Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden. Deel 118

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Summaries

From religious liberty to human right. The development of public opinion on censorship and press freedom in the Dutch Republic, 1579-1795, Joris van Eijnatten

Most studies on censorship and freedom of the press in the early modern (northern) Netherlands focus on legislation concerning, and the actual practice of, governmental and ecclesiastical censorship. By contrast, ideas on, and theories of, press freedom and censorship have all but been neglected. This may be due to the fact that the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century pamphlet literature does not live up to the expectations of historians expecting to find principled defences of press freedom. Yet censorship (or the lack of it) was never based exclusively on practical considerations. There have always been supporters of (a certain measure of) press freedom. Which arguments did they employ in the public domain? This paper discusses the variety of arguments adduced by authors ranging from Dirk Volckertsz Coornhert to Adriaan Kluit, thus offering, in the process, an overview of the gradual development of public opinion on censorship and press freedom in the Dutch Republic between 1579 and 1795. A typology of the various arguments used by early modern writers is introduced, and it is suggested that this classification may be used for further comparative research into theories of press freedom in western Europe and the Americas between 1550 and 1800.

Military collaboration in Belgium during World War II, Bruno de Wever

Finding concrete information about military collaboration in the countries occupied by Germany during WWII is not easy because of the masses of apologetic and purely military literature. Good quality, scholarly publications are not available. This article presents a survey of Belgium. The country had 42,000 military collaborators, but there was no ‘Belgian’ military collaboration as such because, for political reasons only, Walloon and Flemish (para) military organisations were formed. The Walloon military collaboration served the ambitions of the Rex-leader, Léon Degrelle. He pushed the Walloon Legion into the Waffen-SS and made the Rexist paramilitary organizations part of the SS-complex. In Flanders, military collaboration was dominated by the rivalry between the Flemish-nationalist Flemish National League (VNV) and the Greater Germanic and SS-orientated German-Flemish Labour organization. After the incorporation of the Flemish Legion into the Waffen-SS, the VNV gambled on the paramilitary organizations under its supposed political control. It lost its influence with the integration of these organizations into the German Army and the Waffen-SS.

Farewell to the Staple Market, Jan Willem Veluwenkamp

Lesger argues that Amsterdam's essential function in international trade in the seventeenth century was turnover promotion through price stabilisation. Claiming that the relevant mechanism involved information provision rather than stockpiling, he convincingly bids farewell to the historiographical tradition of the Amsterdam staple market and introduces Amsterdam as the centre of information provision. I contest two aspects of Lesger's argument. Unlike him, I do not think that information provision was decisive in Amsterdam's commercial expansion around 1600: Prior to 1585, information exchange and expansion were characteristic for Antwerp too. The Amsterdam acceleration essentially involved the penetration of Asia and the Atlantic area, which was mainly provoked by the war. In addition, I think that Lesger underestimates the Dutch intermediate trade. On the one hand, Dutch industry-related import and export were more significant than he indicates. On the other hand, he attaches too little meaning to the fact that Dutchmen dominated international commerce even when they did not steer all commodity flows via the Dutch Republic.

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Continuity and change in the trading history of Amsterdam, Oscar Gelderblom

This article argues that Clé Lesger's Handel in Amsterdam (2001) overestimates the impact of the Dutch Revolt on the emergence of the Amsterdam market as the centre for international trade. The immigration of merchants from Brabant and Flanders at the end of the sixteenth century was a direct outcome of the increased economic interaction between Antwerp and Amsterdam after 1540. It was indeed after they had settled in the Dutch port that these newcomers accumulated most of their considerable wealth. Finally, Amsterdam's faceless markets for foodstuffs, raw materials, industrial products, and transportation services played just as important a role in the efficient exchange of information as the international networks of the Antwerp merchants.

Response, Clé Lesger

In my book I have linked Amsterdam's remarkable trade expansion to the radical reorientation of the spatial economy in the Low Countries and the collapse of the gateway-system that had been in operation for the greater part of the sixteenth century. The shock that triggered this change was the Revolt and the politico-military schism of the north (the Republic) and the south (the Spanish Low Countries). During the reorientation process, Amsterdam was able to get hold of the flow of commodities and information previously shared between a number of different key sites in the Low Countries, and this did not remain confined to the existing flow of goods and information. With its expansion towards Asia and the Atlantic area, Amsterdam's commercial network grew to unprecedented proportions, and this too was fundamentally different to the situation in Antwerp prior to 1585. With reference to Veluwenkamp's second discussion point, I wish to emphasize that it was never my intention to undermine the importance of Amsterdam's intermediate trade. Instead, I was trying to make it clear that far from having the same features as staple trade, the intermediate trade of the early modern period bore a much closer resemblance to modern intermediate trade. Furthermore, in concordance with modern literature, I do not attribute the industry-related import and export flows to intermediate trade. Goods that were traded by the merchants of Amsterdam, but which never crossed the Republic's borders, of course fell under the category of intermediate trade. However, it has proved impossible to establish just how extensive this flow of goods and information actually was, and this is why I have been deliberately cautious about commenting on its importance to Amsterdam's intermediate trade.

Contrary to what Gelderblom appears to suggest, I am not of the opinion that the merchant-migrants from the Southern Low Countries, particularly Antwerp, were the root cause of Amsterdam's commercial heyday (see above). However, my analysis of the archive of the Bank of Amsterdam does clearly show that the Southern Low Countries merchant-migrants were certainly more active and successful than average. In addition, when recalculated, the figures in Table 1 of Gelderblom's review also support this conclusion. I searched for the key to the successful business acumen of the Southern Low Countries migrants in different areas, including: their participation in existing and newly established trading networks set up by their fellow kinsmen; their capital; and, the knowledge possessed by several prominent merchants who originally hailed from Antwerp, as well as in the isolated position occupied by Southern- Low Countries migrant-merchants in Amsterdam society. Up until about 1630 they were exempted from many social functions in their new locality and so invested relatively more time and energy in trade.