This research is about the local significance of the Pacification of Ghent in Utrecht between 1576 and 1581. It argues that the Pacification was the crucial treaty for the participation of the...Show moreThis research is about the local significance of the Pacification of Ghent in Utrecht between 1576 and 1581. It argues that the Pacification was the crucial treaty for the participation of the States and city of Utrecht in the Dutch Revolt because of its lack of coherency and clarity. This thesis explores the competing narratives about the meaning of this peace. The analysis focusses on the interests of different groups in city and the reinterpretations of the peace terms in the Pacification within the rapidly developing circumstances of the Dutch Revolt. The main argument is that the act of oblivion in the Pacification was the tacit driving force behind the competition of narratives about legitimacy. The Pacification successfully offered a tabula rasa for the previous decade and became the most important reference for peace negotiation between 1576 and 1581. The “originalist” narrative tried to stay with the Pacification terms as intended when it was signed in 1576; the “clarifying” narrative argued that the cherry-picked peace violations of the royal party – together with the changed circumstances – necessitated an elaboration of the original peace treaty; the “abnegation” narrative used these cherry-picked peace violations of the royal party to highlight the obsolesce of the treaty and framed the treaty’s failure as a reason to abjure king Philip. This last narrative flipped the Pacification on its head; the new continuity with the present was not based on the treaty’s terms but on its violation and frame of belonging to the past.Show less
In early modern Europe, authority was often legitimated by the antiquity of an institution or practice. The past played an important part in the self-fashioning of rulers, and vice versa posed a...Show moreIn early modern Europe, authority was often legitimated by the antiquity of an institution or practice. The past played an important part in the self-fashioning of rulers, and vice versa posed a problem for people trying to change or replace ancient institutions.In this context historians have coined the term ‘memory wars’, as memories become arguments justifying present actions. While the role of memory politics, aimed at remembering as well as forgetting, has been studied in the civil wars in the Low Countries and France, this has not been done for a similar conflict in Scotland. This points to a problem in the study of memory politics in early modern Europe, which is mostly based on progressive polities as France and the Low Countries. This is problematic because modernity is a point of contention among scholars studying memory practices.To overcome a possible distortion of early modern memory practices by relying on relatively ‘modern’ polities, it is necessary to compare the practices in these polities with memory practices in an early modern polity which was less developed, such as Scotland. Are economic prosperity and state formation, or a certain level of development, prerequisites for ‘modern’ memory practices?Show less
Research master thesis | Arts and Culture (research) (MA)
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In the sixteenth century, Rome embarked its most sumptuous epoch, and with it, hosted splendid building projects initiated by the church and the papal court, which ranged from sacred spaces to...Show moreIn the sixteenth century, Rome embarked its most sumptuous epoch, and with it, hosted splendid building projects initiated by the church and the papal court, which ranged from sacred spaces to profane architecture. Display of property and wealth became the crucial factor for success among the curial members, who advertised their rank and prestige through such display. However, the papal court and its extensive exploitation of imperial Rome, its achievements and its foundation for the glory of Renaissance Rome and the Catholic Church soon encountered disapproval. The removal from the modest life of Christ and his Apostles but also from spiritual concerns, the increasing paganism and the profligacy, all became major threats for the Roman Curia by the beginning of the sixteenth century. Criticism came from various sides. Humanists turned against the common practices of the church. Protestant reformers raised their voices, but judgement also came from within the own ranks, the Catholic clerics. The critics attacked not only the church’s religious and spiritual programme, but, by that, its secular conduct and its outward. The papal court and its worldliness, grandeur and excessive expenditures were only some of the indicators that triggered criticism and prompted a re-assessment of the role of the pope and his court by the sixteenth century. However, the clergy’s commissions were flourishing, serving not only to embellish the cityscape of Rome and its surroundings, but enhancing the cardinals’ social status. It is striking that at around 1550–1570 (the peak of reformatory criticism) it appears that the most sumptuous and monumental properties of such kinds belonged to the clergy. And that to such an extent that not even the aristocratic Roman families had the means to compete with the high level of expenditure and patronage of cardinals from papal and noble families. It thus remains thus crucial to explore how the Catholic Church and thus the clergy justified wealth, excessive expenditure—for both ecclesiastical and secular purposes—especially by the eve of Reformation and how those (apparent) discrepancies between lush lifestyles and ecclesiastical renovation were perceived among the curia or how they were broadcasted and towards a larger audience.Show less
