Traits of Tolerance

Traits of TOLERANCE he seventeenth-century Dutch Republic was a place of surprising religious diversity. That much is clear if we look at its leading artists: Frans Hals was Reformed, Jan Steen and Johannes Vermeer were Catholic, and Rembrandt was not tied to any church. They all sold their work to patrons from wide-ranging religious backgrounds.

Only the Reformed Church was recognised by the authorities, but many other religions thrived behind closed doors. This book sheds light on how government and the public worked together to resolve a new dilemma: how can peace be maintained in a country with a variety of religious groups, each of which believes it has a monopoly on the truth?

Chapters by Xander van Eck, Joke Spaans and Corinne van Dijk, and examine tolerance in seventeenth-century history and art. A concluding essay by Paul Schnabel presents his view of the similarities and di^erences between the past and present in matters of religious toleration.

Xander van Eck Joke Spaans Corinne van Dijk Paul Schnabel

T

Religious Toleranc in the Golden Age

Traits of TOLERANCE Xander van Eck Joke Spaans Corinne van Dijk Paul Schnabel

Traits of TOLERANCE Religious Tolerance in the Golden Age

Xander van Eck and Ruud Priem (eds.)

With contributions by Xander van Eck, Corinne van Dijk, Paul Schnabel and Joke Spaans

Zwolle, wbooks Utrecht, Museum Catharijneconvent

Table of Contents

7

Preface ruud priem and marieke van schijndel

9

Introduction xander van eck

15

A Reluctant Tolerance? joke spaans

27

Word over Image corinne van dijk

33

Painting and Religious Toleration in the Golden Age xander van eck

79

Toleration and Accommodation in the Netherlands Today paul schnabel

87

Notes

93

Index of names

95

Credits

Introduction

Xander van Eck he image of the Netherlands as a tolerant nation originated in the early years of the Dutch Republic. Foreigners who visited the country at the beginning of the seventeenth century expressed their surprise at the religious diversity of society and the nonchalance with which people with divergent views were accepted. The French immigrant JeanFrançois LePetit wrote about Amsterdam, as early as 1616, that the Dutch ‘receive and welcome people from diverse nations, who may freely reside there, without any religious scrutiny: French, German, English, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Scottish, Danish ... indeed, there are even Turks and Jews.’ It is an image that corresponds closely to the self-image that the Dutch have built up over the centuries. But is it true? Is tolerance an innate characteristic of the Dutch, or was it created in response to certain historical conditions? Does the religious toleration that existed in the seventeenth century correspond to the definition of tolerance that we use today? This book deals with these and many other questions relating to religious tolerance and intolerance in the Netherlands of the Golden Age, and will naturally also look at the relevance of this history to the present-day world.

T

Tolerance: The Dutch Self-image The roots of the Dutch self-image as a tolerant nation lie in the Revolt against Spain in 1568, which led to the Eighty Years’ War. William of Orange and his supporters, the high-ranking nobles of the Netherlands, wanted to formally sever their ties with their sovereign, King Philip ii.

To justify what was an unprecedented objective in that era, they claimed that all manner of privileges and ‘liberties’ that the king had promised had been violated. As a result, the sovereign’s subjects no longer owed 9

him their allegiance. Propaganda prints and pamphlets distributed by the rebels presented the population of the Netherlands as – from time immemorial – a peace-loving nation, which now found itself robbed of its ‘freedom of conscience’. That the King had never actually promised freedom of conscience in so many words was a minor matter; it was a rousing battle cry behind which the majority of Dutch nobles, and later the population at large, were pleased to rally. Even Catholics were aghast at the idea that at any moment you might be hauled out of your bed and taken o^ to be executed, merely for your thoughts.

The Union of Utrecht, the document establishing the Dutch Republic in 1579, emphatically guaranteed freedom of conscience. Although the principle discouraged o·cers of the law from prosecuting individuals for their faith, the government nonetheless cherished the ideal of gradually uniting the whole population in one Church – the Calvinist Church, which was accordingly given the use of all the churches it wanted and permitted to build new ones wherever necessary. In the meantime, the Catholics had had an opportunity to regroup, while a number of alternative Reformed movements were also developing into fullyfledged Churches. And then there was a substantial proportion of the population that declined to join any Church at all.

The Dutch Republic was not alone in prescribing toleration of religious minorities, but it was the only country in which the religion recognised by the state represented a minority of the population. The diversity of the society that emerged from the Revolt meant inevitably that anyone with strong religious beliefs would have to tolerate a great deal from people di^erent from themselves. This did not always go smoothly, nor did it happen without causing conflict – verbal and in some cases physical. The government devised practical solutions to mould the country’s legislation so as to preserve public policy while accommodating all faiths.

Religious Diversity From 1580 onwards, provincial councils and city councils published frequent ordinances forbidding religious minorities to hold services in public or to make themselves conspicuous by wearing clerical dress or organising processions and suchlike. In the absence of a strong central government, it was the cities that had to enforce such laws, but they lacked the resources to do so. The police (the sheri^ or baili^ with his as10

1 Hendrick ter Brugghen, Annunciation, 1629. Stadsmuseum De Hofstadt, Diest, on loan from the Public Centre for Social Welfare (ocmw ), Diest, photo Hugo Maertens.

sistants) had not been equipped for a task of such magnitude, and the civic militia generally consisted of members of all denominations, and could therefore not be expected to take an active part in repressive measures.

A compromise was struck, in the form of turning a blind eye to churches in private houses. Everyone, including o·cers of the law, knew where these services were held. However, o·cers seldom intervened, at least as long as the illusion that people were practising their faith in the family circle was not shattered all too ostentatiously. Regulations varied from one city to the next. While Amsterdam’s Jewish community was allowed to build monumental synagogues, there were other cities that would not admit Jews at all. Few obstacles were placed in the path of the Muslims who visited the Dutch Republic – there were admittedly very few of them. The States did express concern, however, lest citizens of the Dutch Republic who visited the Ottoman Empire undergo conversion to Islam. Sti^ penalties were put in place to deter such conversions.

In spite of religious di^erences and government-imposed restrictions on minorities, people found ways of smoothly conducting their everyday business: what is now known as omgangsoecumene – pragmatic ecumenism. They did not shrink from forging business or other relations with those whose beliefs di^ered from theirs. After all, people from diverse faiths lived alongside each other in the same towns and villages. Di^erences of faith were frequently found even within a single family. Strict orthodoxy was therefore impossible to sustain. In addition, being part of the growing, prosperous Dutch Republic generated a feeling of solidarity.

In professional organisations and militia guilds, people of all religions mingled freely. The group portrait of the governors of the surgeons’ guild by Nicolaes Maes depicts Calvinists, Remonstrants and Mennonites sitting shoulder to shoulder. Indeed, the government encouraged them to do so. Old traditions with a Catholic tint, such as Sinterklaas, the Feast of St Nicholas, were a thorn in the side of Calvinist ministers. But the government saw little harm in them, and most Protestants happily celebrated Sinterklaas.

Pragmatic ecumenism was also expressed in the art of the Golden Age. Artists were entrepreneurs who need to sell their paintings for a living, and they tended to make what the public wanted to buy. Pieter Saenre12

dam produced both Catholic and Protestant versions of the interior of the St Lawrence’s Church in Alkmaar. Jan van Goyen’s Catholicism did not influence his landscapes, nor did it a^ect the composition of his clientele, which was a cross-section of the entire population. Conversely, Protestants could paint deeply moving altarpieces if called upon to do so; Hendrick ter Brugghen’s Annunciation (1629) is a fine case in point (fig. 1). It is true that painters would often start by gaining most of their support and commissions from among people of the same faith – a tentative beginning to the ‘pillarisation’ that would become a major feature of Dutch society. A small group of Mennonite pupils formed around the Mennonite painter and minister Lambert Jacobsz, for instance, including Govert Flinck and Jacob Backer, who initially did much of their work for co-religionist clients. But anyone who could produce truly remarkable work, such as Rembrandt or Hals, soon acquired a much wider popularity. This is clear from the portraits they made of people from every conceivable religious background.

Practical Tolerance The tolerance of the Golden Age originated, both on the government’s part and among the country’s citizens, from the need to find practical solutions to deal with the simple reality of society’s assorted religions. It did not stem from the tolerant nature of the Dutch, nor from any idealistic conviction that all faiths were of equal value – an idea that gained currency only gradually, during the eighteenth-century Enlightenment.

That is not to say, it should be added, that peace has reigned ever since then. The pillarisation of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries helped to defuse tensions, but it also fostered a certain alienation between religious groups. Deep mistrust between Protestants and Catholics persisted for a very long time. In 1885 King William iii decided against attending the opening of the Rijksmuseum because he thought that the building looked too much like a cathedral; as recently as 1964, Princess Irene’s marriage to a Catholic prince caused controversy. Now, fifty years on, this hurdle appears to have been taken. Queen Máxima’s Catholicism no longer provokes objections.

Today, the Netherlands is struggling to accommodate the recent Muslim arrivals, while these Muslims in turn often have di·culty responding to what is expected of them in the Netherlands. Tolerance is still painful, but history teaches us that a government that adopts a moder13

ate, mediating position can help to channel the process of adjustment in the right direction. And however much we may wish to nuance and qualify the supposed tolerance of the Dutch, it cannot do any harm that many claim proudly to possess it.

34 Gerrit de Jongh, Portrait of a Family Outside the Ruins of the Chapel of Our Lady of Refuge at Heiloo, 1630. Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, bmh s473b, photograph by Ruben de Heer.

35 Pieter Saenredam, View of a Chapel in the North Transept of the Great or St Lawrence’s Church, Alkmaar, 1635. Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, bmh s124, photograph by Ruben de Heer.

51 Jan Steen, The Feast of St Nicholas, 1665-1668. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, sk-a -385.

52 Jan Steen, The Feast of St Nicholas, c. 1668. Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, rmcc s325, on loan from Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam.

Credits

published by

cover

wbooks, Zwolle

front: Pieter Saenredam, View of a Chapel in the North

in partnership with Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht

Transept of the Great or St Lawrence’s Church, Alkmaar, 1635.

authors

photograph by Ruben de Heer.

Museum Catharijneconvent, Utrecht, bmh s124, Xander van Eck, Joke Spaans, Corinne van Dijk and Paul

back: Anon., Wall panel with the text of Luke 11:28, 1600-1700.

Schnabel

Protestant Congregation of Haarlem.

editors of dutch text

For information about wbooks, go to

Xander van Eck, Izmir University of Economics

www.wbooks.com

Ruud Priem, Museum Catharijneconvent

For information about Museum Catharijneconvent, go to www.catharijneconvent.nl

final editing Inge Schriemer with the assistance of Ruud Priem,

Š 2013 wbooks, Zwolle

Museum Catharijneconvent All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be english translation by

reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or published in

Beverley Jackson, Jackson Academic (Preface, Introduc-

any form or in any way, whether electronic or mechanical,

tion, Chapters 1 and 3) and David McKay, Open Book

in the form of photocopies, recordings, or in any other

Translation (chapters 2 and 4).

way whatsoever, without prior written consent from the publisher.

pictorial editing Kees van Schooten, Museum Catharijneconvent

ISBN 978 90 663 0497 0 (Nederlands)

design Marjo Starink

ISBN 978 90 663 0674 5 (Engels)

photographs The photographs of objects derive from the institutions and photographs named in the captions to the images

NUR 694