The Calvinist Republic of Ghent was a Calvinist republic that existed between 1577 and 1584 in the Flemish independent city of Ghent.
The Calvinist Republic of Ghent was a Calvinist republic that existed between 1577 and 1584 in the Flemish independent city of Ghent.
During the Middle Ages Ghent became an important economic center in the County of Flanders with an independent streak. Already in 1337 the city rebelled against the Count of Flanders under the leadership of Jacob van Artevelde and set up an alliance with other independent cities, that would become the Four Members, a predecessor of the States of Flanders in the Burgundian Netherlands. In the 15th century Ghent again rebelled in the Revolt of Ghent (1449–53), this time against the Duke of Burgundy. And in the 16th century Ghent rebelled against Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor after which it lost many of its privileges and had to accept a citadel, called the Spanjaardenkasteel, or Castle of the Spaniards, in its center, while losing its city walls.
During the early stages of the Dutch Revolt and Eighty Years' War it had many Calvinists among its population. When after the Pacification of Ghent the Calvinists in Holland and Zeeland received freedom of religion, while in Flanders Roman Catholicism remained the only tolerated religion, the Calvinists became restless. [1]
On 8 November 1576 the States General of the Netherlands concluded a peace treaty, called the Pacification of Ghent, with the rebelling provinces of Holland and Zeeland. This threw down the gauntlet to the government of the overlord of the Habsburg Netherlands, Philip II of Spain (who was count Philip III of Flanders); the royal stadtholder of Flanders Jan van Croÿ chose the side of the rebels and helped the citizens of Ghent subdue the Spanjaardenkasteel in the city. However, when the new royal governor-general of the Netherlands, Don Juan of Austria arrived in the country, Croÿ resigned his post, and was replaced by Philippe III de Croÿ, duke of Aarschot (and therefore commonly called Aarschot in the literature) by appointment of the States General. However, Aarschot was a prominent Roman Catholic and therefore not trusted by the Calvinists in Ghent. [1]
On 28 October 1577 the Ghent magistracy under the leadership of two prominent Calvinists, Jan van Hembyse and François van Ryhove performed a coup d'état with the tacit approval of the Prince of Orange and took power in Flanders. Philippe III de Croÿ, Duke of Aarschot, who served as the grootbaljuw (the Grand Bailiff) of Ghent, was arrested, as well as the bishops of Bruges and Ypres. Previously a similar coup had taken place in the capital of the Duchy of Brabant, Brussels and there the city government had been taken over by a Council of 18 members, called the Achttienmannen. [2] Ghent similarly now installed a similar council for its new government, also called the Achttienmannen. Hembyse became the chairman of this council with the title of First Schepen . Hembyse had the support of the noted Calvinist clergymen Petrus Dathenus and Herman Moded who helped him keep control of the Calvinist "mob". He armed the citizens of Ghent and hired Scottish mercenaries. This gave him the military means to conquer a number of other Flemish cities where similar Calvinist city republics, governed by councils of Achttienmannen were formed. [3]
The Ghent Calvinists were not interested in William's "religious peace", [Note 1] but wanted to persecute their Catholic opponents as stringently as the Catholics had previously persecuted the Calvinists. Hembyse and Ryhove orchestrated an Iconoclastic Fury in Ghent in May 1578 after rumors of sodomy by monks of a local Catholic monastery had spread. The monks were arrested, tried, and (after they had confessed under torture) convicted and sentenced to be burned at the stake. These persecutions, and also the terror of the Scottish mercenaries who mercilessly looted the Flanders countryside, provoked a Catholic reaction, led by the faction of the Malcontents, that eventually would cause the secession of the Walloon provinces, who were united in the Union of Arras and concluded a separate peace with the Spanish Crown at the Treaty of Arras in May 1579. [1]
The Union of Arras was countered by the defensive Union of Utrecht and the Ghent Republic joined that union already on 4 February 1579. Philip II was declared to have vacated the throne on 6 August 1579. (Two years later, the States General would declare the same in the Act of Abjuration.) The Ghent magistracy assumed his sovereign powers for the city republic.
Meanwhile, there was a falling out between Hembyse and Ryhove, and Ryhove managed to have Hembyse exiled from the city after in December 1578 William of Orange came to the city and reformed its magistracy. William also managed to impose his "religious peace" in Ghent. Ryhove received the office of grootbaljuw as representative of William. [4] But the military situation in Flanders gradually worsened for the Calvinists and the Flemish members of the Union of Utrecht. The Malcontents joined the Army of Flanders of the new royal governor-general Parma, and together they besieged and conquered more and more of the Flemish cities. On 24 October 1583 there was a new coup in the Ghent city government, in which Ryhove was forced into exile and Hembyse returned to power. Ryhove then took up a blocking position in Dendermonde between Antwerp and Ghent, cutting off the supply lines to the city from Antwerp. The Spanish army laid siege to Ghent, while Hembyse held dictatorial powers in the city. He negotiated in secret with the Spaniards, and when this was discovered by the enraged citizens he was arrested, tried for treason, and on 8 August 1584 executed. Ghent was forced to surrender to Parma on 17 August 1584, ending the regime of the Calvinist Republic. [1]
Year 1577 (MDLXXVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Julian calendar.
The Union of Utrecht was an alliance based on an agreement concluded on 23 January 1579 between a number of Dutch provinces and cities, to reach a joint commitment against the Habsburg prince Philip II. By joining forces, they hoped to force him to stop his harsh administrative measures. In addition, some important political matters were regulated in areas such as defence, taxation and religion, which is why the treaty in question is also seen as a first version or precursor of a later constitution. The Union of Utrecht complemented the so-called General Union of 1576, established by the Pacification of Ghent, which is why it is also referred to as the Further Union.
The Union of Arras was an alliance between the County of Artois, the County of Hainaut and the city of Douai in the Habsburg Netherlands in early 1579 during the Eighty Years' War. Dissatisfied with the religious policies of rebel leader Prince of Orange and the States General of the Netherlands, and especially the rise of the radical Calvinist Republic of Ghent since October 1577, they signed a declaration on 6 January 1579 about their intent to offer a vigorous defense of the Roman Catholic religion against what they saw as encroachments by Calvinists in other provinces. These signatories would begin negotiations for a separate peace with the Spanish Crown, which resulted in the Treaty of Arras of 17 May 1579.
The Eighty Years' War or Dutch Revolt was an armed conflict in the Habsburg Netherlands between disparate groups of rebels and the Spanish government. The causes of the war included the Reformation, centralisation, excessive taxation, and the rights and privileges of the Dutch nobility and cities.
The Pacification of Ghent, signed on 8 November 1576, was an alliance between the provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands. The main objectives were to remove Spanish mercenaries who had made themselves hated by all sides due to their plundering, and to promote a formal peace with the rebellious provinces of Holland and Zeeland.
There were two Unions of Brussels, both formed in the end of the 1570s, in the opening stages of the Eighty Years' War, the war of secession from Spanish control, which lasted from 1568 to 1648. Brussels was at that time the capital of the Spanish Netherlands.
The Battle of Gembloux took place at Gembloux, near Namur, Low Countries, between the Spanish forces led by Don John of Austria, Governor-General of the Spanish Netherlands, and a rebel army composed of Dutch, Flemish, English, Scottish, German, French, and Walloon soldiers under Antoine de Goignies, during the Eighty Years' War.
Charles III de Croÿ was Seigneur de Croÿ, 4th Duke of Aarschot, 5th Prince of Chimay and 5th Count of Beaumont. He played an important role on both sides of the Dutch Revolt. He was an avid collector of art and coins. His favourite residences were the Château de Beaumont and Heverlee castle, where he housed his collections and created beautiful gardens.
The Battle of Borgerhout was a battle during the Eighty Years' War, of the Spanish Army of Flanders led by Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, upon a fortified camp at the village of Borgerhout, near Antwerp, where several thousand French, English, Scottish, and Walloon soldiers in service of the recently created Union of Utrecht were stationed. It took place during the reconquest by the armies of Philip II of Spain of the Burgundian Netherlands, whose different provinces had united in 1576 under the Pacification of Ghent to drive out the foreign troops and to grant religious liberty to Protestants.
Martin Bauwens of Riethoven or Martinus Rythovius was a Catholic theologian and the first Bishop of Ypres. He was a figure of some spiritual and political significance during the early decades of the Dutch Revolt.
The Treaty of Arras of 17 May 1579 was a peace treaty concluded between the Spanish Crown, represented by Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, and representatives of the County of Hainaut, the County of Artois, and the cities of Douai, Lille, Orchies and Arras, all members of the Union of Arras, that had been formed on the 6 January 1579.
The Malcontents in the context of the Eighty Years' War or the Dutch Revolt were a faction of Catholic nobles in Hainaut and Artois who openly opposed William the Silent, also known as William of Orange, the leader of the States General of the Netherlands in the Union of Brussels of the Habsburg Netherlands during the period after the adoption of the Pacification of Ghent. They formed the Union of Arras in January 1579 and negotiated a separate peace with the Spanish Crown, represented by the royal governor-general Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, in the form of the Treaty of Arras (1579), signed on 17 May 1579.
Carel Hendrik Theodoor Bussemaker was a Dutch historian who held chairs in history at the University of Groningen and the University of Leiden.
Jan van Hembyse or Hembyze was a Flemish politician and popular leader, with a demagogic tendency, who together with François van Ryhove brought about the Calvinist Republic of Ghent and for two periods led that regime in the early stage of the Dutch Revolt and the Eighty Years' War as it unfolded in the County of Flanders.
The siege of Ghent during the Eighty Years' War by Spanish general Alexander Farnese, Prince of Parma, lasted from October 1583 to 17 September 1584. It was the end phase of the so-called Calvinist Republic of Ghent, which had controlled most of the County of Flanders since radical Protestants seized power on 28 October 1577, claiming a leading role for the city of Ghent in the struggle against the Spanish royal forces and Malcontent Catholics.
The period between the Pacification of Ghent, and the Unions of Arras and Utrecht constituted a crucial phase of the Eighty Years' War between the Spanish Empire and the rebelling United Provinces, which would become the independent Dutch Republic. Sometimes known as the "general revolt", the period marked the only time of the war where the States–General of all Seventeen Provinces of the Habsburg Netherlands, except Luxemburg, were in joint active political and military rebellion against the Spanish Imperial government through the Pacification of Ghent. The Pacification formulated several agreements amongst the rebellious provinces themselves, and laid down their demands – including the immediate withdrawal of foreign troops from the Netherlands, restitution of old rights and privileges, and self-rule – to king Philip II of Spain.
The years 1579–1588 constituted a phase of the Eighty Years' War between the Spanish Empire and the United Provinces in revolt after most of them concluded the Union of Utrecht on 23 January 1579, and proceeded to carve the independent Dutch Republic out of the Habsburg Netherlands. It followed the 1576–1579 period, in which a temporary alliance of 16 out of the Seventeen Provinces' States–General established the Pacification of Ghent as a joint Catholic–Protestant rebellion against the Spanish government, but internal conflicts as well as military and diplomatic successes of the Spanish Governors-General Don Juan of Austria and Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma split them apart, finally leading the Malcontent County of Artois, County of Hainaut and city of Douai to sign the Union of Arras on 6 January 1579, reverting to Catholicism and loyalty to the Spanish crown.
The period between the start of the Beeldenstorm in August 1566 until early 1572 contained the first events of a series that would later be known as the Eighty Years' War between the Spanish Empire and disparate groups of rebels in the Habsburg Netherlands. Some of the first pitched battles and sieges between radical Calvinists and Habsburg governmental forces took place in the years 1566–1567, followed by the arrival and government takeover by Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba with an army of 10,000 Spanish and Italian soldiers. Next, an ill-fated invasion by the most powerful nobleman of the Low Countries, the exiled but still-Catholic William "the Silent" of Orange, failed to inspire a general anti-government revolt. Although the war seemed over before it got underway, in the years 1569–1571, Alba's repression grew severe, and opposition against his regime mounted to new heights and became susceptible to rebellion.
History of the People of the Netherlands: The war with Spain.