Conflicting Words: The Peace Treaty of Münster (1648) and the Political Culture of the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Monarchy (Avisos de Flandes)

284 Pages·2011·1.62 MB·English

by  Laura Manzano Baena

Conflicting Words

Conflicting Words
The Peace Treaty of Münster (1648)
and the Political Culture of the Dutch Republic
and the Spanish Monarchy
Laura Manzano Baena
© 2011 by Leuven University Press / Presses Universitaires de Louvain / Universitaire Pers Leuven
Minderbroedersstraat 4, B-3000 Leuven (Belgium)
All rights reserved. Except in those cases expressly determined by law, no part of this publication may
be multiplied, saved in an automated datafile or made public in any way whatsoever without the
express prior written consent of the publishers.
ISBN 978 90 5867 867 6
D / 2011 / 1869 / 12
NUR: 697
Cover & typesetting: Friedemann BVBA
Illustration cover: The swearing of the Oath of Ratification of the Treaty of Münster in 1648
by Gerard ter Borch – Collection Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Contents
Acknowledgements 9
Introduction 11
Chapter 1. Rebels 33
Confronting rebellion 33
Religion and revolt: The United Provinces 37
The Spanish attitude towards rebellion 45
‘No reason to revolt’: Privileges and rebellion 48
Sacrilege and rebellion 51
Negotiating with rebels in an international setting:
From Cologne to Münster 57
Chapter 2. Tyrants 67
Tyranny’s two faces and the problem of tyrannicide 67
Fighting usurpers: Defining the tyrant in the Spanish Monarchy 71
The usurper’s unjust rule 76
Distinguishing between impious tyrants and misguided rulers 80
Defying tyrannical rule in the Low Countries and Catalonia 85
The tyrant’s intolerable behaviour 87
Trusting the tyrant’s word: The Dutch road to Münster 99
Chapter 3. Authority 103
Sources, extension and limits to kingly power in the
Spanish Monarchy 105
The power of kings 106
The morals of power 124

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cOnTenTs
Refashioning authority in the United Provinces 132
Defining political authority 133
The peace negotiations with the Spanish Monarchy as a
catalyst for internal strife 140
Chapter 4. Negotiating sovereignty 163
Hispanic attempts at a protectorate over the United Provinces
(1628-1632) 166
Relinquishing sovereignty: The Treaty of Munster (1648) 170
The incomplete Republic 176
A patrimonial concept of sovereignty 182
Transferring the rights over the Low countries 184
Negotiating spiritual sovereignty 189
Monarchia in ecclesia 190
The Dutch Republic and the problem of spiritual sovereignty 192
Chapter 5. Negotiating religious coexistence and toleration 197
The politics of confessionalization 199
The Spanish Monarchy and its confessional reason of state 199
From the ‘Arminian troubles’ to William ii’s stadholderate:
Religious allegiances and politics in the United Provinces 205
Religious tolerance and confessional coexistence 212
Tolerance as (the lesser) evil 212
Dutch tolerance and its limits 216
Th e Dutch Republic and its Catholic subjects:
negotiating coexis tence in Den Bosch 222
Chapter 6. An invalid conclusion or a peace not meant to last
(but which did) 235
Bibliography 249
Index 279
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To Ana,
true Planet Queen,
and all her satellites

Acknowledgements
This book in its present form would never have been possible without
the support I received from a variety of people and organisations in
various places. First and foremost, I would like to thank my mother
for her unwavering support and help during the whole duration of
the project which has this book as its final outcome. Academically,
this book is a consequence of an interest and preliminary work in the
fields of the History of Political Ideas and Cultural History nurtured
during my studies in the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid with Pablo
Fernández Albaladejo, Julen Viejo, Maria José del Río and Jim Amelang.
In different ways, all four have left their imprint on my work. The PhD
thesis on which this book is based was written under the supervision
of Martin van Gelderen at the European University Institute. His trust
and support allowed me to carry out the project. I very much appreciate
his profound knowledge of the topic and the enlightening comments
he made on important sections of the manuscript even during a
corridor chat. Xavier Gil Pujol offered great help in the analysis of the
general framework and of some of the texts on which this book is based.
The combination of his enthusiasm, wisdom, and kindness has made
working with him a very enjoyable and rewarding experience. Anthony
Molho, Diogo Curto and Bartolomé Yun Casalilla have also given
advice on different parts of this book at different stages, as Benjamin
Kaplan did during the defence of the PhD thesis. The thesis was also
clearly influenced by a number of discussions with Henk van Nierop
during a long and early stay atn the University of Amsterdam. It has
also profited from many conversations with Bernardo García García
and the contacts made through him with other scholars working on the
relations between the Spanish Monarchy and the Seventeen Provinces
of the Low Countries during the Early Modern period, especially
Werner Thomas, Alicia Esteban Estríngana and Manuel Herrero. At the
European University Institute I enjoyed working in a very stimulating
environment, where staff in both the administration and the library
were really intent on helping researchers carrying out their work. It
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AcknOwLeDgeMenTs
is impossible to thank at length all the friends and colleagues who
discussed concrete aspects of this work or offered support in many
other ways. I would like to thank specifically Carolina Blutrach, Cesare
Cuttica, María Gómez, Moritz Isenmann, José Luis Ledesma, Olivia
Orozco, Luis Salas and Lucy Turner Voakes for the many hours spent
discussing shared interests and for their invaluable friendship.
This project relied heavily on archival and bibliographic research in
a number of libraries and archives in Spain, The Netherlands, Belgium
and Germany. I am greatly indebted to their staff for patiently answering
my many questions and for providing valuable insights into their
collections. Further thanks are due to the staff at Leuven University
Press for their confidence in supporting the submission and revision
stages of this book and for patiently answering all the questions I had
in the process of preparing this manuscript for publication.
Since these acknowledgements would become too long if I were to
thank my family, friends and colleagues who have offered encouragement,
fun moments and shelter in The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Germany
and Spain individually, I will do so collectively. They made the past years
enjoyable, provided support as well as much needed diversion. I would
like to thank Koen explicitly as he proofread both the thesis and the
book and encouraged me to keep working on both. He and our children
Nils and Alicia have helped me carrying out my work and made me a
better and more patient person along the way. Nils and Alicia teach us
every day that there are things much more important than work.
The project on which this book was based would not have been
possible without the financial support provided by various organisations.
Most central to this was a PhD grant from the Spanish government
(MAEC-AECID) for three years, and for a fourth year from the
European University Institute (EUI). Missions and conference visits
were supported by the History and Civilization department of the
EUI. The research project “Cultura política y mecenazgo artístico entre
las cortes de Madrid, Viena y Bruselas (1580-1715)” (ref. HAR2009-
12963-C03-03) has greatly contributed to making the original PhD
thesis into a book. This project was funded by the Spanish Ministry of
Science and Innovation and chaired by Bernardo Garcí a García. Prior
to this project, the Diploma de Estudios Avanzados at the Universidad
Autónoma de Madrid (UAM), which included a long stay in the
Universiteit van Amsterdam, was funded through a grant from the
UAM. While this manuscript has benefited from the advice and support
of the people and organisations mentioned above, I am responsible for
any remaining errors and omissions, which are of course involuntary.
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