, coal mining, and the textile-industry made the area relatively rich.6 Consequently, the region was of great interest to the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, the Dutch Republic, and a number of other regions in the western Holy Roman Empire. In order to understand its interconnectedness with other regions and



4 Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477–1806 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), p. 407; Walter Isaacson, Geschichte des niederrheinisch-westfälischen Kreises von 1648–1667 (Dinslaken: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität, 1933), p. 14; Franz Petri and Georg Droege, Rheinische Geschichte. Band 2: Neuzeit (Düsseldorf: Schwann, 1976), p. 95. 5 Ulrike Tornow, Die Verwaltung der Jülich-Bergischen Landsteuern während der Regierungszeit des Pfalzgrafen Wolfgang Wilhelm (1609–1653) (Bonn: Rheinische Friedrich-WilhelmsUniversität, 1974), p. 22. 6 Heribert Smolinsky, ‘Jülich-Kleve-Berg’, in Die Territorien des Reichs im Zeitalter der Reformation und Konfessionalisierung: Land und Konfession, 1500–1650, ed. by Anton Schindling (Münster: Aschendorff, 1991), pp. 86–106 (p. 89).

Fig. 6.1 Iuliacensis et Montensis Ducatus = De Hertoghdomen Gulick en Berghe, (Amsterdam: Wilhelm Janszoon Blaeu, 1635) (© Norman B. Leventhal Map Center at the Boston Public Library)

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the vested interests they had, I will start by describing the history preceding the political escalation in the 1640s, focussing on the War of Succession Jülich was dragged into just prior to the Thirty Years’ War. Through the process of dynastic marriage, the duchy came to form a personal union with the Duchy of Cleves, the Duchy of Berg, and the Counties of Mark and Ravensberg. From 1592 until 1609, these areas were jointly ruled by Duke Johann Wilhelm. Despite his two marriages, the duke remained without an heir; after his death a war of succession broke out between several aspiring new dukes.7 Wolfgang Wilhelm of Palatinate-Neuburg (a cousin), Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg (a grand-cousin), and Johann Georg I, Prince-Elector of Saxony, were among the pretenders. As Jülich was situated on the route between the Low Countries and the Holy Roman Empire and thus of great importance to troops and trade, the Dutch Republic, the Holy Roman Emperor, but also England, Sweden and France were keen to see who would succeed in this dynastic struggle.8 The struggle contained its fair share of violence, but warfare eventually ceased as negotiations between the pretenders led to a system of joint-rule between the House of Palatinate and the House of Brandenburg. Saxony did not join in, as its claim was too weak. The provisional Treaty of Xanten (12 November 1614) sealed this deal, which the English, the Dutch, and the Spanish, who all pledged to uphold this treaty, carefully helped to arrange. Initially, the local nobility acknowledged both Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm of Palatinate-Neuburg, and Prince-Elector Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg, as possessierenden (from: posterität), or heirs of the land, but did not consider them official rulers.9 They were de facto, not de jure, rulers. This unique agreement between the two princes directly resulted from a lack of Imperial approval. The treaty was a provisional agreement dividing the government of the lands; it did not divide the dynastic agglomerate, since this would go against the older Imperial Privilegium Unionis (Unification Privilege) from





7 Wilhelm Janssen, Kleine Rheinische Geschichte (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1997), pp. 189–92. 8 Hans-Wolfgang Bergerhausen, ‘Der Jülich-Klevische Erbfolgestreit: Diplomatische Verhandlungen und Verträge’, in Der Jülich-Klevische Erbstreit 1609: Seine Voraussetzungen und Folgen, ed. by Manfred Groten, Clemens von Looz-Corswarem, and Wilfried Reiningshaus (Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag, 2011), pp. 55–68 (p. 56); Stefan Wagner, Staatssteuern in Jülich-Berg von der Schaffung der Steuerverfassung im 15. Jahrhundert bis zur Auflösung der Herzogtümer in den Jahren 1801 und 1806, Kölner Vorträge und Abhandlungen zur Sozial- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, 27 (Cologne: n. pub., 1977), pp. 63–64; Peter H. Wilson, From Reich to Revolution: German History, 1558–1806 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), pp. 115 and 187. 9 Johann Christian Lünig, Das Teutsche Reichs-Archiv, und zwar Pars specialis nebst dessen I.II. III. Vnd IV. Continuation […]. Dritter Theil, Der Vierdten Abtheilung, Dritter Absatz (Leipzig: Lünig, 1713), pp. 82–86; Petri and Droege, Rheinische Geschichte, pp. 109–11; Ronald G. Asch, The Thirty Years War: The Holy Roman Empire and Europe, 1618–1648 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997), pp. 26–34.

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1546.10 While the proposed joint-government was meant to avoid additional conflict, it notably failed, as it did not put an end to religious tensions within the region. Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg, a Calvinist, wanted freedom of religion, whereas Wolfgang Wilhelm, a Catholic, did not.11 One could summarize this issue as a conflict of interest between how each leader, both of whom had recently changed faith, thought that the principalities and their churches should be run. Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm, for example, accepted the influence of the local bishops, whereas Duke Georg Wilhelm as Calvinist obviously did not.12 Despite agreeing on co-ruling the entire Lower Rhine Area, the de facto situation resulted in a distinct separation of government. This was particularly true for matters of religion, as the two princes never saw eye to eye, causing them to comment on the other’s policies, while seeking to actively intervene when necessary. Additionally, ever since the start of the Thirty Years’ War in 1618, troops travelling eastwards to join in the fight plundered Jülich as they passed through the region. In fact, the whole Lower Rhine Area had become a passageway for troops coming from and going to the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, turning it into a key strategic borderland. This inspired the Catholic Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm to assemble his Landtag three times (1624, 1625, and 1633); the nobility did not even attend the last meeting. The duke’s reason to meet centred on his need for taxes in order to protect the principality, as taxation remained illegal without the nobility’s explicit consent. The nobility requested an Imperial intervention through the Reichskammergericht (Aulic or Imperial Chamber Court) in Vienna. Indeed, the court reprimanded the duke with a penal mandate (1627), in which it addressed the requisitioning of taxes. Conversely, the court did not punish the duke, who was present in Vienna, but only warned him to not repeat these activities. This evasion of the verdict did not please the nobility and added to their negative opinion concerning the usefulness of bringing matters to the court. To make things worse, Imperial commander Guillaume de Lamboy stationed his troops in the south of Jülich during the autumn of 1640. Meanwhile, Hessian troops, with the support of the French, had settled in the north. Hoping to maintain a pre-existing neutrality pact, Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm agreed to pay a monthly fee to the Hessian troops in order to keep them away. Unfortunately, this agreement did not bolster neutrality, but made the situation worse: the

10 Lünig, Das Teutsche Reichs-Archiv, pp. 82–86; Clemens von Looz-Corswarem, ‘Der Düsseldorfer Kuhkrieg 1651’, in Fürsten, Macht und Krieg: Der Jülich-Klevische Erbfolgestreit, ed. by Sigrid Kleinbongartz (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2014), pp. 90–129. 11 Jörg Engelbrecht, Landesgeschichte Nordrhein-Westfalen (Stuttgart: Ulmer, 1994), p. 155. 12 Klaus Jaitner, Die Konfessionspolitik des Pfalzgrafen Philipp Wilhelm von Neuburg in Jülich-Berg von 1647–1679, Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, 107 (Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1973), pp. 69–76.

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Duchy of Jülich and the Duchy of Berg paid 36,000 and 24,000 Reichstaler respectively each year.13 In addition to the presence of armed forces and the aforementioned financial impediments, three other reasons exist for both the increasingly difficult living conditions in Jülich and the local nobility’s rising discontent. First, in 1642, Emperor Ferdinand III came to the belief that the principalities of Jülich and Berg needed the protective presence of his Imperial troops — at their expense, of course. Until 1640, the Lower Rhine Area had been of special interest to the emperor because he used it to control the western part of the Holy Roman Empire and the border-areas with both the Dutch Republic and Spanish Habsburg Netherlands.14 Secondly, the emperor heavily burdened his subjects in the principalities with taxes, the billeting of soldiers, and theft.15 Furthermore, he held the offending nobles hostage when payments were either late or not fully made and did not release them until they paid their debts. Lastly, the nobility of Jülich and Berg objected to the duke’s policies and blamed him for the resulting trouble, which led to them meeting to discuss their principality’s welfare. They claimed that Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm had submitted to the demands of the Hessian landgravine Amalie Elisabeth and had thus forced ‘his’ people to pay the price and suffer the consequences. In reaction, Imperial commander Lamboy pointed out that the duke may not have been acting in the best interest of the inhabitants of his principality.16 This was a reference to the earlier mentioned War of Succession (1609–1614), in which Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm, a Catholic, had taken control of the principalities of Jülich and Berg. Though the local inhabitants regarded him as a possessierender, they did not necessarily see him as their de jure lord, since the emperor did not acknowledge the succession. Lamboy’s comment thus corresponded to the negative feelings people already held towards Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm.

Assemblies of Noblemen in Cologne When the armed forces left the provinces in 1642, local nobles called a meeting to discuss their internal affairs.17 Surprisingly, they did not meet in Jülich, but convened in Cologne’s Dominican convent on Saturday 8 November. They discussed their principality’s hardships and the Landstände considered it their

13 Günter Engelbert, ‘Der Hessenkrieg am Niederrhein (1. Teil)’, Annalen des historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein, 161 (1959), 65–113 (p. 69). 14 Günter Engelbert, ‘Der Hessenkrieg am Niederrhein (2. Teil)’, Annalen des historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein, 162 (1960), 35–96 (p. 38). 15 Engelbert, ‘Der Hessenkrieg am Niederrhein (1. Teil)’, p. 76. 16 Engelbert, ‘Der Hessenkrieg am Niederrhein (1. Teil)’, p. 68. 17 Engelbert, ‘Der Hessenkrieg am Niederrhein (2. Teil)’, p. 57.

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duty to do whatever they could to protect it.18 The nobility met outside of the duke’s jurisdiction to avoid his interference. This shows that they were aware of jurisdictional separation and deliberately crossed borders to organize undisturbed assemblies.19 The nobles planned to debate the duke’s expenditure on court, household and war, as he expected his common subjects to pay for it. The meeting’s convenors believed that these financial problems greatly burdened and oppressed Jülich and Berg. Hence, the nobles urged other noblemen to attend and reminded them that they would be discussing the problematic financial situation regarding the Hessian army.20 One concrete result from this November meeting was that the nobility appointed Sigismund Mockel as a syndic who would thereafter represent them and safeguard the nobility’s interests.21 By 1643, the city of Düren had suffered enough damage that everyday life had become difficult. As in 1642, the nobility decided to meet once again to discuss their problems, with the understanding that they should work to reduce Düren’s burdens.22 They sought to address the principality’s overall prosperity (German: Wohlfahrt) during the next assembly in Cologne on 2 May 1643.23 Logically, the debate would centre on how they could improve this prosperity.24 Following the assembly, they issued a pamphlet containing a number of grievances about the duke’s behaviour. The nobility wrote that on 29 November of the previous year and 28 March of the current year, Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm had requisitioned taxes and duties.25 They further stated that the duke’s failure to consult them caused disappointment, as the levying of any resources required their consent. Moreover, the duke’s cold-hearted treatment of their lands clearly incensed the nobility, as he left their provinces in a desolate situation that allowed for pillaging, the theft of resources, and the plundering and looting of towns, castles, and villages. He burdened the region’s poor inhabitants with billeting his soldiers and impoverished them through taxes and contributions. Many left their homes, hoping to escape these perils of warfare and entrusted their lives to foreign princes.26 When the nobles wrote their critique, they had just experienced another round of illegal taxations in March. On 9 August 1644, the nobility met yet again and debated the issues arising from the war. In contrast to their previous meetings, the central issue was not

18 Duisburg, Landesarchiv Nordrhein–Westfalen, Jülicher Landstände ( JL), Akten 39, 29 October 1642 (one-page leaflet, printed). 19 Soen and others, ‘How to do Transregional History’, passim. 20 JL Akten 39, 9 November 1642. 21 JL Akten 39, 9 November 1642. 22 JL Akten 39, 8 January 1643. 23 JL Akten 39, 18 April 1643 (printed). 24 JL Akten 39, 18 April 1643 (printed). 25 JL Akten 39, 6 May 1643, p. 1 (printed). 26 JL Akten 39, 6 May 1643, p. 1 (printed), pp. 2–3.

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illegal taxation, but the billeting of soldiers and the problems it caused for the city of Düren. The nobility believed that it was their duty to both relieve the town’s inhabitants from the burdensome taxes, while also maintaining sufficient government revenue. Therefore, they suggested an alternative plan: the clergy, and perhaps even the nobility, should also have to pay taxes.27 On 13 August 1644, the nobility presented an account of the burdens experienced by the disgruntled and distressed inhabitants of the Duchy of Jülich: high taxes that the Imperial government forcefully imposed.28 Moreover, they again stressed that the taxes were illegitimate because the Landstände had not consented to them. Importantly, they also made a reference to the soldateska, rather than the soldiers, on this same date.29 This represented more than a passing reference to the armed forces. As Peter Wilson explains, soldateska had a violent and negative connotation, and referred specifically to lawless soldiers.30 The nobility asked that all commanding officers were asked to help prevent these foreign soldiers from harassing the treasurer, while they accused the commanding officers of lacking control over their soldiers. Many people had already left the principality of Jülich due to the violence. A document published on 12 September 1644 pointed out the direct link between local violence and emigration.31 After losing their homes and goods, some people entered the armed service, supposedly on the grounds that there was nothing left to lose. This troubled the nobility of Jülich, as local farmers consequently abandoned their farmland. Although they considered taking up arms in defence of the Holy Roman Empire an important purpose, the nobility concluded that people should be deterred from making this choice. The Imperial government addressed the complaints concerning the soldateska in the following year. In early January 1645, a field marshal of the Imperial forces stated that he had received a number of complaints regarding his soldiers crossing the Duchy of Jülich’s borders.32 With this choice of words, the marshal implied that his forces consisted of disciplined men.33 He also noted that all of the complaints occurred after an increase in the monthly contributions caused the previous fee of 3145 Reichstaler to rise to 5000 Reichstaler.34 When soldiers went to collect this new fee, several 27 JL Akten 40, 9 August 1644. 28 JL Akten 40, 13 August 1644, one-page leaflet (print): the Landstände of Jülich’s reaction to the emperor’s request. 29 JL Akten 40, 13 Augustus 1644, one-page leaflet (print). 30 Peter H. Wilson, Europe’s Tragedy: A New History of the Thirty Years War (London: Penguin, 2010), p. 623. 31 JL Akten 40, 12 August 1644: one-page leaflet (print): the Imperial Chancellery inviting people to defend the Holy Roman Empire. 32 JL Akten 40, 4 January 1645. 33 Wilson, Europe’s Tragedy, p. 623. 34 JL Akten 40, no date: ‘Extract Assignationem de Anno 1644’ states that officials had to collect 3145 Reichstaler per month, which amounted to a total of 18,349 Reichstaler for the year, inclusive of January 1645.

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allegedly extorted money and goods from local inhabitants. The government had reportedly punished these malefactors and ordered all other soldiers to leave the people, their lands, and their goods untouched. Of course, the government would still collect the monthly fees, but the army would now leave the inhabitants alone. By the end of 1646, the Landstände assembled yet again. According to the summons for this particular meeting, the agenda included the need to discuss the presence of enemy troops and the heavy burdens that accompanied them, even though many of these had already been enumerated early that year.35 Based on this earlier pamphlet, published by the emperor’s War Council on 26 November in Siegburg, the origins of the problems were rather obvious. The pamphlet explained that soldiers and other military men should be content to sleep in houses, and should not demand unfair means of accommodation, i.e. they could not requisition additional property.36 The common inhabitants in Jülich made monthly payments, set to a varying amount of Reichstalers each month, to support the officers of the Imperial troops. Additionally, they billeted soldiers in their houses. All of these aggravating circumstances, when combined with the army’s presence, constituted a heavy burden that was too great for local subjects to bear. Thus, it was the most significant topic on the agenda during the nobility’s deliberations on 8 January 1647.37 In the years that followed, the Landstände frequently met in Cologne and published numerous related pamphlets. Every single one of the assemblies addressed the troubles caused by warfare or taxation. In both October and December of 1647, the nobles assembled in Cologne.38 They discussed the presence of the marauding Hessian army during the latter meeting, and consequently called the ‘patriots’ to attend, as the region’s welfare depended on the results of this council. The explicit use of the word ‘fatherland’ seems to indicate the importance of both the meeting and the nobility’s presence. On the one hand, it is striking that the nobility stressed the well-being of the ‘fatherland’ and the threat posed by foreign troops, while, on the other hand, they did not discount the possibility of assistance from the Dutch Republic, even though that would involve the presence of even more troops. Although the nobility did not request support from Jülich’s Dutch neighbours, they also did not actively reject the Republic’s interference. In order to comply with their ‘patriotic’ titles and notions of the ‘fatherland’, they would accept any available help in an attempt to prevent the duke from overstepping the boundaries of his office. As such, the contributions to be paid to both the

35 36 37 38

JL Akten 41, 26 November 1646; JL Akten 41, 23 December 1646. JL Akten 41, 26 November 1646. JL Akten 41, 23 December 1646. JL Akten 43, 1 October 1647; JL Akten 43, 7 December 1647.

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Hessian and Imperial armies remained a concern that the nobles frequently discussed throughout the year.39 On 18 May 1648, the nobility issued another invitation calling for all ‘loyal patriots’ to join in an assembly on 8 June.40 The purpose of this meeting was to discuss the Imperial commission that had been assembled to inspect the area. A short pamphlet published in October informed the assembly’s members that the commission would send representatives to their upcoming meeting on 4 November.41 On 21 November, the Imperial government issued a notice that relieved the Landstände from its duty: a peace treaty had finally been signed in the city of Münster that ended the Thirty Years’ War.42 In many parts of the Empire, the Treaty of Westphalia indeed brought peace and tranquillity. It also took away the possibility of waging another war in order to regain lost lands, forcing rulers to focus on their own fiefs, (re)establish balance, and create a new modus vivendi that would respect the balance between the different (religious) groups.43 The various princes of the Holy Roman Empire had to acknowledge that the Landstände still held power, and, with the formal restoration of old privileges, they were likely stronger now than they had been before or during the war.44 The main disadvantage for Jülich’s nobility was that the occupying Swedish and Hesse-Cassel armies would have to be paid a large sum to leave the duchy. Nonetheless, they were content with the peace treaty, as it was generally beneficial to their fatherland.45 At their next assembly, they would further discuss the consequences of the Peace of Westphalia. Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm was also pleased with the outcome of the negotiations in the Treaty of Westphalia. In early December, he wrote that the war was officially over.46 One can assume that the end of the war meant a reduction in internal tensions, as the foreign armies were preparing to leave. However, the peace treaty stipulated that Jülich and Berg provide six payments of at least 100,000 Reichstaler to the Hessian and Swedish troops before they would leave. The duke appears to have realized that, despite the peace treaty, this large sum would have made his subjects unhappy and that they would not be keen to contribute. Taxation had previously caused tension and fuelled heated dissent throughout the war, making this latest tariff seem paradoxical. Furthermore, the war had taken its toll on the population, causing

39 See, for example: JL Akten 43, August 1647; JL Akten 43, September 1647. Both documents have calculations on how to reach 10,600 Reichstaler; JL Akten 43, 16 December 1647: discussing the contributions of 1648; JL Akten 43, December 1647, reaching 10,600 Reichstalers. 40 Walz, Stände und frühmoderner Staat, p. 114; JL Akten 44, 18 May 1648. 41 JL Akten 44, 14 October 1648. 42 JL Akten 44, 21 November 1648. 43 Isaacson, Geschichte des niederrheinisch-westfälischen Kreises, p. 9. 44 Isaacson, Geschichte des niederrheinisch-westfälischen Kreises, p. 11. 45 JL Akten 44, 21 November 1648. 46 JL Akten 44, 4 December 1648.

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the number of inhabitants to shrink by roughly one-fifth (21.8 per cent).47 On the one hand, the duke realized the delicate nature of demanding taxes; on the other hand, the treaty directed him to pay off the foreign troops. In late January 1649, Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm expressed his sincere regrets that his god-fearing loyal subjects would have to suffer for a bit longer, as the Hessian army would extend its stay if the region’s inhabitants did not pay in a timely manner.48 According to two pamphlets written in April and May 1649, the Swedes would leave as soon as they started to receive their money.49 Since the hostilities had ended, the Landstände expressed their hopes that the inhabitants would not suffer too much from this last round of taxes. This issue may have caused the duke to attempt reconciliation with the nobility. Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm acknowledged that the Landstände had loyally focused on Jülich’s well-being and prosperity, and therefore deserved to meet together and thoroughly discuss matters.50 He humbly asked them to attend the next assembly in February in order to advise him on what to do to improve the principality’s prosperity.51 This development is significant, as the duke appears to acknowledge the sincerity of both the Landstände’s motives and the words it used to pursue its aims. In the meantime, however, Jülich’s inhabitants still had to deal with the presence of foreign forces and pay them their remaining monthly fees. During this period, Imperial marshal Lamboy also received letters expressing grievances concerning the soldiers’ misbehaviour. In return for the regular monetary contributions, Lamboy promised to resolve this problem.52 Three days later, a letter informed the inhabitants of the Lower Rhine principalities that Lamboy had attempted to remove the Swedish army, or at least a part of the force in order to decrease the financial burdens.53 Despite previous invitations and joint assemblies, Jülich’s Landtag, which had not met for over a decade, did not officially convene until 4 August 1649. With the duke in attendance, the assembly presented a substantial number of grievances.54 To prevent disruption and delays, the representatives requested that complaints be prepared and submitted prior to the next Landtag (scheduled for 1651). The nobility complied and sent their grievances in writing. In 1651, the tensions between Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm and his cousin, Georg Wilhelm 47 Based on Tornow, Die Verwaltung der Jülich-Bergischen Landsteuern, p. 22. 48 JL Akten 45, 24 January 1649; Michael Kaiser, ‘Überleben im Krieg — Leben mit dem Krieg: Zum Alltagsgeschichte des Dreißigjährigen Krieges in den niederrheinischen Territorien’, in Der Dreiβigjährige Krieg im Herzogtum Berg und in seinen Nachbarregionen: Quellen und Forschungen zur bergischen Geschichte, Kunst und Literatur, ed. by Stefan Ehrenpreis, Bergische Forschungen, 28 (Neustadt an der Aisch: Philipp Schmidt, 2002), pp. 181–233. 49 JL Akten 49, 26 April 1649; JL Akten 49, 31 May 1649 (printed). 50 JL Akten 45, 24 January 1649. 51 JL Akten 45, 24 January 1649. 52 JL Akten 45, 5 May 1649. 53 JL Akten 45, 8 May 1649. 54 JL Akten 49, 6 January 1651 (printed).

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Prince-Elector of Brandenburg, had reignited over religious issues. The duke had allegedly been violating the rights of Protestants and his cousin considered it necessary to intervene by sending armed forces across the borders of Berg and Jülich. This skirmish became known as the War of the Cows (1651).55

German Pamphlets Calling for ‘Patriotism’ The letters sent out to noblemen inviting them to join the assemblies held in Cologne were one-page leaflets that stressed the importance of these meetings for the region’s welfare.56 Moreover, only ‘loyal patriots’ would receive these invitations. This reiterative terminology highlighted loyalty to the principality rather than to the prince whose policy they considered problematic. Thus, the ruler could neither object to such a focus, nor accuse the users of rebellion.57 These invitations appeared with a certain regularity; whenever troubles arose in Jülich and the nobility felt they needed to discuss these matters, they called for a meeting. As a rule, this happened about twice a year. The proceedings of only a few meetings have survived, however, meaning that most subjects remain unknown. Luckily, pamphlets exist for several of the meetings. These texts give a fairly good idea of at least some of the topics that the nobles discussed in Cologne and they perceived Jülich’s contemporary political situation. On 18 April 1643, officials in Cologne printed a one-page pamphlet and distributed it among possibly interested ‘patriots’.58 Those that joined became ‘(loyal) patriots’, since they accepted the duty of protecting the fatherland. It is important to note that this represented only a small group of people, who used this opportunity to define a role for themselves that prevented any association with rebellion.59 Following this assembly, the nobles issued a pamphlet containing a number of grievances concerning the duke’s behaviour.60 What did the term ‘fatherland’ mean? The nobility appears to understand the word as a synonym for the Duchy of Jülich. In their written accounts, however, it becomes clear that they use it to refer to the area in which both they and their ancestors had lived at the time of writing. This seems to coincide with Jülich’s jurisdiction, though many noblemen could have also had possessions in Cleves, 55 This war will be addressed in the section on pamphlets. 56 See, for instance: JL Akten 39, 18 April 1643 (printed). 57 Christel Annemieke Romein, ‘Fatherland Rhetoric and the “Threat of Absolutism”: HesseCassel and the Reichskammergericht (1646–1655)’, The Seventeenth Century, 29 (2014), 277–92 (p. 287). 58 See JL Akten 39, 8 January 1643. 59 Christel Annemieke Romein, ‘Vaterland, patria und Patriot in den Rechtsangelegenheiten Hessen-Kassels (1647–1655)’, in Prozessakten, Parteien, Partikularinteressen Höchstgerichtsbarkeit in der Mitte Europas vom 15. bis 19. Jahrhundert, ed. by Alexander Denzler, Ellen Franke, and Britta Schneider, Bibliothek altes Reich, 17 (Oldenbourg: De Gruyter, 2015), pp. 117–36 (p. 117–18). 60 JL Akten 39, 18 April 1643 (printed).

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Mark, Berg, and Ravensberg. A strict separation between these principalities, however, does not seem to have existed: first, Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm and Georg Wilhelm Prince-Elector of Brandenburg jointly ruled over all of these areas; secondly, the nobility frequently held joint assemblies with those in Berg. The arguments produced in a German pamphlet — issued in May 1643 — accused Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm of serious violations concerning liberty, noble privileges, law, and justice.61 By means of this pamphlet, the nobility not only objected to these violations, but also made them publicly known. Since most people perceived the requisitioning of taxation as illegal, the nobility argued that nobody should have to pay them.62 In the summer of 1643, Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm expressed his commitment to the principality and its inhabitants, not only because of his lineage, but also on the basis of written traditions. He was obliged to take care of his lands with ‘fatherly’ precaution.63 We do not know how his subjects received his pledge, although there is little evidence showing any actual change in his behaviour in the years following his supposed recommitment. Two years later, on 3 March 1645, a pamphlet was printed in the city of Cologne.64 A hand-written version of the pamphlet is still available in the Akten der Jülicher Landstände and appears to be an exact copy.65 This text, a collective endeavour from the representatives of Jülich and Berg, explicitly refers to the tense relationship between the duke and the Landstände. This specific pamphlet deals with two particular issues: taxation without the nobility’s consent and the duke’s assumed motives. In February 1645, Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm had once again requested that taxes be collected without the nobility’s consent. As in the past, they accused the duke of illicit behaviour and quoted Imperial rulings that specifically referenced the nobility’s privileges. The continuous violations of their rights irritated the nobility and caused them to use the pamphlet to show that the duke had falsely enabled a mandatory levy that they had not agreed upon in advance.66 In addition to the unlawful nature of both the taxes and the coercion of the subjects into paying them, the nobles accused Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm of repeatedly going against Imperial decisions and seriously harming the participality’s and inhabitants’ interests. It was obvious that the requisitioning 61 62 63 64

JL Akten 39, 6 May 1643, p 6. JL Akten 39, 6 May 1643, p 7. JL Akten 39, 2 August 1643 (printed in Cologne, two-side leaflet). JL Akten 40, (pamphlet) Wiederholte Gerreive Warnung Der Gülich: und Bergischer Landtstände Wieder Ihre Fürstl. Durchl. Pfalz Newburg sub da to Düsseldorff 4. Februarij oneingewilligte einfettig auβgeschriebene anmaβliche Steuer Geldere Im Jahr 1645 (Cologne, 3 March 1645). Romein, ‘Gulik: dynastieke belangen, oorlog en welvaart’, pp. 139–52. 65 JL Akten 40, (handwritten) Wiederholte Gerreive Warnung Der Gülich- und Bergischer Landtstände Wieder Ihre Fürstl. Durchl. Pfalz Newburg sub da to Düsseldorff 4. Februarij oneingewilligte einfettig auβgeschriebene anmaβliche Steuer Geldere Im Jahr 1645 (Cologne, 3 March 1645). 66 JL Akten 40, 3 March 1645, pp. 3–4.

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went beyond what the Landstände could condone. According to the claimants, the duke clearly used the deployment of soldiers as a means of exacting payment of the compulsory taxes from his subjects.67 These harmful actions troubled the nobility, leading them to speak against the duke’s politics out of ‘patriotic’ feeling, regional affection, and a desire to protect their beloved ‘fatherland’.68 While they also mentioned that the principality was the duke’s rightful inheritance (Posterität), they used earlier references to show that they considered him to be a de facto ruler and not a de jure prince, even in 1645.69 The nobility used the pamphlet to construct an image of trustworthiness and their line of argumentation, in which they repeatedly showed the duke’s illicit actions and the harm done to the people of Jülich, helped to substantiate this claim. They did not explicitly say that the duke was untrustworthy, as this would have been slander. Subtle claims, with a strong focus on the love for the ‘fatherland’, shifted the focus and created a positive image of the nobility, or the self-proclaimed ‘patriots’, and left the duke’s possible negative counter-image open for interpretation. This measured approach, however, would not last, as the nobility came to believe that the duke violated traditions, procedures, and agreements which had been made by his ancestors. The nobility eventually attacked Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm on a far more personal level, even questioning his motive, going as far as articulating the belief that the duke’s actions constituted an attempt to establish an absolutus dominatus.70 Thus, they claimed that the ambitious duke sought to arbitrarily rule over the principalities and was using office-holders to harm his subjects. According to Alexander Schmidt, a situation such as the one perpetrated by Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm, who risked becoming a tyrant, justified the defence of the patria.71 By the end of 1646, the Landstände deemed it necessary to assemble. According to the summons for this particular meeting, the agenda included the need to discuss the presence of enemy troops and the heavy financial burden that they imposed upon the populace.72 On 16 January 1647, representatives received a fourteen-page text issued in the principality of Cleves.73 Written by Friedrich Wilhelm Prince-Elector of Brandenburg, who had succeeded his father a few years earlier, the text shows the prince-elector’s renewed interested in the adjacent principalities and expresses his understanding of the troubled situation and the heavy contributions that the local population had to pay.74 Moreover, this short work appears to have undermined the policy

67 68 69 70 71

JL Akten 40, 3 March 1645, pp. 7–9. JL Akten 40, 3 March 1645, pp. 4–7. JL Akten 40, 3 March 1645, pp. 5 and 7. JL Akten 40, 3 March 1645, p. 6. Alexander Schmidt, Vaterlandsliebe und Religionskonflikt: Politische Diskurse im Alten Reich (1555–1648) (Leiden: Brill, 2007), p. 67. 72 JL Akten 41, 23 December 1646. 73 JL Akten 42, 16 January 1647 (handwritten). 74 JL Akten 42, 16 January 1647: fol. 3v.

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of the prince-elector’s distant cousin, Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm, and could be viewed as a prelude for more serious interventions in 1651.

Dutch Pamphlets A month later, in February 1647, the nobility of Jülich and Berg met in Cologne to prepare themselves for an upcoming joint-assembly with the duke.75 Remarkably, only ten days after the invitation to the meeting had been issued, someone printed a pamphlet in Dutch with a title that referred to the 1496 unification of the Duchies of Jülich, Cleves, Berg, Mark, and the County of Ravensberg.76 Emperor Maximilian I had accepted this unification. The pamphlet used this context to explain that the current duke acted in violation of the second estate’s (the nobility) privileges, mentioning that these privileges and their consequent responsibilities had been traditionally respected by all parties involved and viewed as both beneficial and indispensable. It also referenced the unification of the Landstände of the various principalities into a single body, which pledged itself to maintaining this cooperation. Though issued in Dutch, a German version must have been available at the time, although it is not currently extant. The text seems to have been written to portray the Dutch as the nobility’s sworn ally and to encourage them to uphold the Treaty of Xanten. Based on other pamphlets from Spain, France, and Naples, such cross-border texts were used as a desperate attempt to involve allies in internal politics, making it likely that this pamphlet functioned in a similar way.77 While Spain, France, and Naples had no opportunity to take matters to a supranational court, meaning that requesting foreign aid represented the sole means of support for most pamphlet writers, the Reichskammergericht performed this function for the principalities and Imperial cities within the Holy Roman Empire. While the nobility of Jülich could thus have opted to take matters to any of the Imperial courts, it seems they made a deliberate choice not to do so. They opted for publishing pamphlets and distributing them across the border, thereby involving their allies in an effort to increase the pressure on Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm. In 1627, the nobility had brought a matter of illegal taxation to court; the duke received a penalty and the threat that this would happen again if he continued to act out of line.78 However, the court suspended the initial fine

75 JL Akten 42, 5 February 1647. 76 JL Akten 42, 15 February 1647; Erf-Vereenige der Landtstenden uyt Ridderschap ende Steeden der Hartog­dommen Gulick, Cleve, Berge, ende der Graefschappen, Marck ende Ravensperg (n.p.: n. pub., 1647), described in Willem P. C. Knuttel, Catalogus van de pamfletten-verzameling berustende in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 9 vols (The Hague: Algemeene Landsdrukkerij, 1889–1920), i-2 (1889), no. 4211. 77 Rosario Villari, The Revolt of Naples (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993). 78 Walz, Stände und frühmoderner Staat, p. 43.

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due to Wolfgang Wilhelm’s Imperial standing. This disappointing action, in combination with the long wait time due to the many cases presented at court resulting from the chaos surrounding the Thirty Years’ War, must have influenced the nobility’s decision to not go to court. On 20 April 1647 someone published another Dutch-language pamphlet that further voiced the people’s discontent with the duke’s politics.79 This pamphlet, likely created in the Dutch Republic, focused on two arguments. First, it stated that the duke had violated existing agreements, noting that the Reichskammergericht had already highlighted this fact. The pamphleteer also claimed that the fact that the Duke of ‘Nieuborgh’ (Neuburg) had not called an assembly with the Landstände of his principalities provided additional support to his thesis, as the absence of such an assembly legally resulted in a violation of existing treaties. Furthermore, the pamphlet referenced the years 1609 and 1627. In 1609, the Dutch Republic had helped the two Protestant princes conclude the Treaty of Xanten. In the latter year, the Reichskammergericht had published the mandatum poenale: a sentence that stated that the duke had violated his former agreements. The Dutch pamphlet scrutinized the mandatum and pointed to further instances of the duke violating existing agreements. Secondly, the Remonstrants did not enjoy religious freedom. Religion was once again becoming an issue due to the succession of Prince-Elector Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg in the principalities of Cleves and Mark in 1640. This young Protestant ruler had more pronounced ideas regarding the obligation to protect his fellow-believers and actively courted the Dutch Republic for aid.80 For all of the aforementioned reasons, and particularly the promises made to uphold the Treaty of Xanten, the Dutch Republic readied its garrisons in the cities of Wesel, Emmerik, Rees, Rheinberg, and Orsoy in early 1647.81 Half a year later, the Dutch Estates-General was apparently still not convinced that the duke was living up to the agreements.82 In addition to the initial troops deployed earlier that same year, the Estates-General placed Gennep, Ravenstein, Schenkenschans, Nijmegen, Bredevoort, and Grol (Groenlo) on the highest level of alert.

79 JL Akten 42, 20 April 1647; Aenmaning schrijvens van de Hooghmogende Heeren Staten Generael der vereenigde Nederlanden. Aen den deurluchtigen heer hartog van Nyborgh, &c (The Hague, n. pub., 1647), described in Knuttel, Catalogus, i-2 (1889), no. 4302. Also analysed in Romein, ‘Gulik: dynastieke belangen, oorlog en welvaart’, p. 147. 80 Olaf Richter, ‘Und die Klugheit hört nicht auf Klugheit zu sein, wenn ihr ein Tröpschen Trug beigemischt wird: Das Patent des brandenburgischen Kurfürsten Friedrich Wilhelm zur jülich-klevischen Erbfrage von 1654’, Düsseldorfer Jahrbuch, 90 (2010), 15–29. Note: with the death of Stadtholder William II (1626–1650) and the commencement of the ‘True Freedom’, the plans to help Brandenburg were put on hold until the year 1655. 81 JL Akten 42, 20 April 1647; Aenmaning schrijvens van de Hooghmogende Heeren Staten Generael der vereenigde Nederlanden, p. 6. A handwritten version is also available in JL Akten 42, 20 April 1647. 82 JL Akten 43, 28 September 1647; The Hague, Nationaal Archief, 1.01.02 file 3253, p. 543; and 1.01.02 file 98.

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In 1651, the duke and the prince-elector fought the War of the Cows. On 3 April 1651, Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm agitatedly remarked that the Dutch Republic and some Reformed people had threatened and abducted Catholic clergymen.83 These actions displeased the duke and he feared for the well-being of his Catholic subjects, especially the clergy. He considered the non-Catholic inhabitants of Jülich as agitators, especially since locals grouped them with the Reformed soldiers who had disturbed masses. On 13 June, someone published a pamphlet claiming to be a Dutch translation of a German original, and with a title that questioned why Prince-Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg had invaded Jülich and Berg and occupied a few towns. The invasion took place a few days later. This document was a response to two earlier texts from Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm and explained the motives behind the prince-elector’s invasion.84 Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm had agreed to respect the Protestant religion when he signed the Treaty of Xanten, but he had not upheld his promise.85 He had imprisoned pastors, taken money away from churches, and violated treaties regarding religion.86 This pamphlet, however, was not the only text published, translated, and distributed within the Dutch Republic.87 Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm responded by defending his case.88 The emperor also joined in the conversation, as he wanted to prevent another full-blown war.89 Clemens von Looz-Corswarem has characterised this activity as

83 JL Akten 49, 3 April 1651. 84 Kort Bericht, waerom Sijn Cheurfursteleijke Doorluchticheyt van Brandenburgh is bewogen ende veroorsaeckt worden, eenighe Plaetsen inde Vorstendommen Gulick ende Bergh in te nemen (n.p.: n. pub., 1651), described in Knuttel, Catalogus, ii-1 (1892), no. 6968. 85 Kort Bericht, p. 3. 86 Kort Bericht, pp. 4–5. 87 Kort Vertoogh In plaets van een Manifest. Waerom Sijn Cheurvorst: Doorluch: tot Brandenburgh, eenige plaetsen in de Vorstendommen Gulick en Bergh in te nemen, bewogen en veroosaeckt geweest is (Dordrecht: n. pub., 1651), described in Knuttel, Catalogus, ii-1 (1892), no. 6969; Dero Chur: Brandenburgisch. Fürstlich. Durchl. De dato den 13. Iunij abgelassene kurze Anzeig anstatt Manifests unnd darauff Ihrer Fürstlich. Durchl. PfalzNewburg außgefertite Bestendige Widerlegung, zu mehrer Instruction, also beyeinander in Druck gegeben (n.p.: n. pub., 1651), described in Verzeichnis der im deutschen Sprachraum erschienenen Drucke des 17. Jahrhunderts (VD17), no. 23:308525B [accessed 19 April 2019]. A printed and digital copy is preserved in Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek (HAB), M: Gm 3621 [2]. 88 Vorstelijck Palts Niewbvrgse Fundamentele Wederlegginge, Tegen’t ongesondeerde Kort Bericht, Waeromme Sijn Cheur-Vorstel. Doorl. van Brandenburgh, is bewogen eenige Plaetsen inde Vorstendommen van Gulick ende Bergh in te nemen, zijnde alleen die daerinne so specieuse voorgestelde Relgie, een deck-mantel van de voorghenomene gheweldadige invasie door de Troupes van gemelte Cheurv. Doorl. begaen. Ghetranslateert uyt het Hooghduyts (n.p.: n. pub., 1651), described in Knuttel, Catalogus, ii-1 (1892), no. 6970; Placcaet Van Wegen Sijne Vorstelijcke Doorlucht. Den Heere Hertog van Nieubvrg, Teghen ’t gene dat den Heere Cheur-Vorst van Brandenborgh heeft laten affigeren den 13. Iunij 1651. tot verschooninge ende verbloeminghe vande onghefondeerde ende gewendadige invasie inde Landen van Gulick ende Bergh (Leiden: n. pub., 1651), described in Knuttel, Catalogus, ii-1 (1892), no. 6971. 89 Mandement van sijne Roomsch Keyserl. Majesteyt, tot Cassatie ende Annullatie van ’t CheurBrandenburghsche voor desen Affigeerde Placaet, aen de respective Standen der Vorstendommen Gulick, ende Bergh (n.p.: n. pub., 1651), described in Knuttel, Catalogus, ii-1 (1892), no. 6972;

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a revival of the War of Succession, since the original dispute remained unresolved beyond the provisional Treaty of Xanten. The emperor had also left the Privilegium Unionis intact and failed to propose an alternative solution to joint-rule.90 On 14 June 1651, under the pretext of protecting ‘his’ people, Prince-Elector Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg, ruler of Cleves and Mark, invaded the principalities of Jülich and Berg.91 He justified his actions by recalling his disappointment with the Treaty of Westphalia and the fact that Catholics had gained ground since 1609 and 1612.92 Moreover, he had questioned his distant relative’s right of succession ever since he had accepted the fief in 1640.93 Furthermore, the Treaty of Westphalia gave Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm occasion to question whether Protestants could inhabit his principalities. Friedrich Wilhelm felt the need to intervene and protect his fellow-believers. Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm had, to some extent, shown his good intentions. On 29 May 1651, he issued a one-page invitation for an assembly that was to be held on 16 June 1651. The agenda announced that the assembly would discuss the needs of the ‘fatherland’.94 Whether this Landtag took place remains unclear. In its protocols, the Landstände only mentioned an invasion that took place on 17 June.95 The provincial leaders did not appreciate the competition between the two princes and the principality’s safety was once again at stake.96 To show their displeasure, the nobility wrote a pamphlet on behalf of the joint Landstände of Jülich, Berg, Cleves, and Mark, stressing the need for the preservation of their privileges and complaining about the war.97 A second version of this pamphlet was twice as long.98 In addition to the 4°-pamphlet, the Dutch 8°-pamphlet emphasized the promises made in the Treaty of Xanten, which the longer pamphlet contained in-full, probably as a reminder. Interestingly, the German version (probably the

Missive van Sijne Roomsch Keyserl. Majesteyt aen de Heere Cheur-vorst van Brandenburg, Improberende die inde Vorstendommen van Gulick ende Bergh ghedaene Invasie, vermanende ende bevelende den selvede Wapenen neder te leggen (n.p.: n. pub., 1651), described in Knuttel, Catalogus, ii-1 (1892), no. 6973. 90 Von Looz-Corswarem, ‘Der Düsseldorfer Kuhkrieg 1651’, pp. 90–129. 91 Klaus Jaitner, Die Konfessionspolitik des Pfalzgrafen Philipp Wilhelm von Neuburg in Jülich-Berg von 1647–1679, Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, 107 (Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1973), pp. 88–101; Isaacson, Geschichte des niederrheinisch-westfälischen Kreises, p. 25. 92 Jaitner, Die Konfessionspolitik, 91. 93 The text is in response to 7 March 1651 and 3 April 1651; Richter, ‘Und die Klugheit hört nicht auf Klugheit zu sein’, pp. 15–29. 94 JL Akten 49, 29 May 1651 (printed). 95 JL Akten 50, 17 June 1651: Protokollen, fols 5r and 7v. 96 JL Akten 50, 17 June 1651: Protokollen, fol. 8. 97 HAB, 258.20.15 Quod 4°: Placcaet Gepubliciceert By ende van wegen d’Erf-vereenigde Lantstanden. Uyt de Ridderschap ende Steden der Lantschappen Cleve, Gulick, Berge, ende Marck tot Conservatie van haer Privilegien (n.p.: n. pub., 1651). 98 HAB, A: 32.38 Pol. 17, 8°: Placcaet Gepubliciceert By ende van wegen d’Erf-vereenigde Lantstanden. Uyt de Ridderschap ende Steden der Lantschappen Cleve, Gulick, Berge, ende Marck tot Conservatie van haer Privilegien (n.p.: n. pub., 1651).

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original) is a one-page print containing only the text that had been printed in the Dutch 4°-pamphlet.99 The Jülich-war did not last long, ending in October. Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm had pawned the cities of Millen and Born to ensure the help of 4000 Lorraine soldiers.100 His son Johann Wilhelm visited the Estates-General in The Hague, successfully requesting the Republic to refrain from further interference.101 The Landstände did not appreciate the military presence represented by the Lorraine troops and feared that they would cause additional threats to the patria; they mentioned that their martial presence would ruin the lands.102 By 27 July, the Landstände deliberated and stated that the patria’s welfare depended upon the return of peace.103 It was now clear that religion still represented a casus belli, or could at least lead to a pamphlet polemic. The Prince-Elector of Brandenburg issued several documents and pamphlets claiming he was merely protecting the Protestants. He based his right to interfere on the Treaty of Xanten. Since both princes acted as official administrators in the principalities, the cujus regio, ejus religio dictim provided protection for Calvinists and Catholics, although it left the Lutherans without rights.104 According to contemporary pamphlets, however, the Catholic duke threatened and allegedly murdered Jülich’s inhabitants. The prince-elector saw this as the perfect excuse to wage war, and renewed the War of Succession with the hope of expanding his principalities. In Vienna, the emperor responded fiercely, and a pamphlet was spread that critiqued the prince-elector’s actions and brought them to the public’s attention. In August, the government decided that Count Melcioren of Hatzfeldt would help to restore peace in the Lower Rhine Area and, if necessary, contact the Imperial Circle for help.105 While the Circle, with its empty coffers, debated as to whether they could actually provide support, Paderborn, Osnabruck, and numerous other Catholic areas favoured aiding the endeavour. Cologne, for its part, felt that intervention would only bring trouble. However, before the Circle could reach a decision, the Neuburg-Lorraine coalition ended the renewed War of Succession. Nonetheless, it was clear that the conflict could easily divide the Circle’s members.106 According to a letter written in the city of Cleves on 11 October 1651, the Imperial government empowered a supposedly impartial commission of impartial prince-electors, princes, and Landstände

99 HAB, Gm 3621 [8]: Wir Landtstenden auß Ritterschafft und Statten der Erbvereinigten Landtschafften und Herzogtumen, Gülich, Cleve, Berg, und Graffschafft marck (n.p.: n. pub., 1651). 100 JL Akten 50, 17 June 1651: Protokollen, fol. 15r. 101 Von Looz-Corswarem, ‘Der Düsseldorfer Kuhkrieg 1651’, passim. 102 JL Akten 50, 17 June 1651: Protokollen, fol. 15r (2 July 1651). 103 JL Akten 50, 27 July 1651: Protokollen. 104 Von Looz-Corswarem, ‘Der Düsseldorfer Kuhkrieg 1651’. 105 JL Akten 49: 11 October 1651. 106 Isaacson, Geschichte des niederrheinisch-westfälischen Kreises, p. 26.

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of both religions to study the situation.107 Prince-Elector Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg, Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm, and Emperor Ferdinand III all agreed on the commission’s composition. The War of the Cows focused on opposing Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm and defending the patria.108 The duke, however, accepted aid from the Duke of Lorraine and quickly managed to retain control of the region. By October, the duke had signed a treaty with Cleves-Mark. He requested his subjects to come forward if they had wrongfully benefitted from this conflict and to return all stolen possessions.109 These pamphlets appear to have been written to draw the attention of foreign governments and to cause them to apply international pressure to regional princely policy. In this case, alerting the Dutch certainly had some influence: the duke became aware of this immediate pressure when it threatened his clergy. The Dutch desire to help fellow-believers and to have peace along their borders functioned as a useful incentive. The language in which officials printed their pamphlets, whether in Dutch or German, is of lesser importance than the decisive involvement of the Dutch Republic.

Conclusions The political and military escalation in the Duchy of Jülich was primarily a local affair: the native nobility complained about the policy of their de facto ruler, who had requisitioned taxes without its consent. Moreover, the duke had intended to protect the principality by paying off Hessian troops to leave the area alone. Unfortunately, his plan backfired and more troops crossed the borders into Jülich, thus requiring additional taxes to pay them. This led to further tensions between the local elites and their ruler. Despite the local nature of this conflict, the corresponding Imperial Circle, the Lower Rhine-Westphalian Circle (Niederrheinisch-Westfälischer Reichskreis), showed great concern regarding the developments occurring in the Lower Rhine Area. The Circle mediated in conflicts, especially when they broke out between its members. Thus, when the War of the Cows began, members of the Circle had to work out a solution, though their exhausted treasury slightly hindered their attempts. Nonetheless, with the Thirty Years’ War still fresh in everyone’s mind, all parties involved preferred peace over yet another regional conflict. To counter this group, the native nobility of Jülich, often supported by the nobles of Berg, organised their own meetings and assemblies in a convent in the Imperial city of Cologne. Gathering outside the duke’s jurisdiction meant that the nobles did not have to invite him, and that he could not forbid any of

107 JL Akten 49, 11 October 1651. 108 JL Akten 49, 14 November 1651. 109 JL Akten 49, 11 October 1651.

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their assemblies. While bans on assemblies did occur in other principalities, such as in Hesse-Cassel, the Jülich nobility sought to circumvent this.110 They created an aura of honesty and truthfulness and highlighted this by publicizing the notion that they did what was best for their patria; the duke, however, rarely organized meetings and refused to consult the Landständen. To avoid rebellion and possible internal strife, the nobility never admitted that the duke was untrustworthy. Only once did they argue that he sought to establish an absolutus dominatus, an illegal form of government. They focused their arguments on creating a positive regional image of the fatherland and highlighted their role as patriots protecting it, two points of view that could withstand all critique, since few rulers could reasonably object to these intentions. By assembling in Cologne, they used the fractured nature of the borderlands to circumvent the duke’s jurisdiction. However, interest in the region went far beyond the borders of the Holy Roman Empire. Historically, troops had travelled to the region at the start of the Thirty Years’ War, while additional numbers of Hessian and Swedish troops flocked to the Duchy of Jülich to squeeze money out of Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm, who showed a willingness to pay to maintain his principality’s neutrality. The Dutch Republic’s interest in the Treaty of Xanten and its role in upholding the geopolitical security of their borders guaranteed that any regional conflict would involve them. They desired peace in the region, especially at their most immediate borders, in order to protect their trade, industry, and agriculture. They had also pledged to uphold the Treaty of Xanten, which meant that they had diplomatically committed to it. Finally, Duke Wolfgang Wilhelm, a Catholic, threatened his Protestant subjects, causing the Dutch to try to protect their fellow-believers. The Jülich nobility published Dutch language pamphlets to further encourage Dutch involvement. Whether the nobility translated the pamphlets themselves or used a pre-existing German version as an original remains unclear. Regardless, the Dutch interest in the borderland remained obvious: they had garrisons in the region and could quickly place them on high alert. This transregional dynamic showed that a committed ally was ready to help those in Jülich and kept a watchful eye on the situation.

110 See for Hesse-Cassel: Tim Neu, Die Erschaffung der landständischen Verfassung: Kreativität, Heuchelei und Repräsentation in Hessen (1509–1655) (Köln: Böhlau, 2013); Romein, ‘Fatherland Rhetoric’, pp. 277–92; Romein, ‘Vaterland, patria und Patriot’, pp. 117–36.

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PART III

Border Management

Victor Enthoven 

The Scheldt Estuary during the Dutch Revolt War, Trade, and Taxation, 1572–1609 Due to the Dutch Revolt in the last decades of the sixteenth century, the River Scheldt transformed from a (fiscal) barrier to an external border between the northern and southern Low Countries. Since time immemorial, there had been fiscal barriers on the Scheldt estuary between the County of Flanders, the Duchy of Brabant, and the County of Zeeland, such as the Iersekeroort Toll, the Great Water Toll of Brabant, and the anchorage levy, a ducal levy on foreign ships.1 The incipient Dutch Republic imposed higher fiscal levies in the form of licence fees, posted military reinforcements along the banks of the River Scheldt, and deployed patrol ships to enforce these measures. This chapter considers the River Scheldt’s transition from an internal barrier before 1572 to an external border in subsequent years. The theme running through its history is the mutual dependence displayed between Flanders and Zeeland. The Flemish depended on the Zeelanders to help maintain the shipping traffic both to and from Antwerp, as it could easily be blocked from Flushing, while Flanders and Brabant represented a valuable hinterland to most Zeeland merchants. Closing the Scheldt would thus mean economic suicide for the Zeelanders, especially since they carried substantial war debts following the revolt in 1572. By allowing trade, however, there was also the danger that necessary war supplies could reach unfriendly ports. The chapter analyses how Zeeland’s magistrates dealt with this issue between 1572 and the signing of the Twelve Years’ Truce in 1609. It will consider each measure taken based on the ever-changing military and/or political situation. However, before doing so, I will start with a description of the River Scheldt as a barrier between the north and south in the sixteenth century.

The Walcheren Anchorage According to the Italian merchant Ludovico Guicciardini, the Walcheren anchorage was once the centre of global trade. Guicciardini, living and working in his beloved Antwerp at the end of the sixteenth century, described Zeeland’s roads as the middle of a compass rose, with markings showing the distances to



1 Wilhelmus A. van Ham, Macht en gezag in het Markiezaat: Een politiek-institutionele studie over stad en land van Bergen op Zoom, 1477–1583 (Hilversum: Uitgeverij Verloren, 2000), p. 242. Transregional Territories: Crossing Borders in the Early Modern Low Countries and Beyond, ed. by Bram De Ridder, Violet Soen, Werner Thomas, and Sophie Verreyken, HW 2 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 163–182.

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major ports. He saw ships from every corner of the world arrive at the River Scheldt.2 Of course, Guicciardini also knew that Arnemuiden, with only 1500 inhabitants, was not a commercial metropolis. His descriptions, however, outline how extensive shipping traffic was on the River Scheldt around the middle of the sixteenth century. At this time, approximately 2500 domestic and foreign ships arrived annually in the Scheldt delta. The majority originated from the Low Countries, but 900 or so also arrived from abroad. Of the 2500 ships, 900 to 1000 sailed on to Antwerp, with only 205 to 300 reaching its port. The majority instead anchored at Walcheren.3 There were two reasons for this. First, the western influent, called the Honte, contained dangerous waters that were shallow, winding, and full of constantly-shifting sandbanks. Sailing to Antwerp was particularly dangerous for large sea-going vessels. The Walcheren roads — situated between the eastern and western influent — provided good anchorage on the east side of the island, with sufficiently deep water and shelter from the prevailing south-westerly winds. This caused many ships destined for the Walcheren ports to anchor here, as well as those sailing for Antwerp, Bruges, or Ghent. The cargo could be safely unloaded from the ships to barges guided by skippers familiar with the local situation. For the benefit of foreign ships, merchants divided the anchorage between Arnemuiden and Flushing into thirty-two moorings.4 Secondly, there was also a fiscal reason to anchor at Walcheren. With a particularly high demand in the Low Countries for wine from France and the Iberian Peninsula, Middelburg succeeded in gaining the right to ‘gauge’, or weigh for taxation purposes, imported wines in 1559, after a lengthy struggle that had started in the early-sixteenth century. Even mighty Antwerp, despite making several attempts, was unable to prevent this.5 Immediately after Middelburg acquired this right, an armed ship was stationed in the Wielingen to ensure that all ships that reached the estuary took their wine cargoes to the

2 Ludovico Guicciardini, Beschrijvinghe van alle de Nederlanden (Amsterdam: Willem Janz, 1612); Wilfrid Brulez, ‘De economische kaart van de Nederlanden in de 16e eeuw volgens Guicciardini’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 83 (1970), 352–57. 3 Middelburg, Zeeuws Archief (ZA), Archief Rekenkamer Bourgondisch-Oostenrijks tijdvak [501], nos 720–29: Rekeningen van de baljuw van de wateren; Willem S. Unger, Bronnen tot de geschiedenis van Middelburg in den landsheerlijken tijd, 3 vols, Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën (RGP), Grote serie, 54, 61, and 75 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1923–1931), iii (1931), Appendix; Oskar De Smedt, De Engelse natie te Antwerpen in de xvie eeuw, 1496– 1582, 2 vols (Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1950–1954), ii, p. 273, Table V. The Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatiën series (RGP) is available on the Huygens Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis website http://resources.huygens.knaw.nl. 4 Cornelis de Waard, ‘De rand van Walcheren in 1564’, Archief: Mededelingen van het Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen, (1912), 129–58. 5 Bronnen tot de geschiedenis van den handel met Frankrijk, deel 1: 735–1585, ed. by Zeger W. Sneller and Willem S. Unger, RGP, Grote serie, 70 and 70* supplement (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1935–1942), p. 755; Stanley Thomas Bindoff, The Scheldt Question to 1839 (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1945), pp. 74 ff.

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proper port. Since Middelburg did not directly sit on open water, ships had to anchor in the roads, where men loaded the wine barrels onto barges and weighed them, before reloading them again. This became time-consuming and officials often spilled wine during the process. Thus, many merchants refrained from having their ships loaded again and, after weighing the wine, sold it in Middel­burg. Middelburg did not hold a de jure right to sell wine, but the city became the de facto market for western wines.6 Therefore, most foreign ships in Middelburg supplied wine, while only a few would sail on to Antwerp.

The First Phase, 1572–1576 The insurgents, who had initiated their revolt against Habsburg rule in 1568 under the guidance of William of Orange, gained their first foothold in the Low Countries by capturing Brielle on 1 April 1572. Five days later, Flushing’s population refused three companies of Spanish troops access to the city. Shortly thereafter, Flushing declared itself for William of Orange. Veere followed a month later. Middelburg, by contrast, remained loyal to the King of Spain, while Zierikzee and Schouwen went over on 8 August 1572. In Zeeland, as in many other parts of the Low Countries, the Revolt took on the character of a civil war.7 Between May 1572 and February 1574, Middelburg was at the centre of the battle being waged in the Scheldt estuary. The rebels attempted to force the city to surrender by laying siege to it, while the loyalists from Antwerp tried to supply the besieged Middelburgers. There were also several ‘sea battles’ on the river. Controlled by rebels from Veere and Flushing, the pro-Spanish Middelburg residents surrendered on 18 February 1574 after a twenty-month siege. All of Walcheren was now free from Habsburg rule.8 The case was more complicated, however, for the rest of Zeeland. Besides Walcheren, the rebels also controlled Schouwen and Duiveland, while Tholen and South Beveland remained loyal to their Spanish Habsburg sovereign. The siege of Goes failed in 1572, and loyalist troops departed from South Beveland via the Zijpe to Duiveland and laid siege to Zierikzee in 1575. Attempts by the rebels to break the siege failed and the city surrendered on 30 June 1576. Thus, the Orangists only controlled Walcheren.

6 Bindoff, The Scheldt Question, p. 80; Bronnen tot de geschiedenis van den handel met Frankrijk, deel 1, ed. by Sneller and Unger, p. 492 and Appendix ii; Willem S. Unger, ‘Middelburg als handelsstad (xiiie tot xvie eeuw)’, Archief: Mededelingen van het Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen, (1935), 1–177 (p. 49). 7 Victor Enthoven, Zeeland en de opkomst van de Republiek: Handel en strijd in de Scheldedelta, c. 1550–1621 (Leiden: Luctor et Victor, 1996), pp. 25–31; Clasien Rooze-Stouthamer, De opmaat tot de Opstand: Zeeland en het centraal gezag, 1566–1572 (Hilversum: Verloren, 2009). 8 Edelhardus B. Swalue, De daden der Zeeuwen gedurende den opstand tegen Spanje (Amster­ dam: P. N. van Kampen, 1846), pp. 32–66.

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The hostilities in the Scheldt estuary initiated the construction of a Dutch war fleet. On 7 April 1572, the day after Flushing changed sides, the rebels stationed a guard ship on the Honte to control shipping in the estuary and cut off shipping traffic both to and from Antwerp by 10 May.9 After a voyage full of hardships, the Duke of Medinaceli’s fleet of forty-seven Spanish ships, filled with wool and troops, anchored at Blankenberge on 16 June. Ignorant of recent events, he took some of the ships and a part of his troops towards Sluis. There, they received a rough welcome by the Flushing admiral Ewout Pietersz.10 The Dutch sank four smaller Spanish ships. However, twelve larger Spanish ships managed to sail up the Wielingen and disembark 1100 men at Fort Rammekens at Walcheren, despite the Flushing artillery. These troops immediately strengthened the garrison at Middelburg. The duke’s fleet also carried the wool cargo, initially intended for Bruges, to Middelburg, even though several Spanish ships were lost in this action.11 A fleet of Dutch ships from Portugal destined for the Scheldt estuary also arrived at the same time as Medinaceli’s fleet. They were unaware of recent events in Zeeland and encountered fierce resistance. Only three ships managed to escape to Antwerp; rebels captured the other twenty-one, which provided the anti-Habsburg forces with a rich cargo of salt, oil, and spices.12 The rebels took their first steps towards establishing a legitimate war fleet in the spring of 1574. This fleet consisted of twenty ships from both Flushing and Zierikzee and ten from Veere. Of these fifty ships, thirty-two would

9 Chronijck van Zeeland eertijds beschreven door d’heer Johan van Reychersbergen, nu verbetert, ende vermeerdert, ed. by Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn, 2 vols (Middelburg: Zacharias & Michiel Roman, 1644), i, p. 391; De kroniek van Godevaert van Haecht over de troebelen van 1565–1574 te Antwerpen en elders, ed. by Robert van Roosbroeck, 2 vols, Genootschap voor Antwerpsche Geschiedenis, 2 (Antwerp: De Sikkel, 1929–1930), ii, p. 185, c. 10 May 1572. 10 Henri G. van Grol, Het beheer van het Zeeuwsche zeewezen, 1577–1587 (Flushing: F. van der Velde, 1936), p. 13. 11 Jasper J. Brasser, Beschryvinge der stad Vlissinge, ed. by Joep C. P. Bremmers (Flushing: Gemeentearchief Vlissingen, 2015); Vlaemsche kronijk of dagregister van al het gene gedenkwaardig voorgevallen is, binnen de stad Gent sedert den 15 july 1566 tot 15 juny 1585, ed. by Joannes Petrus van Male (Ghent: Hebbelynck, 1839), p. 105, 13 June 1572; Swalue, De daden der Zeeuwen, p. 41; Johan van Vloten, Nederland tijdens de volksopstand tegen Spanje, 1564–1581, 2 vols (Schiedam: H. A. M. Roelants, 1872), i, pp. 277–78; ‘Vlaamse kronijk’, in Chroniques de Brabant et de Flandre, ed. by Charles Piot (Brussels: F. Hayez, 1874), pp. 173–858, (p. 399); William D. Phillips and Carla Rahn Phillips, ‘Spanish Wool and Dutch Rebels: The Middelburg Incident of 1574’, The American Historical Review, 82 (1977), 312–30; Robert A. Stradling, The Armada of Flanders: Spanish Maritime Policy and European War, 1568–1668 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 4. 12 ‘Vlaamsche kronijk’, p. 400; van Vloten, Nederland tijdens de volksop­stand, i, p. 278; Swalue, De daden der Zeeuwen, p. 41; Johannes H. Kernkamp, De handel op den vijand, 1572–1609, 2 vols (Utrecht: Kemink & Zoon, 1931–1934), i, pp. 18–19; Floris Prims, Beelden uit den cultuurstrijd der jaren 1577–1588, Antwerpiensia, 5 (Antwerp: De Vlijt, 1942), p. 204; George D. Ramsay, The Queen’s Merchants and the Revolt of the Netherlands (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1986), p. 176.

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patrol the River Scheldt and the Flemish coast.13 Control of shipping traffic to and from loyalist ports was not possible without blockading the Flemish ports of Dunkirk and Nieuwpoort. In this chapter, the blockade of Flanders is treated as an extension of rebel control over the River Scheldt and will not be considered separately. The rebels kept the remaining eighteen ships in reserve, ready to sail immediately in the case of an emergency.14 Finally, the rebels developed a system of licences in order to control cross-border trade. As mentioned previously, they had to navigate between three interests. First, there was the war against the loyalists. The economic blockade was an important tool in this fight. From a military standpoint, the blockade not only prevented strategic and military supplies from reaching the enemy, but also damaged the hostile economy. The latter was, incidentally, also true for the rebels themselves. The second interest, however, concerned Zeeland’s economic interests. Zeeland’s economy required trade with the hinterland (Flanders and Brabant) to remain solvent. Unfortunately, the hinterland was in Spanish Habsburg hands. Nevertheless, it was quickly noted that this relationship rested upon a paradoxical truth: the more Zeeland traded with the enemy, the better. After all, if the Zeelanders did not deliver the goods to their own hinterland, others would inevitably reap the benefits from doing so. Third, the war had to be financed. With the Zeelanders focusing on naval warfare, the need to establish and maintain a fleet drew heavily on rebel finances.15 One solution rested on issuing licences, which acted as a levy on trade with the enemy. The licences functioned as a list of tariffs that outlined what goods could legally be traded with the enemy for a fee. Occasionally the rebels expanded the list and increased or decreased the tariffs for certain goods. As a result, the authorities were able to respond to the war’s constantly changing situation. If the Spanish, for example, threatened a particular city or region, a prohibition on the export of strategic goods soon followed. The military, economic, and financial interests always had to be weighed against each other, with the licences providing the means.

13 Henri G. van Grol, ‘Het Zeeuwsche prijzenhof te Vlissingen van de overgave van Middelburg tot na de pacificatie van Gent: Een bijdrage tot de geschiedenis der kaapvaart in de eerste jaren van den 80 j. oorlog’, Bijdragen voor Vaderlandsche Geschiedenis en Oudheidkunde, 4 (1917), 1–46 (p. 6). 14 Jacobus Ermerins, Zeeuwsche Oudheden; Vere 2e stuk (n.p.: n. pub., n.d.), p. 168; Henri G. van Grol, ‘Het Zeeuwsche prijzenhof te Vlissingen, 1575–1577’, Bijdragen en Mededelingen van het Historisch Genootschap, 37 (1916), 233–369 (pp. 242–43). 15 ZA, Archief stad Veere 1340–1816 [2000], no. 1389: ‘Staet die Burgemeesters, scepenen van Veere […] tot vorderinge van de gemeene saecke […]’; ZA, Archief stad Veere 1340–1816, no. 1387: Rekening van Hendrik Somer, 1572–1573; ZA, Archief Rekenkamer C [508], no. 10 ff.: Rekeningen, 1573–1576; Klaas Heeringa, ‘Stukken betreffen­de de inkomsten van Zeeland in 1572 en volgende jaren en de invoering der gemeene middelen’, Bijdragen en Mededelingen van het Historisch Genootschap, 64 (1943), 1–44; Johannes W. Koopmans, De Staten van Holland en de Opstand: De ontwikkeling van hun functies en organisatie in de periode 1544–1588 (The Hague: Stichting Hollandse Historische Reeks, 1990), p. 150, n. 28.

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By 1568, William of Orange had already provided free passage to allied skippers that allowed them to sail the river unimpeded by the Sea Beggars. The free Zeeland towns also adopted this in 1572.16 These permits, called passports or sauvegardes (safeguards), could be obtained from the city magistrate after paying a licence fee.17 The first mention of issuing licences in the liberated part of Zeeland can be found in Hendrik Somer’s accounts as mayor of Veere, which lists his war expenses from 6 April 1572 until August 1573. The accounts name twenty-two ships that transported goods to enemy territory via Biervliet and Reimerswaal.18 In October 1572, a common arrangement for licences for the liberated part of Zeeland was introduced.19 After the capture of Middelburg in February 1574, the rebels realized that they had to clarify their relations with the enemy and took measures that would set the tone for trade and shipping in the Scheldt estuary for the remainder of the war. The rebels decreed that warships would check trading traffic on the river and by May had published an edict establishing the details of permissible trade.20 They levied licences on exports sent to both enemy and neutral countries, required a licensing fee for importing goods from enemy territory, and taxed imports from neutral countries with a convoy duty, also called escort money.21 However, only authorized goods could be exported, which meant that the rebels regularly prohibited trading food products. This was especially true for grain and salt, as merchants could only trade them if the rebels maintained sufficient existing stocks. An export prohibition followed if there was a risk of shortages.22 Both sides viewed salt as strategically important and tried to control its movement.23 16 Johannes C. A. de Meij, De watergeuzen en de Nederlanden, 1568–1572 (Amsterdam: NoordHollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1972), p. 121; ZA, Notulen Staten van Zeeland (1762), p. 13, note by Jacobus Ermerins, 31 August 1762. 17 Johannes van der Poel, ‘Het particularisme van Zeeland en de convoyen en Licenten’, Archief: Mededelingen van het Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen, (1929), 1–113; Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, i, p. 30. 18 ZA, Archief Stad Veere 1340–1816, no. 1387, fol. 15: Accounts of Hendrik Somer, 1572–1573; Jaap Gestman Geradts, ‘Handel in Veere omstreeks 1575’, Zeeland: Tijdschrift van het Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen, 26.1 (2017), 7–14 (p. 9). 19 Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, i, p. 30; Ferdinand H. M. Grapperhaus, Convoyen en licenten: Of hoe het gekrakeel daarover tussen zeven in een Unie verenigde republiekjes de geboorte inluidde van de oudste rijksdienst van Nederland (Zutphen: De Walburg Pers, 1986), p. 16. 20 Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, i, pp. 47–48. 21 Jan Craeybeckx, ‘De organisatie en de konvooiering van de koopvaar­dijvloot op het einde van de regering van Karel V: Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van de scheepvaart en de admiraliteit’, Bijdragen voor de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, 3 (1949), 179–208 (pp. 189 and 195); Bronnen tot de geschiedenis van Middelburg, ed. by Willem S. Unger, iii (1931), nos 669, 682, and 689; Alida J. M. Kerckhoffs-De Hey, Inventaris en beschrijving van de processtukken (dossiers) behorende tot de beroepen uit Holland berustende in het archief van de Grote Raad van Mechelen¸ vol. 8: 701–800 (Amsterdam: Universiteit van Amsterdam, 1973), no. 710, 1 June 1554. 22 Van Grol, ‘Het Zeeuwsche prijzenhof ’, p. 17; Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, i, pp. 51, 65, and 72. 23 Wilfrid Brulez, ‘De zoutinvoer in de Nederlanden in de 16e eeuw’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 68 (195­5), 181–92 (p. 184).

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The Second Phase, 1576–1579 The tide had turned for the rebels in Zeeland by the time negotiations had started to take place in the run-up to the Pacification of Ghent. In mid-October 1576, they became masters of Sint-Annaland and on 3 November the last Spanish troops left the island. From there, they marched over Beveland in the direction of Zierikzee. In the meantime, most Spanish troops in the town mutinied, which caused its residents to definitively opt to support the Prince of Orange. Goes followed at the end of 1576 and the last Habsburg troops left South Beveland on 26 February 1577. All Zeeland was now Orangist.24 The Pacification of Ghent, signed on 8 November 1576, brought a temporary end to open warfare. The treaty between the rebellious Holland and Zeeland provinces and the Habsburgs could be termed a truce and settled a few practical matters, such as granting an amnesty, restoring mutual trade relations, and calling for the meeting of the Estates-General. It also recognized William of Orange as the stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland, and the towns loyal to Brussels had to comply with his authority. After the stadtholder had given them satisfaction of the conditions, the pro-Spanish troops had to leave. However, the core of the conflict remained unresolved: the Habsburgs continued to defend Catholicism as the only religion allowed in their dominions, and expected the rebellious provinces to submit to their authority, while the rebels argued for political and religious freedom.25 The Pacification of Ghent also led to the fleet’s reduction. The rebels reduced their number of ships to fifteen, then ten, and finally only three by October 1577. Starting in February 1578, Willem Blois van Treslong, the hero of Brielle, served as the admiral of this ‘fleet’. His flagship was ‘op de wachte op de Honte ofte elders daervan noode wesen sal’ (‘on patrol at the Honte, or elsewhere as it was needed’), to have ships from the sea pay ‘’t recht van den thol [of Zeeland] ende convoyen’ (‘the toll of Zeeland and the convoys’).26 Finally, the Pacification ended licences and decommissioned all patrol ships. One of the provisions stated ‘Dat nu voortaen d’inwoonderen en ondersaten van d’een en d’ander zyde […] overal sullen mogen hanteren, gaen en keren, wonen en traffiqueren, coopmansgewys en andersins in alle vrijdom en versekertheyd’ (‘That henceforth, all the residents and subjects of either side […] will be allowed everywhere to act, go, be, live, and move as merchants and otherwise in all freedom and safety’). The document permitted the free movement of goods between the regions, while the convoy duty taxed imports and exports abroad from 17 May 1577.27 24 Jan Pot, Het beleg van Zierikzee (Leiden: Van den Berg, 1925), p. 67; Cornelis Dekker, Een schamele landstede: Geschiedenis van Goes tot aan de Satisfactie in 1577 (Goes: De koperen tuin, 2002), pp. 548 ff. 25 Opstand en pacificatie in de Lage Landen: Bijdrage tot de studie van de Pacificatie van Gent, ed. by Michel Baelde (Ghent: Snoeck-Ducaju en Zoon, 1976). 26 Van Grol, Het beheer van het Zeeuwsche zeewezen, pp. 9–10 and 13–14. 27 Van Grol, Het beheer van het Zeeuwsche zeewezen, p. 8; Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, i, pp. 91–92.

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The Third Phase, 1579–1585 The Pacification, however, had not resolved the core cause of the Revolt, which led to continued mutual discontent and division between the two sides. During 1578, tensions increased, particularly between the Protestants and the Catholics, the so-called Malcontents, in the southern provinces. On 6 January 1579, the loyal provinces agreed to the Union of Arras. Shortly afterwards, on 23 January, Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Groningen concluded the Union of Utrecht. Other provinces later joined. The Union of Utrecht included provisions on the common struggle against Habsburg rule, especially regarding naval warfare. Moreover, they agreed to work together for this common cause in the Estates-General. In some instances, the Union strongly resembled a treaty organization of sovereign provinces. An armed conflict between the insurgents or ‘Orangists’, and the loyalists or ‘Malcontents’ was inevitable and civil war soon broke out between the two Unions. Following the Union of Utrecht, new warships were commissioned to monitor Zeeland traffic, including two kromstevens, small ships with a curved stem, and two galleys by the end of 1579, and a few galleys at Dendermonde to monitor trade with the Malcontents. As the front line moved further north, and thus closer to Zeeland, an increasing number of warships patrolled the river. By the siege of Antwerp, most of the Dutch fleet could be found on the waterway.28 Beginning in 1579, Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma and governor of the loyalist-controlled provinces since 1578, made his formidable northward advance, during which the rebels increasingly lost ground. Apart from the impregnable city of Ostend, most of the southern provinces returned to Habsburg authority.29 In the meantime, Calvinism had free reign in the ‘Antwerp Republic’ that had arisen under Marnix of Sainte-Aldegonde. Fort Lillo, located on the Scheldt, played a crucial role in the defence of the city and symbolizes the river’s transition from barrier to border between Zeeland and Flanders. The magistrate of Antwerp, then Protestant, decided to construct it on 28 January 1578. The fort would be erected just outside the village of Lillo, eighteen kilometres downstream from the city on the right bank of the river, while Fort Liefkenshoek was to be built on the opposite shore. Antwerp officials used the forts, both completed in 1580, to monitor shipping traffic on the river.30 The rebels controlled parts of the river’s south bank, in present-day Zeelandic Flanders, and also erected fortifications at a few strategic points. By 1583, they had occupied Biervliet and Terneuzen. Biervliet

28 Enthoven, Zeeland, pp. 57–58. 29 De val van het Nieuwe Troje: Het beleg van Oostende, 1601–1604, ed. by Werner Thomas (Leuven: Davidsfonds, 2004). 30 J. M. G. (Han) Leune, Lillo en Liefkenshoek. Deel 1: De geschiedenis van twee Scheldeforten, 1585–1786, Studia, 105 (Brussels: Algemeen Rijksarchief, 2006), passim.

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was of particular strategic importance because it controlled the Braak­man, the point at which the Scheldt connected to Ghent through the Sas van Gent. In early July 1584, Parma laid siege to the city. The Scheldt thereby became the most important front of the war, and the forts represented the front line during the siege. The rebels supplied the besieged population via the river, but the city could not be relieved. Starvation set in after the Spaniards laid a 730-metre bridge of ships across the river. Attempts to destroy the bridge failed. On 17 August 1585, Marnix of Sainte-Aldegonde surrendered the city to Parma. Shortly afterwards, tens of thousands left the city, including most of its economic elite. The war between the two Unions also had an impact on the licence system. When the Low Countries threatened to tear apart in the spring of 1579, the Orangists tried to regain control over the movement of goods belonging to the Malcontents. One of the first measures they employed was the re-introduction of licences. Since the convoy money taxed imports and exports to (neutral) foreign countries, the ‘new’ licence fee was a levy on imports and exports to Flanders and Brabant.31 Due to Parma’s successful campaign, the ‘closure’ of all licences followed on 1 March 1583 and suspended all trade with the enemy.32 They were temporarily reopened, however, on 27 November 1583, as the Orangists needed cash for their war effort. Since the income from this temporary measure remained far below expectations, new lists of both convoys and licences appeared on 14 February 1584 that increased the tariffs on the former, while keeping those on the latter the same. During 1584, the Orangist provinces came under additional pressures and criticism of the policy that allowed for the exportation of food to the enemy increased.33 Some argued that the loss of Bruges in May 1584 could have been avoided if the town’s citizens had not lost hope in receiving aid from the insurgent provinces due to trade with the loyalists.34 The Orangists finally prohibited trade with the enemy on 22 June 1584 by again closing the licences. In addition, they also disallowed exports of foods and ordnance to neutral countries, particularly France and England, to prevent their re-export to the enemy. Thus, the Orangists had rapidly tightened

31 Cornelis Cau, Groot Placcaet-boeck, 10 vols (The Hague: Weduwe Hillebrandt Jacobsz van Wouw, 1658–1797), i, p. 264; Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, i, pp. 105, 113, and 146. 32 Van Grol, Het beheer van het Zeeuwsche zeewezen, pp. 106 and 116; Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, i, pp. 125, 137, and 139. 33 Resolutiën der Staten Generaal van 1576 tot 1609, ed. by Nicolas Japikse and others, 14 vols, RGP, Grote serie, 26, 33, 41, 43, 47, 51, 55, 57, 58, 71, 85, 92, 101, and 131 (The Hague: Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis, 1915), iv (1919), 1584, p. 698, no. 718; and p. 700, no. 725. The Resolutions of the Estates-General, published in the Rijks Geschiedkundige Publicatien (RGP), are available on the Huygens Instituut voor Nederlandse Geschiedenis’s website . 34 Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, i, p. 147.

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commercial measures, although it is debatable whether they helped, as Antwerp surrendered in August 1585.35

The Fourth Phase, 1585–1599 Until the Twelve Years’ Truce, the River Scheldt remained the front line, with the rebels holding the enclave of Ostend in Flanders. The area now called Zeelandic Flanders (Dutch held territory south of the river) was subject to long and fierce fighting. In 1583, it only consisted of Terneuzen and Biervliet, but, by 1586, the rebels had captured Axel, where they erected the Mauritsfort, and Philippine, located between Sas van Gent and Biervliet. Hulst also had a short Orangist government between 1591 and 1596.36 Once calm had returned to the Scheldt estuary by the end of 1585, the warships at Lillo, Philippine, and IJzendijke were responsible for patrols. In December 1587, another twenty-six vessels, in addition to the ships at Lillo, were stationed in Saeftinghe (ten ships), Hulst (two ships), Philippine (two ships), ’t Sas (four ships), IJzendijke (three ships), Roodenhoeck (two ships), and an unknown port (three ships).37 The Union of Utrecht made sea warfare a common cause. After William of Orange’s death in 1584, the Union’s governance rested on his son, Maurice of Nassau, and the Council of State. They formulated policy but left its execution to the permanent commissions of the Estates of Holland and Zeeland, the so called Gecommitteerde Raden, which provided daily government in the provinces. The Estates-General drew up the lists of tariffs for convoys and licences, and decided whether they were open or closed. The Gecommitteerde

35 Cornelis de Waard, ‘Arnemuiden, regestenlijst’, Verslagen omtrent ’s Rijks Oude Archieven, 48.2 (1925), 292–492 (pp. 362, 22 June 1584; 368; and 369, 27 July 1584); Resolutiën der Staten Generaal (RGP 43), iv (1919), 1584, p. 624, no. 570; and p. 731, no. 578; Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, i, p. 148. 36 Jacobus Ermerins, Eerste stichting en lotgevallen van sommige plaatsen ten oosten en westen der Schelde gele­gen, Verhandelin­gen uitgege­ven door het Zeeuwsch Genoot­schap der Weten­schappen te Vlissingen, 5 (Middelburg: Pieter Gillissen, 1835); Klaas Heeringa, ‘Het aandeel van Zeeland in het bestuur van Staats-Vlaanderen’, Nederlandsch Archieven­blad, 23 (1914–1915), 45–60 (p. 55); Johannes de Hullu, Zeeuwsch Vlaanderen door historie en volksaard Noord-Nederlandsch gebied (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1919), pp. 10–11; Bindoff, The Scheldt Question, p. 86; K. J. J. Brand, ‘Over het ontstaan van de fortificaties in Oost ZeeuwsVlaanderen en aangrenzend gebied’, Archief: Mededelingen van het Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen, (1981), 13–17; Walter J. Annard, Bestuur en bestuurders in Oost Staats-Vlaanderen, 1645–1673 (Hulst: Gemeentearchief, 1993), p. 5; Atlas van historische vestingwerken in Nederland: Zeeland, ed. by Teun de Kruijf and others (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 2004). 37 Leune, Lillo en Liefkenshoek, deel 1, pp. 433–34; ZA, Archief van de Staten van Zeeland [2], no. 1.201.2 (1587?): ‘Lijste vandie­schepen van oorloge […]’, 1587; Doeke Roos, Twee eeuwen varen en vechten, 1550–1750: Het admiraalsgeslacht Evertsen (Flushing: Hdz, 2003), p. 57.

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Raden were responsible for collecting these funds.38 In Zeeland, the Raed ter Admiraliteyt (Admiralty Board), which consisted of members of the Gecommitteerde Raden (called Heren Raden ter Admiraliteit) and the mayor of Flushing, Pieter Willemsz, controlled the fleet and oversaw the collection of the convoys and licences. As warfare at sea fell under the Generality, the Heren Raden made their oath to Maurice and the Council of State.39 With the arrival of Leicester at the end of 1585, who was appointed governor-general of the insurgent provinces in the name of Queen Elizabeth I of England, maritime matters were reorganized. Leicester wanted to remove the management of naval matters from Maurice and, as a result, put warfare at sea under his own governance, with aid from the Council of State. On 26 July 1586, he issued an edict for the establishment of three admiralty boards: two in Holland and one in Zeeland. Leicester granted these admiralty boards extensive administrative powers, including the ability to construct, purchase, equip, and man warships. In addition, they judged on captured prizes and those violating convoy and licensing rules.40 In practice, the Zeeland admiralty board consisted of seven members from the Gecommitteerde Raden. After Leicester’s departure in 1588, the Council of State’s authority declined. At the instigation of Holland, Maurice was appointed admiral-general of the Union and, shortly after, stadtholder. The Heren Raden then also took an oath to the Estates-General.41 After the surrender of Antwerp, licences remained closed. The Orangists repeated the prohibition again on 4 April 1586.42 Nevertheless, this policy was soon overturned, as the Zeeland government increasingly granted passports to local merchants that allowed for them to export food to the enemy.43 The Zeelanders, however, found themselves in a difficult position due to price increases on basic necessities. The local population opposed exporting food, which inevitably put pressure on the Estates of Zeeland to prohibit the action. In early March 1587, the Estates prohibited the export

38 ZA, Notulen Staten van Zeeland (1586), 19 September 1586; Jan den Tex, Oldenbarnevelt, 5 vols (Haarlem: H. D. Tjeenk Willink, 1960–1972), ii, p. 257. 39 Van Grol, Het Zeeuwsche zeewezen, pp. 174–75. 40 Robert Fruin and Herman T. Colenbrander, De geschiedenis der Staatsinstellingen in Nederland tot den val der Republiek (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1980), p. 204. 41 Johannes de Hullu, De archieven der Admiraliteitscolleges (The Hague: Algemeene Landsdrukkerij, 1924), pp. 50 ff.; Fruin and Colenbrander, Geschiedenis der Staatsinstellingen, pp. 204–05; Anita van Dissel, Varen en vechten: ’s Lands zeemacht in druk, 1597–1795 (The Hague: Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 1997), pp. 10–11. 42 Cau, Groot Placcaet-Boeck, ii, pp. 1082–89; Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, i, pp. 185–89; Johan E. Elias, Schetsen uit de geschiedenis van ons zeewezen, 6 vols (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1916–1930), i, pp. 30–31; Den Tex, Oldenbarnevelt, i, pp. 270–82. 43 The Hague, Nationaal Archief (NA), Archief van de Admiraliteitscolleges [1.01.46], no. 2447: Resoluties Zeeland, 1584–1590; Resolutiën der Staten-Generaal (RGP 47), v (1921), 1586, 30 December 1586; 1587, no. 418, 14 February 1587; and no. 293, 9 March 1587; ZA, Notulen Staten van Zeeland (1587), 22, 24, and 28 January, and 6 and 10 March 1587.

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of grain, butter, and cheese.44 However, to ensure that trade remained fluid and to raise money for the fleet, the Estates further determined that all ships sailing to the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands via Zeeland waters had to pay for the licence in Zeeland. Apart from this, they also demanded payment from Holland ships — including from skippers who had already paid levies in Holland — if they exported goods over Sas van Gent or Lillo to the loyalist provinces. Thus, the Estates had reopened licences on the Scheldt.45 As shipping traffic on the river slowly recovered, Zeeland authorities preferred ships destined for the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands to sail over Sas van Gent, as they could best monitor them at Biervliet. Merchants, however, preferred to sail to Lillo, where Antwerp’s traders also sent their barges. The freight traffic to Ghent did not generally go beyond the Sas (lock).46 Transloading was necessary at the border to combat fraud and smuggling, although this did not apply to bulk goods, like wine, millstones, salt, and fresh fish.47 In 1589, two licencing offices in Lillo and Philippine were established.48 Additional offices followed at Ter Hofstede (1592 to 1599), Bergen op Zoom (1593), and Mauritsfort (1605). A licence master was also present in Ostend between 1592 and 1603, but never received an income.49 However, the movement of goods to and from Flanders took place not only over the Scheldt via Lillo or Sas van Gent, but also over the sea via Dunkirk and Nieuwpoort.50 In the spring of 1588, maritime trade with the enemy resulted in public opposition, especially in Zeeland, where local governors feared that the people would revolt due to the high food prices. Moreover,

44 Resolutiën der Staten-Generaal (RGP 47), v (1921), 1587, no. 296, 27 March 1587; and no. 297, 2 April 1587. 45 ZA, Archief Rekenkamer C, no. 6100: Rekening te water, 1586–1587; Resolutiën der StatenGeneraal (RGP 47), v (1921), 1587, no. 299, 1 May 1587; ZA, Notulen Staten van Zeeland (1587), 7 March 1587; Van der Poel, ‘Het particularisme van Zeeland’, p. 20. 46 Roelof Bijlsma, Rotterdams welvaren, 1550–1650 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1918), pp. 47–50; Correspondentie van Robert Dudley, graaf van Leycester en andere documenten betreffende zijn gouvernement-generaal in de Nederlanden, 1585–1588, ed. by H. Brugmans, 3 vols, Werken van het Historisch Genootschap, 3rd series, 56–58 (Utrecht: Kemink & Zoon, 1931), iii, p. 167, 23 September–3 October 1587. 47 ZA, Archief van de Staten van Zeeland, no. 1210: ‘Het is sulkx dat t sedert den jaren 1595 […]’. 48 ZA, Archief van de Staten van Zeeland, no. 1203.2 (1589?): ‘De rentmeester generael van Seelant Bewesterscheldt […]’, 1589; ZA, Archief Rekenkamer C, no. 6100 ff.: Rekeningen te water. 49 ZA, Archief van de Staten van Zeeland, no. 1213 (1598?): ‘Edele ende mogende heeren mijn heeren de Gecommitteerde Raeden […]’, 1598; Bindoff, The Scheldt Question, pp. 85 ff.; Victor Enthoven, ‘Een stad te ver: De materiële verzorging van het garnizoen van Oostende’, in De val van het Nieuwe Troje, ed. by Thomas, pp. 59–71. 50 Wilfrid Brulez, De firma Della Faille en de internationale handel van Vlaamse firma’s in de 16e eeuw (Brussels: Paleis der Academiën, 1959), pp. 94, 132, 136, and 151; Eddy Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders of de handelsbetrekkingen der zuidelijke Nederlan­den met de Iberische wereld, 1598–1648, 2 vols (Brussels: Paleis der Academiën, 1971), i, pp. 294–95.

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Dutch ships in Flemish ports risked seizure. Furthermore, trade with the enemy would be much easier to regulate and monitor on the river.51 Finally, the trading licences granted by Zeeland authorities formed an important source of income for the war fleet, meaning that each admiralty board wanted to issue as many passports as possible for ships entering enemy territory. Since the River Scheldt fell under Zeeland’s jurisdiction, their patrol ships could force skippers to pay licensing fees to them, even if they had already purchased a passport in Holland. To avoid this, Holland’s admiralties preferred to issue passports for Dunkirk and Nieuwpoort, as blockading fleet controlling the access to these ports consisted of ships from Zeeland and Holland, and thus Zeeland did not have sole control over the route. The Zeelanders were thus unable to prevent trade via the Flemish ports and lost revenue as a result. After increasing pressure from Zeeland, the Estates-General prohibited trade via Dunkirk and Nieuwpoort and allowed for the blockade’s intensification along the Flemish coast in 1589. This temporarily solved the problem of undesirable trade via the Flemish ports. Even though higher costs resulted from the additional patrol ships, the new measures offered higher licence fees for the Zeelanders. This solution, however, also had a negative side.52 Now that shipping was no longer possible via Flemish ports, merchants could only send their goods to the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands via the Scheldt, but that made the issue of who could collect the licences more pressing than ever. A Council of State commission unsuccessfully tried to find a solution in 1589.53 The Hollanders and Zeelanders only reached a compromise after stadtholder Maurice stepped in to mediate. On 17 April 1590, they concluded the Provisioneel Accoord (Provisional Agreement) on levying convoys and licences. This was a temporary compromise that would apply for a one-year period and that settled the following matters: trade between Holland and Zeeland was free; convey money had to be paid at the place of loading for goods exported via the other province to neutral territories; for trade to the enemy, one half of the licence fee had to be paid at the place of loading and

51 NA, Archief van Johan van Oldenb­arnevelt [3.01.1], no. 3353: ‘Sommier verhael vande perijckelen, nadeelen en zwaerheden […] tot het openen vande havenen van Sluis […]’, 1588; Resolutiën der Staten-Generaal (RGP 51), vi (1922), 1588, no. 360, 6 May 1588; Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, ii, p. 12. 52 Johan E. Elias, Schetsen uit de geschiedenis van ons zeewezen, 6 vols (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1916–1930), i, passim; Adrianus P. van Vliet, Vissers en kapers: De zeevisserij vanuit het Maasmondgebied en de Duinkerker kapers, c. 1580–1648, Hollandse Historische Reeks, 20 (The Hague: Stichting Hollandse Historische Reeks, 1994), pp. 120–21; Enthoven, Zeeland, pp. 156–57; Adrianus P. van Vliet, Vissers in oorlogstijd: De Zeeuwse zeevisserij in de jaren 1568– 1648, Werken uitgegeven door het Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen, 14 (Middelburg: Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen, 2003), pp. 116–17. 53 ZA, Notulen Staten van Zeeland (1589, 1590), 26 October and 12 December 1589, 20 February and 13 March 1590; Resolutiën der Staten-Generaal (RGP 51), vi (1922), 1589, no. 636, 5 June 1589; no. 422, 21 June 1589; no. 425, 1 July 1589; no. 426, 10 July 1589; no. 427, 10 July 1589; no. 428, 26 July 1589; no. 430, 31 July 1589; no. 433, 21 August 1589; pp. 583–85.

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the other half at the transit province (Holland or Zeeland).54 In Zeeland, this levy was called the ‘half-Hol­land licence’. In Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Dordrecht, Zeeland custom officers collected their half of the fees, while the Rotterdam admiralty collected the other half in Zeeland. Remarkably, the agreement was between the Estates of Holland and the Estates of Zeeland, meaning that they concluded their deliberations outside of the Estates-General, even though licences were officially a Generality matter. The two sides tacitly renewed this temporary agreement each year. In 1596–1597, there was a major reorganization of naval affairs. Firstly, there was a revision of the convoy and licence lists from 1588.55 The Estates of Zeeland and those of Holland both adopted the new lists. Nevertheless, this would lead to major problems. It was unclear, for example, as to what extent it applied to the Provisional Agreement of 1590.56 In addition, negotiations had started to reach a new Ordere op de Beveilinge van de Zee (Order for Protection at Sea), including the formation of five admiralty boards: Zeeland in Middelburg; de Maze in Rotterdam; Amsterdam; West-Frisia in Hoorn; and Enkhuizen and Frisia in Dokkum (later Harlingen). The Zeelanders continued to demand the half-licence for all Holland goods transported over the Scheldt and traded to the enemy. Officials in de Maze, however, believed that the Provisional Agreement had lapsed because of the new tariff list. In Rotterdam, officials felt that the full licence should only be paid at the port of departure.57 In Zeeland, this naturally met with objection, as many feared that this would reduce the admiralty’s income.58 There was little sympathy in Holland for the Zeeland position. In January 1597, Holland’s admiralty boards prohibited the trade of all goods from Holland via the Scheldt to the enemy, except for beer, unless they paid the

54 ZA, Archief Staten van Zeeland, no. 1204, 17 April 1590; NA, Resoluties Staten van Holland (1590), 17 April 1590. 55 NA, Archief Van Oldenbarnevelt, no. 3231: ‘Rapport gedaen […]’, 1596; Resolutiën der StatenGeneraal (RGP 62), ix (1926), no. 249, 29 and 30 August 1596; no. 294, 12 September 1596; no. 295, 14 September 1596; no. 296, 17 September 1596; no. 301, 27 September 1596; no. 303, 3 October 1596; no. 304, 4 October 1596; nos 305 and 306, 5 October 1596; ‘Instructie voorde generale commisen vande convoyen en licenten, 7 October 1596’, in Bibliotheek van Nederlandse pamfletten, deel 1: 1500–1648, ed. by Louis D. Petit (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1882), p. 645; ‘Instructie dienende voor de cherchers oft toesienders opt recht vande convoyen, 9 October 1596’, in Bibliotheek van Nederlandse pamfletten, ed. by Petit, p. 647; ‘Lijste van de convoyen vande goederen ghevaert werdende naar neutrale landen […], 18 October 1596’, in Bibliotheek van Nederlandse pamfletten, ed. by Petit, p. 648; Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, ii, p. 174. 56 ZA, Archief van de Staten van Zeeland, no. 1211.2: ‘Extract uijte notulen gehouden’, 10 June 1596; Resolutiën der Staten-Generaal (RGP 62), ix (1926), 1596, no. 319, 20 November 1596; no. 320, 21 November 1596; and no. 321, 26 November 1596; Enthoven, Zeeland, pp. 129–30. 57 ZA, Archief van de Staten van Zeeland, no. 1211.2: Admiralty of the Maze to the Estates of Zeeland, 21 December 1596. 58 Resolutiën der Staten-Generaal (RGP 62), ix (1926), 1596, no. 315, 30 October 1596; no. 316, 7 November 1596; and no. 276, 14 December 1596; Van der Poel, ‘Zeeuws particularisme’, pp. 34–35; Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, ii, p. 176; Enthoven, Zeeland, pp. 129–31.

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full licence. The Hollanders thereby rejected the Provisional Agreement.59 Zeeland responded immediately by collecting the full licence at Lillo, Philippine, and Ter Hofstede. In January 1597, the Admiralty of the Maze was the first to reopen licences for the Flemish ports, although Holland’s other admiralties soon followed.60 Additionally, there were plans in Holland to place limits on the traffic of goods via Zeeland waters by means of new lists of convoys and licences, which infuriated the Zeelanders.61 The Estates of Zeeland even refused to send a representative to The Hague until the Estates of Holland had reinstated the Provisional Agreement. As a result, the negotiations on the new Order for Protection at Sea could not take place. Zeeland–Holland relations had reached their nadir. At this point, even the Union risked falling apart.62 After months of negotiations, Maurice finally succeeded in having the Estates of Holland recognize the Provisional Agreement, which included the prohibitions on shipping to Flemish ports, in the summer of 1597. Negotiations on naval matters could now finally resume.63 On 3 July 1597, the Estates-General recognized the Provisional Agreement for all of the Generality. Zeeland’s victory was complete.64 As with the Dutch Republic’s other temporary arrangements, the Provisional Agreement applied until 1795. This is generally seen as a triumph of Zeeland particularism.65 The Estates-General and Estates of Holland appear to have given in to Zeelandic demands under pressure of the Union’s threatened disintegration. This is rather simplistic, however, as Zeeland’s triumph was actually rather short-lived. In 1598, Holland’s admiralties started reissuing passports for Flemish ports. Zeeland authorities accepted this and started to issue their own passports for Dunkirk and Nieuwpoort.66 This action was 59 NA, Resoluties Staten van Holland (1597), 19, 20, and 21 December 1597; Den Tex, Oldenb­ arnevelt, ii, pp. 280 ff.; De Hullu, De archieven der admiraliteitscolleges, p. 48. 60 Johan van Oldenbarnevelt: Bescheiden betreffende zijn staatkun­dig beleid en zijn familie, ed. by Sikko P. Haak, 3 vols, RGP, Grote serie, 80, 108, and 121 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1934–1967), i (1934), p. 345, no. 176, 21 January 1597, and p. 349, no. 179, 29 March 1597. 61 Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, ii, p. 212; ZA, Familiearchief Verheye van Citters [468], no. 30.1, fol. 35: ‘Extracten uijtte notulen vande Heren Gecommit­teer­de Raden […]’. 62 Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, ii, pp. 212–13; Van der Poel, ‘Zeeuws particularisme’, pp. 39–45; Den Tex, Oldenbarne­velt, ii, p. 280. 63 Resolutiën der Staten-Generaal (RGP 62), ix (1926), 1597, no. 216, 19 April 1597; no. 217, 30 April 1597; no. 223, 2 June 1597; Notulen Staten van Holland (1597), 7 and 8 May 1597; NA, Resoluties Staten van Holland (1597), 6–10 May, 2, 12, and 13 June 1597. 64 Harold E. Becht, Statistische gegevens betreffende de handelsomzet van de Republiek der Vereenigde Nederlanden gedurende de 17de eeuw (The Hague: L. J. C. Boucher, 1923), p. 125; Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, ii, pp. 73 and 213; Van der Poel, ‘Zeeuws particularisme’, p. 31; Den Tex, Oldenbarnevelt, ii, pp. 261 ff. and 287. 65 Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, ii, p. 214; Van der Poel, ‘Zeeuws particularisme’, pp. 45–49. 66 NA, Archief van de Admiraliteitscolleges, no. 2448: Resoluties Zeeland, 1590–1595; Resolutiën der Staten-Generaal (RGP 71), x (1930), 1598, no. 345, 10 January 1598; ZA, Notulen Staten van Zeeland (1598), 16 January, 17 and 27 February, 15 May, and 6 August 1598; NA, Resoluties Staten van Holland (1598), 6 January 1598.

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necessary, as the Admiralty of Zeeland saw their revenue from the half-Holland licence decline. However, King Philip II’s death quickly put an end to this.

The Fifth Phase, 1599–1600 Philip II died on 13 September 1598. His twenty-year-old son succeeded him as Philip III, while his daughter, Isabella, and her husband, Albrecht of Austria, governed the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands as sovereign rulers. The young king wasted no time and radically broke with his father’s policies.67 The Spanish knew how dependent the Dutch war fleet was on the revenues from the licences. What would be simpler than banning trade with them? Barely two months after his ascension to the throne, the young king declared a total ban on trade with the rebels. The archdukes followed with their own ban on 9 February 1599.68 While the Spanish king had formally excluded Dutch merchants from entering the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, the Estates-General now had to take additional measures to ensure that others would not take the rebels’ place. On 2 April 1599, it banned all trade with the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, including both Dutch nationals and foreigners (French, English, Scottish, and Hanseatic League). They could no longer even possess passports or laissez-passer granted by the enemy.69 Economic warfare between south and north had erupted in full force. The Spanish Habsburg Netherlands quickly felt the consequences of these measures. There was a shortage of all products, such as salted fish and Holland cheese. The need seemed so great that a few Walloon provinces even refused to inaugurate the archdukes until they revoked the edict.70­ In addition, the archdukes were unable to finance the war against the rebels and

67 Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders, i, pp. 8–9; Jonathan I. Israel, ‘Spain, the Spanish Embargoes, and the Struggle for the Mastery of World Trade, 1585–1660’, in Empires and Entrepots: The Dutch, the Spanish Monarchy, and the Jews, 1585–1713, ed. by Jonathan I. Israel (London: Clarendon Press, 1990), pp. 189–201 (p. 194). 68 Bronnen tot de geschiedenis van den Levantschen handel, 1590–1660, ed. by Klaas Heeringa, 2 vols, RGP, Grote serie, 9 and 10 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1910), i, p. 630; Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, ii, p. 227; Jonathan I. Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585–1740 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 56. 69 Cau, Groot Placcaet-Boeck, ii, p. 34; Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, ii, pp. 235–36. 70 Henri Lonchay, Joseph Cuvelier, and Joseph Lefèvre, Correspondance de la Cour d’Espagne sur les affaires des Pays-Bas au xviie siècle, 6 vols (Brussels: Commission royale d’histoire, 1923–1937), i, no. 67, 24 September 1599; no. 69, September 1599; and no. 74, 14 November 1599.

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regularly required additional funds from Spain.71 This financial dependence further increased due to the embargo.72 The rebels suffered from the expected negative consequences. The income from licences, for example, decreased, while they required additional funds to implement an edict from 2 April that called for more warships to prevent trade with the enemy.73 The Admiralties faced other serious financial difficulties: smuggling, for example, was rampant, as all trade with the enemy after 2 April was illegal. The Zeelanders caught an endless stream of licence violators and other smugglers.74 Nevertheless, soap, butter, cheese, fish, and even gunpowder reached the enemy. Thus, Zeelanders continued to supply the enemy, while the war fleet lost income. Under pressure from the admiralties, the Estates-General decided to reopen the licences on 20 October 1599.75 This was a de facto recognition that closing the licences had failed. It was clear that the rebels could not survive without trading with the enemy. For obvious reasons, the Zeelanders did not want this decision widely known. Instead, the reopening of the licences had to be ‘secretelijck geschieden opdat den vyant niet en comme te weeten, dat deze toelatinge geschiet doir ’t bevel ofte authoriteyt van de heeren Staten-Gene­raal’ (‘done secretly so that the enemy should not know that this authority is done by order of the authority of the lords of the Estates-General’).76 In 1600, they started with a cautious reopening of the licences. Although they were initially unaware of the Estates-General’s

71 Geoffrey Parker, The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567–1659: The Logistics of Spanish Victory and Defeat in the Low Countries’ Wars (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), Appendix K; John Lynch, The Hispanic World in Crisis and Change, 1598–1700 (Ox­ford: Blackwell, 1994), p. 43; Stradling, The Armada of Flanders, pp. 196 ff. 72 Lonchay, Cuvelier, and Lefèvre, Correspondance de la Cour, passim; Willem J. M. van Eysinga, De wording van het Twaalfjarig Bestand van 9 april 1609, Verhandelingen der Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeling Letterkunde, n.s., 66/3 (Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschappij, 1959), p. 52; Daniel Gheret, ‘Les Produits des licentes et autres impôts sur le commerce extérieur dans les Pays-Bas espagnols, 1585–1621’, in Acta Historica Bruxellensia, II: Recherches sur l’histoire des finances publiques en Belgique (Brussels: Université libre de Bruxelles, 1970), pp. 43–122 (passim). 73 ZA, Archief Staten van Zeeland, no. 1214: ‘Edel […] Hoochgeleerde, Vrome, Wyse, ende seer voorsichtige heeren […]’, 13 September 1599. 74 ZA, Archief Rekenkamer C, no. 6300 ff.: Rekeningen te water, grossa confiscatiën; ZA, Archieven der directe en indirecte belastingen [50], no. 4: Register van de zaken gediend voor de Raden ter Admiraliteit, 1597–1599; and no. 5: Register van de zaken gediend voor de Raden ter Admiraliteit, 1600–1605. 75 ZA, Archief Staten van Zeeland, no. 1630, 18 May and 8 and 29 December 1599; ZA, Notulen Staten van Zeeland (1599), 18 November 1599; Resolutiën der Staten-Generaal (RGP 71), x (1930), 1599, p. 786, note 3; p. 725, 28 May 1599; no. 427, 19 June 1599; no. 316, 2 August 1599; no. 438, 20 October 1599; no. 380, 27 October 1599; no. 383, 5 November 1599; no. 393, 30 November 1599; and no. 760, 7 December 1599. 76 Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, ii, p. 254.

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decision, the Gecommiteerde Raden of Zeeland also took measures to reopen trade via Lillo and Philippine in January of that year. This was initially done to alleviate the financial difficulties faced by the Admiralty of Zeeland and included an increased tariff.77 However, because of the archdukes’ embargo, this did not really improve the situation; official trade with the Spanish Netherlands remained sparse, albeit for a limited time. With Maurice’s imminent expedition to Flanders, the Estates of Zeeland closed all licences, except for provisions sent to their own troops, once again in June 1600.78

The Sixth Phase, 1600–1609 The famous battle of Nieuwpoort (1600) culminated in bringing Maurice much fame but few tangible results. Shortly afterwards, Habsburg troops laid siege to Ostend. Walcheren served as a forward base of operations to supply Ostend by sea during this notorious siege. Maurice was unable to save the city, but managed to capture Sluis in 1604, which most considered to be a more valuable prize. Peace was thereby restored to the Scheldt estuary.79 After Maurice’s adventure in Flanders, the Estates-General, under pressure from the admiralties’ dramatic financial situation and a threatened mutiny, reopened the licences in November 1600.80 This did not, however, immediately result in increased income, as the border remained closed on the other side. The archdukes had issued a new edict that again prohibited trade with the rebellious provinces. Thus, it was illegal to import goods, especially cheese, butter, salted and dried fish, and soap from neutral countries of unknown provenance. Only fresh fish could be imported, if it could be shown that it did not come from the north.81 The revenue from licences only started to increase again during the second half of 1601. In the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, Archduke Albrecht had to contend with the same problems as the Estates-General: smuggling occurred regularly, while the treasury remained empty. He started to once more allow trade with the rebels against payment of a levy or licence fee. In 1603, he further 77 ZA Archief Staten van Zeeland, no. 1630, 5, 7, 10, and 11 January 1600; Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, ii, pp. 255–56. 78 ZA, Archief Staten van Zeeland, no. 1630, 13, 15, 16, and 20 June 1600; ZA, Notulen Staten van Zeeland (1600), 15 June 1600; De Waard, ‘Arnemuiden, regestenlijst’, no. 632, 18 June 1600. 79 Adriaan M. J. de Kraker, Landschap uit balans: De invloed van de natuur, de economie en de politiek op de ontwikkelingen van het landschap in de Vier Ambachten en het Land van Saeftinghe tussen 1488 en 1609 (Utrecht: Matrijs, 1997), pp. 335 ff.; Simon Groenveld, Een doore geopent”: Noord-Nederlandse tijdgenoten over de positie en de verovering van Sluis, 1604’, Archief: Mededelingen van het Koninklijk Zeeuwsch Genootschap der Wetenschappen, (2004), 5–48; De val van het Nieuwe Troje, ed. by Thomas, pp. 71, 98, and 99. 80 Resolutiën der Staten-Generaal (RGP 85), xi (1941), 16 February, 17 April, 7 and 10 August 1600, and 1 May 1601; Elias, Schetsen van ons zeewezen, i, p. 73. 81 Kernkamp, Handel op den vijand, ii, pp. 257–59.

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expanded the options. For an additional levy of 33.3 per cent, everyone was free to trade, both on the Scheldt and through Flemish ports.82 In response to this situation, the Estates-General promptly created a new list of tariffs. The edict of 5 April 1603 broadly reinforced the tariff lists of October 1596 and November 1598, thereby causing all intervening measures to lapse.83 The highest licence tariff applied to the threatened city of ’s-Hertogenbosch. The Estates-General again closed the licences to Brabant when Maurice tried to capture the city in August 1603.84 In Flanders, however, the situation was changing. After years of siege, Ostend fell into Spanish hands on 20 September 1604. However, the loss of Ostend was more than compensated by the capture of IJzendijke, Aardenburg, and Sluis, an important strategic strongpoint.85 Due to the various sieges, the Estates-General closed licences for a short time in April 1604, but, because goods still headed south from Holland via Bergen op Zoom, the Estates of Zeeland reopened licences to protect their own merchants.86 The newly-conquered towns in Zeelandic Flanders clearly did not appear on the list of tariffs for licences. Merchants, as resourceful as always, discovered that trade to these ports was free and that goods could then easily be smuggled to the enemy. The Estates of Zeeland soon prevented this by issuing a special passport that ensured that goods shipped to Zeelandic Flanders would stay there and could not be sent south.87 In 1605, calm gradually returned to the Scheldt estuary after the rebels and loyalists signed an armistice. Moreover, the Twelve Years’ Truce of 1609 implemented a series of new conditions concerning trade with the enemy, but these measures fall outside of this chapter’s scope.

Conclusions With the ascension of Habsburg rule, the Low Countries’s economic centre had been primarily fixed in the south, with the Walcheren anchorage acting as a central point. Bruges maintained an important wool industry, Antwerp was

82 Lonchay, Cuvelier, and Lefèvre, Correspondance de la Cour, i, p. 188, 16 August 1601; Recueil des ordonnances des Pays-Bas: Règne d’Albert et d’Isabelle, 1597–1621, ed. by Victor Brants, 2 vols (Brussels: J. Goemaere, 1909–1912), i, pp. 140–41; Joseph Lefèvre, ‘Les Ambassadeurs d’Espagne à Bruxelles sous le règne de l’archiduc Albert, 1598–1621’, Revue belge de philologie et d’histoire, 2 (1923), 61–80 (p. 64). 83 ZA, Archief Staten van Zeeland, no. 909: Nicolai to the Estates of Zeeland, 1 August 1603; Cau, Groot Placcaet-Boeck, i, p. 2415. 84 Resolutiën der Staten-Generaal (RGP 92), xii (1950), 26 and 27 June, 5, 16, and 22 September, 5 October, 17 November, and 9 December 1603. 85 Van Eysinga, De wording van het Twaalfjarig Bestand. 86 ZA, Archief Staten van Zeeland, no. 1632, 1 July 1604; ZA, Notulen Staten Zeeland (1604), 29 April, 8 May, and 2, 4, and 6 August 1604. 87 ZA, Archief Staten van Zeeland, no. 1631, 21 and 31 January, 17 March, and 14 and 24 April 1604; ZA, Notulen Staten van Zeeland (1604), 1 and 10 December 1604.

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an international trading metropolis, and Middelburg was the de facto market for western wines. Every year, at least 2500 sea-going ships entered the Scheldt estuary, of which 900 to a 1000 were of foreign origin. Due to the revolt against Habsburg authority, the Scheldt estuary changed from an internal boundary before 1572 to an external border in the years that followed. Closing the new border, however, was not an option for either the Flemish or the Zeelanders. The loyalists were dependent on the north for the importation of many goods, such as food and merchandise, while Brabant and Flanders represented hinterland marketplaces for Zeeland’s merchants. The rebels regulated trade with the enemy through licences. These were tariff lists that stipulated how and for what fee trade could continue with the enemy. The funds from the licences served as an especially important source of income for the Zeeland war fleet. Yet, they also represented a particularly vulnerable method for naval funding and had to be balanced among military (the enemy army should not be supplied), economic (Zeelandic trade should not be excessively damaged), and financial interests (there had to be sufficient income to fund the war fleet). Over time, the loyalists also switched to a similar system. Whether the licences and the resulting trade worked to the advantage of either side is rather doubtful, as the separation between north and south, with the Scheldt as the border, had disastrous consequences for both Zeeland and Flanders. Since the rebels controlled trade to the south, Bruges lost its wool industry and Antwerp could no longer maintain its position as a trading metropolis. Zeeland, on the other hand, lost most of its hinterland, as fewer ships, particularly from abroad, anchored at the Walcheren anchorage, which caused it to go from being the Low Countries’s most important anchorage to a position on the economic fringe of the Dutch Republic.

Bram De Ridder 

Border Management during the Eighty Years’ War Passports for Persons Crossing the New Habsburg-Dutch Border, 1568–1648 In the past few decades, historians have increasingly described the early modern world as one of flux, movement, and connection. Influenced by global and transnational history, they have made a serious effort to study when, where, and how early modern people interacted across the boundaries of spatial entities such as provinces, states, empires, continents, mountains, seas, and oceans. Four key topics within their works have drawn particular attention: the exploration of the world and the strong ties between its constituent parts; the role of international trade and global economic interaction; the social and political aspects of (forced) migration; and the voyages of Europe’s elites, particularly diplomats, scholars, and students.1 Although these debates



1 For more on a borderless global world, see: Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The ManyHeaded Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (London: Verso Books, 2000); Janet Polasky, Revolutions without Borders: The Call to Liberty in the Atlantic World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015); Geoffrey C. Gunn, History without Borders: The Making of an Asian World Region, 1000–1800 (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2011). On transnational trade, see: Bartolomé Yun-Casalilla, ‘Localism, Global History and Transnational History: A Reflection from the Historian of Early Modern Europe’, Historisk Tidskrift, 127 (2007), 659–78; Ana Crespo Solana, ‘Elementos de transnacionalidad en el comercio flamenco-holandés en Europa y la Monarquía hispánica’, Cuadernos de Historia Moderna, 10 (2011), 55–76. Some of the most recent works concerning exile include José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez and Igor Pérez Tostado, Los exiliados del rey de España (Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2015); Nicholas Terpstra, Religious Refugees in the Early Modern World: An Alternative History of the Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Geert Janssen, The Dutch Revolt and Catholic Exile in Reformation Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Exile and Religious Identity, 1500–1800, ed. by Jesse Sponholz and Gary K. Waite (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014); Johannes Müller, Exile Memories and the Dutch Revolt: The Narrated Diaspora, 1550–1750 (Leiden: Brill, 2016); Frank Metasch, Exulanten in Dresden: Einwanderung und Integration von Glaubensflüchtlingen im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2011); Violet Soen, ‘Exile Encounters and Cross-Border Mobility in Early Modern Borderlands: The Ecclesiastical Province of Cambrai as a Transregional Node (1559–1600)’, Belgeo. Revue Belge de Géographie / Belgian Journal of Geography, 2 (2015) (online 15 July 2015); and Yves Junot and Violet Soen, ‘Huir y volver durante la Guerra de Flandes (1566–1609)’, in Refugiados, exiliados y retornados en los mundos ibéricos (siglos xvi–xx), ed. by José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez and Bernard Vincent (Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2018), pp. 29–53. Finally, for the movement of the European elite student population, see: Violet Soen, ‘Containing Students and Scholars Within Borders? The Foundation of Universities in Reims and Douai & Transregional Transfers in Early Modern Catholicism’, in Transregional Transregional Territories: Crossing Borders in the Early Modern Low Countries and Beyond, ed. by Bram De Ridder, Violet Soen, Werner Thomas, and Sophie Verreyken, HW 2 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 183–208.

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are too extensive to summarize within this chapter, they nevertheless share one remarkable feature. In a successful attempt to break with a traditional and anachronistic reliance on national borders, these strands of research suggested that the early modern world was one of connection more than of separation.2 Consequently, scholars generally paid much more attention to the connective elements of early modern boundaries than to what had turned them into territorial separations in the first place. Yet, it should not be forgotten that the aforementioned interactions took place across, and not without, borders. Around the globe and throughout history, delimitating territories has always mattered. The ancient limes of the Roman Empire represent a famous case in point, while recent scholarship on medieval borders has likewise highlighted the importance of territorial separations, even to small communities.3 Similarly, scholars of the early modern period, such as Tamar Herzog, Lauren Benton, Charles Maier, and the members of the Red Columnaria Network have re-evaluated the structure and impact of boundaries in an age defined by continuing globalization and





Reformations: Crossing Borders in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Violet Soen and others (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019), pp. 267-294; Jonathan Woolfson, Padua and the Tudors: English Students in Italy, 1485–1603 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998). 2 Perhaps this view of the early modern world as essentially borderless reflects the perceived de-bordering of the world from the mid-1980s onwards, an evolution that might be reversed by the current (and massive) re-bordering of the world, particularly in Europe. See for the original North-American view of re-bordering processes: Peter Andreas and Thomas J. Biersteker, The Rebordering of North America: Integration and Exclusion in a New Security Context (New York: Routledge, 2003); Lee Rodney, ‘Road Signs on the Border: Transnational Anxiety and the Rebordering of North America’, Space and Culture, 14 (2011), 384–97. For a critique: Mark B. Salter, ‘When the Exception Becomes the Rule: Borders, Sovereignty, and Citizenship’, Citizenship Studies, 12 (2008), 371–72. For a historical appraisal of the separative power of borders see: Anton Caruana Galizia, ‘Family Strategies and Transregional Mobility: The de Piro in Eighteenth-Century Malta and Sicily’, European History Quarterly, 44 (2014), 419–38; Alexander Soetaert, ‘Printing at the Frontier: The Emergence of a Transregional Book Production in the Ecclesiastical Province of Cambrai (ca. 1560–1659)’, De Gulden Passer: Journal for Book History, 94 (2016), 137–63; Luca Scholz, Borders & Freedom of Movement in the Holy Roman Empire (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020); and the works cited under footnote 7. 3 Christine Roll, ‘Grenzen und Grenzüberschreitungen in der Frühen Neuzeit: Eine Einführung in die Forschung’, in Grenzen und Grenzüberschreitungen: Bilanz und Perspektiven der Frühneuzeitsforschung, ed. by Christine Roll, Frank Pohle, and Matthias Myrczek (Cologne: Böhlau Verlag, 2010), pp. 13–22; Bernard Guenée, ‘Des limites féodales aux frontières politiques’, in Les Lieux de mémoire, ed. by Pierre Nora, 3 vols (Paris: Gallimard, 1982–1994), ii (1986), pp. 11–33; Willem  A. Van Ham, ‘Breda contra Bergen op Zoom: vijf eeuwen strijd om de grenzen’, Jaarboek van de Geschied- en Oudheidkundige Kring van Stad en Land van Breda “De Oranjeboom”, 27 (1974), 151–85; Jelle Lisson, ‘Grenzeloze macht? De territoriale politiek van de bisschoppen van Luik en Metz in de regio Zoutleeuw (8ste–13de eeuw)’, Trajecta: Religion, Culture and Society in the Low Countries, 23 (2014), 5–36.

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state formation.4 Even in the Americas — famously depicted on early modern maps as a terra nullius that seemed to set no limitation to either exploration or conquest — European settlers quickly established new boundaries with both the native peoples and amongst themselves. The following chapter aims to continue this line of research by delving deeper into the complex, contentious, and disruptive mechanics of early modern border management, a (modern) term referring to both the top-down and bottom-up handling of territorial divisions.5 As the following sections will argue, it is not because the early modern world consisted of countless cross-border connections, that such interactions were necessarily easy or uncontested. On the contrary, crossing a border was often a hazardous enterprise, wrought with financial and physical risks, and hard work, as new arrivals had to deal with all sorts of administrative requirements. These challenges stimulated the development of different border-related strategies, the details of which differed from place to place and actor to actor, but which nevertheless all aimed at either facilitating the immediate boundary crossing of a person or at changing the overall system causing the difficult border passage. Some of these strategies were more reliable than others, but wherever and whenever they existed they illustrated two key points: (1) actors could not ignore the borders they encountered; and (2) the management strategies of those actors constantly shaped and reshaped the boundaries they voluntarily or involuntarily confronted. In order to better illustrate these two elements, this chapter looks at how individuals used passeports personnels to cross the brand new Habsburg-Dutch border during the Eighty Years’ War (c. 1568–1648). As a result of this conflict, the territorial entity formerly known as the Seventeen Provinces had split





4 Tamar Herzog, Frontiers of Possession: Spain and Portugal in Europe and the Americas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015); Lauren Benton, A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Charles S. Maier, Once within Borders: Territories of Power, Wealth, and Belonging since 1500 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016); Fronteras: Procesos y prácticas de integración y conflictos entre Europa y América (siglos xvi–xx), ed. by Valentina Favarò, Manfredi Merluzzi, and Gaetano Sabatini (Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica and Red Columnaria, 2017). For the work of the members of Red Columnaria, see: . 5 In my doctoral dissertation and the associated upcoming monograph, I have defined border management as ‘every type of engagement with a territorial separation that sought to negate, alter, change, or confirm its impact on the life of oneself or of other people’. The advantage of using this term is that it avoids an a-priori allocation of suffering and victimhood, as the term ‘coping strategies’ often implies. While some strategies of border management were coping strategies, others where too proactive to be considered as such. In addition to the last section of this chapter, see: Bram De Ridder, ‘Lawful Limits: Border Management and the Formation of the Habsburg-Dutch Boundary, ca 1590–1665’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, KU Leuven, 2016). The term border management also appears in Jason Ackleson, ‘The Emerging Politics of Border Management: Policy and Research Considerations’, in The Ashgate Research Companion to Border Studies, ed. by Doris WastlWalter (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 245–61.

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into the Dutch Republic of the United Provinces and the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, each characterized by adherence to a separate confession.6 The United Provinces’s unexpected secession from the wider Spanish Habsburg empire entailed the creation of an entirely new border, causing trouble for everyone who wanted to travel between the two parts of the Low Countries.7 This situation provides an interesting contrast to the usual assessment of early modern cross-border interactions because it deals with circumstances, such as open war and the simultaneous creation of an unprecedented system of border administration, that historians have rarely addressed within global and transnational historical literature. As will be explained, both the establishment of a network of fortifications in the frontier area and the required possessions of certain legal documents posed serious problems for those who wanted or needed to be on the other side of the border, leading to the development of five key strategies of border management. In the first part of this chapter, I will briefly discuss the origins of the Habsburg-Dutch border and the different stages of its formation. This section will reveal the major physical changes that occurred in the borderlands during the Eighty Years’ War. This is an important point to make because the heavily fortified frontier landscape of the Low Countries constituted the spatial background against which all other elements of border management unfolded, including the use of passports. The section will also discuss how the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands both installed a legal system that managed trans-border movement. It does not include detailed descriptions of all measures that were implemented, but serves as a general reminder that the use of personal passports conformed to the interests of the two central governments, their local officials, and their subjects. Stressing the impact of administrative border controls and the benefit this brought to different actors is required if one is to better understand the border management strategies discussed in part two. This second part zooms in on five common methods for obtaining and using personal passports and assesses the complex nature of daily border crossings during the Eighty Years’ War. In studying these aspects of early modern border management, the article relies heavily upon the transregional method discussed in the introduction to the volume. Highlighting the passport system’s overall functioning and management within the early modern Low Countries requires an examination of the border through a range of spatial scales and the multitude of actors trying to cross the separation. This approach results in an analysis that focuses



6 For an overview, see: Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477–1806 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995); Laura Cruz, ‘Reworking the Grand Narrative: A Review of Recent Books on the Dutch Revolt’, Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden / Low Countries Historical Review (BMGN/LCHR), 125 (2010), 29–38. 7 For an earlier assessment of the consequences of this frontier creation, see: Boundaries and their Meaning in the History of the Netherlands, ed. by Benjamin J. Kaplan, Marybeth Carlson, and Laura Cruz (Leiden: Brill, 2009).

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on the transformative consequences of building fortifications and on the ‘character’ of the borderlands during the Eighty Years’ War, before addressing both the general and specific incentives behind the creation of the passport system. The transregional method, however, is most relevant in the last part of the chapter, where a wide range of actors are seen crossing, or attempting to cross, the border, literally transgressing the Low Countries’s now divided regions. In doing so, this research makes an implicit case for the importance of a transregional perspective on early modern borders, in addition to the more common global and transnational accounts.

The Changing Border Landscape of the Eighty Years’ War In order to understand the use of personal passports in the Low Countries, it is first necessary to offer some background on the violent origins of the border between the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands and the Dutch Republic. For one, it needs to be stressed that the emergence of this boundary was completely unexpected. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the Burgundian and Habsburg dynasties had gradually ‘unified’ the Seventeen Provinces, binding them together through a process of governmental centralization. Emperor Charles V, in particular, strengthened the old cultural and historical bonds between the Low Countries, such as when he issued the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549, which confirmed the dynastic indivisibility of these territories.8 By the mid-sixteenth century, integration, not separation, emerged as the region’s guiding political tendency. By the 1560s and 1570s, however, political and religious discord had torn apart the Low Countries. Many insurgents rebelled against the political centralizations of Charles’s son, King Philip II of Spain, while others rallied against his desire for an exclusive Catholicism within his realms. Soon enough, the Dutch Revolt had turned into an all-out civil war, initiating decades of governmental and military chaos within the Low Countries.9 By the 1590s, and despite lasting economic and cultural connections between the Netherlands, the Revolt transformed itself into a war of independence between the secessionist Dutch Republic of the United Provinces and the





8 Robert Stein, De hertog en zijn Staten: De eenwording van de Bourgondische Nederlanden, ca. 1380–1480 (Hilversum: Verloren, 2014), pp. 9–59 and 274–75; Wim Blockmans, Karel V: Keizer van een wereldrijk, 1500–1558 (Kampen: Omniboek, 2012), pp. 76–83. See also Wim Blockmans and Walter Prevenier, De Bourgondiërs: De Nederlanden op weg naar eenheid, 1384–1530 (Amsterdam: Meulenhoff, 1997); Wim Blockmans and Walter Prevenier, The Promised Lands: The Low Countries under Burgundian Rule, 1369–1530, ed. by Edward Peters (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999). 9 For a discussion of the Revolt’s causes see: Henk van Nierop, ‘Alva’s Throne: Making Sense of the Revolt of the Netherlands’, in The Origins and Development of the Dutch Revolt, ed. by Graham Darby (London: Taylor & Francis, 2001), pp. 29–47. In addition, see: Israel, The Dutch Republic.

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remaining Habsburg territories. The former, centred in Holland and governed by the Estates-General, a parliamentary institution located in The Hague, sought to achieve independence from the overarching Spanish Habsburg empire, while also reinforcing the position of Protestantism within the Low Countries. Philip II of Spain and his successors, for their part, staunchly defended both their right to rule and the primacy of the Catholic faith. After decades of fighting, with only a brief interruption due to the Twelve Years’ Truce of 1609–1621, Philip IV recognized the definitive loss of several of his territories in the Low Countries. On 15 May 1648, the Peace of Münster marked the end of one of Europe’s most protracted wars, with the Habsburgs granting official sovereignty to the Dutch Republic.10 Due to the conflict’s secessionist nature, the Peace also formally created a new Habsburg-Dutch border. During the war, this boundary displayed all the characteristics of what contemporaries called the frontieren (frontiers, always used in plural), meaning the space where the two opposing forces violently confronted each other. These frontiers stretched from Cadzand in north-western Flanders to the city of Emden in east Frisia, their actual shape being determined by the warring parties’ victories and losses on the battlefield. Without a doubt these were places where death, destruction, and chaos reigned, as both contemporary and modern historians stressed how the inhabitants of the frontiers had to live with constant danger.11 This was especially true during the early stages of the Eighty Years’ War, when the Habsburg-Dutch borderlands represented a space of constant insecurity. As Leo Adriaenssen highlighted for Brabant, and Tim Piceu and Adriaan de Kraker argued for Flanders, the wartime populations living along the Habsburg-Dutch borderlands fell victim to attacks by unruly and often underpaid soldiers, state-sanctioned pillaging campaigns, and a variety of other violent measures initiated by people who wanted to maintain a claim over the frontiers and their revenue.12 10 Simon Groenveld, ‘De Vrede van Munster: Einde en nieuw begin’, in 1648. Vrede van Munster: feit en verbeelding, ed. by Jacques Dane (Zwolle: Waanders, 1998), pp. 39–40. 11 In his 1601 account of the Revolt, historian Jean-François Le Petit did not introduce the frontier town of Lingen through the typical geographical and historical references, but characterized the city by means of its immense suffering at the frontier and risk of being torn apart by its powerful neighbours: Jean-Francois Le Petit, La Grande Chroniqve ancienne et moderne de Hollande, Zelande, VVest-Frise, Vtrecht, Frise, Overyssel & Groeningen, jusques à la fin de l’An 1600, 2 vols (Dordrecht: Guillaume Guillemot, 1601), i, p. 35. 12 Adriaan M. J. de Kraker, ‘Een staatse strategie in een “uitgestorven” land: Organisatie en ten uitvoerlegging van de brandschat in Vlaanderen, 1585 tot 1604’, BMGN/LCHR, 121 (2004), 3–35; Leo Adriaenssen, Staatsvormend geweld: Overleven aan de frontlinies in de meierij van Den Bosch, 1572–1629 (Tilburg: Stichting Zuidelijk Historisch Contact, 2007); Tim Piceu, Over vrybuters en quaetdoeners: Terreur op het Vlaamse platteland (eind 16de eeuw) (Leuven: Davidsfonds, 2008). For more local cases, see: Els Guillemyn, De Vrijbuiters, xvie-eeuwse guerrillastrijders als voorposten in de 80-jarige oorlog: De Kasselrij Kortrijk in 1584–1593, Historische Monografieën, 3 (Aartrijke: Decock, 1993), pp. 17–19 and 79–93; Han Verschure, Overleven buiten de Hollandse tuin: Raamsdonk, Waspik, ’s Gravenmoer, Capelle, Sprang en Besoijen tijdens de Tachtigjarige Oorlog (Tilburg: Gianotten, 2004).

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Travellers who sought to cross the frontier encountered similar dangers. The troubles encountered by Guillaume du Terme, a messenger for the city of Bruges, exemplify the potential risks, as Dutch soldiers took him hostage five times between 1584 and 1609.13 Although du Terme’s official position granted him some protection against major physical harm, soldiers would often rob messengers of their valuables before using them as bargaining chips to obtain ransom money from their families or employers. Comparably, it was not uncommon for soldiers to raid the carts and boats of merchants travelling within the frontier areas, causing these merchants to petition local or central governments to organize armed convoys.14 Common individuals along the frontiers, including cattle drivers pasturing their livestock, farmers working in their fields, and townfolk visiting family or attending mass in a neighbouring church, dealt with the worst situations, however, as they enjoyed neither the protections offered to government officials nor a merchant’s military convoy. For these groups, travelling in or across the borderlands entailed the constant risk of physical and financial harm at the hands of bandits, soldiers, and sanctioned state officials. Another important consequence of the constant fighting within the borderland regions was that the physical landscape frequently underwent dramatic changes, which also affected travellers. This refers in the first place to the inundations that drowned large tracts of land along the frontier. In the 1580s, and again after 1621, man-made flooding seriously transformed the frontier lands within Flanders, while comparable strategies were followed in Holland, Brabant, and elsewhere.15 These inundations were primarily intended to impede the movements of hostile armies, such as during the famous siege of Leiden (1573–1574) and during the post-Truce sieges of ’s-Hertogenbosch (1629) and Breda (1637).16 Yet, the diversion of major waterways also forced travellers to adapt their normal itineraries: leaving aside the activities of smugglers, most people crossing the borderlands had to take an increasingly fixed set of routes along dikes that had not been pierced or by roads that had not been drowned. Moreover, the freedom of movement for regular travellers such as messengers, merchants, and the borderlands’ many inhabitants also became more limited due to another type of physical obstruction. The countless new military structures that both sides built in the frontier areas resulted in greater limitations than periodic flooding. Prior to the Dutch Revolt, the landscape of the Low Countries was already dotted with dozens of fortified cities that served as hubs for an impressive legal and political administrative system. During the Eighty Years’ War, however, local, 13 Piceu, Over vrybuters, p. 73. 14 Piceu, Over vrybuters, pp. 91–92. 15 Marjolein ’t Hart, The Dutch Wars of Independence: Warfare and Commerce in the Netherlands, 1570–1680 (London: Routledge Press, 2014), pp. 106–07; Peter de Cauwer, Tranen van bloed: Het beleg van ’s-Hertogenbosch en de oorlog in de Nederlanden, 1629 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2007), pp. 74–75. 16 ’t Hart, The Dutch Wars, pp. 106–07.

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regional, and central governments added hundreds of additional sterckten (strongholds), forten (fortresses), redoubten (redoubts) and linies (lines).17 As with the inundations, the primary purpose of these buildings was a military one: to observe and impede the movement of hostile forces and to offer additional protection in case of an attack. By the late 1590s and early 1600s, however, these trace-italienne style fortifications were so pervasive that they virtually sealed off the border and could not be ignored by those who travelled in the borderlands.18 Two maps from a 1635 Bleau-atlas demonstrate this visually. Figure 1 shows the borderlands around Antwerp and the dozens of square- and star-shaped fortifications that had been built during the conflict. Figure 2 depicts the (never completed) Fossa Eugeniana, a defensive line between the Rhine and Meuse rivers. Each of these structures represented a potential checkpoint from where soldiers could both observe approaching travellers and inquire about one’s business at the frontiers. Moreover, if they identified one of the observed persons or groups as a potential security risk, or if they simply wanted to rob or ransom them for money and plunder, these structures similarly formed an ideal base of operations. Although smuggling, or lorredraaierij as contemporaries called it, certainly existed and even flourished within the Habsburg-Dutch borderlands, the new fortifications that emerged along the frontiers literally contained hundreds of spying eyes that observed movement and could set in motion violent actions against any ‘suspicious’ travellers.

17 For a summary of defensive works in current-day Belgian Flanders, see: Westtoer, ‘WestVlaams provinciebedrijf voor Toerisme en Recreatie, Forten en verdedigingswerken in het Oost- en West-Vlaamse krekengebied. Opgemaakt in opdracht van de Provincies Oost-Vlaanderen en West-Vlaanderen. Deel II Inventarisdossier’ (n.p.: Provincies Oost- en West-Vlaanderen, 2003). For an overview of early Dutch fortifications, see: Frans Westra, Nederlandse ingenieurs en de fortificatiewerken in het eerste tijdperk van de Tachtigjarige Oorlog, 1573–1604 (Alphen aan den Rijn: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, 1992), pp. 31–55. 18 Concerning the influence of trace italienne fortifications across Europe and their relation to territorial control, see: Derek Croxton, ‘A Territorial Imperative? The Military Revolution, Strategy and Peacemaking in the Thirty Years’ War’, War in History, 5 (1998), 253–79 (pp. 266 and 274–75); Mahinder S. Kingra, ‘The Trace Italienne and the Military Revolution during the Eighty Years’ War, 1567–1648’, The Journal of Military History, 57 (1993), 431–46 (pp. 434–35). For a wider appraisal, see the contributions in The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe, ed. by Clifford J. Rogers (Boulder Hill: Westview Press, 1995); La Genèse du système bastionné en Europe / The Genesis of the Bastioned System in Europe 1500–1550, ed. by Nicolas Faucherre, Pieter Martens, and Hugues Paucot (Navarrenx: CHA, 2014); Charles van den Heuvel, ‘Papiere Bolwercken’: De introductie van de Italiaanse stede- en vestingbouw in de Nederlanden (1540–1609) en het gebruik van tekeningen (Alphen aan den Rijn: Canaletto, 1991); Charles van den Heuvel and Ben Roosens, ‘Administration, Engineers and Communication under Charles V: The Transformation of Fortification in the Low Countries in the First Half of the 16th Century’, in Fortezze d’Europa: Forme, professioni e mestieri dell’architettura difensiva in Europa e nel Mediterraneo spagnolo, ed. by Angela Marino (Rome: Gangemi Editore, 2003), pp. 411–27.

Fig. 8.1  Brabantia, in Wilhelm Janszoon Blaeu, Toonneel des Aerdriicx Ofte Nievwe Atlas, Dat is beschryving van alle Landen, 2 vols (Amsterdam: Wilhelm Janszoon and Johannes Blaeu, 1635), i, n.p. (© Vanderstraeten Family)

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Fig. 8.2  Fossa Sanctae Mariae, in Wilhelm Janszoon Blaeu, Toonneel des Aerdriicx Ofte Nievwe Atlas, Dat is beschryving van alle Landen, 2 vols (Amsterdam: Wilhelm Janszoon and Johannes Blaeu, 1635), i, n.p. (© Vanderstraeten Family)

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Passports as a Means of Controlling Cross-Border Movement The militarization of the Habsburg-Dutch borderlands was especially significant because it constituted both a sufficient and a necessary cause for the expanding use of personal passports. Regarding the first, the ever-tightening network of fortifications and the limited roads along which people could travel provided an excellent infrastructure that allowed for the creation of a system of legal border controls. Since it became increasingly hard to travel unseen, the governments of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands and the Dutch Republic eagerly seized the opportunity by requiring travellers to obtain formal permits for border passage. The cities and fortresses along the frontier not only proved excellent locations to check the identity of people who wanted to cross the border and to assert one’s authority over them, but also ensured that each traveller paid for the right to do so. In this sense, the growing military infrastructure of the Eighty Years’ War sufficed to establish a system of passport controls, as its presence helped the two cash-needy governments to strengthen their finances and to make sure that no unwanted persons (confessional agitators, spies, saboteurs, etc.) or goods (confessional literature, supplies, arms, gunpowder, etc.) crossed the border. Regarding the second, the menacing troops concentrated at the frontiers also forced those who wanted or needed to travel to seek as much security as possible. As previously mentioned, even the better-protected messengers and merchants still suffered at the hands of the numerous armed actors that operated within the borderlands, leading them to become the natural supporters of any sort of system that brought them some stability and protection. The frontier inhabitants often found this stability in the form of a declaration of neutrality or by being placed under sauvegarde, neither of which will concern us here, but other travellers increasingly relied upon the protection offered by passports.19 At first sight this might seem to have amounted to little more than a form of ‘paper’ protection, but the legal qualities of the documents, including protection offered in the name of the sovereign that was signed and sealed by his administration, implied that their possessors would experience less physical or economic harm. In this respect the ever-present threat of violence

19 It is beyond the scope of this chapter to offer a full analysis of every useful piece of documentation for crossing the border, but for a wider discussion, see my doctoral dissertation, ‘Lawful Limits’, pp. 105–42. Other important publications include Catherine Denys, ‘Quelques réflexions sur la régulation de la violence de guerre dans les Pays-Bas méridionaux aux xviie et xviiie siècles’, in Les ressources des faibles: Neutralités, sauvegardes, accommodements en temps de guerre (xvie–xviiie siècle), ed. by Jean-François Chanet and Christian Windler (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2009), pp. 205–20; José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, ‘La guerre, les princes et les paysans: les pratiques de neutralisation et de sauvegarde dans les Pays-Bas et le Nord du royaume de France vers la fin du xvie siècle’, in Les ressources des faibles, ed. by Chanet and Windler, pp. 187–204.

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at the frontier formed a necessary condition for the use of passports, simply because no one would apply, let alone pay, for such travel documentation if there was no danger to crossing the border without them. Comparable to the creation of the Habsburg and Dutch border control infrastructures, the origins of the passport system can be found in the military sphere. Economically strangling your enemy by ‘closing’ the border was (and is) a well-known strategy in times of political conflict, and likewise represented one of the foremost strategies used by both sides during the Eighty Years’ War. The Spanish Habsburgs and the Dutch Republic frequently instituted commercial embargoes against one another, leading them to increasingly monitor and regulate all commercial traffic between them.20 But because complete cessation of trade had serious negative economic and financial effects, both governments usually loosened their blockades by setting up a system of licensed exemptions called the ‘passports for goods’, better known in the Republic under the titles of licenten and convoyen (the former applying to trade with the enemy, the latter to trade with neutrals).21 Regulating cross-border trade through such paid permits was certainly not a new practice within the Low Countries: long before the Dutch Revolt tolls had been levied on trade over land or by river.22 During the Eighty Years’ War, however, the expanding licenten-system came to complement these older taxes, both in the United Provinces and the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands. At its core, this system of passports for goods determined that merchants would receive a licentbrief or licence letter, a signed letter providing legal proof that a permit had been paid and that the stated merchandise could be imported or exported, in return for declaring their wares and paying so-called licentgeld, a specific fee listed in a detailed customs list.

20 See Victor Enthoven, Zeeland en de opkomst van de Republiek: Handel en strijd in de Scheldedelta, c. 1550–1621 (Leiden: Luctor et victor, 1996), pp. 109–10; Jonathan I. Israel, Empires and Entrepots: The Dutch, the Spanish Monarchy, and the Jews, 1585–1713 (London: The Hambledon Press, 1990); Jonathan I. Israel, ‘España, los embargos españoles y la lucha por el dominio del comercio mundial, 1585–1648’, Revista de Historia Naval, 23 (1988), 89–105; Jonathan I. Israel, Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585–1740 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); Eddy Stols, De Spaanse Brabanders of de handelsbetrekkingen der zuidelijke Nederlanden met de Iberische Wereld, 1598–1609, 2 vols (Brussels: Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie voor Wetenschappen, Letteren en Schone Kunsten van België, 1971). 21 Ferdinand H. M. Grapperhaus, Convoyen en licenten (Zutphen: De Walburg Pers; Deventer: Kluwer, 1986), p. 16. 22 Daniel Gheret, ‘Le Produit des licentes et autres impôts sur le commerce extérieur dans les Pays-Bas espagnols (1585–1621)’, in Recherches sur l’histoire des finances publiques en Belgique, ii, ed. by Maurice-Aurélien Arnould, Jan Craeybeckx, and Hervé Hasquin, Acta Historica Bruxellensia, 2 (Brussels: Institut d’histoire de l’Université libre de Bruxelles, 1970), pp. 43–46; Enthoven, Zeeland en de opkomst, p. 9; Adriaenssen, Staatsvormend geweld, p. 50. For an overview of the tolls on the Rhine, Meuse, and Waal, and their origins, see: Wilhelmus François Leemans, De grote Gelderse tollen en de tollenaars in de 18e en het begin der 19de eeuw: Een bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van de Rijnhandel, Gelderse historische reeks, 14 (Arnhem: De Walburg Pers, 1981), pp. 7–9 and 12–13.

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Given the fact that goods could still cross the Habsburg-Dutch frontier, it is only logical that persons continued to do so as well — only in certain cases were goods unloaded and reloaded at the border without the owners of the boats or wagons crossing the divide. Building upon the expanding regulation of cross-border trade, a separate control system was therefore created for checking these and other travellers. Thus, in addition to the documents that merchants carried whenever they crossed the border with their licensed products, by the 1590s every soldier, trader, farmer, citizen, cleric, noble (wo)man, or other person travelling between the two countries in principle needed a paid permit, assuming they could not rely on another arrangement (for example, the abovementioned protection of a sauvegarde or a declaration of neutrality that included travel arrangements).23 Once again, this was not an absolutely novelty. In 1987, Daniel Nordman stressed that in France sauf-conduits, documents that placed a traveller under the protection of the issuer, were already in use during the Middle Ages but then primarily mattered for long-distance travellers, such as diplomats, merchants, students, and pilgrims. In the medieval period, there was not yet a strict dichotomy between the passports required for merchandise and those for private persons, as a sauf-conduit provided equal protection for the traveller’s personal possessions.24 However, in the course of the sixteenth century the notion of sauf-conduit gradually came to be replaced by the term passe-port, with the resulting passports becoming a lot more standardized by the 1570s, for example by including phrases such as laissez-passer le present porteur (let the present holder pass), which represented a typical expression found on passports throughout the Eighty Years’ War. Moreover, these later-date passports generally applied to a single specific itinerary and a preordained period of time, e.g. a trip from Antwerp to Amsterdam in three months. Eventually, passports even became standardized into pre-printed fill-in forms, which local government officials could easily distribute based on local demand.25 This eventually led to their widespread dissemination: on the Habsburg side alone there are twenty-six large volumes of passport registers still available in the archives of the Council of State and the Audiëntie, 23 New regulation for trade with the enemy, 14/8/1598: Placcaeten, ordonnantien, landt-chartres, blyde-incomsten, privilegien, ende instructien, by den Princen van dese Neder-landen aen de Inghesetenen van Brabandt, Vlaenderen, ende andere provincien, t’sedert t’Iaer M.CC.XX., 10 vols (Antwerp: Hendrick Aertssens, 1648), i, pp. 419–26. The offices for the passports for goods and those for persons were also not necessarily the same: Gheret, ‘Le Produit’, pp. 61–62. 24 Daniel Nordman, ‘Sauf-conduits et passeports, en France, à la renaissance’, in Voyager à la Renaissance, ed. by Jean Ceard and Jean-Claude Margolin (Paris: Éditions Maisonneuve et Larose, 1987), pp. 146–47; Antoni Maçzak, Travel in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 114. 25 Nordman, ‘Sauf-conduits et passeports’, pp. 148–49. While the Estates-General’s increasing legislation concerning passports proves that they were undergoing a gradual evolution, it was a slow process, as the body issued the Merchant Adventurers a general sauf-conduit in 1598: The Merchant Adventurer’s letter of sauf-conduit in Groot Placaet-boeck vervattende de

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as well as several collections of ‘loose’ material that can be found scattered across other records.26 Beyond their sheer volume, there are two additional elements concerning the emergence of the Habsburg and Dutch passports for individuals that require some explanation. First, the passeports personnels were an important tool for asserting loyalty within the borderlands, something that was of great importance in a war-time climate that saw both sides trying to assert their authority. In theory, all travellers who entered the realm of a territorial lord needed his express permission to do so; otherwise, the traveller represented a trespasser and could be considered fair game by law enforcement forces and soldiers.27 This immediately highlights one of the reasons why both the Spanish Habsburg governor-general and the Estates-General were keen on providing so many people with passports, including ‘enemy subjects’: any traveller who requested a permit from his or her government explicitly recognized its hold over the frontiers, thereby confirming that government’s claim that it represented the only lawful territorial authority within the Low Countries.28 Conversely, these same governments considered anyone caught crossing the frontier without an official passport as holding their ‘legitimate’ rule in contempt and could therefore justly rob or arrest the trespassers. Worse still, governments saw those who possessed a passport from their opponents without having given prior permission to do so as openly legitimizing the enemy’s pretentions to territorial power, something which represented a very serious offense. Secondly, and as already hinted at above, financial incentives played a major role in the creation of a system of administrative border controls that included personal passports. However, the finances of both the Spanish king and the Estates-General were not the only mechanisms that drove the passport system’s institutionalization. The officers who checked the documents at the borders, and who kept a part of the fines and confiscated goods that they collected, also represented an important factor in the development of

placaten, ordonnantien ende edicten van de Doorluchtige, Hoogh Mog. Heeren Staeten Generael der Vereenighde Nederlanden, 2 vols (The Hague: Widow and heirs of Hillebrandt Jacobsz van Wouw, 1658), i, p. 764. 26 Brussels, Algemeen Rijksarchief/Archives générales du Royaume (AGR), Conseil d’État, nos 1685–94; AGR, Papiers d’État et de l’Audience, nos 1035–50. 27 Nordman, ‘Sauf-conduits et passeports’, p. 150. In describing the late-eighteenth century, John Torpey called this a ‘monopoly on the legitimate means of movement’: John Torpey, The Invention of the Passport: Surveillance, Citizenship and the State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 2–14. 28 Alexander Farnese, for example, confirmed the ban on provisioning the enemy with food and supplies in March 1579, which caused the governor-general to declare that every passport issued by Archduke Matthias, William of Orange, the Council of State, and the Estates-General as invalid. Only he (in the name of the king) could permit people to pass through the Netherlands. Repetition of the ban on providing the enemy with food and supplies, 28/3/1579: Placcaeten, ordonnantien, i, pp. 286–87.

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personal passports. Johan Moryn’s career exemplifies how a bottom-up financial incentive could drive the expanding use of personal passports. Moryn, an inhabitant of Antwerp, complained to the king sometime around 1594–1595 that due to the customs officers’ leniency, people coming from ‘rebel lands’ could enter the city without a personal passport, blatantly disregarding the legislation that forbade this practice. In Moryn’s opinion, the primary problem with these daily offenses was that for each unissued passport the king missed out on receiving six florins of droit de sceau (right of seal), amounting to a significant overall financial loss. He explained that this resulted from having only one contrôleur général des passeports des marchandises (inspector-general of passports for merchandise) in Antwerp, and no corresponding contrôleur général des passeports personnels (inspector-general of personal passports).29 Following Moryn’s advice, the Spanish Habsburg authorities created the latter position on 30 December 1595, in an effort to both reinforce royal authority and increase revenue.30 As a reward for informing the Crown of its lingering deficiency, the government granted Moryn what had presumably been his objective all along: his appointment as the first holder of the lucrative new office he had suggested. The Crown ordered Moryn to keep an eye on the movement of individuals via the ports and rivers of Antwerp, Sas van Gent, and Grave, to charge four patars for each passport he checked and registered, and to keep one-third of the fines he collected. Three years later, the Crown renewed his appointment as contrôleur général des passeports personnels, but expanded his control to the entire province of Brabant. Moryn was again ushered to keep track of everybody who came from and went to Holland and Zeeland, especially along a number of locations identified as key points for fraudulent border passage, including Fort Ordam near Zevenbergen, the city of Grave along the Meuse, and Fort Artsen on the Rhine. Moreover, and even though his first appointment had already included measures to inform the provincial Councils of Flanders, Brabant, and Guelders of his new role, Moryn’s renewed commission also mentioned that the advocate-fiscal of Brabant should no longer occupy himself with controlling passports, hinting at a potential earlier conflict of (financial) interest between these two officers.31

29 The first Spanish Habsburg regulations for trade by licence had been put into place on 6 December 1592 and 20 March 1593: Stanley Bindoff, The Scheldt Question to 1839 (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1945), p. 90. 30 AGR, Papiers d’État et de l’Audience, no. 1137/3 (5): Appointment of Johan Moryn as contrôleur général des passeports, 30/12/1595. 31 AGR, Papiers d’État et de l’Audience, no. 1137/3 (5): Appointment of Johan Moryn as contrôleur général des passeports, 29/3/1598. The Crown again appointed Moryn in March 1601, AGR, Papiers d’État et de l’Audience, no. 1137/3 (5): Appointment of Johan Moryn as contrôleur général des passeports, 24/3/1601.

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Five Different Strategies of Border Management The personal passport system thus emerged within the Low Countries as a result of the transformation of the border landscape and the interests of the two governments, their officers, and their subjects. This assessment of its origins, however, requires a complementary analysis of its actual use in order to understand the degree to which the passports helped shape regulated trade and travel along the border. The addition of ‘regulated’ is important here, because, as previously argued, the personal passports helped to facilitate travel during a chaotic and highly dangerous period. Nonetheless, this observation not only reinforces the point that in certain times and at certain places early modern travel could be very problematic, but also illustrates that the development of a passport system added a fiscal and administrative barrier to travel within the Low Countries, especially when compared to the ‘free’ passage travellers enjoyed before and after the war. Indeed, by focusing on five of the most common strategies for border management involving personal passports, this section will show that travelling in the Low Countries during the Eighty Years’ War was never an easy affair — it needed to be managed using various strategies. In order to make this point, the following paragraphs offer different examples that represent the experiences of a wider group of travellers. In other words, the cases described are unique examples of strategies that, in a more or less comparable form, were used in many other instances, without there being any general scenario for how those particular strategies played out in individual cases. This means that historians searching the extensive archives relating to the Habsburg-Dutch borderlands will inevitably encounter cases similar to the ones described here, albeit with any number of particular variations. Additionally, it should be noted that several of the examples provided here did not automatically lead to a successful or easy border crossing. The goal is to demonstrate that these strategies existed, that travellers used them, and that they helped to shape the overall passport system, but the section does not argue that these methods were always or even mostly successful for individual actors. As mentioned in the introduction, border management is about handling the border, whether this was voluntary or involuntary, useful or not useful, costly or cheap, etc., and about assessing how this engagement constantly shaped the border’s outlook. This also makes the border management perspective different from either ‘coping strategies’ or ‘accommodation mechanisms’, both of which focus on the fact that there is a fixed negative externality that needs to be overcome by proactive actions. Of course, it is perfectly possible to study the border between the Netherlands in those terms: the aforementioned obstacles along the border then formed a fixed negative externality, and acquiring personal passports a coping strategy. This would indeed make it possible to view the following five strategies as either more or less successful for coping with the negative effects of the border, yet this binary view would automatically frame travellers crossing the borderlands

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as ‘victims’ of an extortionist passport system. This would in turn obfuscate the notion that passports actually helped to facilitate border crossings and were therefore a popular mechanism for dealing with the border. While not always easy or successful, the following examples will show that passports still offered more opportunities than other options in a chaotic, unregulated, war-torn borderland. The people described below were not ‘coping’ with the improvement that passports offered (a somewhat contradictory idea), but were instead developing strategies to manage this system to the best of their ability. Pay What is Necessary

A first strategy that illustrates this point is that of ‘paying what is necessary’. This strategy represented a straightforward way of handling the passport system, whereby a traveller simply agreed to pay whatever was required to get across. It necessitated two types of engagement with the border: first, the traveller had to try to obtain a passport, and, second, upon doing so, had to use it during the voyage. Although intimately connected (the second type of action logically follows from the first), the rules set during the ‘obtainment’ phase were not necessarily applicable in the ‘use’ phase. A person often paid the official fees for registering and sealing his or her passport, only to find that he or she had to pay some additional unofficial fees at the crossing. John Evelyn, an Englishman travelling from Rotterdam to Antwerp, vividly describes his encounters with both initial and additional costs. Having arrived in the Dutch fortress of Lillo near Antwerp, Evelyn was being first examin’d by the Sentinel, and conducted to the Governor, who demanded my Passe, to which he set his hand, and asked 2 Rixdollars for a fee, which me thought appeared very unhandsome in a soldier of his quality; I told him, that I had already purchas’d my Passe to the comissaries at Rotterdam, at which, in a great fury snatching the Paper out of my hand, he flung it scornefully under a table, and bad me try whether I could try to get to Antwerp without his permission: But when I drew out the mony, he return’d it as scurvily againe; bidding me pay 14 Dutch shill: to the Cantors or Searcher for my contempt, which I was also glad to do with a great deale of Caution and danger, conceiling my Spanish passe, it being a matter of Imprisenment; for that the States were therein treated by the names of Rebells; Besides all these exactions, I gave the Commisary 6 shill: more, to the souldiers something.32 When crossing the border and entering the Spanish Habsburg territory near Antwerp, Evelyn was likewise forced to pay additional sums to the Spanish Habsburg border officials and ensure that no one doubted his recognition of the Crown’s authority. Although Evelyn’s account is only one of many similar 32 Maçzak, Travel in Early Modern Europe, p. 114.

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border experiences, it remains a well-told account that highlights the fact that cross-border travel came at a price during the Eighty Years’ War, one that travellers often chose to pay in order to keep their voyage as smooth as possible. The case is also important because it illustrates how strategies of border management can be easily perceived as coping mechanisms. Evelyn can be portrayed as a victim of the two rapacious local governments, whose officials abused the fact that he wanted or needed to cross the border. Yet, such a perspective would deny Evelyn a lot of agency. Any number of different management strategies were at his disposal: he could have tried to persuade the officer with a sad story; he could have returned the day after when there might have been another officer present; he could have tried a border crossing at a different point of entry; he could have complained to the officer’s superiors; he could have looked for a smuggler; etc. For whatever reason, and with the knowledge that he might not have had all options open to him, Evelyn chose to pay what was necessary to make his passport functional. Importantly, his case thereby provided further confirmation that the passport system operated on the basis of both official and unofficial fees. As such, ‘paying what was necessary’ was a deliberate strategy that could help people to cross a difficult divide, while molding the passport system into a financially lucrative business. Have the System Discussed

If payments in terms of money and recognition formed one default strategy when obtaining and using personal passports, others were intended to break or bend the rules. Smuggling or simply crossing the border without a passport, both of which put the offender at risk, serve as obvious examples of the former, while one common strategy for those who did not want to make such a wager was to have the system discussed, preferably by intermediary institutions that could translate the concerns of local groups to the central authorities. Some groups petitioned for more stringent border measures; others sought for more relaxed controls. In both cases, the result was a dialogue between different societal and governmental actors, to the advantage of those who were successful in getting their opinion across and to the detriment of those who failed. Offering an interesting example of how the use of the personal passports could spark fierce discussions, nearly four years after the end of the Twelve Years’ Truce a problem arose between the royal frontier city of ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Rekenkamer (Chamber of Accounts) of Spanish Habsburg Guelders, and the Council of State in Brussels. The resulting debates occurred contemporaneously with the major siege of Breda in Brabant, and prove that managing a control system for persons in Brabant and Guelders was not a straightforward matter, but involved numerous contingent questions that depended on the specific geographic location of the problem and the main actors involved in solving it. As in many cases, the question at stake was whom the border framework would really work for, meaning who would get to adapt the passport system to

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his/her/their advantage. Both the landlocked town of ’s-Hertogenbosch and the Rekenkamer of Guelders tried to convince Brussels that their proposals best served the public interest, while concealing that the options actually reflected their particular interests. On 22 February 1625, Anthony Schetz, Baron of Grobbendonk and Habsburg governor of ’s-Hertogenbosch, complained to the Brussels Council of State concerning the practices of the Rekenkamer in Roermond.33 First and foremost, Grobbendonk did not approve of the liberty with which the Rekenkamer issued passports to the inhabitants of enemy cities. The wide dispersal of such documents had allowed merchants to travel from one rebel city to another via the Meuse, Waal, and Rhine, enabling them to supply the hostile garrisons in Tiel, Bommel, Grave, Ravenstein, Nijmegen, Emmerik, and Rees with products from Holland. In the governor’s opinion, this clearly went against the primary purpose of the passports, which was to benefit the commerce of loyal subjects and impede that of the enemy. Turning to financial arguments, Grobbendonk also maintained that this practice not only posed a military risk, but also allowed Dutch traders to use the Rekenkamer’s documents to avoid paying tolls and licenten, which was to the Crown’s and its subjects’ detriment. More specifically, the alleged preferential treatment of Dutch traders injured the commerce of ’s-Hertogenbosch, as the Dutch Estates-General did not allow the reciprocal practice of issuing passports to Spanish Habsburg merchants. Grobbendonk felt that the United Provinces should not be allowed to trade with the Spanish Habsburg provinces as long as the Estates-General did not let royal subjects supply his city.34 Meanwhile, the Rekenkamer of Guelders was not happy with governessgeneral Isabella’s interpretation of the law regarding passports that she issued on 12 June 1624. Her approach had limited the validity of passports to the last royal stronghold (the castle of Gennep) and the first Dutch city (Grave) on the border. In other words, merchants leaving or entering Guelders were supposed to travel no further than the first city across the frontier and had to sell their merchandise at this location instead of continuing to more commercially interesting cities. The members of the Rekenkamer complained to the Council of State that since this measure had been implemented, they had not sold a single passport, simply because it rendered trade unprofitable. Beyond the fact that Grave and Gennep were less-interesting places to trade, it did not help that the garrison of ’s-Hertogenbosch continued to menace the merchants who travelled between these two places. This led to a basic question: why 33 Anthony Schetz (1560–1640) became Baron of Grobbendonk in 1602 and Count in 1632. He served in the king’s army since 1583 and became governor of ’s-Hertogenbosch in 1596. For more information, see: Boudewijn d’Ursel, Les Schetz, vol. i: La maison de Grobbendonk — vol. ii: La maison d’Ursel (Brussels: Association Royale Office Généalogique et Héraldique de Belgique, 2004). 34 AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1685: Grobbendonk to the Spanish Habsburg Council of State, 22/2/1625.

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would a merchant pay for a passport if it was commercially worthless and did not even offer security along the short road that one could legally travel? The councillors claimed that the Dutch had decided to respond in kind to the provocations of Grobbendonk’s troops. Not only did ’s-Hertogenbosch and Grobbendonk simply reap the consequences of their own actions, but they now even threatened wider Spanish Habsburg trade: in response to their actions, the Estates-General had labelled every ship between Liege, Maastricht, Roermond, Venlo, and Fort Artsen as a lawful target.35 In order to prevent further economic and financial damage to Spanish Habsburg lands, the Rekenkamer in Roermond suggested that the Brussels’ Council of State should put new measures into place. First, the Rekenkamer proposed that as long as traders left a sufficient warranty in the city where they entered the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, they should be allowed to travel freely across royal territory, as, they claimed, had been the case before the Truce. Secondly, the merchants travelling to the royal provinces should also be prompted to draft a declaration stating the amount and quality of their goods as soon as they reached the Dutch city of Dordrecht and inform the Spanish Habsburg licent-officers beforehand of their planned arrival. After examining these proposals, the Council of State was torn between the Rekenkamer’s seemingly valid claims and the military necessity of further impeding trade with and between Dutch cities. As a compromise, the Council eventually decided that those in possession of a personal passport would not be allowed to travel freely around the country and confirmed that a passport only permitted travel between two specified places within a limited amount of time, but agreed that the Rekenkamer’s suggestion to inform the licent-officers before departure could be implemented as a temporary trial.36 Despite the Council of State’s decision, the conflict between ’s-Hertogenbosch and Guelders remained unresolved. On 9 April 1625, the Rekenkamer again requested that the Council of State allow merchants on the Meuse to travel anywhere in the country with their personal passport. A few days later, Grobbendonk, whose soldier’s behaviour had caused the governor of Wesel to file an official complaint, replied to these proposals by defending the commercial and military interests of ’s-Hertogenbosch.37 Grobbendonk argued that if Dutch travellers had to continue to halt at the first city ‘at the edge’, then ’s-Hertogenbosch could not be bypassed via the Meuse and would remain the foremost commercial city in this part of the borderlands. Moreover, by making his point that passports should only extend to Gennep and Grave, the governor again argued that as long as the United Provinces

35 AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1685: Advice of the Council of State regarding the issuing of passports, early 1625. 36 AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1685: Advice of the Council of State regarding the issuing of passports, early 1625. 37 AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1685: The governor of Wesel to Archduchess Isabella, 15/4/1625.

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continued to restrict border passage, the king should do the same.38 On 14 April, the aldermen of ’s-Hertogenbosch backed their governor’s claims, writing to the Council of State in another attempt to counter the Rekenkamer’s request. Although the aldermen acknowledged that the United Provinces had allowed free movement for Spanish Habsburg subjects before the Truce, the Estates-General had revoked this liberty after 1621. This implied that if the archduchess unilaterally allowed Dutch merchants to freely roam the countryside, the enemy would certainly come to dominate all commerce within the Low Countries.39 The matter was again not resolved and similar discussions continued throughout the 1620s and 1630s, although they occurred without ’s-Hertogenbosch’s involvement in the latter decade.40 Yet, despite the fact that neither of the contending parties fully obtained what they wished, the ongoing discussions nevertheless helped to shape the right of passage within the borderlands, as the central authorities navigated between arguments and often tried to find workable compromises. Seek Sponsorship

The negotiations between the city of Grobbendonk, the Rekenkamer, and the Council of State not only illustrate that discussion concerning the passport system’s effectiveness could take place in order to make travelling somewhat easier, but they also show that the merchants of ’s-Hertogenbosch and Guelders required the support of intermediate persons or institutions, such as a local commander, council, or officer if they sought to initiate debate. This reliance on intermediaries, however, could also be useful for other travellers, which led to the emergence of a third strategy: sponsorship. Liesbeth Geevers and Griet Vermeesch, in their edited volume from 2014, have already highlighted the importance of such strategies in the early modern Low Countries, as they argued that lobbying and petitioning through intermediaries formed an integral part of daily governance.41 Unsurprisingly, this practice could also be encountered at the contentious Habsburg-Dutch frontier. This type of sponsorship usually took one of two forms. It was provided to an individual by either a representative body or social superiors. The

38 ‘a la bord’, AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1685: Grobbendonk to secretary de la Faille, 12/4/1625. 39 AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1685: The aldermen of ’s-Hertogenbosch to Archduchess Isabella, 14/4/1625. 40 Especially the Rekenkamer of Guelders was and remained very active in molding the passage system, not only advocating on behalf of the merchant community, but also in support of specific groups, such as the traders in cod-liver oil. See: AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1685: Request of the Rekenkamer of Guelders to the Habsburg Council of State, n.d. 41 Politieke belangenbehartiging in de vroegmoderne Nederlanden: De rol van lobby, petities, en officiële delegaties in de politieke besluitvorming, ed. by Liesbeth Geevers and Griet Vermeesch (Maastricht: Shaker Publishing, 2014).

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former type of support relied upon a collective effort, whether through a group with similar interests or the support of an established organization. For example, sometime in 1636–1637 the butchers-guild of Bruges requested and obtained passports for twenty-eight of its members, as this would allow them to graze their cattle in the lands surrounding the city.42 The latter type of support often came under the form of a personal endorsement, often a village priest or town alderman, who confirmed the petitioner’s loyalty to the king and his obedience to the Catholic Church. Still, this strategy was not always successful. In December 1625, for example, Philippus Rovenius, apostolic vicar for the Dutch Mission, wrote to governess-general Isabella to obtain a passport for some Dutch university students studying at the Dina Pulcheria College (better known as ‘Holland’s College’) in Louvain and the St Boniface and St Willibrord colleges in Cologne. Rovenius argued that the education of Dutch students at these Catholic institutions could remedy the shortage of qualified priests for the Dutch Mission, making their protection from Habsburg soldiers of paramount importance during their journeys between the universities and the United Provinces. Nevertheless, despite the willingness of the bishops of Antwerp, ’s-Hertogenbosch, and Roermond to vouch for these men, the Council of State objected against issuing a general passport and required the name of each individual student, complicating the procedure and the subsequent travel arrangements of the border-crossers.43 Rely on Reciprocity

A fourth strategy can be discussed quite briefly, given its straightforward nature. Many cases of border management centred on the idea of reciprocity, or the belief that one could obtain safe travel in return for a specific favour or request that benefitted the party that issued the passport. Frequently, that favour was another personal passport. In July 1636, for example, the governor and magistrate of Habsburg-held Breda reported to Brussels that their city messenger had run into trouble when trying to renew his passport from the ‘rebellious Estates’. The magistrate first angrily disputed this ‘indecent retorsion’ on the part of the enemy, but then changed their tone and argued for a simple solution: the Dutch Estates-General had declared that Breda’s courier would receive another passport if the Spanish Habsburg government provided a similar document to the messenger of Dutch-held ’s-Hertogenbosch.44 Therefore, and despite the initially harsh tone of the letter, the magistrate of Breda requested that Brussels would indeed accept such a reciprocal system and grant the messenger of ’s Hertogenbosch a Habsburg passport.

42 AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1686: Request by the butchers-guild of Bruges, ca. 1636–1637. 43 AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1685: Request by Philippus Rovenius, 27/12/1625. 44 AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1686: Request by the governor of Breda, 29/7/1636; Request by the Magistrate of Breda, 29/7/1636.

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Providing a second example, that same month the Bishop of Ghent requested a passport on behalf of the children of the Dutch governor of Sluis (who wanted to travel to Paris for their studies). He did so on the grounds that the governor had allowed Catholic priests to deliver Easter mass in his district the previous year, ignoring the Estates-General’s contrary ordinances. Despite the political and religious differences between the two men, the Bishop clearly felt the need to act reciprocally towards this Habsburg enemy, whilst the governor correctly assessed that granting extraordinary passage the year before could lead to an advantage for himself en his family. Effectively, this case illustrates how passports were frequently requested (and granted) as part of a reciprocal exchange, even between hostiles.45 Not surprisingly, petitioners for passports quickly learned to adapt their own strategies accordingly and started to use reciprocity to obtain their desired travel documents: several travellers writing to the Spanish Habsburg Council of State offered to help another Spanish Habsburg subject obtain a passport from the Dutch Estates-General in return for receiving one of their own from Brussels.46 Encourage Compassion

Lastly, travellers in need of a passport often tried to appeal to the emotions of the officers and government officials they encountered. They relied upon claims such as the looming threat of bankruptcy or poverty if the passport was not granted; the fact that the war had caused so much trouble that the petitioner had few other options than request a passport; or the need to provide for one’s family, preferably a sick, pregnant, or poor wife and several children. In one example from around 1632, Isacq de Bra, a merchant from Antwerp, requested an extension for a passport that had allowed him to travel to the Dutch Republic. According to his application, he requested this favour for three reasons: because his wife experienced a difficult pregnancy; the roads were unfit to transport her all the way back to the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands; and their seven young children accompanied the couple. Regardless of the veracity of such statements, travellers called upon countless variants of personal hardship in order to cross the Habsburg-Dutch

45 AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1686: Request by the bishop of Ghent, 23/7/1636. 46 AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1686: Request by Henry of Culemborch, c. 1636. Similar reciprocity existed with regard to the sauvegardes. In 1608, for example, someone assaulted a servant in the service of Maurice of Orange, causing the stadtholder and the archdukes to set up an arrangement by which the latter offered a Spanish Habsburg sauvegarde for Maurice’s servant in return for a sauvegarde for an archducal officer, AGR, Papiers d’État et de l’Audience, no. 1375: Letter regarding a sauvegarde for Gerart van Lom, collector of domaines in Meurs, 17/7/1608. Moreover, there is evidence that central governments approved and structured such exchanges, AGR Papiers d’État et de l’Audience, 1137/3 (3): Spanish Habsburg specification of sauvegarde and passport regulations, 20/8/1621.

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border.47 The fact that individuals frequently deployed this strategy hints that it must have had a high success rate, although, as with all of the aforementioned border management strategies, success was not guaranteed. For instance, Pierre de Latre’s case demonstrates that even a carefully crafted and emotional petition could be unsuccessful. In 1625, de Latre, a carpenter originating from the Land of Bredenaarde in Artois, requested a Habsburg passport by employing a variety of different strategies, including claims of personal hardship. Initially, his demand reached the Council of State directly through the sponsorship of its secretary, who brought it to the councillors’ attention. Next, an alderman from his current homestead in Calais (in France) confirmed that he was a good Catholic, while another unknown middleman attested that he was of good service to the king. Finally, de Latre supported his own case by claiming a clear case of personal hardship caused by his loyalty to God and king. According to his own story, he had tried to find work as carpenter in Antwerp, but failed due the multitude of young craftsmen seeking employment in the city. He had therefore decided to try his luck in Amsterdam, where he used the little money his wife had left to start a small merchant business with the expectation that the Twelve Years’ Truce would turn out to be a permanent peace. However, when the war resumed, he had been advised to leave the United Provinces because he wanted (and had always desired, so he claimed) to continue living in a Catholic region. He installed himself in French Calais and hoped to continue his small merchant business. Yet, strict trade bans ruined his plans, as officials surprisingly did not allow him, a merchant from a neutral city, to transport goods between the two Netherlands. Thus, since small businessmen like himself could not rely upon the support of powerful benefactors in the United Provinces, he now humbly requested the Council of State to grant him a passport that would allow him to continue his merchant activities.48 Yet, despite his numerous emotional arguments, the Council did not fulfil de Latre’s request. In his response to de Latre, the Council’s secretary apologized that it had taken him two months to reply: the councillors of state only gathered so often, and he had been unable to present the matter to them at an earlier date. He continued to explain that, despite his best efforts, the Council had denied the passport for two reasons. Its members had stated that de Latre had been too greedy: despite his apparent knowledge of the correct procedures and stated willingness to pay the required fee, he had asked for permission to travel between Calais and the United Provinces at his own pleasure and convenience. As the secretary stated, this was a precedent the 47 AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1686: Request by Isaac de Bra, ca. 1636: AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1686; Request by Henry Goivaerts, c. 1636. Another example is request by the widow of Cornille Lambrechts and her sons, Cornilles and Balthasar, c. 1636, AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1686. 48 AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1685: Letter by an unknown person regarding Pierre de Latre’s passport, 15/3/1625; AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1685: Letter by secretary de la Faille, 15/5/1625.

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Council did not want to set, as it represented a favour that would open the door to uncontrolled and unpaid border crossings. Moreover, the Council continued to doubt de Latre’s loyalty, given his residence in Calais. As Marie Kervyn and Yves Junot have recently demonstrated, it was indeed difficult to assess belonging and loyalty along the much older French-Habsburg border of the Low Countries.49 If he wanted to enjoy the privileges of a royal subject, the councillors maintained that he should completely retire from Calais, resume his residence in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, and request a letter of reconciliation. As the secretary pointed out, the councillors would reconsider de Latre’s travel permit when he proved himself a true subject of the king.50

Conclusions These five strategies — paying whatever is necessary, discussing the system, seeking sponsorship, relying on reciprocity, and inciting compassion — represented the most common methods by which travellers tried to obtain and use personal passports. When taken in combination, they prove that crossing the Habsburg-Dutch border was never an easy affair during the Eighty Years’ War. As was explained, the presence of two large military forces in the borderlands made it necessary to obtain formal travel permits. The ever-present threat of harassment, the reduction in possible roads one could take, and the increasing number of lookouts and fortresses found along the frontiers ensured that travellers encountered numerous obstacles and were constantly at risk. Thus, while personal passports likely helped to overcome some issues, acquiring and using such documentation still posed a challenge. The five strategies of border management therefore point our attention to the difficulties that travellers encountered, much more than that they support claims about the natural interconnectedness of the early modern world. The fact that navigating the personal passport system required numerous payments, discussions, negotiations, and supplications illustrates that the ‘hardening’ Habsburg-Dutch border represented a significant barrier for many individuals and that connecting the two parts of the Netherlands was not an easy task. Therefore, and returning to the arguments cited in the introduction about the global and transnational interconnectedness of the early modern world, the analysis of these five strategies adds some nuance to the traditional 49 Marie Kervyn and Yves Junot, ‘La Question des appartenances au long de la frontière sud des anciens Pays- Bas (fin xve–fin xviie siècle): les enjeux des identifications’, in L’Identité au pluriel: Jeux et enjeux des appartenances autour des anciens Pays-Bas, xive–xviiie siècles / Identity and Identities: Belonging at Stake in the Low Countries, 14th–18th Centuries, ed. by Yves Junot, Florian Mariage, and Violet Soen (= Revue du Nord, Hors série, Collection Histoire, 30 (2014)), pp. 229–48. 50 AGR, Conseil d’État, no. 1685: Letter by secretary de la Faille, 15/5/1625.

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historiography. Although the Eighty Years’ War represents a singular case, as this vicious secessionist war inevitably led to a number of expected border issues, this seminal event challenges the established notions concerning the connectivity of the early modern period. While this chapter does not seek to devaluate the arguments posed by global and transnational historians, it does suggest that other situations existed and that it is a mistake to brush over the costs and risks of establishing or maintaining early modern cross-border interactions. Moreover, the chapter also shows that the actual difficulties encountered when travelling varied by situation, something that remains important to keep in mind when studying pre-modern territorial divisions. In order to keep track of this variety, a transregional method might certainly be advantageous: all of the cases analysed highlight that the Habsburg-Dutch border experience differed for messengers, merchants, and local inhabitants, just as it was different for those who adopted the strategy of discussion as opposed to those who primarily relied upon inciting compassion. In each case, historians gain better insight into the impact of personal passports by following the actors whose crossed the Habsburg-Dutch border and assessing their interpretation of the Habsburg-Dutch border, at whatever spatial or social level they encountered it.

Fernando Chavarría Múgica 

‘Cannon Law’ during the Politique des Réunions French Power Politics at the Bidasoa Border and the Crisis of the Customary Law of Nations* This chapter provides insight into the disturbing implications that resulted from the politique des réunions, a particular form of French power politics, that not only guided French policies of border management, but that also questioned the rule of ius gentium in general. Historians consider the era of politique des réunions a momentous period in the long reign of Louis XIV. It marked France’s seemingly unstoppable rise to European hegemony, but also helped to cause its apparent fall into hubris. The story is well known. In 1679, the Peace of Nijmegen had put an end to the Franco-Dutch War, but Louis XIV felt unsatisfied with the outcome of the negotiations. Thus, after signing the treaty, he took advantage of his superior position to annex (réunir) certain territories on his kingdom’s northern and eastern borders. In order to legitimize the resulting acts of arbitrary aggression during peacetime, he established a number of special courts (chambres de réunion) with the sole purpose of fabricating legal justifications for the occupations. This display of force ended up alienating most European powers and diplomatically isolated France. The Nine Years’ War, also known as the War of the League of Augsburg (1688–1697), forced the Sun King to return to a more prudent foreign policy. In this sense, the politique des réunions marked both the peak and the limits of his power. The politique des réunions has puzzled historians for a long time. It is generally acknowledged as a milestone in Louis XIV’s increasingly assertive foreign policy since the beginning of his personal rule in 1660. However, contrary to the French army’s remarkable achievements on the battlefield, the réunions were not causes for celebration, as the resulting annexations were largely problematic. They did not derive from legitimate succession rights or



* Various grants throughout the years have made this research possible, particularly a Marie Curie IE Fellowship at CNRS–EHESS, France, a EURIAS Fellowship at the University of Cambridge sponsored by CRASSH/Clare Hall, the European Commission 7th Framework Programme — COFUND Action, the continued support of the Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI) at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa and the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (D.L. nº 57/2016-August 29th & D.L. nº 57/2017-July 19th). This chapter also contributes to Conformar la Monarquía Hispánica: cultura política y prácticas dinásticas en los siglos XVI y XVII (HAR2016-76214P) funded by the government of Spain. I am very grateful to Ruth Mackay for reviewing a preliminary draft of this paper. Transregional Territories: Crossing Borders in the Early Modern Low Countries and Beyond, ed. by Bram De Ridder, Violet Soen, Werner Thomas, and Sophie Verreyken, HW 2 (Turnhout, 2020), pp. 209–246.

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spoils of a just war, but rather from chicanery and peacetime aggression.1 As such, despite any initial success, the politique des réunions ended in failure. Louis XIV’s power politics provoked a long and costly war that inevitably resulted in his renunciation of the majority of his territorial acquisitions. Unsurprisingly, researchers have dedicated more time to the condemnation (or justification) of Louis’s policy than to studying its real historical implications. For many historians, the réunions remain the most intriguing and embarrassing episode of Louis XIV’s reign. While François Bluche considered the réunions unproblematic, Andrew Lossky understood them as the consequence of transitory mental confusion; others, however, viewed them as a sort of war crimes, whereas some saw it more as a question of manners than of legitimacy.2 In an attempt to save the king’s reputation, a few authors have even opted to blame someone else for a brutal and dishonourable strategy that inevitably failed. Louvois, the minister of War, and Croissy, the minister of Foreign Affairs, are the usual suspects.3 However, since Louis XIV took part in all relevant decisions and appears to have frequently discussed foreign policy actions with high-ranking ministers and senior advisors, such judgements ad personam seem pointless.4 Beyond the moralising approach, some individuals have attempted to explain the réunions on a more neutral basis. Military historians consider them a by-product of the stratégie de cabinet, the French court’s tight control and central planning of







1 James Q. Whitman, The Verdict of Battle: The Law of Victory and the Making of Modern War (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012), pp. 95–132. 2 François Bluche, Louis XIV (Paris: Fayard, 1986), pp. 412–29; Andrew Lossky, ‘The Intellectual Development of Louis XIV from 1661 to 1715’, in Louis XIV and Absolutism, ed. by Ragnhild Hatton (London: Macmillan, 1976), pp. 101–29 (pp. 114–15 and 117–18); John B. Wolf, Louis XIV (London: Victor Gollancz, 1968), see Chapter 25: ‘A Policy of Violence and Terror’; William F. Church, ‘Louis XIV and Reason of State’, in Louis XIV and the Craft of Kingship, ed. by John C. Rule (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1969), pp. 362–406 (pp. 388–89). 3 Camille Rousset, Histoire de Louvois et de son administration politique et militaire depuis la paix de Nimègue, 4 vols (Paris: Didier et Cie, 1861–1863), i (1863), pp. 1–6; Émile Bourgeois, ‘Louvois et Colbert de Croissy (les Chambres de réunion)’, Revue historique, 34 (1887), 413–18; Gaston Zeller, ‘Louvois, Colbert de Croissy et les Réunions de Metz’, Revue historique, 131 (1919), 267–75; Louis André, Louis XIV et L’Europe (Paris: Albin Michel, 1950), pp. 188–90. Interestingly, according to this author, Croissy was responsible for the plan, while Pomponne and Louvois executed it. André Corvisier, Louvois (Paris: Fayard, 1983), pp. 437–44, also acknowledged Vauban’s indirect participation. 4 Currently, historians generally accept that Louis XIV, Louvois and Croissy formulated border strategies together, with the indirect participation of other senior officials, like Vauban and Chamlay. For more, see a recent reappraisal of this question in Jean-Philippe Cénat, Le Roi stratège: Louis XIV et la direction de la guerre, 1661–1715 (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2010), pp. 127–28 and, for information on the responsibility for ravaging the Palatinate, pp. 146–48. Concerning Louis XIV’s personal involvement in all decisions concerning war and foreign affairs, see: Lossky, ‘The Intellectual Development of Louis XIV’, p. 106, and John C. Rule, ‘Louis XIV, Roi-Bureaucrate’, in Louis XIV and the Craft of Kingship, ed. by Rule (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1969), pp. 3–101 (pp. 28–30).

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all military matters.5 The most widely accepted explanation posits that they were defensive (although aggressive) policies intended to impose some order on the supposedly chaotic northern and eastern frontiers.6 In this sense, the réunions appear to be linked to Vauban’s doctrine of pré carré, a plan that envisioned protecting France through a simplification of its borders and an overhaul of its defences (the famous ceinture de fer).7 As some authors have pointed out, however, we should be careful with this presupposition.8 Louis XIV did not carry out these annexations in a consistent manner and, in some cases, they proved counterproductive. Regardless, their peacetime implementation and lack of large battles means that diplomatic and military historians have paid little attention to these manoeuvers. As expected, their approach has privileged the study of military administration and warfare over the less formalized, low-scale forms of aggression that prevailed during the 1680s. One of the reasons for this lack of attention is likely the alleged ‘pettiness’ of these affairs. Historians are often perplexed by the réunions’s disproportionate display of violence in relation to their limited strategic aims.9 The French king always implemented these acts of aggression and intimidation in specific geographical spaces. This is likely one reason as to why there is no modern comprehensive study on the politique des réunions. Besides, since most of the réunions were temporary conquests, researchers have primarily focused on those cases of special significance to the formation of modern France (i.e. Alsace).10 Thus, historians generally study réunions as regional phenomena and treat borders as landmarks in the nation-state building process, instead of as

5 Cénat, Le Roi stratège, p. 127 and, for the origin of the ‘stratégie de cabinet’, pp. 99 and 110–11. For a critical discussion on the concept, see: Guy Rowlands, The Dynastic State and the Army under Louis XIV: Royal Service and Private Interest, 1661–1701 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 286–95. 6 Building on a remark by Rousset, Corvisier defined the politique des réunions as ‘défense aggressive’: Corvisier, Louvois, p. 435. Although many historians accept Corvisier’s interpretation, some prefer the expression ‘paix armée’ to refer to the same phenomenon: Bluche, Louis XIV, p. 412 and Lucien Bély, Les Relations internationales en Europe, xviie–xviiie siècles (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1992), p. 276. 7 Michèle Virol, Vauban: De la gloire du roi au service de l’état (Paris: Champ Vallon, 2003), pp. 93–105. 8 Andrew Lossky, ‘Maxims of State in Louis XIV’s Foreign Policy in the 1680s’, in William III and Louis XIV: Essays, 1680–1720, by and for Mark A. Thomson, ed. by Ragnhild Hatton and John S. Bromley (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1968), pp. 7–23. 9 Andrew Lossky, Louis XIV and the French Monarchy (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1994), p. 172. 10 See, for example: George Livet, L’Intendance d’Alsace sous Louis XIV, 1648–1715 (Paris: Publications de la Faculté des Lettres de l’Université de Strasbourg, 1956). The origin of the traditional focus on Alsace, and particularly on Strasbourg, is directly related to the ‘Alsace–Lorraine question’ during the final decades of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries: Arsène Legrelle, Louis XIV et Strasbourg: Essai sur la politique de la France en Alsace, d’après des documents officiels et inédits (Paris: Hachette, 1883), ‘Avantpropos’, p. vii.

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scenarios of complex interactions at different levels.11 After all, the borderlands represented the geographical space where rival polities clashed, loyalties were tested, and sovereignty turned problematic. Historians cannot dismiss these ‘local’ questions as ‘petty’. On the contrary, they were at the core of the era’s political concerns, meaning that many of the most relevant implications that stemmed from Louis XIV’s aggressive policies during the 1680s are better understood by looking at the border rather than the king’s cabinet. This regional focus has also diverted attention away from the other forms of aggression that broke out along French borders that did not necessarily lead to formal territorial annexations and that cannot be easily explained by defensive rationale. In fact, the politique des réunions embraced the idea of the réunions, but was not limited to it. In this sense, one can better understand the policy as a form of power politics than as military strategy. The politique des réunions imposed Louis XIV’s views by force, as opposed to peaceful methods, within particular contexts. It implied the use of direct violence in various degrees, but always limited it in both scale and scope in order to avoid provoking war. It is important to note that this strategy succeeded precisely because the king applied it at a local scale, simultaneously pressured various places, and focused on weaker targets that could not afford an open confrontation with the French government. Georg Schwarzenberger called this a status mixtum, an undefined state between peace and war, that could be prolonged as long as the victim continued to maintain peaceful relations with the aggressor.12 The aim of this form of power politics was to not only obtain a de facto advantage (i.e. occupy a territory), but to also impose the de jure acceptance of new terms and conditions (i.e. compelling your opponent to ‘voluntarily’ renounce his territorial rights) through coercive force, while avoiding the uncertainties and costs that accompany a full-fledged war and the constraints inherent to peace talks. In this chapter, I will therefore try to provide some insight into the disturbing implications that this form of power politics had for not only border affairs, but also for the rule of ius gentium. I will, however, not focus on the northern or eastern borders, where the French government had formally established its chambres de réunion. Instead, I will concentrate on the southwest, particularly the French-Spanish border in the Basque-speaking

11 See, for example: Nelly Girard d’Albissin, Genèse de la frontière franco-belge: Les Variations des limites septentrionales de la France de 1659 à 1789 (Paris: A. & J. Picard, 1970). Ultimately, this approach began with the old and currently discredited idea of France’s ‘natural frontiers’. For more on this, see: Gaston Zeller, ‘La Monarchie d’Ancien Régime et les frontières naturelles’, Revue d’histoire moderne, 8.9 (1933), 305–33; Peter Sahlins, ‘Natural Frontiers Revisited: France’s Boundaries since the Seventeenth Century’, American Historical Review, 95.5 (1990), 1423–51, and Daniel Nordman, Frontières de France: De l’espace au territoire xvie–xixe siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1998). 12 Georg Schwarzenberger, ‘Jus Pacis ac Belli? Prolegomena to a Sociology of International Law’, American Journal of International Law, 37.3 (1943), 460–79.

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Bidasoa river region, situated between the Gulf of Biscay and the western Pyrenees. Unlike Flanders, Alsace, or the Franche-Comté, the Bidasoa was not a strategic priority for Louis XIV. In fact, military activity in the region was almost non-existent during the whole period. The Sun King never attempted to invade Castile, the heartland of the Spanish monarchy, like the latter had previously menaced Paris from the Low Countries. This lack of action is more striking when one considers the ill-defended nature of the Pyrenean border. On the contrary, the king permitted his vassals to establish treaties of amity, or bonne correspondance, during wartime. Therefore, neighbouring French and Spanish communities could continue to enjoy peaceful commercial and social relations even when their respective sovereigns were at war. The reason alleged for this permission was the extreme poverty of those provinces, where a population had to import foodstuffs to survive. For the same reason, the French government deemed the maintenance of a large army on these territories as too logistically complicated. Thus, the kings of France and Spain were happy to accept the ‘neutralization’ of the Basque border in order to concentrate their war efforts on other fronts, such as in the Low Countries. Despite this, the Bidasoa suffered from the same brutal consequences of French power politics as other strategic border regions during the 1680s. Far from being considered a minor question, Louis XIV’s foreign service considered this border worthy of their intense and persistent attention. My research shows that the French government did not solely direct its politique des réunions to highly strategic positions, and that defensive concerns were not its only motivation within the region. Furthermore, it shows that the brutal methods applied in the north and the east represented common practice across the French borders, implying the court’s coordinated effort. Finally, I hope to demonstrate that even if the French government justified every aggression through opportunistic ad hoc arguments, a general political doctrine informed French power politics that sought to legitimate the sovereign’s arbitrary use of force. This resulted in the debasing of both the rule of border customary law and, in more general terms, the ius gentium, including the traditional methods of settling disputes between border communities. I will begin by briefly explaining Bidasoa’s legal and cultural backgrounds. Next, I will expose the devastating effects of French power politics upon the region during the 1680s. Finally, I will analyse how the French government justified its actions and the consequences this had upon the crisis of authority in the law of nations at the end of the seventeenth century, and evaluate as to whether this served as a turning point.

Fuenterrabía and the River Bidasoa Despite the bonne correspondance, the Bidasoa region was far from a peaceful oasis, as neighbouring communities maintained rivalries that created some deep-rooted tensions. In this specific case, the primary point of contention

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was the Spanish ‘city’ of Fuenterrabía’s dominant position over the Bidasoa river.13 Traditionally, its jurisdiction embraced the entire length of the river, from the limits of the Kingdom of Navarra to its mouth in the Gulf of Biscay. This included not only its own shore, but also the opposite side of the river (the ‘French’ shore) and any islet in between its banks. In practice, this meant that Fuenterrabía could impose very restrictive conditions upon its neighbours, including those from the French village of Hendaye located on the other side of the river, concerning the Bidasoa’s navigation, trade, building, and access to its natural resources. City officials based the town’s privileges on the ‘right of first occupant’ since they claimed that Fuenterrabía’s foundation went back to Roman times, while the small village of Hendaye only came into existence during the late Middle Ages.14 A cross-border commission partially sanctioned these claims at the beginning of the sixteenth century to clarify the situation after a series of clashes between the two border communities.15 Fuenterrabía was also powerful enough to enforce its claims due to the intimidating presence of its fortress and permanent, but small, garrison. Although Fuenterrabía’s hegemony over the Bidasoa was not seriously challenged for more than a century, rights over the use of the river were a recurrent source of tensions between the two border communities. Common infringements included setting fishing traps in prohibited places or cultivating foodstuffs along the riverbanks or on the islets, while more serious faults consisted of navigating the river in forbidden vessels (any ship with a keel), 13 Philip IV of Spain granted the title of ‘city’ to Fuenterrabía (Basque: Hondarribia, French: Fontarabie) as a reward for its heroic resistance during the French siege of 1638. In spite of this highly regarded title, Fuenterrabía continued to be a community of modest size, wealth, and influence when compared to other towns in the province of Guipúzcoa: Susana Truchuelo, La representación de las corporaciones locales guipuzcoanas en el entramado político provincial (siglos xvi–xvii) (San Sebastián: Diputación de Guipúzcoa, 1997). Nevertheless, Fuenterrabía’s jurisdiction embraced a relatively extensive territory from the Bidasoa river to the eastern bank of the Pasajes estuary, comprising villages like Irún-Iranzu (just a few kilometers up the Bidasoa), the port of San Juan, and the small village of Lezo (both in the Pasajes estuary). Fuenterrabía maintained serious controversies not only with the French village of Hendaye but also with the communities under its direct jurisdiction, particularly with Irún-Iranzu. See: Marta Truchuelo García, Irún y Hondarribia: dos entidades locales durante la Edad Moderna (Irún: Ayuntamiento de Irún, 2004). 14 For more on this, see: Hugo Grotius, De jure belli ac pacis libri tres, ed. by James Brown Scott, 2 vols, The Classics of International Law (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913), i: ‘De acquisitione originaria rerum, ubi de mari et fluminibus’, particularly Section XVIII. Fuenterrabía’s officials claimed that Oiasso, Oiasona, or Oiarso, as identified by Ptolemy, Strabo, and Pliny, was actually the village’s direct Roman predecessor. However, the neighbouring communities of Irún-Iranzu, San Sebastián, and the valley of Oyarzun made similar claims. Nowadays, the scientific consensus is that Oiasso was actually Irún. 15 A copy of the provisory sentence issued by the French and the Spanish commissioners in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, 10 April 1510, in: Madrid, Archivo Histórico Nacional (AHN), Estado, libro 659, fols 4–7. For more concerning these early, provisory negotiations, see: Théodoric Legrand, Essai sur les différends de Fontarabie avec le Labourd du XV e au XVIIIe siècle (Pau: J. Empérauger, 1905), pp. 3–23.

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building any kind of structure on the shore, or skipping the compulsory disembarking of merchandise on Fuenterrabía’s dock (and paying the corresponding fees). In any case, the transgressions that caused most concern were those that could have lasting and pernicious consequences for Fuenterrabía’s claims on the Bidasoa.16 On more exceptional occasions, the threat did not come from formal transgressions, but from highly symbolic performances intended to question and, when possible, erode the status quo.17 Defiance could easily lead to violent clashes. In fact, violence played a very important role in the assertion or contestation of rights. Thus, these kinds of confrontations were neither spontaneous nor uncontrolled, but strictly regulated by custom and followed a precise script. Violence was also both limited and highly ritualized. In most cases, it was primarily a symbolic and communal act rather than purely physical in nature. No matter how many people were involved (a few fishermen or a hundred townsmen), what was at stake, who was in the right, or whether it threatened the community’s honour, the aim of violent acts was the enforcement, assertion, or contestation of rights instead of plunder, conquest, or annihilation. Conflicts rarely included fatalities or serious wounds, but did frequently consist of the seizure and ritual destruction of tools and vessels. While escalation, an inherent risk of any violent exchange, was still possible, most border communities had incentives to prevent spirals of aggression. After all, they were neighbours and compelled to live next to each other and share (even if unequally) spaces and resources. Despite the frequent conflicts, this helped to maintain the status quo.18 In general, border conflicts were considered local affairs that had to be managed by local authorities according to local custom. Consequently, it was expected that all agents involved in this kind of border affair had to be locals. This does not mean, however, that border communities acted without at least the royal officials’ implicit consent. The King of Spain, for example, had a particular interest in favouring the status quo. Fuenterrabía held a small garrison, paid for by the royal treasury, and a fortress, making it the first line of defence against an enemy invasion. Fuenterrabía’s dominant position along the Bidasoa hindered the possibility of a surprise attack from across the border.

16 For example, if some families cultivated land along the riverbanks to ensure their survival, the community could use the mere act of harvesting as a valid legal argument to claim possession over previously abandoned land. It was mainly for this legal reason, and not for economic interests, that Fuenterrabía destroyed Hendaye’s crops along the Bidasoa. 17 See, for example: Fuenterrabía, Archivo Municipal (AMF), E-6-VI-6-16: Fuenterrabía to the King of Spain, 1 July 1598. 18 As one inhabitant of Hendaye said in 1663: ‘más querían mucho menos de voluntad de Fuenterrabía que mucho más que se les pudiese dar por otra vía, pues así se obligaría y cumpliría mejor y en tiempo de paz y guerra tendrían toda comunicación, sin la qual confesó y repitió no podían vivir’; Simancas, Archivo General de Simancas (AGS), Estado, legajo K-1670, no. 53.

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This was important because the Basque border was much closer to the Spanish heartland than it was to the French political core. Royal interference in border affairs, while possible, remained quite exceptional. When involved, royal authorities preferred to keep a low profile to prevent escalation or any other type of undesired engagement. Ordinarily, the management, enforcement, contestation, and eventual negotiation of rights in border spaces remained in the hands of local authorities.19 On certain occasions, sovereigns unintentionally interfered in border affairs. Since the end of the fifteenth century, the Bidasoa was a point-of-interest for Spanish and French monarchs and provided the setting for various meetings and exchanges between kings, queens, and other members of the two ruling families. When this happened, the ordinary jurisdictional border between territories transformed into a ceremonial boundary between royal courts. In principle, practical reasons, and not local squabbles, formed the primary motivations for selecting the Bidasoa as the most appropriate place to stage any number of extraordinary events. However, since the presence of the sovereign was an act of sovereignty in itself, the way in which royal ceremonies were staged and performed was extraordinarily important for asserting or refusing jurisdictional claims.20 That was the case even if the purpose of the king’s visit to the border was for a completely different matter than the one envisioned by local communities. This happened during the famous negotiations of the Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659. The plenipotentiaries of the kings of Spain and France met for several weeks on an islet in the middle of the Bidasoa. Locals prepared the islet not only to make the meetings as comfortable as possible for the representatives, but to also represent equality between the two monarchies. They intended for these protocolary arrangements to signify the two kings’ equal status. In order to reinforce this idea, they declared the islet ‘neutral’ territory. Thus, neither side could allege a position of superiority

19 This was a common feature of border communities. See: Fernando Chavarría Múgica, ‘En los confines de la soberanía: facerías, escalas de poder y relaciones de fuerza transfronterizas en el Pirineo Navarro (1400–1615)’, in Les Sociétés de frontière de la Mediterranée à l’Atlantique (xvie–xviiie siècle), ed. by Michel Bertrand and Natividad Planas (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2011), pp. 193–217, and Fernando Chavarría Múgica, ‘El “ruido” de los confines de Navarra: servicio, reputación y disimulación durante la negociación del intercambio de princesas (1609–1615)’, in Servir al rey en la Monarquía de los Austrias: Medios, fines y logros del servicio al soberano en los siglos xvi y xvii, ed. by Alicia Esteban Estríngana (Madrid: Sílex, 2012), pp. 227–59. 20 Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 27–28; María José del Río Barredo, ‘Imágenes para una ceremonia de frontera: el intercambio de las princesas entre las cortes de Francia y España en 1615’, in La historia imaginada: Construcciones visuales del pasado en la Edad Moderna, ed. by Joan Lluís Palos and Diana Carrió-Invernizzi (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Europa Hispánica, 2008), pp. 153–82.

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over the other during the negotiations, making the islet a pure ceremonial space where ordinary territorial jurisdiction was temporarily suspended.21 Locals, however, had a different opinion. From a ceremonial point of view, the meeting between the two plenipotentiaries (or the sovereigns themselves, as would happen in 1660) on an islet in the middle of the river seemed very convenient. The insistence on symmetry between monarchies, however, had a disturbing effect on border communities. It constituted a potentially dangerous precedent for Fuenterrabía’s claim over the whole river. Moreover, it was an excellent opportunity for Hendaye’s officials to push for renegotiating river rights. Following an established principle, the present plenipotentiaries did not get involved in a local quarrel completely unrelated to the war that they were trying to finish. They limited themselves to acting as mediators between the two parties, since the Bidasoa affair was never part of the official agenda. However, Hendaye’s officials managed to engage Cardinal Mazarin in the defence of its rights.22 At the end of the negotiation, the French plenipotentiary pushed for the introduction of a secret clause expressing the willingness of both sides to reach an amicable settlement of any dispute between border communities on the Bidasoa. By this means, the plenipotentiaries encouraged the French lieutenant-general of Guyenne and the Spanish captain-general of Guipúzcoa (the highest royal officials at the provincial level) to seek a peaceful solution between Hendaye and Fuenterrabía. French and Spanish royal officials would only have to agree to an appropriate settlement ‘after hearing the claims of both parties’ in cases that lacked unanimous agreement between the two parties. The content of the secret clause reflected customary doctrine. In principle, it respected the distinction between local affairs and imperial sovereignty. Government leaders expected border communities to arrive at some kind of agreement following customary arrangements. Royal officials performed in a limited role that consisted of mediation and, as in the last instance, co-arbitration.23

21 Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF), MS fonds français 7156, fols 26–27v and 34: Mazarino to Le Tellier, Saint-Jean-de-Luz, 30 July 1659 and 4 August 1659, respectively. See also: Daniel Séré, La Paix des Pyrénées: Vingt-quatre ans de négociations entre la France et l’Espagne (1635–1659) (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2007), pp. 450–55. 22 There is a detailed discussion of this episode in: Fernando Chavarría Múgica, ‘La frontera ceremonial y la frontera real: el tratado de los Pirineos y la reavivación del conflicto por el dominio del río Bidasoa (1659–1668)’, in Del tractat dels Pirineus a l’Europa del segle xxi: un model en construcció?, ed. by Oscar Janè (Barcelona: Museu d’Història de Catalunya, 2010), pp. 75–86. 23 For the text of the secret clause in both Spanish and French, see: José Antonio Abreu, Colección de los tratados de paz, alianza, neutralidad, garantía, protección, tregua, mediación, accessión, reglamento de límites, comercio, navegación, etc., hechos por los pueblos, reyes y príncipes de España […] Reinado del señor D. Felipe IV. Parte vii (Madrid: Antonio Marín, Juan de Zúñiga, and the Viuda de Peralta, 1751), pp. 258–59.

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Still, the introduction of a clause of this kind in a treaty such as the Peace of the Pyrenees unexpectedly entangled the two sovereigns in an apparently petty jurisdictional affair. Thus, the quarrels between Fuenterrabía and Hendaye over the Bidasoa penetrated into the sphere of diplomacy and high politics. In fact, after a few unfruitful attempts at mediation, royal officials decided to turn to their respective masters. At this stage, local authorities from both border communities lost the lead role in favour of high-ranking ministers. A petition from the French ambassador caused the Spanish court to review the question. From the beginning, it became clear that the two sides held different positions. On the one hand, the Spanish were willing to hear Hendaye’s accusations against Fuenterrabía for alleged abuses on the Bidasoa and, if necessary, to correct any wrongdoing. On the other hand, the King of France’s representative wanted to initiate an open-ended discussion about jurisdiction on the Bidasoa, which frustrated the Spanish. The French began to treat the affair as a matter of state, instead of as a conventional controversy between townsfolk. This represented a particularly dangerous shift because Louis XIV gained justification to intervene directly in the Bidasoa affair in defence of his sovereignty. The Spanish alleged that this approach violated the content of the secret clause, once again redirecting the Bidasoa affair to the local level. Two commissioners were then appointed to deal with the matter on the ground. During the following months, French and Spanish representatives met at the same islet in the middle of the Bidasoa as the royal plenipotentiaries during the peace negotiations, but negotiated in a less glamorous setting. The position of the two commissions, however, was so different that not only did they fail to reach an agreement, but they actually encouraged additional border tension. In fact, infractions became so obvious and the French commissioners so lenient towards them that the Spanish suspected that the King of France encouraged these actions. The reluctance of the French commissioners to leave the negotiations entirely in the hands of the locals, as the Spanish had requested, appeared to confirm Spain’s suspicions. The building of a fortified tower in Hendaye to survey the tract of the river closest to the village stood as another clear signal that the negotiations were condemned to failure from the very beginning. Instead of reaching a common arbitration, each party ended up separately proclaiming the legitimacy of their respective claims. Sometime afterwards, a new war broke out between the French and Spanish monarchies. During the following years, the status quo remained the same and Fuenterrabía continued to enjoy a dominant position on the border. Nonetheless, developments concerning the secret clause had other serious, if subtle, consequences. By declaration of the French commissioners, and confirmed by Louis XIV in January 1668 (after the War of Devolution had already been declared), the king reserved the right to retaliate against Fuenterrabía if its inhabitants obstructed Hendaye’s alleged jurisdiction on the Bidasoa.24 Although the 24 AHN, Estado, libro 655, fols 187–88: Sentence on the Bidasoa affair by the French commissioners d’Artagnan and Saint-Martin-Barrez, issued on 26 February 1667, and confirmed by Louis XIV on 25 January 1668 (print).

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threat did not materialize at the time, it undermined a fundamental value of customary order on the border: trust between neighbouring communities. For this reason, Fuenterrabía was very reluctant to participate in the customary treaty of bonne correspondance negotiated by provincial representatives from both sides of the border. Even if Louis XIV never questioned the validity of these traditional agreements, the implementation of power politics on the Basque border disrupted the traditional mechanism of mutual obligation that prevented violence between neighbouring communities and made cross-border cooperation possible during wartime. Eventually, pressure from provincial representatives and royal authorities convinced Fuenterrabía’s officials to join. Louis XIV’s proclaimed his retaliatory rights during wartime, which ceased, in principle, after the signing of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in May 1668. However, the king made clear in his declaration that he did not renounce direct intervention in border affairs. In fact, he ordered his new ambassador at the court of Spain to reinitiate negotiations on jurisdiction along the Bidasoa at the highest level. He based his proposal on the assumption that since the peace agreement explicitly confirmed the content of the Treaty of the Pyrenees (including the secret clause concerning the Bidasoa), it was legitimate to treat the matter through diplomatic channels instead of through local customary arrangements. This time, however, the Spanish refused to deal with the question at all. They continued to encourage Fuenterrabía to enforce its rights as usual, always taking care not to compromise the King of Spain’s honour.25 In any case, the peace broke down again a few years later and they sought a new treaty of bonne correspondance dealing with the Bidasoa border. These agreements, though, were only valid as long as the war lasted. Once the war was over a year later, border tensions resumed. Based on the unprecedented violence deployed by the French in the Bidasoa during the 1680s, Fuenterrabía’s mistrust appears well-founded. One could argue that it was possible to get a glimpse of how Louis XIV’s attitude would change during these years. There is no doubt that the Bidasoa affair’s unprecedented inclusion in the Treaty of the Pyrenees, even in the discrete terms in which it appeared, gave the King of France the excuse to transform a local border affair into a diplomatic incident. However, Louis XIV had, until that moment, followed established formalities, conventions, and procedures. His policy towards the Bidasoa may have been surprisingly bold, but it was not necessarily illegitimate. Nevertheless, the Peace of Nijmegen changed everything.

The Staging of Peace and Marriage The French and Spanish had arranged for a royal wedding to seal the Peace of Nijmegen (1679). Representatives from both courts prepared for a new 25 AGS, Estado, legajo K-1411, no. 90: Mariana of Habsburg, Regent Queen of Spain, to Fuenterrabía, Madrid, 16 February 1669 (draft letter).

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meeting at the Bidasoa river to hand over Princess Marie-Louise of Orleans to the King of Spain.26 As previously discussed, these extraordinary events presented numerous opportunities to challenge the status quo along the border. It is important to remember that, even though the royal courts planned this event down to its smallest details, the individuals in charge of the preparations were locals. Thus, Fuenterrabía’s officials paid particular attention to the events that preceded the ceremony and made sure that the French could not use them as an excuse for undermining its jurisdiction. There were, of course, various incidents between the two border communities during preparations, but they made sure to not disturb the official ceremony.27 In the weeks following the royal meeting, border tensions rapidly mounted. Hendaye’s acts of defiance became both more frequent and increasingly serious. The French surprised the Spanish by beating their fishmongers, shooting at their vessels, and destroying their fish traps. Hendaye even captured one of their boats and send its occupants to Bayonne as prisoners, where they were ‘mistreated like in wartime’.28 These acts went well beyond the customary border relationship. The sudden escalation of violence on the Bidasoa and the French ambassador’s renewed pressure convinced Spanish authorities that the French purposely encouraged these tensions ‘by superior order’.29 According to the Council of State in Madrid, Louis XIV’s aim was to provoke a violent response from Fuenterrabía in order to have a pretext

26 The delivery of the princess took place in the Behobia pass on 3 November 1679; AGS, Estado, legajo K-1636/37, no. 88. 27 For instance, one day a French boat entered into the river from the sea. Apparently, the boat came from the nearby port of Saint-Jean-de-Luz to survey the works. The boat had a keel, making it a forbidden vessel on the Bidasoa. Consequently, Fuenterrabía seized it. In accordance with customary practice, the boat had to publicly be set aflame on the shore, otherwise the seizure could be interpreted as an act of piracy. Fuenterrabía’s aim was to enforce its jurisdictional rights, not commit an act of plunder. However, in order to avoid any disruption of the royal ceremony, authorities delayed the performance of this punishment until courtiers from both sides had left the border. Once the ceremony finished Fuenterrabía could finally show that its jurisdiction over the Bidasoa remained in force; AHN, Estado, libro 628, fol. 21: Fuenterrabía to the King of Spain, 13 January 1680. French ministers later accused Fuenterrabía of having burned the French royal banner along with the boat; AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 139–41. For more on other incidents during the preparations: AGS, Estado, legajo K-1636/37, no. 82. 28 La Courneuve, Archive des Affaires Étrangères (AAE), Correspondance Politique (CP), Espagne, no. 63, fols 84r–113r, 117r–18v, 133r–v, 134r–138r, and 151r; AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 13–14. The Spanish protested through ordinary diplomatic channels; AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 65, fols 59r–60v: the Marquis of the Balbases to the Marquis of Villars, Madrid, 6 April 1680. 29 AHN, Estado, libro 628, fol. 22: Don Diego de Portugal (captain-general of the province of Guipúzcoa) to the secretary Gerónimo de Eguía, San Sebastián, 26 February 1680. The Spanish presented an official complaint before the Marquis of Villars, French ambassador in Madrid, and the Council of State ordered the Spanish ambassador in France, the Duke of Jubenazo, to do the same: AGS, Estado, legajo K-1646, no. 142 (5 December 1679), and no. 147b (Madrid, 11 December 1680).

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to resume hostilities. This suspicion was not unique to the Bidasoa case, but represented the ‘inquietud de franceses y de los tentativos que hacen por todas partes’ (‘French restlessness and what they attempt everywhere’).30 In fact, the exacerbation of local tensions all along the French border was characteristic of its overall politique des réunions. Initially, the main concern of the Spanish ministers in Madrid was to avoid allowing an apparently minor incident to serve as a casus belli.31 Consequently, they concentrated their efforts on preventing any violent response against Hendaye’s provocations.32 They asked Fuenterrabía to enforce its jurisdiction in a ‘moderate’ manner.33 Moreover, they explicitly prohibited the garrison and local authorities from becoming further involved in the conflict. Nonetheless, Hendaye’s increasing hostility, along with the soldiers’ willingness to help their friends and relatives in town, made these instructions difficult to implement.34 Eventually, the soldiery and the royal officials, who the Spanish Crown could hold directly accountable, felt compelled to obey, but, as the captain-general of Guipúzcoa warned, the Crown could not similarly impose its will upon the common people.35 The townspeople alarmed the ministers by deploying pieces of artillery on the dock to stop Hendaye from recovering its seized vessels.36 These disturbances were enough for Louis XIV to accuse Fuenterrabía of very serious crimes, including the destruction of houses and even a church, allegedly committed to prevent his decreed partition of the river. The King of France, through the Marquis of Villars, his ambassador in Madrid, and Colbert de Croissy, his minister of Foreign Affairs in Paris, demanded exemplary punishment for the damages that Hendaye allegedly

30 AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 13–20: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 23 March 1680. 31 This fear was not only limited to border affairs. See, for example, the declaration of the Marquis of Los Balbases, Spanish ambassador in France, on the customary salute among royal navies: AGS, Estado, K-1646, no. 57 (Paris, 25 June 1679). 32 ‘Que no se recelava tanto de las hostilidades de franceses, como del ardor de los de Fuenterrabía, que pretendían el auxilio de los militares y que estuviesen a su arbitrio las puertas y usan la artillería’; AHN, Estado, libro 628, fol. 16: Consulta of the War Council, Madrid, 26 January 1680. 33 ‘Que no se dispute con las armas este negocio, aunque motiven a ello franceses, sino que los de Fuenterravía se valgan de los actos y protestas jurídicos haciendo siempre esta causa propia de entre los vezinos de una y otra frontera, sin mezclar mi authoridad, nombre, ni armas’; AHN, Consejos, Castilla, legajo 7119, no. 103: the King of Spain to the governor of the Council of Castile, Madrid, 18 April 1680; AHN, Estado, libro 628, fol. 21: Fuenterrabía to the King of Spain, 13 January 1680. 34 AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 3–4: Don Diego de Portugal to the King of Spain, San Sebastián, 5 January 1680. 35 According to the captain-general of Guipúzcoa: ‘esto con la gente del pueblo no se puede reducir a razón’, refusing any liability for the riotous behaviour of the common people (‘algunas resoluciones que tumultuariamente tomaron los vecinos de menos obligaciones’); AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 137–38: Don Diego de Portugal to the Council of State, San Sebastián, 5 May 1680. 36 AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 139–41: Memorandum presented by the Marquis of Villars.

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suffered.37 They backed the demand with military threats. Vauban’s plan to renew Bayonne’s fortifications included constructing new defences for Hendaye with the explicit purpose of counterbalancing Fuenterrabía’s power on the Bidasoa.38 Simultaneously, an unusual number of troops concentrated in the southwest of France.39 In fact, the commander of this contingent threatened to retaliate if the king’s demands were not met.40 Officials in Fuenterrabía heard rumours that Louis XIV would send warships for the same purpose.41 Rumours became reality in early May 1680 with the arrival of three war brigantines (or ‘small frigates’) in front of Fuenterrabía. From the beginning, the commander of the French flotilla made his mission clear: his king ordered him to seize any vessel sailing in or out of the Bidasoa until the French received reparations for damages caused by Fuenterrabía.42 The flotilla acted upon its threats a few days later, capturing a boat and sending the occupants to Bayonne as prisoners. They also established a maritime blockade. From this point on, Fuenterrabía could only be supplied by land. This was a crushing blow for a town that depended on sea trade for affordable foodstuffs. At first sight, the French flotilla was not particularly impressive: a few brigantines supported by some pinnaces and armed boats. In fact, the people of Fuenterrabía, renowned for their corsair activity, asked for permission to attack them at their expense.43 Nevertheless, Spanish officials rejected the proposal because it would abruptly end a recently signed peace sealed with a royal wedding. Instead, the Spanish decided to satisfy French demands by appointing a judge-commissioner to investigate and, if necessary, punish the alleged crimes

37 AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 25–28: Memorandum presented by the Marquis of Villars. 38 AHN, Estado, libro 628, fol. 127v. Vauban himself visited Hendaye; AHN, Estado, libro 628, fol. 125: news from Bayonne, 4 May 1680. About Vauban’s plans for the defence of the province of Labourd see: Pierre Hourmat, Histoire de Bayonne: Des origines à la Révolution française de 1789 (Bayonne: Société des sciences, lettres et arts de Bayonne, 1987), pp. 357–58. 39 AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 48–56: Council of State, Madrid, 27 April 1680. 40 AHN, Estado, libro 628, fol. 88: Maréchal Lambert to Don Alonso Jordán, governor of the fortress of Fuenterrabía, Hendaye, 28 April 1680. 41 AHN, Estado, libro 638, fol. 24: news from Bayonne, 24 February 1680; and fols 89–90: news from Fuenterrabía, 28 April 1680. 42 ‘Memoire instructif au sr. du Rivau capitaine de frigate legere commandant les quatre pinasses que le Roy fait armer au port de Bayonne’; AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 65, fols 65–66; AHN, Estado, libro 628, fol. 126. However, Rivau was substituted by Roux just days after being appointed because the king was informed that he was a Huguenot: Paris, Archives Nationales de France (ANF), Marine, B 2 42, fol. 198r: ‘Billet a la main’, 6 May 1680. 43 AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 260r–v: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 22 August 1680; Enrique Otero Lana, Los corsarios españoles durante la decadencia de los Austrias: El corso español del Atlántico peninsular en el siglo xvii (1621–1697) (Madrid: Ministerio de Defensa, 1992); José Ramón Guevara, ‘El corso Hondarribiarra (1690–1714)’, Boletín de Estudios del Bidasoa, 15 (1997), 35–116. The French described the people of Fuenterrabía as ‘pirates sans quartier’; AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 67, fol. 69r: Lespes de Hureaux to Croissy, from the river pass, 7 May 1681.

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against the people of Hendaye, with the expectation that Louis XIV would do the same with his subjects.44 After some weeks of investigation, the Spanish judge-commissioner concluded that the alleged accusations against Fuenterrabía were simply false. Of course, he acknowledged that there had been some violent quarrels and abuses, but the Spanish did not bomb houses or burn churches, as the French had initially claimed. On the contrary, Hendaye should be accused for its numerous infringements on the Bidasoa.45 Louis XIV did not agree. He sent a commissioner to the border, but his mission was not to investigate any wrongdoing. Instead, he sought to claim reparations for the alleged damages suffered by the people of Hendaye.46 The disparity of their respective missions made an agreement impossible, but the Spanish hoped that establishing some sort of formal contact between commissioners would at least relax French pressure on the border.47 Needless to say, the Spanish misread Louis XIV’s intentions. The violence on the Bidasoa did not diminish and the maritime blockade remained in place for more than three years. The warships only left their positions to obtain supplies or when bad weather made sailing extremely dangerous, such as during the winter months. In the meantime, few boats from Fuenterrabía ventured to fish in the surrounding waters.48 Hendaye had gained full control of the Bidasoa. The situation worsened when the corpses of eleven inhabitants of Hendaye appeared close to Fuenterrabía early one morning.49 They were the occupants of a boat that had visited the French 44 The appointed judge-commissioner was Fernando Ramírez de Alcántara, oidor of the Chancillería of Granada; AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 111–17: Council of State, Madrid, 12 May 1680. The Spanish king immediately communicated this decision to the French court; AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 176–77: the King of Spain to the Duke of Jubenazo, ambassador in France, Madrid, 31 May 1680. 45 ‘Y últimamente […] no haberse arruinado templos, ni casas de los de Andaya ni muerto ningún hombre, antes bien se ha hallado que los promotores de estos enquentros han sido siempre los de Andaya y que los de Fuenterrabía no han movido sino es precisados de la natural defensa de sus vidas y haciendas’; AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 180–83: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 4 June 1680. 46 The French appointed Joseph de Lespes de Hureaux, lieutenant général du sénéschal of Bayonne, to deal with the Bidasoa affair; AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 65, fols 76–77. 47 AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 233–34: Fernando Ramírez de Alcántara to the King of Spain, Fuenterrabía, 20 July 1680, and fols 250–52: the same to the Marquis of Canales, Fuenterrabía, 30 July 1680. 48 The sardine fishery was very important for the local economy, particularly for the poorest people; AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 67, fols 35v–36v: Lespes de Hureaux to Croissy, from the pass of Behobia, 12 Mach 1681; AHN, Estado, libro 628, fol. 309: Don Diego de Portugal to Juan Antonio de Zárate, San Sebastián, 20 August 1680. For a general overview on inshore fishing on the Basque coast, see: Xabier Alberdi, ‘La pesca en el litoral de Gipuzkoa durante la Edad Moderna’, Itsas Memoria: Revista de Estudios Marítimos del País Vasco, 3 (2000), 99–129. 49 Initially, Francisco Ramírez de Alcántara left the case in the hands of the ordinary justice system, but the viceroy of Navarra informed the Spanish court that French authorities denied the possibility of an accident ‘and they have sent false reports to the Most Christian

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brigantines the previous day. Apparently, the incident looked like a shipwreck, a common accident in the turbulent waters of the Gulf of Biscay, but French authorities accused the people of Fuenterrabía of murder.50 As expected, they demanded extraordinary punishments. They even used this episode as a diplomatic tool, presenting the case in foreign courts as an example of Spain’s unjust treatment of France.51 Unsatisfied with the explanation from Madrid, Louis XIV ordered retaliation. The flotilla immediately extended its range of action to the nearby port of Pasajes, which was also under Fuenterrabía’s jurisdiction though not in the mouth of the Bidasoa. There, they captured additional fishermen and sailors.52 The situation was unbearable for Fuenterrabía, as the border city was under extraordinary pressure. It suffered a war-like maritime blockade and had lost control of its own jurisdiction on the Bidasoa. However, the passivity forced upon them by their own government was even more humiliating to their pride. Not only did the king fail to protect them, but he also prohibited them from responding with aggression.53 Moreover, the French accused them of horrendous crimes and their own neighbours treated them with suspicion.54 Representatives from Guipúzcoa, Fuenterrabía’s province, wanted the border city to adhere to all French demands to avoid further retaliation.55 The King of Spain sent a second judge-commissioner endowed with special powers to investigate and punish the alleged murders on the Bidasoa.56 This was an extraordinary measure that the government only used against public malefactors, and that many interpreted as a presumption of culpability.57 The judge-commissioner, however, again failed to find any evidence of the crimes. Afterwards, the court sent a member of the Council of Castile (the Spanish

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King’; AHN, Estado, libro 629, fols 70 and 72v–73v: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 17 May 1681. AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 66, fols 98v–99r: Louis XIV to the Marquis of Villars, Versailles, 8 June 1681. See, for example: BnF, MS Occ., Clairambault 589, fol. 317: Croissy to d’Estrades, French ambassador in Savoy, Versailles, 6 June 1681. By that time, the Spanish government had already instructed his ambassadors in Rome, Germany, England, and Holland, AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 371v–372r: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 11 October 1680. AHN, Estado, libro 629, fols 251–52: Fuenterrabía to the King of Spain, 18 June 1681. AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 260r–262v, and 389. AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 67, fol. 161: Lespes de Hureaux to Croissy, Bayonne, 25 June 1681. AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 91–92: Don Diego de Portugal to the King of Spain, San Sebastián, 1 May 1680. The new judge-commissioner was José Rodríguez Portocarrero y Silva, Marquis of Castrillo, alcalde de casa y corte (member of the Royal High Court of Madrid); AHN, Estado, libro 629, fols 294–98: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 24 August 1681. Meanwhile, the French king sent the intendant Faucon de Ris to Hendaye in order to find the culprits from the alleged murders; AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 66, fol. 137 ff. Juan de Hevia Bolaños, Curia filipica, primera y segunda parte (Madrid: Imprenta Real por Mateo Llanos, 1684; first published in Lima, 1603), tercera parte (de la primera parte): ‘del juicio criminal’, p. 134.

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monarchy’s most prestigious judicial institution) as a new judge-commissioner, but obtained identical results.58 Spanish ministers were afraid of losing complete control of the situation. In seeking to appease Louis XIV, they pushed Fuenterrabía to the brink of open rebellion.59 The only way to appease Louis XIV was to bow to his demands. Despite his complaints about the lack of extraordinary punishments, his main interest was to not find alleged murderers. In fact, his demands remained unchanged both before and after this incident: recognition of Hendaye’s right to fish, navigate, and freely trade on the Bidasoa, and complete jurisdiction over its own shore. His justification also did not change. The French king had accused Fuenterrabía of various violent crimes and abuses ever since 1679. He interpreted every single border incident, both past and present, as an arbitrary aggression against the ‘defenceless’ people of Hendaye. ‘The affair of the drowned men’ — as the Spanish authorities called it — reinforced the rhetoric of victimization at the core of French strategy concerning the Bidasoa, which the French used to justify further strengthening their retaliatory measures, namely the maritime blockade and the capture of prisoners. The criminalization of Fuenterrabía was instrumental for the legitimization of the French claims on the Bidasoa. Since armed intervention in a common controversy between local communities could hardly be justified within ordinary legal terms, Louis XIV resorted to arguments taken from other spheres of law, especially the right of reprisal.60 In principle, a reprisal was a legal measure by which authorities gave a private person permission to seize property and hostages from a country that failed to offer sufficient justice as compensation for his losses. French authorities presented themselves as enforcers of Hendaye’s compensation claims. They argued that they felt compelled to directly intervene because French villagers were not powerful enough to defend themselves against Fuenterrabía’s abuses. There were several flaws, however, in this claim. The right of reprisal was only applicable when it was impossible to obtain justice through other means, which was not the case in this matter. After all, the kings of France and Spain were at peace and had sealed their alliance with a royal marriage. According to the Peace of Nijmegen, any dispute among the vassals of the two monarchies had to be settled by amicable means. The secret article concerning the Bidasoa in the

58 The third judge-commissioner was Don Juan del Corral, a respected jurist and member of the Council of Castile, AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 66, fol. 142 and the Marquis of Villars to Louis XIV, Madrid, 11 July 1681; the French ambassador described him as a ‘ministre fort integre’ (fols 148r–v). 59 See, for example: AHN, Estado, libro 629, fols 375–79: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 10 November 1681. 60 AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 65, fol. 20r–v: Louis XIV to the Marquis of Villars, Saint-Germain, 30 January 1680 (draft letter). For a general overview on this aspect from the era’s theorists, see: Stephen C. Neff, War and the Law of Nations: A General History (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2008), pp. 76–82 and 122–26.

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Treaty of the Pyrenees (1659) further supported this stance, which both sides again confirmed in the latest rounds of negotiations.61 Besides, Louis XIV had no reason to formally doubt the goodwill of the Spanish king. In fact, the King of Spain had sent three judge-commissioners with the power to punish and repair any wrongdoing. Furthermore, French claims remained extremely vague. Reprisals were only legitimate if the value of the seized goods did not surpass the claimant’s economic losses, and the French made no attempt to quantify their damages. Finally, certain aggressive measures like the maritime blockade, treating hostages like prisoners of war, and Fuenterrabía’s violent exclusion from the Bidasoa could hardly be justified as acts of reprisal intended to obtain compensation. In fact, the King of France’s direct intervention in an ordinary quarrel between border communities was more likely to be perceived as an act of war.62 Since the right of reprisal did not justify French acts of hostility on the Bidasoa, Louis XIV resorted to other legal arguments, including the right of retaliation. Unlike reprisals, there was no ambiguity in retaliation: it was an unequivocal act of aggression subject to the laws of war. While reprisals were largely compensatory, retaliation focused on punishing a serious wrongdoing, with the goal of deterring the opposite party from partaking in harmful or unacceptable actions. In order to be effective, the target of the retaliatory act had to be clearly identified and the aggression had to be a proportional response to the enemy’s action. In this sense, retaliation was an act of war with a limited purpose: re-establishing a certain status quo ante. Officials intended retaliatory acts to cease as soon as the enemy stopped its harmful behaviour. Needless to say, the French authorities’ desire to resort to this kind of justification was problematic. On the one hand, Louis XIV was not interested in re-establishing the status quo on the Bidasoa, but instead hoped 61 The Peace of Nijmegen, signed between Spain and France, did not explicitly mention the Bidasoa affair, although the treaty did state that the Peace of the Pyrenees continued to be in force (Art. XXVI); José Antonio Abreu, Colección de los tratados de paz […]: Reynado del señor rey D. Carlos II, Parte II (Madrid: Antonio Marín, Juan de Zúñiga, and the Viuda de Peralta, 1752), pp. 347–48. The Spanish king specifically instructed his negotiators at Nijmegen to not permit any change to the status quo on the Bidasoa: AGS, Estado, legajo K-1670, no. 152: minuta ‘Relación del principio que tuvieron las diferencias […] sobre el uso del río Vidasoa […] hasta el tiempo presente con lo que Su Majestad ha resuelto se obre en ella por los plenipotenciarios de la paz en consulta de 11 de enero de este año de 1676’. 62 Interestingly, according to the French minister of maritime affairs, the mission of the flotilla was ‘faire la guerre aux habitants de Fontarabie’; ANF, Marine, B 2 43, fol. 200r–v: Seignelay to Mauclerc, Saint-Germain, 14 April 1680. This approach caused some initial confusion to the commander in charge of the maritime blockade, who received serious reprimands for accepting the validity of licences and passports issued by Spanish royal authorities: ‘Le Roy a esté fort surpris d’apprendre que vous ayez laissé passer les chaloupes et barques chargées de munitions et vivres pour Fontarabie sous pretexte que les patrons estoient porteurs des passeports du gouverneur de Guipuscoa […] ne manquez donc pas d’executer ponctuellement les orders que vous avez reçue et ne vous meslez jamais de les interpreter’; ANF, Marine B 2 43, fol. 281v: Seignelay to Roux, Fontainebleau, 4 June 1680.

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to create a new set of rules that were more beneficial to the French. From a legal point of view, the king could not use the right of retaliation to justify such pretensions. On the other hand, retaliation was, by definition, a response to a previous aggression, therefore presupposing a state of war or at least of open hostility.63 This contradicted Louis XIV’s official declarations of friendship to the Spanish monarchy. In fact, it was unclear to which aggression Louis XIV was responding, as he was purposefully vague in this respect. Ever since 1679, the French had accused Fuenterrabía of continuous wrongdoings, abuses, and aggressions, but rarely described them in detail. It seems that they used every incident as a pretext for retaliation, including customary enforcement of fishing and navigation rights. Since ordinary quarrels between border communities could not justify such a disproportionate response, it was necessary to present Fuenterrabía’s actions as arbitrarily violent and criminal. As tensions mounted, there were some specific circumstances that helped the French to justify their harsh treatment of the Spanish border city. The most serious was the deployment of artillery. The French considered Spain’s use of ‘cannons’ against the people of Hendaye as an illegitimate aggression that required a military response, thus retaliation.64 Needless to say, they also used the affair of the ‘drowned men’ as further confirmation of Fuenterrabía’s criminal intent, although it is worth noting that the maritime blockade and the capturing of prisoners, not to mention aggressions in other frontier territories, began well before this incident.65 France’s retaliatory argument was only credible if they could present Fuenterrabía as a cruel and powerful aggressor. Otherwise French hostility would represent an arbitrary breach of peace. The use of reprisals and acts of retaliation were unjustifiable, although they were more than just opportunistic pretexts for brute force. Fuenterrabía’s criminalization was instrumental in providing the excuse for both armed intervention and the advancement of French claims on the Bidasoa. France

63 Neff, War and the Law of Nations, pp. 123–24. 64 AHN, Estado, libro 628, fol. 16: Consulta of the War Council, Madrid, 26 January 1680, and fols 139–41: Memorandum of the Marquis of Villars; AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 65, fol. 238: Report of Lespes de Heureaux on the Bidasoa conferences of 23 and 26 November 1680. 65 ‘Je vous despesche ce courier expres pour vous instruire de la plus noire et de la plus horrible cruauté qui ayt jamais esté exercée par les nations les plus barbares’; AAE, CP, Espagne, no 66, fol. 87r: Louis XIV to the Marquis of Villars, Versailles, 17 May 1681. See more on the formal protest of the French ambassador in: AHN, Estado, libro 629, fols 99–100. Louis XIV specifically instructed his new ambassador at the embassy, La Vauguyon, to demand an exemplary punishment for the culprits: ‘d’une barbarie si énorme’; Alfred Morel-Fatio, Recueil des instructions données aux ambassadeurs et ministres de France depuis les Traités de Westphalie jusqu’à la Révolution Française. XI: Espagne (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1894), i, pp. 312–13. As the Duke of Osuna said, ‘que en Flandes no les han muerto ningunos vasallos y están obrando lo que obran’. Interestingly, Osuna believed that Fuenterrabía was actually guilty; AHN, Estado, libro 629, fols 216–38: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 2 July 1681, fols 224r–v.

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based its legal arguments on the idea that Fuenterrabía’s jurisdiction was unlawful because its inhabitants only established it through naked force. Thanks to its military superiority, Fuenterrabía imposed its terms and conditions on the Bidasoa, while Hendaye and other border communities were too weak and too scared to effectively contest its claims. While this reasoning was not entirely new, no one had previously used it as a legal argument. A French memorandum written at the beginning of the seventeenth century considered Fuenterrabía’s possession of the Bidasoa illegitimate because they only maintained it ‘by mere force and the law of arms’ since the ‘Spanish’ had ‘usurped’ the whole province of Guipúzcoa from the King of Navarra in 1200.66 The memorandum also refers to the threat posed by the Fuenterrabía and Behobia fortresses (the Spanish had demolished the latter a century earlier), from which the Spanish fired their cannons against any French vessels with a keel. The author was particularly ironic about this point. According to him, the Spanish based their rights more on canon than on civil law, due to the continuing gunshots (‘continuelle canonades’) fired against the French, making puns with the French homonym words ‘cannon’ (artillery) and ‘canon’ (Church law).67 The author appears to have written the memorandum to encourage Henry IV of France to take action on the Bidasoa at a moment when a declaration of war against Spain seemed imminent.68 A partial copy of this memorandum was among historian François Eudes de Mézeray’s (d. 1683) papers.69 The French ambassador timidly re-proposed the same argument during the failed negotiations that followed the Peace of the Pyrenees.70 Years later, Louis XIV would base his strategy regarding the Bidasoa on the same principle. From this point of view, the French justified retaliation against Fuenterrabía by recalling centuries of violent occupation. From a strictly juridical point of view, the French authorities’ reasoning remained weak. In principle, obtaining compensation for incurred losses and the restoration of a status quo ante represented the only two justifiable reasons for instigating acts of reprisal or retaliation. Louis XIV’s aims did not fit this definition. Apparently, he simply sought justification for using force to impose a new order instead of defending legitimate claims in a lawful manner. In fact, the French explicitly avoided entering into any legal controversy. This approach caused some confusion to Lespes de Heureaux,

66 About this historical episode: Angel Canellas López, ‘De la incorporación de Guipúzcoa a la Corona de Castilla’, in En la España Medieval: Estudios en memoria del Profesor D. Salvador de Moxó, 2 vols (Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 1982), ii, pp. 11–20. 67 BnF, MS français 15846, fols 97–116: ‘Memoire touchant la Riviere de Bidasso qui separe la France de l’Espagne’. 68 Antonio Eiras Roel, ‘Política francesa de Felipe III: Las tensiones con Enrique IV’, Hispania: Revista Española de Historia, 118 (1971), 245–336. 69 BnF, MS français 20771, fols 222r–224v: ‘Rivière de Bidasso’. 70 Chavarría Múgica, ‘La frontera ceremonial’, p. 82.

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the French commissioner sent to the Bidasoa.71 As a loyal subject, he surely had no reason to doubt his master’s rightful intention. This is precisely why he was willing to support Louis XIV’s claims on solid legal grounds. Much to his surprise, he received a serious reprimand for having agreed with the Spanish commissioner to review the proceedings and other legal instruments from past negotiations.72 This was, of course, ordinary practice. Instead, the king had specifically instructed Lespes de Heureaux to simply present the French demands to the Spanish authorities and wait for orders.73 Louis XIV did not present any valid proof to back up his claims. This can partly be explained by the inconsistency of French legal arguments: most of them would not stand up to scrutiny. In 1661, for example, Francisco Ramírez de Prado, a respected jurist from the Council of Castile, demolished the allegations that the former French ambassador presented in Madrid.74 The only legal instrument that Louis XIV used to legitimate his actions on the Bidasoa during the 1680s was the sentence dictated by his own commissioners in 1667 and confirmed by himself at the beginning of the following year (once the War of Devolution had already broken out). The sentence, however, was not a valid legal justification because the jurisdiction of French judges did not extend to foreign territory. In fact, Spanish commissioners had dictated a similar sentence asserting their own rights that, in turn, could only be effective in their own territory. This was common practice in border controversies, as it was a way of declaring that both sides were right and that neither would renounce their respective claims. In other words, it meant that the border conflict remained unsettled. The only case in which the French sentence could have any legal effect over the Spanish would be if, for any reason, Spain failed to issue its own sentence. An explicit renunciation of Spain’s claim could then be interpreted as implicit recognition of France’s rights. Louis XIV pursued this line of argument. According to the king, Spanish commissioners had failed to dictate their sentence in due form, which was, of course, a lie.75 A lack of communication between the respective commissioners characterized the final stage of the Bidasoa negotiations during the 1660s, but this did not prevent the Spanish from dictating their own sentence. The French ministers 71 AAE, CP, Espagne, fols 185r–186v. 72 AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 65, fols 201r–204r: Lespes de Heureaux to Croissy, Urrugne, 9 and 10 October 1680; fol. 226: Don Fernando Ramírez de Alcántara to Lespes de Heureaux, Fuenterrabía, 17 November 1680; and fol. 233: Lespes de Heureaux to Croissy, Urrugne, 23 November 1680. 73 ‘Sa Majesté ne voulan pas que vous entrez dans la discution des droits de possession de ceux d’Andaye qui sont suffisament confirmez par le dit jugement duquel sa majesté ne veu pas sousbir quel soit donné la moindre attente’; AAE, CP, Espagne, fols 170–171v: Croissy a Lespes de Heureaux, Versailles, 29 September 1680; and fols 180–81: Faucon de Ris to Lespes de Heureaux, Paris, 5 October 1680. 74 Chavarría Múgica, ‘La frontera ceremonial’, pp. 80–82. 75 AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 65, fols 20r–21v: Louis XIV to the Marquis of Villars, Saint-Germain, 30 January 1680 (draft letter).

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knew this, which is why they prohibited Lespes de Heureaux from reviewing the proceedings of the former commissioners.76 Otherwise, the French would immediately invalidate their only legal instrument.77 The same could be said with respect to Spain’s alleged violent possession of the Bidasoa, which the French ironically called ‘cannon law’. It is true that Fuenterrabía relied upon a certain degree of violence to establish its rights. Throughout the years, the people of Hendaye participated in numerous acts of defiance. Tension could also occasionally lead to violent clashes. Both sides, however, managed these little conflicts according to customary law. In truth, Fuenterrabía held unquestioned jurisdiction over the Bidasoa for a long time. Obviously, Spain’s military superiority at the border (thanks to its fortress and artillery) played an important role in this dominance. Nevertheless, their power also had strong legal backing: they had France’s written consent. Fuenterrabía established its rights on the Bidasoa through a series of bilateral settlements between the French and the Spanish at the beginning of the sixteenth century. In other words, the French had voluntarily accepted Fuenterrabía’s jurisdiction for more than a century and a half.78 Thus, presenting allegations based on these agreements could be counter-productive. In this context, Fuenterrabía’s acts of violence on the Bidasoa could only be interpreted in two ways: as either legitimate or abusive enforcement of its rights. Hendaye’s trespassing supposedly provoked the former, while the latter may have led to a right to compensation. Yet, in neither case could Fuenterrabía’s right to enforce its jurisdiction be questioned. Only a systematically disproportionate and arbitrary use of force could delegitimize its status on the Bidasoa, which seems to have been Louis XIV’s rationale in criminalizing Fuenterrabía.

Crisis of Customary Law The escalation of Louis XIV’s aggressions and his use of the language of reprisal, retaliation, and absolute sovereign power appeared to be a prelude to an official resumption of hostilities, with more than just the Bidasoa at stake. As previously mentioned, French strategic priorities lay elsewhere. In 76 ‘Memoire des affaires que le roy a recommandées a ses ambassadeurs en Espagne et quils ont traitées en cette cour depuis la paix de Nimegue jusqu’à la rupture arrivée au mois de mars 1689 a l’exception de celles qui regardent le commerce’; AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 63, fols 165r–188v: ‘Pesches et navigation dans la riviere de Bidassoa’, fols 178v–181v (‘cahier’, pp. 26–30); AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 65, fol. 128: Louis XIV to Lespes de Heureaux, Calais, 21 July 1680. 77 AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 65, fols 209r–v: Lespes de Heureaux to Croissy, Urrugne, 19 October 1680. 78 The French commissioner even acknowledged this fact: ‘cette pernicieuse sentence provisionelle de l’an 1510 laquelle adiugea aux espagnols l’usage de la riviere et navigation avec toute sorte de vaisseaux et aux nostre seulement avec des batteaux sans quille’; AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 67, fols 9r–v: Lespes de Hureaux to Croissy, Urrugne, 25 January 1681.

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fact, Louis XIV committed acts of aggression during this period, including systematic pillage, violent occupations and unilateral annexations, against the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands and the Rhineland.79 His justification for these aggressions differed little from those he used for the Bidasoa.80 Moreover, reprisal, retaliation, and absolute sovereign power formed the common language of the politique des réunions. The sentences from the chambres de réunion had the same function as a declaration from the French commissioners in 1667. In both cases, the French used these formalities as pretexts for direct, armed intervention, which they disguised as the regular enforcement of justice. The French also based both approaches on the same methods and principles, but held them to different scales. The judicial pronouncement attributed the object of contention (determined by the French authorities themselves) to the King of France (or his vassals), who then gained the right to claim possession of the said territory. At this point, Louis XIV was ‘legitimized’ to make complete use of his absolute sovereign power to enforce his authority and defend his rights against any ‘rebellious’ or ‘foreign’ intervention in a territory that the French government now formally considered a part of the Kingdom of France. When necessary, they applied the same principle to implementing the Peace of Nijmegen. In this situation, a biased, unilateral interpretation of the document was enough to cause the French to resort to the independent annexation of territories or, if demands were not immediately met, to reprisals. The violence surrounding the politique des réunions was both juridical and physical. The French government always conducted réunions under threat of expropriation, imprisonment, and pillage. In all cases, it backed its threats with military force. The government could usually bully feudal lords and town authorities into changing allegiance. Frequently, though, feudatories and provincial governors refused to bend to French demands. 79 According to Jeanmougin, the French annexed around 8000 square kilometres of territory in the region between the Meuse and the Moselle rivers, which housed tens of thousands of inhabitants. In 1680 and 1681, Metz’s infamous chambre de réunion, the most active of these special courts, issued around fifty orders of annexation for different territories generally within the Empire, including the County of Deux-Ponts (Zweibrücken), which belonged to the King of Sweden, but that also included many in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands, like the County of Chiny in the Duchy of Luxembourg. Some of the most remarkable annexations, however, such as the réunions of the ‘Décapole’ of Alsace and the annexation of the Imperial city of Strasbourg (September 1681), took place by order of the Sovereign Council of Besançon. In other cases, the French acted without referring to any particular formality. For a general overview, see: Bertrand Jeanmougin, Louis XIV à la conquête des Pays-Bas espagnols: La Guerre oubliée, 1678–1684 (Paris: Economica, 2005). 80 ‘Songerom a reparer toutes les violences quils ont exercées tant aux environce de Fontarabie que dans le Luxembourg mais comme j’ay desja donné les ordres necessaires pour me faire raison sur cette derniere affaire je n’atendre aussy que le retour du Courier que je vous ay despesché pour faire ressentir aux habitans de Fontarabie la peinte que merite les hostilitez et les cruautés quils ont exercé contre mes sujets’; AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 66, fols 293r–v: Louis XIV to the Marquis of Villars, Saint-Germain, 7 December 1681.

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This was particularly true of territories under the King of Spain’s sovereignty. Nonetheless, threatened by a superior military force and the explicit threat of general reprisals, they had no option but to give up. Needless to say, formal protestations and judicial allegations were completely useless. On the contrary, the French government used any kind of resistance to its demands (demands that they formally presented as sentences or enforcement of treaty clauses) to legitimate further reprisals. When the governor-general of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands refused an ‘amicable’ proposal to exchange the recently annexed County of Chiny for another Spanish territory of ‘equivalent’ value, Louis XIV responded by ordering the establishment of a full land blockade on Luxemburg that lasted for two years.81 Oddly enough, Louis XIV continued his aggressions without ever declaring war.82 On the contrary, he continued to affirm his goodwill, his moderate behaviour, and even his love for peace. His actions, however, contradicted his words. The escalation and spread of hostility along the French frontiers suggested imminent war.83 In fact, Charles II of Spain signed an alliance with the King of England in 1680. At the end of that year, the Estates-General of the United Provinces began to reconsider its neutral position. The King of Sweden, offended by the réunion of Deux-Ponts, abandoned his traditional alliance with France to sign another with the Dutch in October of 1681. In February and May of 1682, the emperor and the Spanish king joined them. However, despite of all this frantic diplomatic activity, the alliance quickly fell apart, victimized by domestic unrest, disparate interests, and the fear of either French retaliation (as in the case of the United Provinces, England, and the German principalities) or major external threats (as in the case of the emperor). In fact, the Ottoman’s siege of Vienna and the Hungarian revolt, which Louis XIV secretly supported, diverted attention away from the French frontier.84 When the international situation reached a dangerous point, the Sun King suddenly relaxed the pressure, creating even more confusion among the allies. In March 1682, he put an end to his land and naval blockades of Luxemburg and Fuenterrabía respectively, and announced his intention of

81 Jeanmougin, Louis XIV à la conquête, pp. 77–88. 82 AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 66, fol. 293r: Louis XIV to the Marquis of Villars, Saint-Germain, 7 December 1681; and again fols 302r–v: Louis XIV to the Marquis of Villars, Saint-Germain, 4 January 1682 (‘comme la guerre qu’ils croyent inevitable en Flandres n’est fondée que sur l’apprehension qu’ils en peuvent avoir, je sçauray bien aussy sans la recommencer punir les lieux coupables des violences et hostilités commises et les faire repentir de n’avoir pas donné la juste satisfaction que vous avez demandé de ma part’). 83 ‘On ne parle icy sire que de guerre, et l’on ne doute pas que la paix n’aye esté rompue en Flandres’. In the same letter the French ambassador acknowledges the reception of the news of the annexations of Strasbourg and Casale; AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 66, fols 261r–v: the Marquis of Villars to Louis XIV, Madrid, 13 November 1681. 84 Philippe Roy, Louis XIV et le second siège de Vienne (1683) (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1999).

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submitting all claims to King Charles II of England for arbitration.85 The Spanish pretended to accept the proposal, but they actually considered it to be another ruse. After a few months of temporizing, Croissy gave the Spanish an ultimatum that demanded that they meet his master’s demands. In the summer of 1683, a French army again entered Flanders. This time, they demanded 100,000 florins, an exorbitant sum, from the local communities to avoid being ransacked. When the Spanish military authorities began to authorize raids in reprisal, the French responded with new retaliatory measures. Louis XIV ordered attacks on Spanish strongholds to punish the nation’s stubborn opposition to his offerings. Finally, the governor-general of the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands declared war on the King of France on 11 December 1683.86 Motivated more by desperation than any sense of military concern, the war was a complete disaster for the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands. Abandoned by their allies, the Spanish could not single-handedly overcome French military superiority. For the French, the War of the Reunions was the shortest and most successful military campaign of Louis XIV’s reign. The French army concentrated its efforts on Luxemburg, which it first bombed and then besieged. After some initial resistance the Prince of Chimay, governor of this important stronghold, surrendered. Interestingly, the war reached the distant Bidasoa border. This time, there was no agreement of bonne correspondance. Following confirmation of the declaration of war, the military governor of Fuenterrabía fired his artillery against the new fortifications that the French were building in Hendaye. Much to his surprise, the French responded with a massive shelling with mortar bombs that destroyed a large part of the Spanish city.87 Importantly, there was a difference in intention between the two bombardments. While Spain used ordinary artillery designed to fire horizontally against walls or specific targets, the French responded with mortars (the technology of which developed dramatically during this period) specifically invented to fire explosive or incendiary bombs in a parabolic manner.88 Since mortar bombs were meant to be fired from much longer

85 AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 68, fols 29–30: Louis XIV to the Count of La Vauguyon, SaintGermain, 15 February 1681. Also see: AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 69, fols 71, 84, and 105. On the continuation of Fuenterrabía’s blockade: AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 68, fols 137r–138v: Louis XIV to La Vauguyon, Saint-Germain, 21 June 1682. 86 Jeanmougin, Louis XIV à la conquête, pp. 138–69. 87 For a description of the bombing of Fuenterrabía from the beginning of the eighteenth century, see: ANF, reg. M/658, no. 63: ‘Fontarabie. Renvois ou memorie abregé sur la ville de Fontarabie relatif au deux plans de cette place’ (map legend: ‘50. Redoutte ou fort d’Andaye basty en 1682’). See also: Serapio Múgica, Monografía histórica de la villa de Irún (Irún: Viuda de B. Valverde, 1903), pp. 148–49, and Carlos Rilova, Marte Cristianísimo: Guerra y paz en la frontera del Bidasoa (1661–1714) (Irún: Ayuntamiento de Irún, 1999), pp. 50–51. 88 For more concerning the technological development of mortar bombs during this period, see: Michel Blay, ‘Le Développement de la balistique et la pratique du jet de bombes en France à la mort de Colbert’, in De la mort de Colbert à la revocation de l’edit de Nantes:

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distances and lacked the accuracy of ordinary artillery, they were ineffective against walls and fortifications, but caused great damage and spread havoc among the local population.89 During this period the French made extensive use of this kind of weapon during this conflict, causing Spain to soon sign a dishonourable truce. The two sides signed the Truce of Regensburg on 15 August 1684. The Spanish unconditionally accepted French demands, which were harsh.90 As expected, the strategic stronghold of Luxemburg remained in Louis XIV’s hands by right of conquest. Moreover, the French forced the King of Spain to recognize the réunions made before 30 August 1683, which, in practice, accounted for most of them. From a legal point of view, this fact had very serious consequences beyond territorial loss. Through the Treaty of Regensburg, the arbitrary justifications and violent methods of Louis XIV to advance his claims became legitimized. In practical terms, the Treaty equated politique des réunions to ius victorium, the right of conquest that awaited the victor of a just war. According to the agreement, réunions represented a legal and honourable territorial acquisition, similar to a nation taking land from the enemy during a war as opposed to snatching it from a friend through coercion during peacetime. Fortunately for the Spanish monarchy, the agreement was only a truce, meaning that even though it was to last for twenty years, it was a provisory document that did not have the same legal status as a formal peace treaty. The truce, however, did not satisfy all French claims, as the Bidasoa affair remained unsettled. To Fuenterrabía’s dismay, a new French flotilla anchored in front of its harbour at the beginning of spring.91 After some days of tense waiting, a new violent incident triggered another wave of reprisals.92 The French ships took additional prisoners and re-established the maritime

un monde nouveau?, ed. by Louise Godard de Donville (Marseille: Centre Méridional de Rencontres sur le xviie siècle, 1985), pp. 33–51; and Jean Peter, L’Artillerie et les fonderies de la marine sous Louis XIV (Paris: Economica, 1995). 89 Chevalier de Saint-Julien, La Forge de vulcain ou l’apareil des machines de guerre (The Hague: Guillaume de Voys, 1710), pp. 68–69 and 77–78. See also: Guillaume le Blond, L’Artillerie raisonnée contenant la Description et l’Usage des différentes bouches à feu, avec les principaux moyens qu’on a employés pour les perfectionner, la Théorie et la Pratique des Mines, et du Jet des Bombes, et l’Essentiel de tout ce que l’Artillerie a de plus intéressant depuis l’invention de la Poudre à canon (Paris: Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1761), pp. 157–58 and 221–23. 90 Jeanmougin, Louis XIV à la conquête, pp. 177–88. 91 AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 1–8: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 18 May 1685. The flotilla contained three small frigates (36 cannons and 150 crewmen), with four ships ‘que llaman travesones’, and several pinnaces and armed boats (chalupas) reinforcing it; AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 176–77: Fuenterrabía to the King of Spain, 19 June 1685, and fols 264–71: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 30 June 1685. 92 AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 23–41: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 29 May 1685; and fols 94–95: Fuenterrabía to the King of Spain, 25 May 1685.

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blockade.93 The people of Fuenterrabía, humiliated and shocked by the destruction caused by the recent bombings, were in complete despair.94 Under these circumstances, the Spanish ministers had no other choice but to bow to Louis XIV’s demands.95 In fact, they had considered surrender for some time.96 In the autumn of 1680, Croissy had proposed lifting the maritime blockade if the Spanish agreed to discuss the possession of the Bidasoa.97 His only condition was that the people of Hendaye enjoyed the river freely during negotiations. Spain’s ministers realized that the only way to relax the pressure over Fuenterrabía was to accept Croissy’s offer, even if they understood that ‘negotiation’ was a euphemism for ‘concession’. Their major concern centred on how to minimize the agreement’s legal consequences. It was in this context that the Council of State, the Spanish monarchy’s highest political institution, asked the Council of Castile, its highest juridical institution, for advice. The jurists’ answer was very disappointing: they limited themselves to re-affirming Fuenterrabía’s rights based on already-existing legal arguments. According to the jurists, since the law favoured the King of Spain, no other answer was possible.98 The Council of Castile failed to understand that the king had been forced to renounce his exclusive jurisdiction over the Bidasoa and badly needed a convenient way to present this decision to the public. It was no longer about being right, but about saving the king’s honour. The two disparate approaches of the Council of Castile and the Council of State are symptomatic of the state of confusion created by the politique des réunions. At the time, the Spanish had not decided on a final plan of action because war seemed imminent.99 In the spring of 1685, however, the situation had greatly changed. The Spanish were finally ready to make concessions, but they

93 AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 119–20: ‘Extraict d’une letter de M. de Boufflers de Bayonne le 24e May 1685’. 94 Once again, the Spanish government hoped to prevent a violent, desperate reaction by the people of Fuenterrabía; AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 9–12: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 22 May 1685. However, Fuenterrabía acknowledged its impotence: AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 176–77: Fuenterrabía to the King of Spain, 19 June 1685. 95 ‘Razonamiento desynteressado’, memorandum presented by the French ambassador, AHN, Estado, libro 630, fol. 474, and the consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 28 Julio 1685; AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 340v–341v. 96 AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 66, fols 42r–43r: the Marquis of Villars to Louis XIV, Madrid, 6 March 1681. 97 AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 522–26: Report of the Marquis of La Fuente, Spanish ambassador in France, to the King of Spain concerning his meetings with Colbert de Croissy, Paris, 13 October 1680. 98 AHN, Estado, libro 629, fols 449–54: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 2 December 1681. The commissioner Fernando Ramírez de Alcántara was also against any concession given to the French on the Bidasoa because it would cause irremediable damage to Fuenterrabía’s rights; AHN, Estado, libro 629, fols 13–18: Fernando Ramírez de Alcántara to the King of Spain, Fuenterrabía, 12 January 1681. 99 AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 66, fols 296v–299v: the Marquis of Villars to Louis XIV (encrypted).

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still raised a series of objections.100 Croissy tried to speed up the process by threatening ‘con la fuerza y exageración acostumbradas’ (‘with accustomed force and exaggeration’) to throw ‘four or five thousand bombs’ on to Fuenterrabía if they continued to refuse Louis XIV’s demands.101 The French required a formal declaration in writing that the two monarchs officially confirmed, something very similar to an official treaty. Even if the Spanish could not refuse this request, they attempted to avoid using juridical terminology and formality in order to make the agreement appear as unofficial as possible. This was not what the French had intended.102 After long negotiations at the French court, the final version took the form of an amicable agreement valid for twenty years, just like the Truce of Regensburg.103 The border communities were practically absent from the negotiation process.104 In fact, Fuenterrabía refused any contact with Hendaye.105 In the end, Louis XIV obtained exactly 100 One of the main concerns was that the eventual division of the river into two halves would leave the symbolically important Isle of Pheasants (the islet on which they staged the royal ceremonies) on the French side, opening the door to a retrospective interpretation of the royal encounter of 1660 as an act of establishing French sovereignty; AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 460–61: Vote of the Duke of Alba in the Council of State, Madrid, 7 October 1685; Don Vicente Gonzaga expressed similar concerns (fols 321–27: Madrid, 28 July 1685). 101 AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 593–94: Report of the Marquis of Los Balbases to the King of Spain, Paris, 7 October 1685. 102 Significantly, the French printed and included their version of the Bidasoa agreement in the official diplomatic collection of Frédéric Léonard, Recueil des Traitez de Paix, de treve, de neutralité, de confederation, d’alliance, et de commerce, faits par les rois de France, avec tous les princes, et potentats de l’Europe, et autres, depuis pres de trois siecles, 6 vols (Paris: Léonard, imprimeur du Roi et de Monseigneur le Daufin, 1693), iv, s.f.: ‘Convention faite entre le Marquis of Feuquieres, et le Marquis of Los Balbazes. Pour la liberté de la Pesche, et de la Navigation dans la Riviere de Bidassoa, en faveur des Sujets de Sa Majesté, et de ceux du Roi d’Espagne, avec toutes sortes de Vaisseaux, sans distinction’ (dated in 1683 instead of 1685, obviously a typo). On the other hand, the Spanish never printed their version of the agreement. 103 They reached a preliminary agreement by mid-October; AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 543–50 and 558–60. However, the French introduced many corrections; AGS, Estado, legajo K-1652, nos 117, 119–22, 133, and 135. 104 AHN, Estado, libro 628, fol. 130: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 12 May 1680. The Count of Chinchón disapproved the agreement because he thought it would provoke a rebellion in Fuenterrabía; AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 317–27: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 28 July 1685. However, Fuenterrabía accepted the agreement with few minor objections; AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 686–87: Consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 24 November 1685. After the official approval of the agreement, the two border communities discussed the implementation of some minor issues, like the re-deployment of fish traps; ‘Artículos de los vezinos de Endaya y delos de Fuenterrabía conbenidos amigablemente entresí para entretener en adelante una buena yntelijencia en execussión del tratado echo en Madrid entre las coronas de España y Françia para el uso del río Vidasoa devajo del buen gusto de los reyes y sin perjudiciar al dicho tratado ni al derecho de las coronas ni a los derechos de los particulares de la una y otra parte que puedan pretender y todos los capítulos sean de entender durante la tregua’, signed ‘in the middle of the Bidasoa river’, 20 December 1685; AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 831–32. 105 AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 301–8.

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what he had wanted, at least temporarily, as Hendaye had gained equal access to the river. Despite this ‘victory’, it is not very clear what advantage Louis XIV had obtained from the deal, apart from humiliating the Spanish monarchy. The new French fortification, for example, continued to be too modest to constitute a real military threat. Thus, Hendaye’s situation does not appear to have been significantly altered, as it continued to exist as a small fishing village. In fact, reprisals continued in other nearby border contexts, such as in the mountains of Navarra.106 While no significant violence occurred along the Bidasoa during the next few years, tensions persisted, with some incidents sparking particularly strong protests from the French ambassador.107 Nonetheless, Louis XIV reacted with moderation, as a much more important issue demanded his attention. The already delicate health of King Charles II of Spain was worsening and it appeared increasingly likely that he would die without an heir. This made Louis XIV a plausible candidate for the Spanish monarchy. The new scenario required a change in the diplomatic approach towards Spain, but, despite considerable efforts directed in this direction, the French king did not develop a consistent strategy until the end of the Nine Years’ War.108

Turning Point? As previously mentioned, historians traditionally consider the period after 1679 as a turning point in Louis XIV’s reign. They usually present the réunions in a rather ambivalent way: the actions serve as evidence of both Louis XIV’s great power and his arrogance. Neighbouring countries formed a large coalition to oppose France’s bid for European hegemony. This ‘grand alliance’, also known as the League of Augsburg, did not come together until after Louis XIV had

106 AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 69, fol. 285: ‘Copie des trois mémoires donnéz a M. de Los Balbases, le 23 fevrier 1686’. 107 There were two serious incidents. The first almost caused an abrupt end to the negotiations: a rogue-shot fired from the Spanish side almost hit commander Boufflers while he accompanied Vauban along Hendaye’s riverside; AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 687v–689. See also: the Duke of Canzano to the Duke of Canales, San Sebastián, 20 October 1685 (AHN, Estado, libro 630, fols 708–09); the Marquis of the Balbases to Crispín Botello, Madrid, 1 December 1685 (AGS, Estado, legajo K-1652, no. 131); and the consulta of the Council of State, Madrid, 14 February 1686 (AHN, Estado, libro 631, fols 117–21). The King of Spain sent another judge-commissioner to investigate this incident (again with no result): Antonio de Argüelles to Crispín González Botello, Fuenterrabía, 3 February 1686 (AHN, Estado, libro 631, fols 130–31). The division of two whales provoked the second serious incident in 1688: AGS, Estado, legajo K-1657, nos 60–61, 84, and 99. 108 The bombing of Fuenterrabía deeply contradicted Louis XIV’s aspiration to be elected successor to the Spanish Crown: Lossky, Louis XIV, pp. 178–79. For more on the arguments and strategies used by French diplomacy to convince the Spaniards, see: Álvarez, La fabricación de un imaginario.

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expelled the Huguenots from France in 1685, and did not open hostilities until 1689, after the French had already occupied and ravaged the Palatinate. Nine years later, the Peace of Ryswick (1697) ended a long and costly war and re-established the status quo ante. The treaty compelled Louis XIV to renounce all réunions and past conquests, with the important exception of Strasbourg. From this perspective, the main consequence of the politique des reunions had been to encourage European powers to seek preliminary realignments to keep new French ambitions at bay. Nonetheless, there were other repercussions beyond those that occurred among diplomatic relations. After all, there was nothing particularly exceptional in the formation of alliances to counter the rise of a threatening power. It could be said that this was actually an intrinsic characteristic of the early modern European ‘international’ system. The disturbing effects of French power politics during the 1680s, however, cannot be properly understood without taking into account its subtler legal implications at various levels. In fact, the politique des réunions allowed for the continuation of a low-profile war without the costs and risks inherent in a general confrontation, such as the Dutch War.109 However, these limited engagements also jeopardized the fundamental distinction between war and peace, a distinction that was both judicially and politically relevant. The Sun King, for example, had already received criticism for the dubious legal arguments he used to declare the War of Devolution against Spain in 1668; he again faced critique for declaring war against the Dutch Republic without providing any legal pretext.110 Despite the negative reactions, no government could deny the King of France’s right to make war in defence of what he thought were legitimate demands, even if he offered only a feeble defence of his position. War was a sovereign prerogative reserved for rulers who did not recognize any earthly superior and who lacked a higher authority that could decide their disputes. Of course, other nations expected that a just and Christian king would defend his rights through amicable means and well-founded arguments. Yet, if diplomacy, arbitration, and formal protest failed, he had the right to resort to war, which governments in the early modern period considered as ‘the continuation of litigation by other means’.111 When conducted in due form, the victorious side could claim attribution of the object of contention (by law of conquest or ius victorium). Louis XIV, however, implemented an unprecedented hybrid combination of warlike hostility during peacetime, coercive diplomacy, legal arbitrariness, and a complete disdain for compromise, reciprocity, and proportionality. By 109 Carl J. Ekberg, The Failure of Louis XIV’s Dutch War (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1979). 110 Paul Sonnino, Louis XIV and the Origins of the Dutch War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 111 Jeremy Black, European Warfare, 1494–1660 (London: Routledge, 2002), p. 22. Waging war was actually a key concept in the articulation of kingship: Joël Cornette, Le Roi de guerre: Essai sur la souveraineté dans la France du Grand Siècle (Paris: Payot, 1993).

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refusing a formal declaration of war while carrying out continuous acts of aggression, Louis XIV could no longer legitimate his annexations by the ius victorium. Instead, in order to maintain the appearance of peace, he justified his continued use of force through dubious legal arguments that made him appear as a tyrant. Ironically, Spain’s desperate declaration of war at the end of 1683 allowed the French to formally legitimize (at least temporarily) their usurpations in the Treaty of Regensburg. The most scandalous aspect of the politique des réunions was not the use of violence per se, but the abuse, fabrication, and sophisticated manipulation of established legal principles, conventions, and customs to justify the arbitrary, unilateral advancement of Louis XIV’s claims by force during peacetime. In fact, French power politics not only threatened European peace, as historians have commonly acknowledged, but also the very concept of ius gentium, or the international legal order as understood by early modern statesmen. The politique des réunions consciously ignored or debased basic principles established by both customary law and formal conventions that regulated relations among sovereign princes during both war and peace. Louis XIV debased the legitimacy of negotiation, arbitration, and litigation as common methods for settling disputes or creating peaceful agreements. When required, he complied with the established custom of appointing commissioners to deal with local controversies and the realworld implementation of specific peace clauses.112 However, he immediately sabotaged these conferences by not allowing any discussions, such as in the case of the French commissioners along the Bidasoa and the conference of Courtrai following the Peace of Nijmegen of 1679.113 Louis XIV’s refusal to accept any amicable settlement was generally the result of a skewed, unilateral interpretation of clauses and claims that made compromise pointless. The French ministers substituted the negotiation process with a disturbing mix of explicit threats and ultimatums that Louis XIV relied upon to expedite and force the immediate recognition of his claims. The French indiscriminately used this method against royal officials and local authorities. The French usually accompanied their threats and ultimatums with an exalted interpretation of their monarch’s superiority and absolute sovereign power. This also had deep legal implications. On the one hand, they based their sentences of annexation (arrêts de réunion) upon the principle that sovereignty was imprescriptible, even if that implied infringing on other monarchs’ absolute sovereign power. On the other hand, they also claimed that the superiority of their sovereign power justified direct intervention in

112 For more on the role of these ‘micronégociations’ in the diplomatic practice of the time: Lucien Bély, L’Art de la paix en Europe: Naissance de la diplomatie moderne, xvie–xviiie siècle (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2007), pp. 328–33. 113 Jeanmougin, Louis XIV à la conquête, pp. 21–24.

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local affairs, thus debasing legal border decisions derived from customary arrangements. Louis XIV’s violent imposition of a new order on the Bidasoa undermined underlying principles of trust, reciprocity, and mutual recognition that had traditionally prevailed between border communities. This became particularly evident with Fuenterrabía’s reluctance to participate in the bonne correspondance agreements of 1668 and 1674, its complete refusal in 1684, and the many restrictions that the Spanish monarchy imposed upon them between 1690 and 1694.114 Clearly, there was something troubling about Louis XIV’s policies that went beyond ordinary diplomatic and military concerns. His continuous, arbitrary, and disproportionate aggressions were an invitation to other powers to act in the same manner.115 Even more troubling was Louis XIV’s systematic exploitation and manipulation of existing legal contradictions, uncertainties, and loopholes at various levels. Although French ministers avoided any type of formal litigation, they made extensive use of judicial reasoning. Nevertheless, they did not aim to build well-founded arguments to support their claims, but sought to find pretexts that would prompt unilateral and frequently violent action, such as in the case of Fuenterrabía’s criminalization and the many judicial rulings issued by the chambers of réunion of Metz and the Sovereign Councils of Brisach and Besançon justifying the annexation of territories in Flanders and the Rhineland. French ministers made a loose, arbitrary use of local customs, feudal law, antiquarianism, and general principles of ius commune when convenient, but readily neglected them when necessary.116 Ultimately, Louis XIV prevailed through the use of force and, in doing so, debased the established practice of formal litigation based on the presentation and validation of written legal instruments.

114 Chavarría Múgica, ‘Por codicia o necesidad’. 115 This is exactly what happened during the Nine Years’ War, when the so-called ‘maritime powers’ (England and the Dutch Republic) extended their maritime blockade on France to all neutral or allied vessels that maintained any trade with the enemy, alleging that Louis XIV did the same. As part of this strategy, they pressured the Spanish government into disallowing the customary treaties of bonne correspondance at the Basque border region. This represented a serious breach of the law of nations not only because it implied the treatment of everyone as an enemy, but also because it supposed the infringement of formal or customary navigation treaties, the arbitrary invalidation of passports and licences, and serious prejudices to its own vassals. From the Basque point of view, it was also a breach of natural law since the initial purpose of bonne correspondance was to guarantee an affordable supply of basic foodstuffs (generally imported from France). For all of these reasons, the Spanish monarchy refused to adhere to this strategy: Chavarría Múgica, ‘Por codicia o necesidad’. 116 Interestingly, Lespes de Hureaux resorted to the same kind of pseudo-legal, antiquarian argumentation used by Metz’s chambre de réunions to justify an eventual réunion of the province of Guipúzcoa (or, at least part of it), alleging some rights supposedly enjoyed by the ancient Viscounts of Labourd in the eleventh century; AAE, CP, Espagne, no. 67, fols 395v–396v: Lespes de Hureaux to Croissy, Bayonne, 31 December 1681.

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At the heart of the French attitude lay an interpretation of the law of nations that contradicted well-established conventions. In this sense, Croissy’s arguments, as Louis XIV’s minister of Foreign Affairs, to the Spanish ambassador in a series of conversations held in the autumn of 1680 seem very revealing.117 When the Marquis de la Fuente asked him to stop coercive measures in order to permit commissioners to peacefully settle the Bidasoa dispute, ‘siendo imposible concordar a un mismo tiempo la justicia y la violencia’ (it being impossible that justice and violence concur at once), Croissy answered that he would do so as soon as the Spanish met all of his demands. Clearly, he was not interested in seeking a fair settlement or entering into negotiations, but in imposing a diktat. More interestingly, he offered a justification for the use of force to explain recent developments on the Bidasoa, and presumably throughout the rest of Europe. According to Croissy, the attribution of rights was uniquely based on the dynamic relation of forces between the two opposite sides over time in controversies as old as the quarrel over the Bidasoa border and in which it was practically impossible to present unquestionable titles of possession. If Fuenterrabía had enjoyed a privileged position, it was precisely because its superiority remained uncontested for a significant period of time. Yet, with the French now unquestionably more powerful, they felt entitled to impose new terms and conditions along the Bidasoa. Interestingly, in saying this, the minister subverted the ‘cannon law’ argument that they had traditionally used to delegitimize the Spanish side. In his view, Fuenterrabía’s rights were illegitimate because it lacked the strength to maintain its hegemonic position. This answer went beyond Croissy’s and Louvois’s crude, cynical views. They declared the established legal order between nations, the ius gentium entirely based on customs and conventions, null and replaced it with a sort of ‘mechanistic’ state of nature. Apparently, in Croissy’s view, this did not lead to a contradiction between justice and violence. Vauban, the chief engineer and senior military advisor of Louis XIV, had already formulated the doctrine that military superiority legitimated French claims many years before Croissy did so. In a letter addressed to Louvois in August 1668, he wholeheartedly recommended ignoring the recently signed Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle to take Condé and deal with the resulting breach in the laws of war during peacetime.118 Once the French captured the town, the enemy’s allegations would be of no consequence because the object of contention would already be in the king’s hands (‘vous plaiderez mains

117 AHN, Estado, libro 628, fols 522–26: Report of the Marquis of La Fuente for the King of Spain, Paris, 13 October 1680. 118 ‘Prenons Condé sans faire tant de cérémonies: quinze jours de temps en feront l’affaire, et après cela, vous plaiderez mains garnies. Il n’y a point de juges plus équitables que les canons, ceux-là vont droit au but et ne sont point corruptibles; faites que le roi les prenne pour arbitres, s’il veut avoir bonne et briève justice de ses justes prétentions. Dans l’état où il est, tous autres juges lui doivent être suspects’; Vauban to Louvois, [n.p.], 13 August 1668, in: Rousset, Histoire de Louvois, i, pp. 158–59.

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garnies’). Vauban used a sophisticated metaphor to justify his proposal. According to him, France’s cannons represented perfectly equitable judges for the Crown’s rightful claims because they did not lose time and could not be corrupted. If the king wanted to obtain swift and fair justice, he should nominate them as arbiters and not trust other judges. This was a strong statement for various reasons. Traditionally, just wars were seen as a kind of arbitration to settle disputes between sovereigns. In this sense, battlegrounds were like courts of justice presided over by the most ‘equitable’ of all judges: God. The outcome of a decisive battle or siege was equivalent to a judicial ruling issued by Divine Providence, or, in Machiavellian terms, by Fortune, an equally uncontrollable and ‘equitable’ force. Vauban substituted Heaven’s inscrutable judgement with the largely predictable outcome of his cannons. By denying the validity of an officially approved peace treaty, he extended the jurisdiction of his cannons beyond the battlefield. Vauban’s ideas had very disturbing implications. By elevating his cannons to the position of judge, he implied that military superiority was enough to legitimate the use of force at any time. For this reason, peace talks and negotiations had no place for ‘cannons-as-judges’ and many saw them more as hindrances to justice than as a way to settle disputes. Vauban’s positive opinion of his ‘cannons’ is particularly significant because it marked a deep contrast with the traditional view of artillery as an intrinsically evil and dishonourable, although useful and necessary, instrument of war. Loathing the invention of artillery was a common theme in Renaissance literature.119 By the end of the seventeenth century, however, this perception had dramatically changed. Thanks to the new prestige that the natural sciences and mechanical philosophy had acquired during this age, cannons and other war machines became inventions worthy of praise.120 This was partly due to the development of the study of ballistics.121 Artillery began to be viewed as a form of science that could be systematized following the principles of physics and geometry.122 Louis XIV’s appointment of the engineer and mathematician François Blondel as instructor to the Grand Dauphin with the specific purpose of teaching him mathematics and geometry 119 See, for example, the entries ‘Arcabuz’ and ‘Artillería’ in: Sebastián de Covarrubias Horozco, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española (Madrid: Luís Sánchez, 1611), fols 83r–84r and 93v, respectively. 120 Saint-Julien, La Forge de vulcain, pp. 1–2. For more information, consult the entry ‘Artillerie’ in: Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert, Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers (Bern and Lausanne: Sociétés Typographiques, 1781), pp. 561 and 563. For more on the consideration of machines in general, see: Gérard Simon, ‘Les machines au xviie siècle: usage, typologie, résonances symboliques’, Revue des sciences humaines, 58.186–87 (1982), 9–31. 121 Domenico Bertolini Meli, Thinking with Objects: The Transformation of Mechanics in the Seventeenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), pp. 202–04. 122 François Blondel, L’Art de jetter les bombes (Paris: Nicolas Langlois, 1683), i, pp. 7–9; Virol, Vauban, pp. 42–48.

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suggests artillery’s new prestige. Blondel was the author of a famous treaty on shelling (L’art de jetter les bombes, Paris: Langlois, 1683), which he dedicated to the Sun King. In fact, both France’s naval and armed forces excelled in the ‘art of shelling’ during this period, and Louis XIV frequently used this skill to punish an enemy city, as Fuenterrabía had learned. Interestingly, French power politics addressed some of the philosophical and moral concerns at the core of seventeenth-century intellectual debates. In particular, there were two major legal questions that sparked vivid debate among contemporary thinkers: the unclear status of the customary ius gentium in relation to the ius naturale; and the ambiguous relation between the concepts of law, justice, and force. Current historiography commonly approaches these topics through the study of a short list of canonical texts. In many respects, we continue to articulate our knowledge of the early modern law of nations around a genealogical narrative of intertextual references with little connection to the era’s actual political, legal, and cultural practices.123 This explains the enduring divide between practitioners of political and military history, and those working on early modern political and legal thought. While this chapter is not the place to discuss the many complexities concerning this issue, I would like to stress that authors like Grotius, Hobbes, Pufendorf, and Leibniz wrote in response to the authoritative crisis that threatened the traditional concept of ius gentium.124 Thus, in order to understand the seventeenth-century interpretation of the law of nations, one should first analyse the role that important agents, like Louis XIV, played in defining and challenging contemporary customary behaviour among sovereigns, instead of the other way around. Relevant figures such as Leibniz and Pufendorf appear to have shared this opinion, since they dedicated a large part of their intellectual efforts to writing libels and other political works in the service of their respective masters, some of whom explicitly hoped to counter Louis XIV’s ambitions. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, one of Louis XIV’s most fervent critics, offers the best explanation of the serious consequences that resulted from Louis XIV’s doctrine of power politics.125 A philosopher by vocation and a jurist by education, Leibniz was deeply involved in the political affairs of the time for the service of different potentates of the Holy Roman Empire, 123 A recent example is Neff, War and the Law of Nations. For more about this book, see the book review by David A. Bell in The Journal of Modern History, 80.2 (2008), 380–82. 124 Jan Schröder, ‘The Concept of (Natural) Law in the Doctrine of Law and Natural Law of the Early Modern Era’, in Natural Law and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Europe: Jurisprudence, Theology, Moral and Natural Philosophy, ed. by Lorraine Daston and Michael Stolleis (Farnham: Ashgate, 2008), pp. 57–71; Randall Lesaffer, ‘Peace Treaties from Lodi to Westphalia’, in Peace Treaties and International Law in European History from the Late Middle Ages to World War One, ed. by Randall Lesaffer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 9–44. 125 Patrick Riley, Leibniz’ Universal Jurisprudence: Justice and the Charity of the Wise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996); André Robinet, Le Meilleur des mondes possibles par la balance de l’Europe (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1994).

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including the emperor, and was fully acquainted with French affairs. While he is currently most famous for his major philosophical treatises, he also wrote other kinds of works, like libels and memoranda, with specific political purposes. Similarly to other contemporary thinkers, his varied intellectual interests and his experience in worldly affairs went hand-in-hand.126 Leibniz exposed the serious juridical implications of the politique des réunions in a famous libel entitled Mars Christianissimus autore Germano Gallo-Graeco, Ou Apologie des Armes du Roy Tres-Chrestien Contre Les Chrestiens that he wrote before the end of the siege of Vienna of 1683 and published in Cologne the following year.127 The libel is a parody presented as an apology, a reductio ad absurdum of Louis XIV’s justifications for the politique des réunions. In the text, Leibniz impersonates an anonymous ‘Gallo-Greek German’, one of the French monarchy’s traditional allies within the Holy Roman Empire. The author intends to demonstrate how Louis XIV’s blatantly unlawful and arbitrary aggressions were actually just and Christian. His main argument centres on the idea that since prophecies and miracles have clearly shown that the King of France was divinely elected as God’s General Vicar on earth, ordinary notions of justice did not apply to him. His sovereign power was not subject to any law, jurisdiction, convention, or vow, and his will defined justice. The Sun King had the right to enforce whatever came to his mind as long as it served to enlarge his grandeur. From this perspective, the libel ironically concluded, one had to acknowledge that Louis XIV acted very moderately. According to the libel, this ‘new jurisprudence’ (which seems pretty similar to Croissy’s and Vauban’s ‘cannon law’ doctrine) contradicted established principles of ius commune. This explains why it was so difficult for the French to justify Louis XIV’s policies with ordinary legal arguments. For this reason, the smartest among them preferred to limit themselves to talk as ‘politiques’ instead of entering into any legal dispute. Regardless, litigation was pointless because the king’s greatness prevailed over every law and vow. Unsurprisingly, this became a matter of great concern for his enemies. The libel describes the disturbing consequences of this ‘new jurisprudence’. If the king could justify any annexation with imaginary rights from a remote past, there would be no need to negotiate treatises such as those of Münster or Nijmegen. If Louis XIV so blatantly disregarded his own promises and resorted to violence in such an arbitrary manner, it would make no sense to give any credit to the rule of law and honesty, rendering the law of nations useless. Leibniz’s target audience was not Louis XIV’s entourage, but the real ‘Gallo-Greek Germans’, the princes of the Holy Roman Empire that continued 126 Tetsuya Toyoda, Theory and Politics of the Law of Nations: Political Bias in International Law Discourse of Seven German Court Councilors in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2011), p. xii (for more on Leibniz, see Chapter 4). 127 Translated in English as ‘Mars Christianissimus’ (Most Christian War-God) in Leibniz: Political Writings, ed. by Patrick Riley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 121–45.

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their alliances with France. Eventually, they would also change their minds. This shift is particularly apparent in the writings of Samuel von Pufendorf, another prestigious jurist of the time. Like Leibniz, Pufendorf was deeply involved in politics, serving as counsellor, jurist, and official historiographer to the King of Sweden until 1688, when he accepted an invitation from the Elector of Brandenburg to move to Berlin. Initially, both of Pufendorf ’s masters were supporters of France and fierce opponents of the Habsburgs. In his Introduction to the History of the Principal Kingdoms and States of Europe, Pufendorf still viewed Louis XIV in a positive manner and as the most powerful king and arbiter in Europe.128 His opinions were consistent with the traditional Protestant view of France as a necessary counterbalance against the Catholic hegemony of the Habsburg dynasty. However, he stopped his dissertation at the Peace of Nijmegen, before the full implementation of the politique des réunions. By the end of 1680, Pufendorf ’s views had changed. He wrote De occasionibus foederum inter Sueciam et Galliam et quam parum illa ex parte Galliae observata sint for the King of Sweden to justify the rupture of his traditional alliance with France. Some years later, Pufendorf denounced the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in his De habitu religionis christianae ad vitam civilem, in which he invited Prince-Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg to severe his alliance with France in order to lead a Protestant coalition against Louis XIV’s unholy tyranny.129 It is fair to say that all of these writings came from propaganda campaigns orchestrated by Louis XIV’s enemies.130 Nonetheless, these writings were more than libels. Both Leibniz and Pufendorf had a genuine interest in the argument beyond the political agendas of their respective masters.131

Conclusions In many ways, the politique des réunions confirmed the authoritative crisis that defined the custom of ius gentium by the end of the seventeenth century.

128 First published in German as Einleitung zur Geschichte der vornehmsten Staaten Europas, Frankfurt, 1682, as a response to an unauthorised version of 1680 based on lecture notes taken by his students. I quote from the English edition by Gilliflower and Newborough, London, 1697. 129 David Saunders, ‘Hegemon History: Pufendorf ’s Shifting Perspective on France and French Power’, in War, the State and International Law in Seventeenth-Century Europe, ed. by Olaf Asbach and Peter Schröder (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), pp. 211–30. 130 Jean Schillinger, Les Pamphétaires allemands et la France de Louis XIV (Bern: Peter Lang, 1999). 131 Peter Schröder, ‘Un politique peut dire ce qu’un prince devroit faire: les concepts de paix et d’équilibre dans la pensé politique de Leibniz’, in La Paix des Pyrénées (1659) ou le triomphe de la raison politique, ed. by Lucien Bély, Bertrand Haan, and Stéphane Jettot (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2015), pp. 109–32.

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At its core, this issue centred on the problem of legal certainty (certitudo).132 This was particularly true in the case of customary legal orders like the law of nations, in which there were no clear obligations to adhere to established rules. Louis XIV’s ministers, along with an increasingly large number of jurists, lacked confidence in the traditional juridical culture. Leibniz, Pufendorf, and other contemporary authors, hoped to overcome legal uncertainty by applying to a ‘scientific’ method to natural law comparable to the one used in the natural sciences in order to establish clear, universal legal principles (the so-called more geometrico).133 In particular, Louis XIV’s power politics prompted Leibniz to propose a universal jurisprudence based on the idea of ‘justice as the charity of the wise’, first stated in the introduction to his Codex juris gentium diplomaticus (Hannover: Samuelis Ammonii, 1693), a compilation of documents arranged in response to French réunions and territorial claims within the Holy Roman Empire. Yet, even he acknowledged that the law of nations represented little more than a collection of formalities deprived of intrinsic moral worth that changed throughout history, as one could easily learn from reading ancient peace treaties and other official documents.134 In a world of continuous competition among sovereigns, and where the law of nations was generally equated with natural law, fear of God no longer worked as a deterrent, thus meaning that vows and promises lost their traditional value. In such a world, the responsibility of keeping a ruler as ambitious and powerful as Louis XIV at bay lay on a society of sovereign peers (and in Pufendorf ’s opinion, particularly Protestant leaders) willing to punish any breach in the established order.135 In this sense, those who challenged the politique des réunions pushed for refashioning the old balance of power doctrine as the only viable means for re-establishing political stability, if not legal certainty, in Europe after Louis XIV’s death in 1715.

132 Heinz Mohnhaupt, ‘Lex certa and ius certum: The Search for Legal Certainty and Security’, in Natural Law and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Daston and Stolleis, pp. 73–88. 133 Alfred Dufour, ‘L’Influence de la méthodologie des sciences physiques et mathématiques sur les Fondateurs de l’École du Droit naturel moderne (Grotius, Hobbes, Puffendorf)’, in Droits de l’homme, droit naturel et historie, ed. by Alfred Duhour (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1991), pp. 93–110; Klaus Luig, ‘Leibniz’s Concept of jus naturale and lex naturalis — defined ‘with geometric certainty’’, in Natural Law and Laws of Nature in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Daston and Stolleis, pp. 183–98. 134 An English translation of the preface in Leibniz: Political Writings, pp. 165–76. 135 As previously mentioned in the case De habitu religionis christianae ad vitam civilem; this is an argument that he would further develop in his posthumous Jus feciale divinum sive de consensu et dissensu Protestantium (Lübeck: A.S.R., 1695).

Notes on Contributors

Fernando Chavarría Múgica is a researcher at IPRI, Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal). He studies early modern Spanish political culture, with a regional focus on the Kingdom of Navarra and the Basque country. Other research interests include the concept and practice of territorial sovereignty in relation to borders, the ius gentium, noble factionalism, and the uses of the past in both the Renaissance and today. He holds a Ph.D. from the European University Institute in Florence (Italy). Previously, he has been a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellow at the CNRS/EHESS in Paris (France), Juan de la Cierva Researcher at the University of Alcalá (Spain), and a EURIAS/Clare Hall Visiting Fellow at CRASSH, University of Cambridge (United Kingdom). Bram De Ridder is a postdoctoral researcher at the Early Modern History Research Group of the KU Leuven (Belgium), where he obtained his Ph.D. in 2016. He studied early modern international relations at the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom) and was a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard History Department (United States). His research interests include early modern peacemaking, border management and applied history. After assisting in coordinating the Horizon 2020 project RETOPEA on Religious Tolerance and Peace (grant agreement n° 770309), he currently leads the Corvus-project on historical consultancy in Flanders, generously funded by the Research Foundation Flanders (grant S003419N). He published several articles on peacemaking during the Eighty Years’ War and on the borders of the Habsburg Low Countries, including for the Journal of Modern European History (14.1, 2016) and The International History Review (39.2, 2017). Victor Enthoven was educated as a maritime historian at the University of Leiden (The Netherlands). In 1996 he completed his doctoral dissertation on Zeeland during the Dutch Revolt, Zeeland en de opkomst van de Republiek. Handel en strijd in de Scheldedelta, c. 1550–1621 (Leiden: Luctor et victor, 1996). He has since shifted his attention to naval and military history, and more recently to the Atlantic world. Together with Johannes Postma he edited Riches from Atlantic Commerce: Dutch Transatlantic Shipping, 1585–1817 (Leiden: Brill, 2003). At present he is completing a monograph on shipbuilding in the Zaan region. His new project is on the history of public finance. Raingard Esser is professor of Early Modern History at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). She is interested in early modern migration,

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border studies and cultures of memory, and currently works on a book on early modern border regions in the Low Countries. She has published The Politics of Memory: The Writing of Partition in the Seventeenth-Century Low Countries (Leiden: Brill, 2012) and has edited, together with Steven Ellis, Frontiers and Border Regions in Early Modern Europe (Hannover: Wehrhahn, 2013). Yves Junot is maître de conférences at the Université Polytechnique des Hauts de France of Valenciennes (France). Together with Violet Soen he founded and coordinates the node Borgoña-Flandes of Red Columnaria, a research network studying the borders of the Iberian Monarchies. He has authored Les bourgeois de Valenciennes: Anatomie d’une élite dans la ville, 1500–1630 (Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, 2009). His research focuses on migrations, exiles, mobility and borders in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands during the Dutch Revolt. He is currently editing, with Violet Soen, Confisquer, restituer, redistribuer: Punition et réconciliation matérielle dans les territoires des Habsbourg et en France (xvie et xviie siècles) (xvie et xviie siècles) (Valenciennes: Presses Universitaires de Valenciennes, 2020), Noblesses transrégionales: les Croÿ et les frontières pendant les guerres de religion (France, Lorraine et Pays-Bas, XVIe–XVIIe siècle) (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming) and Revolt, Pacification and Reconciliation in the Spanish Habsburg Worlds (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming). Marie Kervyn is tenured professor of Modern History at the University of Costa Rica (Costa Rica). She works on migrations and border societies in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands during the seventeenth century. Her doctoral dissertation will be published in 2020 in the Habsburg Worlds series at Brepols under the title Des migrants invisibles? Les Français dans les espaces frontaliers des Pays-Bas habsbourgeois (Artois, Hainaut, Flandre wallonne, XVIe–XVIIe siècles). Her historiographical interests support her investigations into mobility, social constructs, and the political culture of the Spanish monarchy in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands. Christel Annemieke Romein is a postdoctoral researcher in early modern political-institutional history at Ghent University (Belgium) and serves as associated researcher at the Erasmus University Rotterdam (The Netherlands). She currently manages her own NWO Rubicon-project ‘Law and Order: Low Countries?!’, which investigates the provincial institutions of Flanders and Holland between 1579 and 1701. She has an interest in Digital Humanities and is Researcher-in-Residence (2019) at the KB National Library of the Netherlands, where she works on an additional project to digitize and categorize early modern ordinances. Her manuscript Protecting the Fatherland is currently under review. Violet Soen is associate professor of Early Modern History at the KU Leuven (Belgium), working on questions of religious war and peace. She has authored

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three monographs and co-edited nine volumes on early modern religious and political history. She serves as editor-in-chief of the series Habsburg Worlds at Brepols and sits on the editorial boards of Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique, Journal of Early Modern Christianity, The Early Modern Low Countries, Nieuwe Tijdingen, and Refo500 Academic Series. She is Principal Investigator of www. transregionalhistory.eu, a research platform exploring the multiple facets of early modern cross-border exchange. This edited volume appears along with Transregional Reformations: Crossing Borders in Early Modern Europe (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019), and Noblesses transrégionales: les Croÿ et les frontières pendant les guerres de religion (France, Lorraine et Pays-Bas, XVIe–XVIIe siècle) (Turnhout: Brepols, forthcoming). Patricia Subirade is researcher in early modern history at the Institut d’histoire moderne et contemporaine (UMR 8066, CNRS, École Normale Supérieure, Université Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne) in Paris (France), where she completed her Ph.D. on the Franche-Comté in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Since 1990 she has worked as a historian of religious anthropology, art, representations and visual culture from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Currently, she is studying the history of the circulation of technical and artistic knowledge in Europe, the history of engineering, and the science of government in the Duchy of Savoy in the seventeenth century. Werner Thomas is professor of Spanish and Latin American History and senior researcher of the Early Modern History Research Group at the KU Leuven (Belgium). He has focused his research on the Low Countries as a part of the Spanish monarchy, and has published on the history of the Spanish Inquisition, the repression of Protestantism in Spain, and the government of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella Clara Eugenia in the Habsburg Netherlands. Sophie Verreyken studied early modern history at the KU Leuven (Belgium) and the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (France). She graduated in 2013 with a socio-cultural study of the seventeenth-century town of Spa, today in the Belgian Ardennes. She is currently finishing a doctoral dissertation on the political role of transregional marriages among Hispano-Flemish elites in the Spanish Habsburg Netherlands (1650–1700), under the supervision of Werner Thomas and Violet Soen.

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Index of Names Aarschot, Duke of: 51, 53, 57, 60, 62, 64, 66, 67, 68 Adriaenssen, Leo: 188 Agurto, Francisco Antonio de: 62, 69 Alba, Duke of: 89, 99 Albert of Austria, Archduke: 41, 46, 49, 86, 93, 104, 111, 113, 114, 115, 117, 120, 121, 178, 180 Ammon, Samuel: 246 Anderson, Benedict: 105, 119, 124, 125 Appadurai, Arjun: 137 Arenberg: 17, 43, 44, 45, 55, 56, 58, 60, 61, 62, 64 seq. Arenberg, Alexandre Joseph of: 61, 67 Arenberg, Charles Eugène of: 56, 60, 61 Arenberg, Duke of: 56, 59, 60, 62, 64, 66, 68 Arenberg, Ernest Alexandre of: 65 Arenberg, Ernestine of: 57 Arenberg, Ernestine Françoise of: 57 Arenberg, Isabella Claire Eugénie of: 60 Arenberg, Leopold Philippe of: 65, 67 Arenberg, Marie-Anne of: 67 Arenberg, Marie-Thérèse of: 61, 62, 63, 65 Arenberg, Philippe Charles of: 45, 51, 52, 53, 56, 57, 61 Arenberg, Philippe Charles François of: 60, 61, 62, 65, 67 Arenberg, Philippe François of: 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 60, 61 Arenberg, Philippe François of (junior): 60 d’Argent, Pierre le Jeune: 127 d’Argent, Pierre le Vieux: 127 Aytona, Marquis of: 52 Badoaro, Federico: 80

Balanche-richarde, Blaise: 129 Balanche-richarde, Gaspard: 129 Balanche-richarde, sisters: 129, 135 Balthasar Carlos, Crown Prince of Spain: 53 Barth, Fredrik: 119 Bedmar, Marquis of: 62, 69 Benton, Lauren: 14, 184 Berlaymont: 65 Bergh, Count vanden: 51, 59 Bergh, Henri vanden: 50, 59 Berlaymont, Isabelle Claire of: 53 Bernard, Saint: 132 Béthune: 59 Biesen, Nicolaus van: 29, 30 Binetruy, Claude: 123 Bigeot, Claude-Étienne: 104 Blaeu: 190 Blaeu, Johannes: 26, 191, 192 Blaeu, Wilhelm Janszoon: 141, 191, 192 Blois van Treslong, Willem: 169 Blondel, François: 242, 243 Bluche, François: 210 Bobillier Chaumont, Pierre: 123 Boedberg, Arnold van: 40 Boisschot, Ferdinand of: 48 Borja/Borgia: 54, 61, 65, 67 Borja, Marie Madeleine de: 61 Borja y Doria, Maria Magdalena de: 54, 55, 56, 60, 62 Borja y Velasco, Gaspar de: 54 Bouillon, Godfrey of: 33 Bournonville: 57, 65 Bournonville, Alexandre of: 51, 57 Bournonville, Alexandre II of: 57, 58 Boyvin, Jean: 120 Bra, Isacq de: 205 Bramante: 135

252

in d e x o f n am e s

Brandenburg: 142 Brandenburg, Elector of: 245 Brandenburg, Friedrich Wilhelm of: 152, 155, 156, 157, 158, 245 Brandenburg, Georg Wilhelm of: 142, 143, 150, 151, 154 Buchels, Johannes: 32 Burgundy, Duke of: 74, 83 Caracena, Marquis of: 56, 58 Caracena, Marquise of: 58 Carafa: 59 Cárdenas Ulloa y Balda Zúñigo y Velasco, Antonia de: 65 Carondelet, François of: 45, 51 Carretto: 61, 62, 65, 66, 68 Carretto, Francesco del: 65 Carretto, Francisco del: 66 Carretto, Leopold del: 61 Carretto, Marie-Gabrielle del: 65 Carretto, Marie-Henriette del: 61, 64, 65, 67 Carretto, Otto Henri del: 61, 65, 66, 68, 69 Castel Rodrigo, Marquis of: 87 Certeau, Michel de: 106, 137 Champagne: 131 Charlemagne: 66 Charles II, King of England: 233 Charles II, King of Spain: 40, 58, 64, 232, 237 Charles III, Archduke: 65 Charles V, Emperor: 16, 23, 45, 77, 84, 85, 90, 96, 103, 104, 108, 187 Charles VI , Emperor: 65 Charles VIII, King of France: 84 Charles the Bold: 83, 84, 85, 89 Chastel, Anatoile: 120, 121 Chifflet, Philippe: 115, 116, 117 Chimay, Prince of: 233 Coloma, Don Carlos de: 47 Condé, Prince of: 101, 241 Conincxloo, Hans: 101 Courtois: 128 Croissy, Colbert de: 210, 221, 233, 235, 236, 241, 244

Crolot, Pierre: 128, 132 Croÿ: 59 Croÿ, Jean of: 50 Cuenot, François: 128, 131, 132, 133 Cueva, Alonso de la: 47, 50 Cusance de Vergy, Marie-Henriette of: 60, 62 Cuyckius, Henricus: 30 De Donder, Wouter: 59 D’Ongnies et D’Estree, Angelo: 23, 28, 30, 31 Donkers, Christiane: 64 Dormy, Claude-André: 92 Duhamelle, Christophe: 106 Egmont: 65 Egmont, Anna Alberte of: 59 Egmont, Count of: 52, 58, 59 Egmont, Louis of: 51, 57, 59 Egmont, Philippe-Louis of: 58 Ehmer, Josef: 130 Elizabeth I, Queen of England: 86, 173 Elmpt-Burgau: 39 Enthoven, Victor: 17, 18 Epernon, Duke of: 92 Épinoy, Prince of: 52, 58 Erasmus, Desiderius: 44 Ernst of Austria, Archduke: 92 Espagne, Michel: 106 Esser, Raingard: 17 Esteban Estríngana, Alicia: 49, 59 Eudes de Mézeray, François: 228 Evelyn, John: 199 Eynatten, Maria Florentina von: 38 Farel, Guillaume: 123, 125 Farnese, Alexander: 100, 170 Fau, Jean Nicolas: 111 Ferdinand III, Emperor: 111, 144, 158 Ferdinand of Austria, Cardinal Infante: 38 Fraichot (Fréchot), Claude: 127, 130, 132, 133, 134 Fraichot (Fréchot), Étienne: 127, 133 Francis I, King of France: 96 Francis de Sales, Saint: 113

i nde x o f name s

François, Étienne: 106 Frederick Augustus/August II the Strong, Saxon Elector, King of Poland: 34 Fuente, Marquis de la: 241 Fuentes, Count of: 77, 96 Fugger: 65 Fugger zu Kirchberg, Margaretha: 65 Fürstenberg: 65 Gachet, Jacques: 131 Gand dit Vilain: 59 Gerbier, Balthasar: 51 Giucciardini, Ludovico: 163, 164 Glymes-Berghes: 59 Gonzaga: 65 Grammont, Antoine-Pierre de: 130 Grana, Marquis of: 62, 63, 65 Granvelle, Cardinal: 127 Grenier, Jean-Yves: 129 Grotius, Hugo: 245 Hatzfeldt, Melcioren of: 157 Henry II, King of France: 86 Henry IV, King of France: 91, 92, 93, 96, 100, 228 Hénin, Count of: 52, 57, 58 Hénin-Liétard: 65 Herberstein: 65 Herberstein, Maria Theresia of: 61 Hessia, Amalie Elisabeth of: 144 Hobbes, Thomas: 245 Hobsbawm, Eric: 125 Hoensbroech: 40, 41 Hoensbroech, Adriaan von: 40, 41 Hoensbroech, Arnold Adriaan von: 40 Hoensbroech, Caesar Constantin Frans von: 40 Hoensbroech, Frans von: 40 Hoensbroech, Philip Damian von: 40 Hoensbroech, Wilhelm Adriaan von: 35 Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Maria Cleopha of: 52, 54

Hornes: 65 Hugon: 118 Isabella Clara Eugenia, Archduchess: 38, 45, 46, 49, 50, 51, 67, 93, 104, 111, 113, 114, 115, 116, 120, 121, 178, 180, 201, 203, 204 Isenbourg: 65 Jackson Turner, Frederick: 122 Jacobs, Marc: 117 James II and VII, King of England and Scotland: 34 Johann Georg I, Prince-Elector of Saxony: 142 Joseph, Saint: 113 Juan, Don: 101 Juan José of Austria, Don: 57, 93 Jülich-Berg, Johann Wilhelm of: 39, 142, 157 Jülich-Berg, Wolfgang Wilhelm of: 38, 143, 144, 145, 148, 149, 151 seq. Jülich-Cleves-Berg, Wilhelm V of: 23 Jülich-Cleves-Berg, Wolfgang Wilhelm of: 34 Junot, Yves: 17, 18, 207 Kaiser, Wolfgang: 105 Kervyn, Marie: 17, 18, 207 Knippenbergh, Johannes: 23, 24, 28, 30 seq., 41 Koenig, François: 130 Kraker, Adriaan de: 188 Küniman, Adam: 132 Lalaing: 59 La Marck-Arenberg: 45 La Marck-Arenberg, Margaretha of: 45 Lamboy, Guillaume de: 143, 144, 149 Langlois, Nicolas: 243 Lara, Teresa Maria Manrique de: 57 Latre, Pierre de: 206 Le Boucq, Simon: 93 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm: 243, 244, 245, 246 Leicester, Earl of: 173 Leopold I, Emperor: 66

25 3

254

in d e x o f n am e s

Leopold Wilhelm of Austria: 55 Lespes de Heureux: 228, 229, 230 Ligne: 45, 56, 58, 65 Ligne, Albert of: 51, 52, 57, 58 Ligne, Jean of: 45, 57 Ligne, Octave Ignace of: 57 Ligne, Prince of: 59 Limet, Nicolas: 129 Lipsius, Justus: 114 Looz-Corswarem, Clemens von: 155 Lorraine, Duke of: 158 Lossky, Andrew: 210 Louis XI, King of France: 84, 86 Louis XIII, King of France: 126 Louis XIV, King of France: 58, 60, 83, 87, 94, 101, 103, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 218 seq. Louvois: 83, 210, 241 Luria, Keith: 120 Luther, Martin: 33 Maes, Engelbert: 47 Maier, Charles: 184 Mansfeld, Count of: 90 Marmet, Gilles: 111 Maternus, Saint: 32, 33 Maximilian I, Emperor: 90, 153 Mazarin, Cardinal: 217 Medici, Marie de’: 118 Medinaceli, Duke of: 166 Melun: 56, 65 Melun, Alexandre Guillaume of: 58 Melun, François-Philippe of: 58 Melun, Guillaume of: 51 Melun, Guillaume III of: 57, 58 Melun, Henri of: 58 Merode: 65 Mexía Felípez de Guzmán, Don Diego: 47 Mirabel, Marquis of: 47 Mockel, Sigismund: 145 Moncada, Francisco de: 47, 50 Montépin, Aymon de: 118 Monterrey, Count of: 66 Montmorency: 65 Moretus, Balthasar: 115, 116 Moryn, Johan: 197

Muñoz, Juan: 53, 54, 68 Nassau, Johann van: 38 Nassau, Maurice of: 172, 173, 175, 177, 180 Nora, Pierre: 105 Norbert, Saint: 33 Nordman, Daniel: 105, 106, 119, 195 Nozeroy, Girardot de: 104 Numan, Philippe: 114 Olivares, Count-Duke of: 51 Orange: 23 Orange, Prince of: 50, 169 Orange, William of: 165, 168, 169, 172 Orleans, Duke of: 51 Orleans, Marie-Louise of: 220 Otgerus, Saint: 34 Palatinate-Neuburg, Wolfgang Wilhelm of: 142, 154 Pargot, Michel: 123 Parma, Prince of: 94, 171 Pasquier, Valerian du: 131, 132 Paul V, Pope: 114 Perrin, Guillaume: 129, 130 Peters, Leo: 38, 39, 40 Philip II, King of Spain: 23, 49, 77, 84, 86, 88, 89, 90, 92, 98, 100, 108, 178, 187, 188 Philip III, King of Spain: 49, 51, 178 Philip IV, King of Spain: 49, 101, 188 Piccolomini, Ottavio: 38 Piceu, Tim: 188 Pichot, Claude: 128 Pietersz, Ewout: 166 Plechelmus, Saint: 34 Poirey, François: 118 Pontanus, Johannes Isacius: 31, 32, 33 Pontius, Paul: 135 Pufendorf, Samuel von: 243, 245, 246 Puteanus, Erycius: 29, 114, 115, 117 Ramírez de Prado, Francisco: 229 Ratzel, Friedrich: 122, 123, 125 Renesse, René of: 50 Reyff, François: 132 Reyff, Jean-François: 130, 131, 132, 135 Ribas, Juan de: 86, 87

i nde x o f name s

Richard, Blaise: 113 Richarde, Claude-Adrien: 135 Richelieu, Cardinal: 45, 111 Romein, Christel Annemieke: 17, 18 Rovenius, Philippus: 204 Rudolf II, Emperor: 121 Ryckenroy, Jan van: 30 Sadeler, Ioan: 111 Sainte-Aldegonde, Marnix of: 170, 171 Saint-Martin, Marquis de Savona, Count of: 65 Savoy, Duke of: 51 Saxe-Weimar: 126 Saxe-Weimar, Bernard de: 111 Scaglia: 51 Schaesberg: 37, 38, 39, 40, 41 Schaesberg, Johan Friedrich I von: 38 Schaesberg, Johan Friedrich II von: 38, 39 Schaesberg, Johan Wilhelm von: 39 Schaesberg, Wolfgang Wilhelm von: 38 Schellaert-Obbendorf: 40 Schenk von Nideggens: 40 Schetz, Anthony: 201, 202, 203 Schmidt, Alexander: 152 Schöller: 39 Schöller, Mechteld Maria: 39 Schönborn: 40 Schwarzenberger, Georg: 212 Seigne, Estevenard Georges de la: 133 Seigne, Georges de la: 128 Simmel, Georg: 125 Slichtenhorst, Arend van: 31, 32 Smetius junior, Johannes: 32 Smetius senior, Johannes: 32 Somer, Hendrik: 168 Soria Mesa, Enrique: 44 Spada, Bernardino: 111 Spinola: 65 Spinola Doria, Ambrogio: 49 Steenhuys, Guillaume of: 48

Stopani, Antonio: 106 Subirade, Patricia: 17, 18, 115, 116, 128, 136 Teniers, David II: 101 Teniers, David III: 64 Terme, Guillaume du: 189 Teschenmacher, Werner: 31 Titian: 135 Tudor, Mary, Queen of England: 86 Turenne: 93 Uwens, Hendrik: 28, 29, 30, 35 Van der Meulen, Adam Frans: 101 Vanderstraeten: 191, 192 Van Gennep, Arnold: 125 Vauban: 211, 222, 241, 242, 243 Vaudemont, Prince of: 62 Velasco, Manuel Rodríguez de: 54 Vermeesch, Griet: 203 Vernois, Jean du: 92 Verreyken, Sophie: 17 Villahermosa, Duke of: 67 Villahermosa, Marquis of: 66 Villars, Marquis of: 221 Visconti: 65 Wachtendonk, Ferdinanda von: 38 Waldburg: 65 Wallenstein, Count of: 61 Walter, François: 124 Walz, Rainer: 139 Warfusée, Count of: 59 Werner, Michael: 107 Werro, Sebastian: 127 Werth, Jan van: 38 Willemsz, Pieter: 173 Wilson, Peter: 146 Wiro, Saint: 34 Wittelbach: 110 Wolfenbüttel-Brunswick, Anton Ulrich of: 34 Wolfenbüttel-Brunswick, ElisabethChristine of: 34 Wolfenbüttel-Brunswick, HenrietteChristine of: 34 Wuilleret, Pierre: 132 Zinzendorf, Count of: 35

25 5

Index of Places Aardenburg: 181 Aire-sur-la-Lys: 85, 98 Aix-la-Chapelle: 66, 219, 241 Alps, the: 65 Alsace: 104, 211, 213 Americas, the: 185 Amiens: 98 Amsterdam: 26, 141, 176, 191, 192, 195, 206 Antwerp: 24, 52, 57, 115, 116, 163, 164, 165, 166, 170, 172, 173, 174, 181, 182, 190, 195, 197, 199, 204, 205, 206 Arbois: 114 Ardres: 98 Ardrésis: 98 Arnemuiden: 164 Arnhem: 29, 35, 36 Arras: 84, 86, 98, 99, 100, 102, 170 Artois: 58, 77, 78, 79, 80, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 99, 100, 102, 206 Artsen, Fort: 197, 202 Ath: 95 Augsburg: 88, 106, 209, 237 Avesnes: 94 Axel: 172 Baltic, the: 16 Basel: 104, 125 Bassots, the: 123 Baume-les-Dames: 127 Bayonne: 220, 222 Beersel: 62 Behobia: 228 Belgium: 31 Bélieu: 128 Bellefontaine: 115, 116, 117 Belvoir, castle: 113 Berg (see also Jülich-Berg and Jülich-Cleves-Berg): 37, 39, 139, 141, 144, 145, 148, 150, 151, 153, 155, 156, 158

Bergen op Zoom: 174, 181 Berlin: 245 Bern: 125, 126 Besançon: 60, 103, 104, 110, 111, 114, 120, 123, 127, 129, 130, 135, 137, 240 Beveland (see also South Beveland): 169 Bidasoa, River: 209, 213 seq., 233, 234, 235, 237, 239, 240, 241 Biervliet: 168, 170, 172, 174 Biscay: 86 Biscay, Gulf of: 213, 214, 224 Blankenberge: 166 Bohemia: 111 Bommel: 201 Born: 157 Boulogne: 89, 92 Boulonnais, the: 91, 94 Braakman, the: 171 Brabant: 33, 48, 79, 91, 114, 115, 117, 163, 167, 171, 181, 182, 188, 189, 191, 197, 200 Breda: 189, 200, 204 Bredenaarde, Land of: 206 Bredevoort: 154 Brielle: 165, 169 Brisach: 240 Bruges: 56, 164, 166, 171, 181, 182, 189, 204 Brüggen: 38 Brussels: 23, 24, 28, 29, 35, 36, 38, 39, 41, 46, 47, 48, 49, 52, 58, 59, 60, 63, 64, 77, 86, 90, 95, 98, 117, 169, 200, 201, 202, 204, 205 Buen Retiro palace: 101 Bulle: 125 Burgundy: 44, 74, 83, 88, 89, 90, 97, 103, 104, 115, 120, 129, 132, 137, 138 Cadzand: 188 Calais: 86, 87, 98, 206, 207 Cambrai: 51, 79, 84, 89

258

in d e x o f p l ac e s

Castile: 55, 213, 224, 229, 235 Catalonia: 58 Cateau-Cambrésis, Le: 74, 89 Cerdanya: 106 Cerneux-Péquignot: 123 Charleroi: 87 Château-Châlon: 113, 127 Châtel-Belin: 113 Chaux-de-Fonds: 126 Chiny: 232 Clerval: 127 Cleves (see also Jülich-ClevesBerg): 28, 34, 35, 142, 150, 152, 153, 154, 156, 157 Cleves-Mark (see also Mark): 158 Cologne: 18, 32, 44, 110, 118, 124, 139, 140, 144, 145, 147, 150, 151, 153, 157, 158, 159, 204, 244 Cornabey: 123 Coudenberg palace: 64 Courtrai: 239 Dendermonde: 170 Deux-Ponts: 232 Dokkum: 176 Dole: 110, 111, 112, 114, 120, 121, 123, 126, 129, 133 Dordrecht: 176, 202 Douai: 91 Doullens: 98 Duisburg: 139 Duiveland: 165 Dunkirk: 88, 167, 174, 175, 177 Düren: 145, 146 Düsseldorf: 32, 37, 38, 39 Dutch Republic (see also United Provinces): 17, 18, 23, 28, 32, 49, 50, 51, 52, 75, 86, 91, 93, 100, 114, 140, 142, 144, 147, 154, 155, 158, 159, 163, 177, 182, 186, 187, 188, 193, 194, 205, 238 Eichsfeld: 106 Einsiedeln: 124 Emden: 188 Emmerik: 154, 201 Enghien: 60, 62, 63

England: 16, 34, 75, 78, 86, 91, 142, 171, 232, 233 Enkhuizen: 176 Erkelenz: 37 Estavayer-le-Lac: 127, 135 Europe: 17, 25, 41, 67, 73, 74, 86, 103, 104, 107, 109, 183, 188, 241, 245, 246 Faverney: 119, 120 Flanders (see also Walloon Flanders): 61, 68, 89, 79, 88, 91, 94, 96, 138, 163, 167, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 180, 181, 182, 188, 189, 197, 213, 233, 240 Flushing: 163, 164, 165, 166, 173 Fossa Eugeniana/Fossa Sanctae Mariae: 33, 190, 192 France: 13, 16, 17, 18, 45, 51, 52, 57, 58, 73 seq., 84 seq., 91, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 108, 112, 142, 153, 164, 171, 195, 206, 209, 211, 218, 219, 221, 222, 224, 226 seq., 237, 238, 242, 243, 244, 245 Franche-Comté, the: 17, 18, 60, 65, 103, 104, 105, 107, 108, 111, 112, 114, 117, 118, 119, 120, 122, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 133, 135, 136, 137, 138, 213 Freiburg: 129 Fribourg: 107, 125, 126, 127, 129 seq., 138 Frisia: 176, 188 Fuenterrabía: 213, 214, 215, 217 seq., 227, 228, 230, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 240, 241, 243 Gandia: 60 Gennep: 154, 201, 202 Genoa: 65 Germany: 111 Ghent: 164, 169, 171, 174, 205 Goes: 165, 169 Grand Combe Châteleu: 129 Grave: 197, 201, 202 Gray: 108, 110, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119 Grol/Groenloo: 154 Groningen: 170 Gruyère: 131, 132

i nde x o f place s

Guelders (see also Upper Guelders and Overkwartier, the): 17, 23, 24, 28, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35 seq., 58, 79, 170, 197, 200, 201, 202, 203 Guipúzcoa: 86, 217, 221, 224, 228 Guise: 94 Guyenne: 217 Haag, castle: 40 Hague, The: 36, 51, 157, 177, 187 Hainaut: 45, 55, 58, 60, 61, 65, 67, 79, 89, 94, 95, 100, 102 Hannover: 246 Harlingen: 176 Hauterive: 132, 133 Helden: 23, 24 Hendaye: 214, 217, 218, 220, 221, 222, 223, 225, 227, 228, 230, 233, 235, 236, 237 ’s-Hertogenbosch: 33, 50, 114, 181, 189, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204 Hesdin: 85 Hesse-Cassel: 159 Heverlee: 62 Hofburg, the: 65 Holland: 37, 79, 100, 169, 170, 172 seq., 181, 188, 189, 197, 201, 204 Holy Roman Empire: 16, 17, 23, 41, 44, 45, 53, 65, 75, 84, 88, 89, 90, 91, 103, 106, 113, 122, 124, 138, 139, 140, 142, 144, 146, 148, 153, 159, 243, 244, 246 Honte, the: 164, 166, 169 Hoorn: 176 Hulst: 172 Iberian Peninsula: 50, 57, 60, 65, 86, 164 Iersekeroort: 163 Ijzendijke: 172, 181 Italian Peninsula: 49, 65 Italy: 113, 126, 129, 132 Jülich: 17, 18, 31, 36, 37, 139, 140, 142 seq., 155, 156, 157, 158, 159 Jülich-Berg (see also Berg): 24, 28, 32, 35, 38, 39 Jülich-Cleves-Berg (see also Cleves and Berg) : 31, 32, 34, 35, 41

Jura, the: 122, 123, 125 Kerpen: 39 Kessel: 23 Kevelaer: 34 Krickenbeck: 37 Landeron: 133 Landrecies: 94 Leiden: 189 Liefkenshoek, Fort: 170 Liège: 23, 36, 38, 40, 59, 83, 85, 86, 202 Lille: 83, 95 Lillo: 170, 172, 174, 177, 180 Lillo, Fort: 170, 199 Locle: 125 Lons le Saunier: 114 Loppersum: 39 Lorraine: 157 Louvain: 204 Low Countries (see also Netherlands): 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 25, 29, 30, 33, 38, 44, 45, 61, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 79, 84, 86, 88 seq., 96, 97, 100, 102, 103, 108, 110, 111, 117, 135, 137, 138, 139, 142, 163, 164, 165, 171, 181, 182, 186, 187, 188, 189, 194, 196, 198, 203, 207, 213 Lower Rhine (see also Rhineland and Rhine, River): 139, 140, 143, 144, 149, 157, 158 Luxemburg: 37, 55, 77, 86, 90, 232, 233, 234 Maastricht: 51, 202 Mâcon: 104 Madrid: 47, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, 58, 61, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 74, 89, 220, 221, 224, 229 Malines: 63 Mardyck: 87 Mariembourg: 85 Mark (see also Cleves-Mark): 31, 142, 151, 153, 154, 156, 158 Marly: 135 Martinpuich: 94 Mauritsfort: 172, 174

259

26 0

in d e x o f p l ac e s

Meath: 78 Mediterranean, the: 90 Metz: 240 Meuse, River: 24, 83, 86, 190, 197, 201, 202 Middelburg: 164, 165, 166, 168, 176, 182 Mièges: 114 Millen: 157 Mons: 58, 67, 99 Montaigu/Scherpenheuvel: 107, 108, 113, 114, 115, 117, 118, 119, 137 Montbéliard: 104 Montfort: 23 Montreuil: 92 Moravia: 111 Morteau: 113, 122, 123, 126, 127, 129, 133, 135 Mouthe: 126 Munich: 111 Münster: 33, 52, 148, 188, 244 Namur: 55, 57 Nancy: 84 Nantes: 75, 93, 245 Naples: 153 Navarra: 58, 65, 214, 228, 237 Netherlands, the (see also Low Countries): 19, 24, 34, 45, 45, 97, 107, 170, 180, 187, 198, 206, 207 Neuchâtel: 104, 122, 125, 126, 133 Neuchâtel-Valangin: 126 New Hesdin/Hesdinfert: 85 Nieuwpoort: 167, 174, 175, 177, 180 Nijmegen: 29, 32, 35, 36, 38, 103, 154, 201, 209, 219, 225, 231, 239, 244, 245 North Sea: 16, 17, 86 Northumberland: 78 Nozeroy: 127 Odiliënberg, Sint: 34 Ordam, Fort: 197 Ornans: 114 Orsoy: 154 Osnabruck: 157 Ostend: 33, 113, 114, 170, 172, 174, 180, 181

Overkwartier, the (see also Upper Guelders): 23, 24, 28, 29, 30, 35, 37, 40 Overmaas: 38 Paderborn: 157 Palatinate, the: 87, 238 Paris: 89, 115, 116, 205, 213, 221, 243 Pasajes: 224 Perwijs: 62 Philippeville: 85 Philippine: 172, 174, 177, 180 Picardy: 77, 78, 80, 91, 94 Piedmont: 65 Poland: 34 Pontarlier: 113, 126, 127, 128 Portugal: 166 Pyrenees, the: 13, 52, 74, 87, 213, 216, 218, 219, 226, 228 Rammekens, Fort: 166 Rastatt: 23, 24 Ravensberg: 31, 142, 151, 153 Ravenstein: 154, 201 Rebecq: 63 Rees: 154, 201 Regensburg: 234, 236, 239 Reimerswaal: 168 Reims: 89 Rheinberg: 154 Rhineland (see also Lower Rhine): 24, 231, 240 Rhine, River (see also Lower Rhine): 140, 190, 197, 201 Rocroi: 59 Roermond: 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30, 33 seq., 40, 201, 202, 204 Roman Empire: 184 Rome: 28 Romont: 127 Roodenhoeck: 172 Rotterdam: 176, 199 Russey, Le: 128 Ryswick: 238 Saeftinghe: 172 Saint-André, Fort of: 113 Saint-Claude: 126, 129

i nde x o f place s

Saint-Étienne: 110 Sainte-Ursanne: 127 Saint-Hyppolite: 129 Saint-Omer: 91, 92, 89, 98 Saint-Pol: 96 Sâles: 131 Salins: 108, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 129, 135 Sambre, River: 87 Sardinia: 58 Sas van Gent: 171, 172, 174, 197 Savoy: 126, 133 Saxony: 142 Scandinavia: 16 Scheldt estuary: 163, 164, 165, 166, 168, 172, 180, 181, 182 Scheldt, River: 17, 163, 164, 166, 170, 171, 172, 174, 175, 176, 181 Schenkenschans: 154 Schonkerchen: 62 Schouwen: 165 Scotland: 16, 27, 34 Senlis: 103 Seventeen Provinces: 16, 74, 185, 187 Sicily: 65 Siegburg: 147 Sint-Annaland: 169 Slankamen: 67 Sluis: 166, 180, 181, 205 South Beveland (see also Beveland): 165, 169 Spain: 13, 51, 58, 74, 84, 86, 87, 89, 90, 93, 96, 97, 99, 101, 102, 113, 117, 137, 153, 165, 179, 215, 218, 219, 220, 224, 226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 232, 233, 234, 235, 237, 238, 239 Spanish Habsburg Netherlands: 16, 17, 18, 23, 37, 40, 45, 47, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 55, 57, 58, 61, 62, 63, 66, 68, 74, 75, 76, 82, 84, 87, 93, 95, 101, 102, 104, 107, 108, 113, 121, 137, 140, 143, 144, 174, 175, 178, 180, 186, 187, 193, 194, 202, 205, 207, 231, 232, 233 Spanish Habsburg empire: 17, 49, 76, 88, 98, 101, 102, 186, 188 Strasbourg: 238

Sumerau: 90 Sundgau: 132 Sweden: 142, 232, 245 Swiss cantons: 18, 107, 126, 130, 138 Swiss Confederation: 104, 125 Switzerland: 119, 122, 123, 125, 126, 129, 130, 138 Tankhelm: 33 Ter Hofstede: 174, 177 Terneuzen: 170, 172 Thérouanne: 85, 89 Thiérache: 80 Tholen: 165 Tiel: 201 Tournai: 84, 95 Tozenbach: 62 Travers, Val de: 125, 126 Trier: 90 Tuscany: 106 United Provinces (see also Dutch Republic): 16, 140, 186, 187, 194, 201, 202, 203, 204, 206, 232 Upper Guelders (see also Overkwartier): 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32 seq. Utrecht: 23, 24, 35, 37, 75, 91, 170, 172 Valais, the: 133 Valenciennes: 58, 93, 95, 99, 101 Valkenburg: 38 Valsainte: 129 Vaud, the: 125, 126, 133 Veere: 165, 166, 168 Venlo: 23, 29, 33, 36, 202 Vervins: 74, 98 Vesoul: 127 Vienna: 65, 66, 67, 143, 157, 232, 244 Waal, River: 201 Walcheren: 163, 164, 165, 166, 180, 181, 182 Walloon Flanders (see also Flanders): 100 Walloon provinces: 178 Wankum: 37 Wesel: 154, 202 Westphalia: 23, 24, 139, 148, 156

261

262

in d e x o f p l ac e s

White Mountain: 110 Wielingen, the: 164, 166 Xanten: 142, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 159 Zeeland: 100, 163, 165 seq., 172 seq., 180, 181, 182, 197

Zeelandic Flanders: 170, 172, 181 Zevenbergen: 197 Zierikzee: 165, 166, 169 Zijpe, the: 165 Zuiderzee: 23 Zutphen: 29, 35