Étiquette : Flanders

 

The 1561 Landjuweel of Antwerp made Art a Weapon for Peace

Cet article, en FR

Antwerp

By Karel Vereycken, April 2025

Summary

Introduction

Of course, as it is well known, it is the victors who write history. Not that of humanity, but their own. The history of the « losers » falls by the wayside. Therefore, in the Low Countries, be it Belgium or the Netherlands, the official churches, be they Catholic, Lutheran or Calvinist, and ruling elites, chosen by Spain and the British, have carefully erased from the books the truth about the revolutionary role and impact of Erasmus. 1

As we document here, Erasmus succeded, through his noble spirit and delicious wit, to mobilize quite a large following, not only in educated layers of the European elites, but in a broad part of the rising middle-class working people, a social layer which might resemble today’s « Yellow Vests ».

1616 Ommegang of Brussels.

For modern people, of course, the religious processions, parades of giants, and masked carnivals of Venice, Rio de Janeiro, or Dunkirk in France appear as sympathetic as mere folkloric manifestations on UNESCO’s list of the intangible cultural heritage of France and Belgium. Appealing, no doubt, but without any connection to « true culture »!

Qualifying these events and traditions as « folkloric » results mostly from a lack of knowledge and understanding of real history. Regarding both the intent and the content of some of these festivals, such as the « Landjuweel » of Ghent in 1539 and the one in Antwerp in 1561, with five thousand participants and many more spectators, placing art, poetry and music as the true source of durable peace and harmony among nations, states and peoples, in terms of refinement and beauty, it can be said that they rival, and I would even say surpass many supposedly « cultural » events of today.

The Chambers of Rhetoric

Burgundian Low Countries around 1500.

At the origin of these poetry festivals and competitions of the Landjuweel type, literary and drama societies called Kamers van rhetorike (Chambers of Rhetoric) which emerged from the end of the XIVth century in the northwest of France and in the former Low Countries, above all in the County of Flanders and the Duchy of Brabant.

While in the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries these chambers became literary clubs for a bourgeoisie enjoying exercises in eloquence and rhyme, in these early days rhetorical culture was not socially an elite culture, as most rhetoricians were tradespeople and did not belong to the ruling elite of their city.

Recent research has confirmed that the rhetorical chambers of Flanders and Brabant primarily recruited their members from the urban middle classes, more specifically from the circles of artisans (masons, joiners, carpenters, dyers, printers, painters, etc.), merchants, clerks, practitioners of intellectual professions, and merchants. 11

In 1530, among the 42 members of the Brussels Chamber of De Corenbloem, there were 32 craftsmen (butchers, brewers, millers, carpenters, tile layers, comb makers, fishermen, coachbuilders, stonemasons, etc. = 76.2%). 12

In the artistic professions, there was a glazier and two painters (7.1%), in commerce, a fruit seller, an innkeeper, a skipper and a rag seller (9.5%). The remaining members were a civil servant, a harp-player and an announcer.

Composition of the membership of De Corenbloem, by profession.

For the period 1400-1650, records were found of 227 Dutch-speaking chambers of rhetoric in the Southern Low Countries and the Principality of Liège, meaning that virtually every town had at least one. In 1561, the Duchy of Brabant had about 40 recognized chambers of rhetoric, while the County of Flanders had 125. 13

Their organization was similar to that of the corporations: at the head of each chamber was the dean, usually a clergyman (the chambers retained a religious aspect). Since their creation, the chambers were of two kinds: the free (vrye), enjoying a communal grant, and the subject (onvrye or vrywillige), having no grant, but reporting to a supreme chamber (hoofdkamer). Among the rhetoricians were the founders (ouders), and the members (broeders or gezellen); at the head of all were an emperor, a prince, often a hereditary prince (opperprins or erfprins); then came an honorary president (hoofdman), a grand dean, a dean, an auditor (fiscael), a standard-bearer (vaendraeger or Alpherus), and a boy (knaep), who sometimes dabbled in poetry.

The most important of all were the « factors » or « factors », that is to say the poets who were in charge of the « factie » (composition), poems, plays, farces and the organization of festivities. Initially in the bosom of the ecclesiastics, the Chambers took their independence and established themselves, in practical terms, as a « Festival Committee », charged by the municipal authorities with brightening up with poetry and splendor the joyous entries and cultural events throughout the year.

Rehabilitation

Further research, primarily in the Netherlands, has led scholars to « rehabilitate » the Chambers of Rhetoric, now considered of having been institutions that played a major role in the development of vernacular Dutch during the period 1450-1620. 14

Admittedly, mostly composed as dialogues among allegorical figures, a legacy of the Middle Ages and the troubadour tradition, artistically speaking, with some exceptions, most of these plays never reached the level or quality of dramatic intensity or refinement of Shakespeare or Schiller.

But as we shall see, the desire and intent to emancipate the people through a form of literary and musical art that uplifts by its moral content and liberates through ironical « cathartic » laughter was clearly central to their admirable objectives.

Jeroen Vandommele suggests that experts should rethink their views:

The respected Dutch historian Herman Pleij, who has contributed to a better understanding of the phenomenon and gave a major boost to this approach by demonstrating, from the 1970s onwards, the potential of XVth- and XVIth-century literature to generate what he calls « late medieval urban culture, » a true expression of an autonomous civic and urban culture. 16

According to him, their works were intended to unleash a « civilizing offensive » that would encourage the urban elite and middle classes to develop intellectually and morally and to distinguish (and dissociate) themselves from their less civilized urban counterparts.

Jousts, competitions and other festivals

Mystery Play.

The Chambers cultivated the art of poetry by competing against each other in competitions that were among the major events they organized for themselves or for the public. Each chamber itself set the frequency of the competitions and the value of the prizes, often quite symbolic, that could be won. While for some chambers, four competitions per year were enough, for the Antwerp chamber, De Violieren, it was a weekly competition!

Very quickly, these activities gave rise to public festivities, celebrated successively in all the major cities. The Landjuweel skillfully combined several genres of theatrical and musical dramaturgy, which had previously been separate, into a single large city festival:

  • The “Mystery Plays » and « Miracle Plays » (Mirakel-spelen, passie-spelen) street theater or large tableaux vivants, sometimes on floats (wagen-spelen). The Mystère de la Passion by Arnoul de Gréban, performed thousands of times throughout France, was a play of 34,000 verses requiring 394 actors reenacting the last five days of the life of Christ.
  • The « Feast of Fools » or « Feast of the Innocents », masquerades and disguises organized by « joyous societies » in which the clergy had actively participated since the XIIth century. We were then witnessing a total reversal of society: the woman became the boy, the child the bishop, the teacher the student, … The pope was elected, the bishop of fools, the abbot of fools, old shoes were burned in censers, people danced in churches while mumbling Latin in such a way as to trigger many fits of laughter. People danced and sang, accompanied for this by musicians who played wind instruments (flute, trumpet or bagpipes) or string instruments (hurdy-gurdy, harp, lute). It was not uncommon to find serious confusion reigning within convents: nocturnal relations between the abbot of fools and the minor abbesses or even mock weddings between a bishop and a superior. For the Feast of Fools, the lower clergy disguised themselves, wore hideous masks and smeared themselves with soot. The costume and attributes of fools became established in the XVth century. Popes, councils and various authorities published texts aimed at suppressing the said festival from the XIIth century onwards.
  • The Ommegang (literally « going around » the church and the city) were religious processions, organized by the church and the crossbowmen’s guilds in honor of the saints whose statues were carried on their shoulders. If in Brussels, the Ommegang became an opportunity for nobles to exhibit themselves in the city (as in 1549 to show their loyalty to the Spanish occupier), in Antwerp, two Ommegangs followed one another: the first, religious, at Pentecost, the second, on the feast of the Assumption, with a strong secular participation of the guilds, trades and chambers of rhetoric, each of them contributing a float to a procession in the streets of the city.
  • Carnival, the new name given by the Church to the « Saturnalia, » the great eight-day Roman festivities in honor of Saturn, god of agriculture and time, during the winter solstice. This period of costumed celebrations and freedoms, particularly in Venice, which developed between the XIth and XIIIth centuries, was supervised by the Church, which considered it necessary to avoid popular revolts. It featured a reversal of roles and the election of a false king. Slaves were then free to speak and act as they wished and were served by their masters. The festivities were accompanied by large meals.

The Rhetoricians rightly believed that these genres complemented each other perfectly. The festivals therefore alternated, without losing the hierarchy of the depth of the meaning that one wanted to convey, both pieces with spiritual and religious content (mysteries, passions) and pieces with philosophical, didactic and moralizing content (zinne-spelen), without forgetting satire, farce and other humorous things (sotties, esbattements, etc.).

Feast of fools (after 1550). Brussels city museum.

Historically, the stage where such events took place moved from the nave of churches, first to the forecourt of cathedrals and finally to the public space in the wider sense, first in the open air (in the Great Square, in the cemetery, on a chariot) before being forced by the authorities to occur exclusively in closed halls.

Among the competitions organized by the Chambers of Rhetoric, the oldest known was that of Brussels in 1394. The one in Oudenaarde, which took place in 1413, is better documented. These were followed by those of Furnes in 1419, Dunkirk in 1426, Bruges in 1427 and 1441, Mechelen in 1427 and Damme in 1431.

Landjuweel

The Landjuwelen were originally a cycle of seven competitions between communal militias practicing their skills in the use of weapons: the Schutterijen of the Duchy of Brabant. The highest luminaries of the country attended such shootings; they were even honored by sovereigns.

The idea was to organize a Landjuweel every three years. The winner of the first competition would organize the next competition and so on; the winners of the seventh Landjuweel would start a new cycle. The winner of the first tournament, having obtained a silver cup, would make two silver dishes for the winner of the second Landjuweel in a cycle, and the latter would in turn make three for the winner of the next competition, and so on until the seventh tournament in the cycle.

There was close cooperation between the knightly societies of the cities of Bruges and Lille in Flanders, as well as between Bruges and Brussels. Like Bruges, Lille organized an annual tournament, « L’Espinette. »

Every February, a delegation from Bruges came to Lille to compete in the tournament, just as the inhabitants of Lille participated in the annual competition of the White Bear in Bruges, which took place in May. This spectacle gave rise to festivities to which the poets of Bruges also contributed. They wrote the scenarios for the esbattements, recited praises, and reported on these activities in their chronicles.

There were no quarrels about differences of languages. Prizes were established to reward works in either French or Dutch, depending on the lingua franca of the city where the competition was held. But sometimes, at the same competition, a prize was awarded for works in both languages. This was notably the case in Ghent in 1439. Prizes were also awarded for the most beautiful entry.

Themes in the form of questions were suggested, which only authorized chambers could answer in verse. These questions were resolved by the « factors » and generally had a moral or political purpose. Thus, in 1431, in the midst of the wars between France and Flanders allied to Britain, the Chamber of Rhetoric of Arras, formerly a city named Atrecht in the Burgundian Low Countries, posed the question « Why is peace, so eagerly desired, so slow in coming »? Note that in 1435, the Peace of Arras, organized by the friends of Nicolas Cusanus, Jacques Coeur and Yolande d’Aragon, sealed the end of the Hundred Years’ War. 17

Political and economic context

Through alliances and marriages, the Burgundian Low Countries fell under the control of the Habsburg family, who were completely at the mercy of the famous Augsburg bank, the evil Fuggers, known as the fathers of « financial fascism ». 18

Hence, when Maximilian I, of the Habsburg family and Holy Roman Emperor, died in 1519, he owed Jacob Fugger approximately 350,000 florins. To prevent default on this investment, Fugger assembled a cartel of bankers to gather all the necessary bribe money to enable Maximilian’s grandson, Charles V, to buy the vote and succeed him to the throne. Thus, Jacob Fugger, in direct liaison with Margaret of Austria, who joined the project because of her fears for peace in Europe, centrally gathered the money to bribe each Elector, taking advantage of the opportunity to dramatically strengthen his monopolistic positions, particularly over competitors such as the Welsers and the rapidly expanding port of Antwerp. 19

Charles V, in the 1520s, had to borrow at 18% and even 49% between 1553 and 1556. To maintain the enormous expenditures to oversee his vast Empire, Charles V had no choice but to pursue a predatory policy. He sold his mines to appease the bankers, gave them carte blanche to colonize the New World, and consented to the pillaging of the most prosperous region of his Empire, Flanders and Brabant, which were subject to taxes and tithes to pay for the « war economy. » 20

The rather spectacular rise of the Northern Renaissance, which gained access, thanks to the learning of Greek, Latin and Hebrew, notably thanks to the Three Language College founded by Erasmus in Louvain in 1515 21, to science and all the wealth of the classical period, was to collide head-on with the battering rams of feudal finance which had become an ogre.

Charles V ordered that a list of authors to be proscribed be drawn up in his states, thus foreshadowing the establishment of the Index a few years later. From 1520 to 1550, he promulgated thirteen repressive edicts against heresy, introducing a modern inquisition based on the Spanish model.

Mary of Hungary, portrait by Hans Knell.

The application of these « placards » remained rather weak until the arrival of Philip II due to the lukewarm attitude of Queen Regent Mary of Hungary (1505-1558) and local elites towards them. Their application was entrusted to the urban and provincial judicial authorities, as well as to the Grand Council of Mechelen, with the supervision of a specific tribunal, established in 1522 in the Burgundian Low Countries based on the model of the Spanish Inquisition.

In 1540, the Jesuit order was founded, initially tasked with obtaining by word what could not be obtained by the sword. It quickly turned to the use of theater! From 1545 to 1563, the Council of Trent met to impose reforms and seek to eradicate Protestant heresy. Reading the Bible was now forbidden to ordinary mortals, as was discussing and illustrating it. Albrecht Dürer, the great German engraver and geometer based in Antwerp, packed his bags in 1521 to return to Nuremberg, and Erasmus went into exile in Basel the same year. The great Flemish cartographer Gerard Mercator, educated by the Erasmians and suspected of heresy, was imprisoned in 1544. Released from prison, he went into exile in Germany in 1552. Because of their religious beliefs, Jan and Cornelis, the two sons of Quinten Matsys 22, left Antwerp and went into exile in 1544.

Charles V abdicated in 1555 to leave his place to his son Philip II. The latter returned to Spain and entrusted the regency of the Burgundian Low Countries to his half-sister Margaret of Parma (1522-1586).

While the administration of the Burgundian Low Countries was officially carried out through the Council of State, composed of the stadholders and the high nobility, a secret council (the consulta) created by Philip II and composed of Charles de Berlaymont (1510-1578), Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle (1517-1582) and Viglius van Aytta (1507-1577) was responsible for making the most important decisions, particularly concerning taxation, order, administration and religion, and thus transformed the Council of State into a simple consultative chamber.

Three disputes quickly arose: the presence of Spanish troops in the Seventeen Provinces, the establishment of new dioceses in the Burgundian Low Countries, and the fight against Protestantism. Spanish troops remaining from the Italian Wars, approximately 3,000 strong, were not paid and were pillaging the country. After much hesitation by Philip II, and under threat of the simultaneous resignation of Orange and Egmont, the troops finally left in January 1561.

1523, execution of heretics in Brussels.

The first victims of persecution in Europe were Antwerp’s Hendrik Vos and Jan Van Essen, two augustinian monks who had become friends of Luther, executed in Brussels on July 1, 1523. 23 The first Walloon victim was the Tournai theologian Jean Castellain, executed in Vic, Lorraine, on January 12, 1525. 24

Many victims were Catholic clergy who had converted to the Reformation, but also many women. From 1529, the persecutions took a dramatic turn following the adoption of the imperial placard generalizing the death penalty. 40% of executions for heresy in the West between 1523 and 1565 occurred in the Burgundian Low Countries. The 17 Provinces were one of the regions that suffered the highest rate of death sentences relative to its entire population. Approximately 1,500 people were executed, an intensity thirty times higher than in France. 25

They will only strengthen the opposition to the tyranny which will lead in 1576 William of Orange (known as « The Silent ») to take the lead in the revolt of the Burgundian Low Countries, ending 80 years later with the split between the north (the Netherlands, predominantly Protestant) and the south (Belgium, exclusively Catholic).

Ghent, 1539

Stage of the Ghent Landjuweel of 1539.

In June 1539, the De Fonteine (The Fountain) Chamber of Ghent summoned the dramatic and literary societies of the country to a great landjuweel in honor of the Holy Trinity, for which Emperor Charles V granted permission and a month’s safe conduct to those wishing to participate.

An invitation charter was published on this subject. It posed, for the morality play, a question thus formulated: « What is the greatest consolation of the dying man? »

This subject clearly echoes one of Erasmus‘s popular writings, quickly translated into Dutch in the year of its publication in 1534, De preparatione ad Mortem. 26

Nineteen rhetorician societies responded to the call: these were chambers established in Antwerp, Oudenaarde, Axel, Bergues, Bruges, Brussels, Courtrai, Deinze, Enghien, Kaprijke, Leffinge, Lo (in the Furnes Trade), Menin, Messines, Neuve-Église, Nieuwpoort, Tielt, Tirlemont, and Ypres.

The chamber known as « De Violieren » from Antwerp won first prize. Pieter Huys de Bergues won second prize, consisting of three silver vases weighing seven marks on which the entrance to an academy was engraved. His poem comprises about five hundred verses in Dutch, and it features five allegorical figures under the names of Benevolence, Observance of the Laws, the Consoled Heart, Consolation, and the Contrite Heart. Each of them lists the goods in which man finds happiness at the hour of death. For De Violieren, the greatest consolation was « the resurrection of the body, » a purely Catholic dogma.

But that was without counting on the « off » part of the competition. Because the three other questions, to be answered in chorus, were:

  • « Which animal in the world gains the most strength? »
  • « Which nation in the world shows the most madness? »
  • « Would I be relieved if I could talk to him? »

As a result, the majority of allegorical plays performed were bloody satires against the Pope, monks, indulgences, pilgrimages, Cardinal Granvelle, etc. The compositions of the Ghent laureates were published first in quarto format, then in duodecimo.

From the moment they appeared, these plays were banned, and it was not without reason that, later, this landjuweel was cited as the first to have stirred the literary country in favor of the Protestant Reformation. These works being far from favorable to the Spanish regime, the Duke of Alba ordered their suppression by the Index of 1571 and, later, the government of the Burgundian Low Countries even banned theatrical performances of the Chambers of Rhetoric.

The influence of Erasmus

Erasmus in Matsys’ studio in Antwerp, painting by Eugène Siberdt (1851-1931). On the right, Matsys’ famous painting of the avaricious taxcollectors.

In Antwerp, Erasmus‘s influence was notable, and his presence was sought after. Well-known was his friendship to the city’s secretary Pieter Gilles 27, an Antwerp erudite humanist dearly appreciated by Thomas More 28 who integrated Gillis poems in his opus majus, Utopia. To please More, Pieter Gillis and Erasmus got their portraits done by Quinten Matsys29 to whom they offered their double portrait. Gillis house in Antwerp was also a regular meeting point for all the leading humanists of that time.

Den Grooten Spiegel, Gillis’ house in Antwerp.

Between 1523 and 1584, 21 publishers published no fewer than 47 editions of the humanist’s works, and the rhetorician Cornelis Crul, before 1550, translated the Colloquies and other major works into Dutch.

Most rhetoricians mastered Latin and could therefore read Erasmus in the original. Some Latin schools, as documented in the case of Gouda for the year 152130, included selected writings for each grade in their curriculum. The humanist’s prestige spread throughout Europe.

Ferdinand Columbus (1488-1539), the very bibliophile son of Christopher Columbus, not only acquired a vast series of his works, but also traveled to Louvain in October 1520 to meet their author. 31

In a letter dated 1521, Hieronymus Aleander (1480-1542), the legate of Pope Leo X, warned of « elements having bad reputation » who were thriving in Antwerp. They presented themselves « as the defenders of good literature and were all from the school of our friend who became a great name [Erasmus]. » Aleander added that « He [Erasmus] has spoiled all of Flanders! » 32

Erasmus in 1532, by Hans Holbein the Younger.

De Violieren and the Guild of Saint Luke

The emblem of De Violieren of Antwerp for the Landjuweel.

Also in Antwerp, a Chamber of Rhetoric, De Violieren (The Gillyflowers), was officially created in 1480 within the Guild of Saint Luke, the artists’ guild dating back from 1382.

The rhetoricians’ motto was « Uyt ionsten versaemt » (United by affection. But « ionsten » is also close to « consten », the Flemish word for arts).

This symbiosis produced fruitful results. For most historians, De Violieren were, in a way, the literary branch of the Guild of Saint Luke.

The latter was composed of all trades related to the fine arts, including painters, sculptors, illuminators, engravers, and printers. Until 1664, the guild had its headquarters on the north side of Antwerp’s Grote Markt, in the Spaengien or Spanish House.

Between 1460 and 1560, to finance its activities, the Church rented out to artists the Onze-Lieve-Vrouwepand, a claustrum with galleries surrounding an open courtyard. In this building, art painters, sculptors, cabinetmakers and booksellers could rent a stand where they could display their wares for sale. It was the largest art fair in what was then Europe. After 1560, the market moved to the second floor of the new Handelsbeurs (Trade Exchange).

The Saint-Luke artist guild:

The Liggeren, archives of Antwerp’s Saint-Luke painters guild.
  • In 1491, Erasmus’s friend, the painter Quinten Matsys 33, was listed as a master. One of his major commissions, the Triptych of the Lamentation of Christ, came from the carpenters’ guild. According to the Antwerp chief city archivist Van den Branden, Matsys himself was a member of De Violieren and wrote poems for their contests.
  • In 1515, Matsys was joined in the Guild of Saint Luke by two other great artists equally inspired by the spirit of Erasmus, Joachim Patinir (1480-1524) and Gerard David (1460-1523).
  • In 1519, the guild registers (The Liggeren 34) mention the registration of Jan Sanders van Hemessen (1500-1566), whose daughter Catharina (1528-1565) would become the first female painter in 1548 – and teacher of painting to men – to be admitted to the painters’ guild;
  • In 1527, that of Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502-1550), Bruegel’s master;
  • in 1531, those of Matsys’s two children, Jan and Cornelis;
  • in 1540, that of Peter Baltens (1527-1584);
  • in 1545, that of the engraver and printer Hieronymous Cock (1510-1570) whose workshop produced prints of Bruegel and Dutch revolutionary poet and translator Dirk Coornhert (1522-1590), close friend and collaborator of William the Silent (1533-1583);
  • in 1550, that of the great printer Christophe Plantin (1520-1589);
  • and in 1551, that of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569). 35

The daily exchanges between the rhetoricians and the most important artists of the day had a beneficial influence on their activities and, after a few years, made them one of the most successful societies in Brabant.

Proofreaders at the Plantin printingshop.

In the most important competitions, De Violieren won laurels: first prize in 1493 in Brussels, in 1515 in Mechelen and in 1539 in Ghent, in a memorable fight in which 19 chambers from different regions of the country participated.

In August 1541, a competition was held in Diest, organized by the local Chamber De Lelie in which ten other chambers from Brabant participated. The grand prize was awarded to the Antwerp Chamber, De Violieren, for the presentation of an esbattement (farce).

Antwerp, 1561

As was customary, the Chamber that won the best prize was in turn to organize a Landjuweel. This was also the opinion of De Violieren, after his feat in Diest; however, the circumstances of the time meant that the subject was postponed. 20 years passed before anyone could think of organizing such an artistic competition.

Three leaders of De Violieren, with great courage, will fully commit to the initiative, risking their reputation, honor, life and heritage:

Anthonis van Stralen.
  • Anthonis van Stralen (1521-1568) was the leader of De Violieren. As a member of the Antwerp city council, Van Stralen had been closely involved in obtaining the patent. His appointment as city leader, two months before the first attempt at rapprochement with the Council of Brabant, must have been a strategic move on the part of De Violieren. In May 1561, he was promoted to mayor of Antwerp, perhaps as a reward for his services. The success of the Landjuweel was largely due to the cooperation between the Antwerp magistrate and De Violieren’s board.
  • Melchior Schetz (c. 1513-1583) was the Prince of De Violieren. He was Van Stralen’s brother-in-law and also an alderman.

    He was one of the three children (Gaspard, Balthasar and Melchior) of the leading Antwerp merchant Erasmus Schetz (died in 1550), known as the « banker of Erasmus ». 36 With his three sons, he set up a major banking and merchant firm. 37 His friendship with Erasmus is symptomatic of the popularity Erasmus enjoyed in Antwerp. He provided him with his hospitable residence: the Huis van Aken, a palace where he had received Charles V himself. In a letter, he made him, among other things, this tempting proposition:

    « My heart and the souls of so many people long for your presence among us. I have often wondered what enchantment it was that kept you there rather than among us. Peter Gillis [city secretary and their mutual friend] gave me a reason: we do not have Burgundy wine, which best suits your temperament, do not fear this, and if this is the only obstacle holding you back, do not hesitate to come back; we will see to it that you are supplied with wine, and not only Burgundy wine, but also Persian and Indian wine if you desire and need it . »

    As Prince of De Violieren, his son Melchior represented the chamber most often publicly. He must also have been responsible for the financial organization of the Chamber. Schetz was one of the largest moneylenders in Antwerp. There is no doubt that the city financially facilitated the organization of the festival.
  • Willem van Haecht (1530-1585) : Born into a family of painters and engravers, he was a draughtsman and, presumably, also a bookseller by profession. His motto was Behaegt Gods wille (translated as « conform to the will of God »). Van Haecht was a friend of the Brussels humanist and author Johan Baptista Houwaert (1533-1599). He compares Houwaert to Cicero in the introductory eulogy to Houwaert’s The Lusthof der Maechden, written by him and published in 1582 or 1583. In his eulogy, Van Haecht states that every sensible man should recognize that Houwaert writes with eloquence and excellence. Van Haecht wrote lyrics for various songs, usually of Christian inspiration. This is the case for the lyrics of a five-part polyphonic song, Ghelijc den dach hem baert, diet al verclaert, probably composed by Hubert Waelrant (1517-1595) for the overture to the play De Violieren at the landjuweel of 1561. The poem was also printed on a loose leaf with musical notation. As early as 1552, Van Haecht was affiliated with De Violieren, whose members included Cornelis Floris de Vriendt (1514-1575), the main architect of the Renaissance-style Town Hall in Antwerp, as well as painters Frans Floris de Vriendt (c. 1519-1570) and Maerten de Vos (1532-1603). Van Haecht became the « factor » (title poet) of De Violieren in 1558.
The Renaissance residence of rhetorician and painter Frans Floris Devriendt in Antwerp’s Arenbergstraat, designed by his brother Cornelis in 1563. Between the crosspieces on the first floor, Frans painted the niches depicting the true artist’s emblems, namely: Diligence, Practice, Poetry, Architecture, Labor, Experience and Industry. (Print after a drawing of Joseph Linnig, before 1868)

Other people involved in the organization of the Landjuweel included printers such as Jan de Laet (1524-1566) and renowned artists such as Hieronymus Cock (c. 1510-1570) (founder of the In de Vier Winden printing house which published Bruegel’s engravings) and Jacob Grimmer (1510-1590).

The other major figure was Peeter Baltens (1527-1584) 38 an Antwerp painter, rhetorician, engraver and publisher. Baltens was a member of the Guild of Saint Luke and De Violieren. Having partly trained Bruegel, Baltens’ role proved particularly important.

He formed close friendships (notably with the widows of both Hieronymus Cock (c. 1510-1570) and Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502-1550), the latter also being Bruegel’s stepmother) and collaborated with the greatest names in Antwerp of his time.

He associated with Antwerp patricians such as Jonker Jan van der Noot (1539-1595), the wealthy Schetz merchant family, and wealthy merchants such as Nicolaes Jonghelinck (1517-1570), merchant banker and Bruegel’s financial backer.

According to Lode Goukens,

Den Grooten Robijn, residence of Antwerp mayor Anthony van Stralen.

Herman Pleij notes that the Rhetoricians have as consignment to repolish the reputation of the Antwerp merchant by making the distinction between the honest ones and the sharks. 40

Research into the relationships between painters, poets (or rederijkers), and merchants has shown that these three groups developed a common cultural lifestyle in the XVIth century, in which the love of science and art occupied a central place.

To launch a rhetoric competition, permission had to be obtained from the country’s government, which was no longer easily done at that time. This was a consequence of the Ghent competition of 1539, when the ideas of new doctrines against the institutions of the Catholic religion were presented and defended without the slightest qualm.

However, De Violieren and the elected representatives of Antwerp (Van Stralen and Schetz) were fiercely determined to be able to organize their Landjuweel. The man who did the most to delay obtaining authorization was the hated Cardinal Perrenot de Granvelle (1517-1582), Archbishop of Mechelen and advisor to Margaret of Parma (1522-1586), following the abdication of the Emperor, her brother Charles V, the regent of the Burgundian Low Countries.

Organization of the Landjuweel

In February 1561, the delegates of the city of Antwerp approached Granvelle with a petition to the regent, in which they argued that De Violieren, compared to the other Chambers, were statutorily obliged to organize a competition.

Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle.

Granvelle hoped to torpedo the initiative, but realizing that a brutal rejection would have inflamed the opposition, he sought various pretexts to postpone the event indefinitely. He politely made it clear to the delegates that he wished to postpone such an event for a while longer, using the pretext that, thanks to the peace agreement between France and the Habsburgs, the war had just been suspended, and that such festivals represented significant expenses, while the country could not or would not bear the costs. This did little to deter the people of Antwerp. They replied that the previous year, permission had been granted to the Chamber of Vilvoorde and that a postponement could not reasonably be imagined. Sensing that they would only renounce it with immense disgust, Granvelle reluctantly agreed to present their request to Marguerite, while asserting that the government had given itself the right to levy taxes on all those who came to the competition.

Fearing above all that the festival would become a sounding board for all those criticizing the Spanish occupation and the abuses of the Church, Granvelle also summoned them to inform the participating chambers that they would not intervene in their plays, their esbattements or their poems with a single word against religion, the clergy or the government, otherwise they would not only lose the prize they might have won, but would also be punished and deprived of their privileges and rights; and that the Chamber of Antwerp should ensure that the city was well guarded during the festivities and that no disturbances could arise.

Margaret of Parma.

Margaret of Parma, often at odds with Madrid, was less fearful and more open.

After consulting the report provided by the Council of Brabant, which was well aware that too much repression encouraged protest, she placed the apostille on March 22, 1561, inviting the Chancellor of the Duchy to provide Antwerp with the sealed letters required to organize the Landjuweel.

These letters were issued the same day in the name of the king and granted safe conduct from fourteen days before the start until fourteen days after the end of the Landjuweel to all those who wished to attend, with the exception of

The Antwerp Chamber submitted 24 themes as potential topics for the Landjuweel competition (seen below). Among those, Margaret of Parma approved three topics among which the Chamber was free to pick one. 42

  • Does experience or learning bring more wisdom? »
  • « What most leads man towards the arts? »
  • « Why does a rich and greedy man desire more wealth? »

Philosophy

To show how much our rhetoricians, under the direction of Van Straelen and Schertz, dealt with philosophical and political questions of all kinds, here are the whole of the twenty-four subjects which they had submitted 43:

  1. What made Rome triumph?
  2. What caused Rome to decline the most?
  3. Is it experience or knowledge that brings more wisdom?
  4. What can lead man most towards Art?
  5. What feeds art?
  6. Why is man so desirous of temporal things?
  7. What shortens the days of men?
  8. What lengthens the days of men?
  9. Why is average wealth the most happiness in the world?
  10. What is the greatest prosperity in this world ?
  11. What is the biggest setback in this world?
  12. How is it that all things are consumed every day?
  13. If a miserly man can be discouraged?
  14. Why does a rich miser desires even more wealth?
  15. Why does wealth not extinguish greed?
  16. Why is amusement followed by displeasure?
  17. Why does lust breed remorse?
  18. Why does lust bring its own punishment?
  19. How did the Romans achieve such a great prosperity?
  20. What sort of government kept the Romans prosperous ?
  21. What art is most necessary for a city?
  22. What can bring the world more rest [peace] ?
  23. What most drives people to worldly pride?
  24. What would be the best way to eradicate usery?

At first glance, one could say that by choosing the question « What can lead man most towards Art? »44, Van Stralen and Schetz choose the least « political » subject. This is to misunderstand Erasmus and Platonic thought for whom beauty and goodness form a unity and for whom any government that does not promote beauty, neglects it or worse still, despises it, condemns itself to failure! In practice, poets starting from this higher principle, ended blasting, without explicitly naming them, all the criminals and warmongereres of those days.

Moreover, Willem van Haecht, the « factor » (official poet) of De Violieren, in the play he composed especially for the Landjuweel of Antwerp in 1561, would say that what led Empires to their decline was, as it still is today, their lack of esteem for the Arts, including obviously Rhetoric.

So, it was on this theme that the 5000 participants (!) of the Landjuweel, and beyond a large part of the country, began to reflect, to compose songs, dramas, refrains, allegories, rebuses, pintings and farces and presented them to thousands of fellow citizens.

Amazingly, two centuries before (!) Friedrich Schiller, the German poet that earned the name of « poet of freedom » and who inspired many revolutions at the end of the XVIIIth century, a humanist elite enlightened by Erasmus in the Low Countries led a substantial part of the country to rise up to the conditions of a durable peace by emancipating itself from serfdom and ignorance through moral beauty! The Antwerp Landjuweel of 1561 was much more than a feast, it was a shift of paradigm and a real game changer. Hats off!

After receiving permission, the Chamber of Rhetoric and the City Council immediately set about giving the great literary festival as much pomp as possible. A rhymed invitation card was drawn up, stating the subject of the competition and the prizes to be won.

Melchior Schetz, prince of De Violieren, parading in the streets of Antwerp at the Landjuweel of 1561.

On April 23, this invitation card was presented by Mayor Nicolaas Rockox, in the presence of Melchior Schetz and Anthonis van Stralen, at the Antwerp City Hall to four sworn messengers, who were instructed to convey it to all the Chambers of Rhetoric in Brabant and to invite them to the Landjuweel as well. These messengers traveled at the city’s expense and first went to Leuven, the oldest city in Brabant. Everywhere, the news of a Landjuweel in Antwerp was greeted with extraordinary joy, and the messengers were very generously received.

While in most cities of Brabant the rhetoricians were busy composing and teaching plays and poems, making triumphal chariots and painting coats of arms, in Antwerp they were not inactive.

De Violieren had beautiful new clothes made for its members, at the suggestion of Melchior Schetz, for the welcoming ceremony offered to the participants.

Stage of the Antwerp 1561 Landjuweel.

An elegant theatre stage was erected on Antwerp’s Grote Markt (Great Square), designed by Cornelis Floris. Coincidentally, it was installed on the exact spot where the Inquisition had been beheading « heretics. » The audience watched the performances standing, with the exception of the jury and high-ranking officials, for whom benches were provided.

There was excitement and liveliness everywhere; every citizen wanted to do their part to welcome the foreign guests with all possible pomp and wealth. The city council, for its part, had taken the necessary measures.

All residents of the streets where the rhetoricians were to pass were ordered to clear the streets and remove any scaffolding or obstacles that might hinder their passage.

Everyone was eagerly awaiting August 3rd, the day when the formal entry would take place and the Landjuweel games would begin.

A memorable day

Antwerp City Hall (left) designed by Cornelis Floris Devriendt.

August 3, 1561, is indeed a memorable day in the history of Antwerp. The city was dressed in its festive attire; on the facades of houses, flags, pennants, and festoons; in public places, graceful arches in the opulent Renaissance style.

It’s no secret that the people of Antwerp like to make a lot of money. But they also like to spend it lavishly! In that marvelous XVIth century, they took pleasure in displaying a splendor on such occasions that, so to speak, surpasses our imagination.

Juerken, the jester or fool of De Violieren at the 1561 Antwerp Landjuweel.

Everywhere there was joy and life. Many strangers passed through the streets; all, foreigners and locals alike, agreed to maintain the best possible order amidst this agitation and commotion. 45

At 2:00 p.m., the « brothers » of De Violieren guild gathered to ride together to the Keizerspoort to meet the participating chambers. There were 65 of them, mounted on magnificently adorned horses, in their precious uniforms. These consisted of tabards of purple silk, striped with white satin or silver cloth, white doublets striped with red, white stockings and boots, and purple hats with red, white, and purple plumes.

At the Keizerspoort, the participating foreign chambers were solemnly received. There were 14 of them, and to the sound of bugles and the cheers of the crowd, they entered Antwerp, following the Huidevetterstraat, the Eiermarkt, and the Melkmarkt to the Grote Markt in front of the City Hall (at that time under construction).

Artistic representation of the Antwerp 1561 Landjuweel, painted in 1899 by Edgard Farasyn for the Antwerp City Hall.

The procession was grandiose and impressive; nothing like it had ever been seen before in these parts. Without the Guild brothers on the chariots, the coat-of-arms bearers, the squires, the footmen, the trumpeters, the drummers, and other musicians on foot, the number of mounted rhetoricians from all the towns amounted to 1,393, that of the chariots to 23, and that of the other chariots to 197. 46

The Ommegang of 1685 (supposedly a religious procession without poetry contest of drama) gives nevertheless an idea about how cultural mass events in Antwerp looked like.

After weeks of competition between the large and medium-sized towns during the Landjuweel, followed an additional week of « Hagespelen, » that is, the less lavish but less expensive competitions between the townships, villages, and municipalities. The formats were so varied that by the end of the month, not a single town, village, or municipality was without a prize.

Theater play in a Flemish village.

And once back in their cities, all these cultural actors, actors, singers, poets, jokers, and comical fools, energized like never before by the encounter with an entire nation, reenacted at home the piece or play that had won them a prize. To the extent that each chamber that won a prize was obliged to organize a new competition, a true effect of cultural diffusion and contamination was infused into the country.

Seaships entering Brussels via the Brussels-Scheldt canal. Painting of Andreas Martin (1699-1763).

The joy and proudness was such that the Chamber of Vilvorde did a special performance for the opening of the newly built Brussels-Willebroek canal in octobre 1561. The project for a 28 km long canal, connecting Brussels to the Scheldt (and therefore to Antwerp and the Sea) had been discussed since 1415 but it was Mary of Hungary in 1550 who kickstarted its actual construction.

The splendid Landjuweel of Antwerp impressed the spectators, among them Richard Clough47, the representative of the English financier Thomas Gresham. The merchant did not hide his admiration and was full of praise for the festivities, drawing a comparison with the entry of Philip II and Charles V into Antwerp in 1549.

He could only note that the organization of the Landjuweel was larger and the spectacle more impressive:

Peace and art, united for celebration

On Tuesday, August 5, two days after the grand reception of the participating chambers, the visiting rhetoricians, along with the rest of the spectators, were solemnly welcomed on the Grand Place in Antwerp.

De Violieren then offer a welcoming zinnespel (morality): Den Wellecomme (The Welcome), written by Willem van Haecht. At the heart of the play is the proclaimed peace of 1559, which made possible the organization of the Landjuweel, a national gathering symbolizing the renewed awakening of the Art of Rhetoric, for which peace was a necessary condition. The duchy had suffered greatly in the 1550s, but had slowly recovered after the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis (1559). There was hope for better times. Literary reactions to the peace were therefore particularly optimistic. The dawn of a new golden age was on everyone’s mind.

The play features three flower nymphs—sisters—who together represent De Violieren. After years of war, the Chamber was given the opportunity to organize the Landjuweel. For this, the nymphs owe a great debt of gratitude to the people of Brabant. Despite the difficult times and growing divisions between the different social groups, the people remained united.

It is « Concordia, » the feeling of unity and solidarity, that now unites the defenders of the public good. Out of love for the art of rhetoric, everyone has come from far and wide to Antwerp to celebrate the Landjuweel together. According to the nymphs, it is high time that the character of Rethorica resumes her rightful place in society. Now that the war god Mars and the hated Discordia have been driven out, she alone can bring joy and peace to the country. Only the seed of rhetoric (« Rethorices saet ») can bear fruit of joy.

So the flowers set out in search of Rethorica. In other words: De Violieren primarily describes the Landjuweel as a festival of joy, organized by the Chambers of Rhetoric to strengthen the sense of community and bonds of friendship between the region’s cities.

Illustration of the Van Haechts drama The Welcome. Three nymps come to wake Rtetorica, sleeping, but protected by Antwerpia.

Eventually, the nymphs find Rhetorica, asleep in the arms of a young girl (Antwerp), who has always protected her. While the goddesses of vengeance (« Erinniae ») ravaged the country for twenty years, rhetoric was always protected and cherished in Antwerp. Now it is time to awaken her from her long winter sleep.

Once awakened, Rhetorica and the Landjuweel will mark the beginning of a period of prosperity and an awakening of the arts, for Antwerp and for the world, an allegorical theme developed by Frans Floris, the rhetorician and friend of Van Haecht, in his work The Awakening of the Arts (circa 1560).

Frans Floris, The Awakening of the Arts (circa 1560).

This allegorical work commemorates the signing of the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, the most important peace agreement of the war-torn 16th century.

In a landscape ravaged by war, Philip II of Spain (it was hoped) assumes the role of Apollo, represented by the bearded figure in the center. The sun god awakens the liberal arts, represented by women endowed with attributes (sculptors’ cradles, poets’ feather, musicians’ scores, cartographers’ globes, etc.). With his left hand, Philip II shows four women warding off an abject Mars, the god of war, stripped of his sword and battle trophies. The scene symbolizes a new era of cultural prosperity made possible by peace.

The play Den Wellecomme not only exudes an atmosphere of joy and euphoria, but also launches a few barbs at the oppressors. The Chambers retained a bitter aftertaste. In the preceding years, several rhetoricians had been struck by fate. The previous factor, the highly praised Jan van den Berghe (died in 1559) , had died of old age. In addition, two prominent members had fallen victim to religious persecution. The printers Frans Fraet (1505-1558) and Willem Touwaert Cassererie (c. 1478-1558) were condemned and executed in 1558, despite the vigorous protests of their guild, for printing and being found in possession of forbidden books (Dutch Bibles).

Engraving after Jan van der Straet (Johannes Stradanus).

Antwerp was the Northern European centre of heterodox publishing in the first half of the sixteenth century. From Antwerp the books were shipped all over Europe. Alastair Duke, who studied the methods of the Inquisition in this period, has suggested that of four thousand books published in Europe between 1500 and 1540, half were printed in Antwerp 49 almost half of those publications contained Protestant influences. 50

These persecutions increased the central government’s distrust of the rhetoricians. These were not easy times for them. The art of rhetoric « doesn’t have many friends, » as Van Haecht puts it. 51 Although the Landjuweel was designed to celebrate peace and not to express discontent, the horror of the past war years and the resulting divisions were clearly palpable.

The contest was to be held under the banner of friendship and solidarity – not without reason the motto of De Violieren. Referring to the miracle of Pentecost, the invitation card compares the Brabant rhetoricians to the apostles, who received the Holy Spirit by gathering together in unity, without disagreement or conflict. This motif was common among rhetoricians.

Already in the poems of Anthonis de Roovere (c. 1430-1482), the Ghent plays of 1539, and in Matthijs de Castelein ‘s Const van Rhetoriken (c. 1485-1550), the rhetorician’s inspiration were compared to the religious enthusiasm of the apostles at Pentecost. Rhetoricians saw their poetry as a gift from the Holy Spirit.

This is strongly reminiscent of the discourse Erasmus presents in his Querella pacis (The Complaint for Peace, 1517). In this famous pamphlet for peace, the miracle of Pentecost is also used to emphasize the importance of unity and love in society. Only the Christian religion, according to Erasmus, had the strength to defend itself against tyranny and war. The well-being of the whole society has always taken priority over any form of personal interest.

An « invitation card » was personnaly transmitted by messagers to all the chambers in Brabant, accompanied by a woodcut (probably also designed by Willem van Haecht). The print emphasizes the importance of rhetoric in achieving peace.

Printed invitation to other chambers of rhetoric by the Antwerp Violieren for the 1561 Landjuweel.

Rhetoric sits enthroned in the center, her attributes being a scroll and a lily, symbols respectively of the qualities of promoting knowledge and harmonizing the art of rhetoric. On either side of Rhetoric are Prudentia (left) and Inventio (right). Prudentia —Providence—is depicted holding a mirror (insight) and a serpent (prudence) in her hands. Inventio —Invention—has the attributes of a compass and a book. These two personifications refer to the qualities of careful design and erudition. Both personifications are intended to support Rhetoric. They stand on a raised step, on which grows the violet flower. Beneath the flower, the ox of the Guild of Saint Luke supports the coat of arms of the Antwerp painters’ guild. The personifications Pax, Charitas, and Ratio come to the left of the throne to pay homage to Rhetoric.

Divine light (Lux) illuminates them. On the right, Ira, Invidia, and Discordia are pursued into a burning depth (tenebrae). The darkness of the past thus gives way to an illuminated future in which rhetoric reigns. In contrast to the text on the invitation card, here the art of rhetoric ensures peace. There was thus a constant interaction between rhetoric and peace.

In De Violieren’s « invitation » and welcome piece, peace created the conditions in which rhetoric could flourish. In the woodcut, it is precisely the art of rhetoric that drives anger, envy, and discord into the darkness, making use of its qualities of insight and invention. Its divine light creates the conditions in which peace, love, and reason can flourish.

The three positive allegories on the left of the Rhetoric are deliberately contrasted with the three figures on its right. Ratio is placed against Ira, Charitas against Invidia, and Pax against Discordia. In his design, Van Haecht chose discord (Discordia) rather than war (Bellum) as the opposite of peace (Pax).

The concept of peace was deeply rooted in the urban community’s value system. In this discourse, peace, along with justice, order, and community spirit, constituted one of the pillars of internal social cohesion. Peace protected the city from the outside world and maintained balance between the different urban segments, particularly through the exercise of cohesion and solidarity. Moreover, peace, both spiritual and material, brought well-being and prosperity. But this could only be achieved if all urban groups worked together in unison.

Discord, whether between guilds, between sections of the urban patriciate, between rich and poor, or between religious factions, posed the greatest threat to internal peace and was to be avoided above all else. 52

The urban discourse on peace followed the idea that God had created the world as a harmonious, orderly, and perfect whole. Discordia personified the breakdown of this creation, of the relationship between God and man, and that between man and nature.

Discord also disrupted the balance between city dwellers, between city and countryside, and between the prince and his subjects. Furthermore, it caused unrest in the human spirit. This concept implied an individual loss of self-control and reason.

Vandommele writes that according to them,

Along with music, poetry was, in their eyes, of celestial origin. Both used the theory of harmony to reflect the order of the cosmos and were also used to communicate with God. Moreover, the word « discord » in the literature of the rhetoricians also refers to a lack of harmony in verse and rhyme, an unforgivable offense in poetry.

For all these reasons, discord was considered the main cause of unhappiness. It had to be banished to the depths of hell at all costs. Rhetoricians, thanks to their mastery of poetry and rhetoric, were the ones who could achieve this. They assumed the role of guardians of the peace, responsible for urban sociability.

The Antwerp Landjuweel of 1561, a gigantic cultural mass event recalling the noblest human qualities that unite the good and the beautiful, was a true « cry of the people, » somewhat similar to what France would later experience with the Fête de la Fédération54 before the French Revolution.

At the Landjuweel, enlightened artisans and artists called on the governments of the world to renounce usury, plunder, and war and to organize a lasting peace based on the harmony of mutually beneficial interests.

Antwerp trade and later stock market. 1872 reconstruction of the 1531 original.

Censorship, repression and revolt

From 1521, decrees repressed the reading and possession of forbidden books, both Lutheran writings and Bibles. In 1525, the Antwerp judiciary warned printers and booksellers. From 1528, Rhetoricians were required to have their works validated before any production or publication. In 1533, the reform gained ground. Not a day went by without a satirical joust against the clergy. Five rhetoricians from Amsterdam were sentenced to make a pilgrimage to Rome at their own expense. In 1536, a printer who had violated the regulations was beheaded at Antwerp’s Grote Markt. Without a prior permit, the Chambers of Rhetoric could no longer present plays in public. This didn’t prevent the Landjuweel in Ghent in 1939, where freedom prevailed. On October 6 of the same year, the Chancellor of Brabant wrote to the Regent that the sale of the printed collection of plays could have very serious consequences. Consequently, the collection was placed on the index of prohibited books. In 1559, two years before the Landjuweel, Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly and Colloquia were put on the index of forbidden books where they remained till 1900.

A decree also stipulated that it was henceforth forbidden to make references to the Holy Scriptures and the sacraments. The ban on the sale of the collections provoked a counter-reaction and attracted many readers. These works were reprinted three times, the last edition being in 1564, two years before the outbreak of the Beeldenstorm (Iconoclastic Fury). 55

In 1566, the paintings and sculptures in churches and monasteries, relics, and everything associated with the cult of images, were broken and destroyed by the Calvinists, the most radical branch of the Protestants. Immediately suspected of being responsible for this destruction: the erasmian spirited Chambers of Rhetoric!

With the arrival of the Duke of Alva in the Burgundian Low Countries in 1567, the relatively tolerant religious climate was replaced by persecution of those who no longer adhered to the Catholic faith.

Anthonis van Stralen, the masthead of De Violieren, and as we have seen, one of the main organizers of the Antwerp Landjuweel, and a personal friend of William the Silent, went into exile in Germany. But on September 9, on the orders of the Duke of Alva, he got intercepted by Count Lodron between Antwerp and Lier. On September 25 he was transferred to the Brussels Treurenberg prison. In February 1568, he was transferred to Vilvoorde Castle to appear before the new Council of Troubles.

After having been subjected for several days to torture, Van Stralen is carried to the executioner. Painting of Emile Godding (1841-1898), Antwerp City Hall.

After being tortured, his property was confiscated, and he was sentenced to death by the sword. The sentence was carried out at Vilvoorde Castle on September 24, 1568. 56

This decision sparked great indignation in Antwerp. Many important merchants and citizens left the city permanently.

The plays of the Antwerp Landjuweel of 1561, including those by Willem Van Haecht, which exuded the spirit of Erasmus, were banned. Their performance on 21 June 1565, which was well received by the public, is said to have made the clergy grind their teeth, according to Godevaert van Haecht, a close relative of the author.

Van Haecht fled to Aachen, and then to the northern Burgundian Low Countries. His poem Hoe salich zijn die landen, written for De Violieren, was set to music by Jacob Florius and was included in the Geuzenliedboek, a collection of songs by those who revolted against Spanish rule in the Burgundian Low Countries.

Then broke out the Spanish Fury, a number of violent sackings of cities (Mechelen, Antwerp, Naarden, etc.) of the Burgundian Low Countries. The main cause was Philip II’s delay in paying soldiers and mercenaries. Spain had just declared bankruptcy. The bankers refused to carry out the transactions demanded of them by the King of Spain until they had found a compromise. For example, the transfer of troops’ wages from Spain could not be carried out by bill of exchange (the 16th century equivalent of a postal order). The Spanish government therefore had to transfer the real money by sea – a much more costly, slow and perilous operation. Unfortunately for Philip, 400,000 florins intended to pay the troops were seized by the English government of Elizabeth I when ships containing the florins were sheltered from a storm in English ports. 57

The most notorious Spanish Fury was the three-day long sack and burning of Antwerp in November 1576. At least 7,000 lives and a great deal of property were lost. The deaths were assessed at 17,000 by an English writer who was a witness.

Sack of Antwerp during the Spanish Fury of 1576.

Soon after, under the leadership of the great Erasmian William the Silent, supported by the Chambers of Rhetoric, the entire nation rose up against oppression and in favor of a Republic.

The Plakkaat van Verlatinghe (translated as the Act of Abjuration), signed on July 26, 1581, is considered the « declaration of independence » of many of the provinces of the Low Countries who considered that the King had betrayed his obligations towards his own people.

It was written by the Antwerp lawmaker and Registrar Jan van Asseliers (1530-1587), a close friend of Melchior Schetz and other key organizers of the Antwerp 1561 Landjuweel. 58 It was printed in Leyden by Charles Silvius, the son of Willem Silvius (1521-1580) 59 , the Antwerp humanist that printed and published the full proceedings of the same Landjuweel. 60

It was only after 80 years of war (1568-1648), at the Treaty of Westphalia, that the Republic of the Netherlands was recognized, leaving the south under Habsburg control.

Educated citizens went into exile. Between 150,000 and 200,000 refugees settled in the United Provinces and Germany. Cities such as Frankfurt, Hamburg, London and Amsterdam owed their prosperity to the arrival of refugees from the Southern Low Countries. After 1581, the Spanish authorities made no attempt to prevent these departures, which were in line with their desire to empty the country of its Protestant inhabitants. 61

Selected biography

(chronological order)

NOTES:

  1. Karel Vereycken, How Erasmus folly saved our civilization, Schiller Institute; ↩︎
  2. Alain Derville, L’alphabétisation du peuple à la fin du Moyen Age, La Revue du Nord, 1984. ↩︎
  3. Alain Derville, Op. cit. ↩︎
  4. Hanna Stouten, Jaap Goedgebuure, Jeanne Verbij-Schillings, History of Dutch Literature (Netherlands and Flanders), Fayard, Paris, 1999. ↩︎
  5. İ. Semih Akçomak, Dinand Webbink, Bas ter Weel, Why Did the Netherlands Develop so Early? The Legacy of the Brethren of the Common Life, IZA DP No. 7167, Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA), 2013; ↩︎
  6. Open Universiteit Nederland, Orientatiecursus cultuurwetenschappen, Van Bourgondische Nederlanden tot Republiek, Deel 2, 2009. ↩︎
  7. Mychael Pye, The Babylon of Europe, Editions Nevetica, Brussels, 2024. ↩︎
  8. Mychael Pye, Op. cit. ↩︎
  9. Cipolla, C., Literacy and Development in the West, Penguin Books: London, 1969, p. 47 ↩︎
  10. Parker, G., The Dutch Revolt, Cornell University Press: Ithaca, NY., notes of Philip’s visit to the Low Countries in 1549, 1977, p. 21. ↩︎
  11. Jeroen Vandommele, Als in een spiegel, Vrede, kennis en gemeenschap op het Antwerpse Landjuweel van 1561, Uitgeverij Verloren, Hilversum, 2011. ↩︎
  12. Sleiderink Remco, De schandaleuze spelen van 1559 en de leden van De Corenbloem. Het socioprofessionele, literaire en religieuze profiel van de Brusselse rederijkerskamer, Belgian Review of Philology and History, volume 92, fascic. 3, 2014. Modern languages and literatures, pp. 847-875; ↩︎
  13. Jeroen Vandommele, Op. cit. ↩︎
  14. Jeroen Vandommele, Op. cit. ↩︎
  15. Jeroen Vandommele, Op. cit. ↩︎
  16. Herman Pleij, Het gevleugelde woord. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur 1400-1560, Bert Bakker, Amsterdam, 2007. ↩︎
  17. Karel Vereycken, How Jacques Cœur put an end to the Hundred Years’ War, Artkarel.com, 2018; ↩︎
  18. Karel Vereycken, Jacob Fugger « The Rich », father of financial fascism, Artkarel.com, 2024; ↩︎
  19. Karel Vereycken, Fugger, Op. cit. ↩︎
  20. Karel Vereycken, Fugger, Op. cit. ↩︎
  21. Karel Vereycken, Erasmus Dream, the Leuven Three Language College, Artkarel, 2019; ↩︎
  22. Karel Vereycken, Quinten Matsys and Leonardo, the dawn of an age of laughter and creativity, Artkarel, 2024; ↩︎
  23. Andreas Nijenhuis, Les Pays-Bas au prisme des Réformes (1500-1650), L’Europe en conflits, p. 101-136, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2019. ↩︎
  24. Pierre-Yves Charles, Chercheur invité à l’Université Libre d’Amsterdam, La Réformation des Réfugiés, site internet de l’Eglise protestante unie de Belgique; ↩︎
  25. Pierre-Yves Charles, Op. cit. ; ↩︎
  26. Dr. Gilbert Degroote, In Erasmus’ Lichtkring, Koninklijke Nederlandse Maatschappij, 1962. ↩︎
  27. Karel Vereycken, How Erasmus folly saved our civilization, Schiller Institute; ↩︎
  28. Karel Vereycken, Erasmus, Op. cit. ↩︎
  29. Karel Vereycken, Quinten Matsys and Leonardo, the Dawn of an Age of Laughter and Creativity, Artkarel, 2024. ↩︎
  30. Dr. Gilbert Degroote, Op. cit. ↩︎
  31. Dr. Gilbert Degroote, Op. cit. ↩︎
  32. Dr. Gilbert Degroote, Op. cit. ↩︎
  33. Karel Vereycken, Quinten Matsys and Leonardo, the dawn of an age of laughter and creativity, Artkarel, 2024; ↩︎
  34. N. Israel, De Liggeren en andere historische archieven der Antwerpsche Sint Lucasgilde, Amsterdam, 1961; ↩︎
  35. Tine Luk Meganck (Op. cit.) underscores that « Bruegel’s visual language is closely related to the poetic imaginary of the rhetoricians. Like the rhymesters, Bruegel often presented a serious message with a dash of mockery, as an inversion of the established order, as the world upside down. » ↩︎
  36. Godin André. Érasme et son banquier. In: Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, tome 34 N°4, pp. 529-552, Octobre-décembre 1987. ↩︎
  37. Hugo Soly, Capital at Work in Antwerp’s Golden Age, Studies in European Urban History (SEUH)(1100-1800), Volume 55, Ghent University, Brepols, 2021. ↩︎
  38. Lode Goukens, Peeter Baltens, een “grafisch diplomaat” tijdens de troebelen (Antwerpen 1572-1584), VUB, 2018; ↩︎
  39. Lode Goukens, Op. cit. ↩︎
  40. Herman Pleij, Het gevleugelde woord. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse literatuur 1400-1560, Uitgeverij Bert Bakker, Amsterdam, 2007; ↩︎
  41. Dr. C. Kruyskamp, Het Antwerpse Landjuweel van 1561, De Nederlandse Boekhandel, Antwerpen, 1962. ↩︎
  42. Max Rooses, De feesten van het Landjuweel in 1892, De Vlaamse School, Nieuwe Reeks, jaargang 5, 1892; ↩︎
  43. Henri Claes, Het Landjuweel van Antwerpen in 1561, De Vlaamsche Kunstbode, 1890; ↩︎
  44. Arjan van Dixhoorn (Op. cit.), building on Vandommele, argues that the word « Art » (consten) refers here to the 7 liberal arts and mechanical arts and not the « higher » arts. That is unconvincing since the leitmotiv of the entire Landjuweel, as Vandommele himself keenly demonstrates, was that it was the harmony of poetry and music, a gift from heaven, that was the only viable basis for durable peace and concord. The Awakening of the Arts is in fact the theme of a painting by Frans Floris in 1560, an influential painter and an intellectual belonging to the Landjuweel organizers. Among Floris’s dormant arts are music, sculpture, cartography and other « higher » arts. ↩︎
  45. Abraham Grapheus, Anthonis van Stralen, Edward van Even, Het Landjuweel van Antwerpen in 1561, Eene verhandeling Over Dezen Beroemden Wedstrijd Tusschen De Rederijkerskamers van Braband, Bewerkt naar Eventijdige Oorkonden En Versierd met 35 platen, naar tekeningen van Frans Floris en andere meesters, CJ Fontayn, Leuven, 1861; ↩︎
  46. Abraham Grapheus, Anthonis van Stralen, Edward van Even, Op. cit.; ↩︎
  47. Richard Clough, Brief over het Landjuweel van 1561, DBNL; ↩︎
  48. Richard Clough, Op. cit.; ↩︎
  49. Alastair C. Duke, Dissident Identities in the Early Modern Low Countries, ed. Judith Pollmann and Andrew Spicer, Aldershot, Ashgate, 2009; ↩︎
  50. Victoria Christman, The Coverture of Widowhood: Heterodox Female Publishers in Antwerp, 1530-1580. The Sixteenth Century Journal, 2011; ↩︎
  51. Jeroen Vandommele, Op. cit. ↩︎
  52. Jeroen Vandommele, Op. cit. ↩︎
  53. Jeroen Vandommele, Op. cit. ↩︎
  54. The Festival of the Federation (Fête de la Fédération) was a celebration that occurred on the Champ de Mars on 14 July 1790, the first anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille. With over 300,000 people in attendance, the event honored the achievements of the French Revolution (1789-99) and the unity of the French people. The festival itself was a monumental accomplishment, as tens of thousands of French citizens volunteered to labor in the mud and rain to build an amphitheater on the Champ de Mars with a colossal Altar of the Fatherland at its center. The event marked the birth of French patriotism, at least in the sense that such a term is understood today, and was the first celebration of 14 July, France’s national holiday, which is still annually celebrated. At the same time, the festival was the high watermark of unity during the French Revolution itself, since afterward the revolutionaries devolved into factionalism and politics based on terror. ↩︎
  55. Louis de Baecker, Les Flamands de France, Messager des sciences historiques et archives des arts de Belgique, Gand, Vanderhaeghen, 1850, p. 181; ↩︎
  56. Johannes Pieter van Cappelle, Anthonis van Stralen. National Library of the Netherlands (original from the University of Amsterdam), 1827; ↩︎
  57. Le sac d’Anvers, connu comme la Furie Espagnole, Gifex.com ; ↩︎
  58. P. Génard, Jean van Asseliers, Biographie nationale de Belgique, Wikisource. ↩︎
  59. Portail Biblissima, Willem Silvius (1521-1580). ↩︎
  60. Willem Silvius, Spelen van sinne vol scoone moralisacien uutleggingen ende bediedenissen op alle loeflijcke consten … Ghespeelt … binnen der stadt van Andtwerpen op dLant-juweel … den derden dach augusti … M.D.LXI., Erfgoedbibliotheek Hendrik Conscience, Antwerpen, 1562; ↩︎
  61. Pierre-Yves Charles, Op. cit. ↩︎
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How Jacques Cœur put an end to the Hundred Years’ War

The life of Jacques Cœur (1400-1456), a simple shoemaker’s son who became the King’s treasurer and whose motto was « A vaillans cuers, riens impossible » (To a valiant heart, nothing is impossible),
has much to inspire us today.

Without waiting for the end of the Hundred Years’ War (1337-1453), Jacques Cœur, an intelligent and energetic man of whom no portrait or treatise exists, decided to rebuild a ruined, occupied and tattered France.


Not only a merchant, but also a banker, land developer, shipowner, industrialist and master of mines in Forez, Jacques Coeur was a contemporary of Joan of Arc (1412-1431), who lived in 1429 in Coeur’s native city of Bourges.

First and foremost, he entered into collaboration with some of the humanist popes of the Renaissance, patrons of the scientific genius Nicolaus Cusanus and the painter Piero della Francesca. With Europe threatened with implosion and chaos, their priority was to put an end to interminable warfare and unify Christendom.

Secondly, following in the footsteps of Saint-Louis (King Louis IX), Cœur was one of the first to fully assume France’s role as a naval power. Finally, thanks to an intelligent foreign exchange policy and by taking advantage of the maritime and overland Silk Roads of his time, he encouraged international trade. In Bruges, Lyon and Geneva, he traded silk and spices for cloth and herring, while investing in sericulture, shipbuilding, mining and steelmaking.

Paving the way for the reign of Louis XI, and long before Jean Bodin, Barthélémy de Laffemas, Sully and Jean-Baptiste Colbert, his mercantilism heralded the political economy concepts later perfected by the German-American economist Friedrich List or the first American Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton.

We will concentrate here on his vision of man and economy, leaving aside important subjects such as the trial against him, his relationship with Agnès Sorel and Louis XI, to which many books have been dedicated.

Jacques Cœur’s palace in Bourges, a residence where he rarely stayed.

Jacques Cœur (1400-1454) was born in Bourges, where his father, Pierre Cœur, was a merchant pelletier. Of modest income, originating from Saint-Pourçain, he married the widow of a butcher, which greatly improved his status, as the butchers’ guild was particularly powerful.

The Hundred Years’ War

The early XVth century was not a particularly happy time. The « Hundred Years’ War » pitted the Armagnacs against the Burgundians allied with England. As with the great systemic bankruptcy of the papal bankers in 1347, farmland was plundered or left fallow.

While urbanization had thrived thanks to a productive rural world, the latter was deserted by farmers, who joined the hungry hordes populating towns lacking water, hygiene and the means to support themselves. Epidemics and plagues became the order of the day; cutthroats, skinners, twirlers and other brigands spread terror and made real economic life impossible.

Jacques Cœur was fifteen years old when one of the French army’s most bitter defeats took place in France. The battle of Agincourt (1415) (Pas-de-Calais), where French chivalry was routed by outnumbered English soldiers, marked the end of the age of chivalry and the beginning of the supremacy of ranged weapons (bows, crossbows, early firearms, etc.) over melee (hand-to-hand combat). A large part of the aristocracy was decimated, and an essential part of the territory fell to the English. (see map)

King Charles VII

Portrait of King Charles VII by Jean Fouquet.

In 1418, the Dauphin, the future Charles VII (1403-1461), as he is known thanks to a painting by the painter Jean Fouquet, escaped capture when Paris was taken by the Burgundians. He took refuge in Bourges, where he proclaimed himself regent of the kingdom of France, given the unavailability of his insane father (King Charles VI), who had remained in Paris and fallen to the power of John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy.

The dauphin probably instigated the latter’s assassination on the Montereau bridge on September 10, 1419. By his ennemies, he was derisively nicknamed « the little King of Bourges ». The presence of the Court gave the city a boost as a center of trade and commerce.

Considered one of the most industrious and ingenious of men, Jacques Coeur married in 1420 Macée de Léodepart, daughter of a former valet to the Duke of Berry, who had become provost of Bourges.

As his mother-in-law was the daughter of a master of the mints, Jacques Coeur’s marriage in 1427 left him, along with two partners, in charge of one of the city’s twelve exchange offices. His position gave rise to much jealousy. After being accused of not respecting the quantity of precious metal contained in the coins he produced, he was arrested and sentenced in 1428, but soon benefited from a royal pardon.

Yolande d’Aragon

Yolande d’Aragon in front of the Virgin and Child.

Although the Treaty of Troyes (1420) disinherited the dauphin from the kingdom of France in favor of a younger member of the House of Plantagenets, Charles VII nonetheless proclaimed himself King of France on his father’s death on October 21, 1422.

The de facto leader of the Armagnac party, retreating south of the Loire, saw his legitimacy and military situation considerably improved thanks to the intervention of Joan of Arc (1412-1431), operating under the benevolent protection of an exceptional world-historic person: the dauphin’s mother-in-law Yolande of Aragon (1384-1442), Duchess of Anjou, Queen of Sicily and Naples (Note 1).

Backed and guided by Yolande, Jeanne helped lift the siege of Orléans and had Charles VII crowned King of France in Reims in July 1429. In the mean time Yolande d’Aragon established contacts with the Burgundians in preparation for peace, and picked Jacques Coeur to be part of the Royal Court (Note 2).

The contemporary chronicler Jean Juvenal des Ursins (1433–44), Bishop of Beauvais described Yolande as « the prettiest woman in the kingdom. » Bourdigné, chronicler of the house of Anjou, says of her: « She who was said to be the wisest and most beautiful princess in Christendom. » Later, King Louis XI of France recalled that his grandmother had « a man’s heart in a woman’s body. »

A twentieth-century French author, Jehanne d’Orliac wrote one of the few works specifically on Yolande, and noted that the duchess remains unappreciated for her genius and influence in the reign of Charles VII. « She is mentioned in passing because she is the pivot of all important events for forty-two years in France », while « Joan [of Arc] was in the public eye only eleven months. »

Journey to the Levant

In 1430, Jacques Cœur, already renowned as a man « full of industry and high gear, subtle in understanding and high in comprehension; and all things, no matter how high, knowing how to lead by his work » (Note N° 3), with Barthélémy and Pierre Godard, two Bourges notables, set up,

« a company for all types of merchandise, especially for the King our lord, my lord the Dauphin and other lords, and for all other things for which they could provide proof ».

In 1431, Joan of Arc was handed over to the English by the Burgundians and burned alive at the stake in Rouen. One year later, in 1432, Jacques Cœur went to the Levant. A diplomat and humanist, Cœur went as an observer of customs as well as economic and political life.

His ship coasted from port to port, skirting the Italian coast as closely as possible, before rounding Sicily and arriving in Alexandria, Egypt. At the time, Alexandria was an imposing city of 70,000 inhabitants, bustling with thousands of Syrian, Cypriot, Genoese, Florentine and Venetian ships.

Port of Alexandria in the XVIth century.

In Cairo, he discovered treasures arriving from China, Africa and India via the Red Sea. Around the Sultan’s Palace, Armenian, Georgian, Greek, Ethiopian and Nubian merchants offered precious stones, perfumes, silks and carpets. The banks of the Nile were planted with sugar cane and the warehouses full of sugar and spices.

Selling Silver at the Price of Gold

« Gros de roi », a silver coin made in Lyon, issued in 1447.

To understand Jacques Coeur’s financial strategy, a few words about bimetallism. At the time, unlike in China, paper money was not widely used. In the West, everything was paid for in metal coins, and above all in gold.

According to Herodotus, Croesus issued silver and pure gold coins in the 6th century BC. Under the Roman Empire, this practice continued. However, while gold was scarce in the West, silver-lead mines were flourishing.

Added to this, in the Middle Ages, Europe saw a considerable increase in the quantities of silver coinage in circulation, thanks to new mines discovered in Bohemia. The problem was that in France, national production was not sufficient to satisfy the needs of the domestic market. As a result, France was obliged to use its gold to buy what was lacking abroad, thus driving gold out of the country.

According to historians, during his trip to Egypt, Coeur observed that the women there dressed in the finest linens and wore shoes adorned with pearls or gold jewels. What’s more, they loved what was fashionable elsewhere, especially in Europe. Coeur was also aware of the existence of poorly exploited silver and copper mines in the Lyonnais region and elsewhere in France.

Historian George Bordonove, in his book Jacques Coeur, trésorier de Charles VII (Jacques Coeur, treasurer of Charles VII), reckons that Coeur was quick to note that the Egyptians « strangely preferred silver to gold, bartering silver for equal weight ». whereas in Europe, the exchange rate was 15 volumes of silver for one volume of gold !

In other words, he realized that the region « abounded in gold », and that the price of silver was very advantageous. The opportunity to enrich his country by obtaining a « golden » price for the silver and copper extracted from the French mines must have seemed obvious to him

What’s more, in China, only payments in silver were accepted. In other words, the Arab-Muslim world had gold, but lacked silver for its trade with the Far East, hence its huge interest in acquiring it from Europe…

Lebanon, Syria and Cyprus

Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.

Cœur then travels via Beirut to Damascus in Syria, at the time by far the biggest center of trade between East and West.

The city is renowned for its silk damasks, light gauze veils, jams and rose essences. Oriental fabrics were very popular for luxury garments.

Europe was supplied with silk and gold muslin from Mosul, damasks with woven motifs from Persia or Damascus, silks decorated with baldacchino figures, sheets with red or black backgrounds adorned with blue and gold birds from Antioch, and so on.

The « Silk Road » also brought Persian carpets and ceramics from Asia. The journey continues to another of the Silk Roads’ great maritime warehouses: Cyprus, an island whose copper had offered exceptional prosperity to the Minoan, Mycenaean and Phoenician civilizations.

The best of the West was bartered here for indigo, silk and spices.

Genoa and Venice

Genoese trade expansion.

During his voyage, Coeur also discovered the maritime empires of Venice and Genoa, each enjoying the protection of a Vatican dependent on these financial powers.

The former, to justify their lucrative trade with the Muslims, claimed that « before being Christian », they were Venetians…

Like the British Empire, the Venetians promoted total free trade to subjugate their victims, while applying fierce dirigisme at home and prohibitive taxes to others. Any artist or person divulging Venetian know-how suffered terrible consequences.

Venice, outpost of the Byzantine Empire and supplier to the Court of Constantinople, a city of several million inhabitants, developed fabric dyeing, manufactured silks, velvets, glassware and leather goods, not to mention weapons. Its arsenal employs 16,000 workers.

Port of Genoa.

Its rival, Genoa, with its highly skilled sailors and cutting-edge financial techniques, had colonized the Bosphorus and the Black Sea, from where treasures from Persia and Muscovy flowed. They also shamelessly engaged in the slave trade, a practice they would pass on to the Spanish and especially the Portuguese, who held a monopoly on trade with Africa.

Avoiding direct confrontation with such powers, Cœur kept a low profile. The difficulty was threefold: following the war, France was short of everything! It had no cash, no production, no weapons, no ships, no infrastructure!

So much so, in fact, that Europe’s main trade route had shifted eastwards. Instead of taking the route of the Rhône and Saône rivers, merchants passed through Geneva, and up the Rhine to Antwerp and Bruges. Another difficulty was soon added: a royal decree prohibited the export of precious metals! But what immense profits the Kingdom could draw from the operation.

The Oecumenial Councils

Council of Constance (1414-18).

On his return from the Levant, France’s history accelerated. While preparing the economic reforms he wanted, Jacques Cœur also became involved in the major issues of the day. Through his brother Nicolas Cœur, the future bishop of Luçon, he played an important role in the process initiated by the humanists to unify the Western Church in the face of the Turkish threat.

Since 1378, there had been two popes, one in Rome and the other in Avignon. Several councils attempted to overcome the divisions. Nicolas Cœur attended them. First there was the Council of Constance (1414 to 1448), followed by the Council of Basel (1431), which, after a number of interruptions, was transferred to Florence (1439), establishing a doctrinal « union » between the Eastern and Western churches with a decree read out in Greek and Latin on July 6, 1439, in the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, i.e. under the dome of Florence’s dome, built by Brunelleschi.

The central panel of the Ghent polyptych (1432), painted by the diplomatic painter Jan Van Eyck on the theme of the Lam Gods (the Lamb of God or Mystic Lamb), symbolizes the sacrifice of the Son of God for the redemption of mankind, and is capable of reuniting a church torn apart by internal differences. Hence the presence, on the right, of the three popes, here united before the Lamb. Van Eyck also painted portraits of Cardinal Niccolo Albergati, one of the instigators of the Council of Florence, and Chancellor Rolin, one of the architects of the Peace of Arras in 1435.

The Peace treaty of Arras

Proclamation of the Peace of Arras in Reims.

To achieve this, the humanists concentrated on France. First, they were to awaken Charles VII. After the victories won by Joan of Arc, wasn’t it time to win back the territories lost to the English?

However, Charles VII knew that peace with the English depended on reconciliation with the Burgundians. He therefore entered into negotiations with Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy.

The latter no longer expected anything from the English, and wished to devote himself to the development of his provinces. For him, peace with France was a necessity. He therefore agreed to treat with Charles VII, paving the way for the Arras Conference in 1435.

This was the first European peace conference. In addition to the Kingdom of France, whose delegation was led by the Duke of Bourbon, Marshal de La Fayette and Constable Arthur de Richemont, and Burgundy, led by the Duke of Burgundy himself and Chancellor Rolin, it brought together Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg, Mediator Amédée VIII of Savoy, an English delegation, and representatives of the kings of Poland, Castile and Aragon.

Although the English left the talks before the end, thanks to the skill of the scholar Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, at that cardinal of Cyprus (and futur Pope Pius II) and spokesman for the Council of Basel, the signing of the Treaty of Arras in 1435 led to a peace agreement between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians, the first step towards ending the Hundred Years’ War.

In the meantime, the Council of Basel, which had opened in 1431, dragged on but came to nothing, and on September 18, 1437, Pope Eugene IV, advised by cardinal philosopher Nicolaus Cusanus and arguing the need to hold a council of union with the Orthodox, transferred the Council from Basel to Ferrara and then Florence. Only the schismatic prelates remained in Basel. Furious, they « suspended » Eugene IV and named the Duke of Savoy, Amédée VIII, Felix V, as the new pope. This « anti-pope » won little political support. Germany remained neutral, and in France, Charles VII confined himself to implementing many of the reforms decreed in Basel by the Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges on July 13, 1438.

King’s Treasurer and Great State Servant

One of the corridors of the Palais Jacques Cœur in Bourges. The roof, in the shape of a ship’s hull, bears witness to his great passion for maritime affairs.

In 1438, Cœur became Argentier de l’Hôtel du roi. L’Argenterie was not concerned with the kingdom’s finances. Rather, it was a sort of commissary responsible for meeting all the needs of the sovereign, his servants and the Court, for their daily lives, clothing, armament, armor, furs, fabrics, horses and so on.

Cœur was to supply the Court with everything that could neither be found nor manufactured at home, but which he could bring in from Alexandria, Damascus and Beirut, at the time major nodal points of the Silk Road by land and sea, where he set up his commercial agents, his « facteurs » (manufacturers).

Following this, in 1439, after having been appointed Master of the Mint of Bourges, Jacques Cœur became Master of the Mint in Paris, and finally, in 1439, the King’s moneyer. His role was to ensure the sovereign’s day-to-day expenses, which involved making advances to the Treasury and controlling the Court’s supply channels.

Then, in 1441, the King appointed him commissioner of the Languedoc States to levy taxes. Cœur often imposed taxes without ever undermining the productive reconstruction process. And in times of extreme difficulty, he would even lend money, at low, long-term rates, to those who had to pay it.

Ennobled, Coeur became the King’s strategic advisor in 1442. He acquired a plot of land in the center of Bourges to build his « grant’maison », currently the Palais Jacques Coeur. This magnificent edifice, with fireplaces in every room and an oven supplying the rest and bath room with hot water, has survived the centuries, although Coeur rarely had the occasion to live there.

Coeur is a true grand state servitor, with broad powers to collect taxes and negotiate political and economic agreements on behalf of the king. Having reached the top, Coeur is now in the ideal position to expand his long-cherished project.

Rule over Finance

On September 25, 1443, the Grande Ordonnance de Saumur, promulgated at Jacques Coeur’s instigation, put the state’s finances on a sounder footing.

As Claude Poulain recounts in his biography of Jacques Coeur:

« In 1444, after affirming the fundamental principle that the King alone had the right to levy taxes, but that his own finances should not be confused with those of the kingdom, a set of measures was enacted that affected the French at every level. »

These included: « Commoners owning noble fiefs were obliged to pay indemnities; nobles who had received seigneuries previously belonging to the royal domain would henceforth be obliged to share in the State’s expenses, on pain, once again, of seizure; finally, the kingdom’s financial services were organized, headed by a budget committee made up of high-ranking civil servants, ‘Messieurs des Finances’. »

In clear, the nobility was henceforth obliged to pay taxes for the Common Good of the Nation !

The King’s Council of 1444, headed by Dunois, was composed almost exclusively, not of noblement but of commoners (Jacques Coeur, Jean Bureau, Étienne Chevalier, Guillaume Cousinot, Jouvenel des Ursins, Guillaume d’Estouteville, Tancarville, Blainville, Beauvau and Marshal Machet). France recovered and enjoyed prosperity.

If France’s finances recovered, besides « taxing the rich », it was above all thanks to strategic investments in infrastructure, industry and trade. The revival of business activity enabled taxes to be brought in. In 1444, he set up the new Languedoc Parliament in conjunction with the Archbishop of Toulouse and, on behalf of the King, presided over the Estates General.

Master Plan


In reality, Jacques Cœur’s various operations, sometimes mistakenly considered to be motivated exclusively by his own personal greed, formed part of an overall plan that today we would describe as « connectivity » and at the service of the « physical economy ».

The aim was to equip the country and its territory, notably through a vast network of commercial agents operating both in France and abroad from the major trading cities of Europe (Geneva, Bruges, London, Antwerp, etc.), the Levant (Beirut and Damascus) and North Africa (Alexandria, Tunis, etc.), in order to promote win-win trade. ), to promote win-win trade, while reinvesting part of the profits in improving national productivity: mining, metallurgy, arms, shipbuilding, training, ports, roads, rivers, sericulture, textile spinning and dyeing, paper, etc.

Mining

Mining sites around Lyon.

Of special interest were the silver mines of Pampailly, in Brussieu, south of l’Arbresle and Tarare, 25 kilometers west of Lyon, acquired and exploited as early as 1388 by Hugues Jossard, a Lyonnais jurist. They were very old, but their normal operation had been severely disrupted during the war. In addition, there were the Saint-Pierre-la-Palud and Joux mines, as well as the Chessy mine, whose copper was also used for weapons production.

Jacques Cœur made them operational. Near the mines, « martinets » – charcoal-fired blast furnaces – transformed the ore into ingots. Cœur brought in engineers and skilled workers from Germany, at the time a region far ahead of us in this field. However, without a pumping system, mining was no picnic.

Under Jacques Cœur’s management, the workers benefited from wages and comforts that were absolutely unique at the time. Each bunk had its own feather bed or wool mattress, a pillow, two pairs of linen sheets and blankets, a luxury that was more than unusual at the time. The dormitories were heated.

High quality food was provided to the laborers: bread containing four-fifths wheat and one-fifth rye, plenty of meat, eggs, cheese and fish, and desserts included exotic fruits such as figs and walnuts. A social service was organized: free hospitalization, care provided by a surgeon from Lyon who kept accident victims « en cure ». Every Sunday, a local priest came to celebrate a special mass for the miners. On the other hand, workers were subject to draconian discipline, governed by fifty-three articles of regulation that left nothing to chance.

The Ports of Montpellier and Marseille

On his return from the Levant in 1432, Jacques Coeur chose to make Montpellier the nerve center of his port and naval operations.

In principle, Christians were forbidden to trade with Infidels. However, thanks to a bull issued by Pope Urban V (1362-1370), Montpellier had obtained the right to send « absolved ships » to the East every year. Jacques Cœur obtained from the Pope that this right be extended to all his ships. Pope Eugene IV, by derogation of August 26, 1445, granted him this benefit, a permission renewed in 1448 by Pope Nicholas V.

At the time, only Montpellier, in the middle of the east-west axis linking Catalonia to the Alps (the Roman Domitian Way) and whose outports were Lattes and Aigues-Mortes, had a hinterland with a network of roads that were more or less passable, an exceptional situation for the time.

In 1963, it was discovered that at the site of the village of Lattes (population 17,000), 4 km south of today’s Montpellier and on the River Lez, there had been an Etruscan port city called Lattara, considered by some to be the first port in Western Europe. The city was built in the last third of the VIth century BC. A city wall and stone and brick houses were built. Original objects and graffiti in Etruscan – the only ones known in France – have suggested that Etrurian brokers played a role in the creation and rapid urbanization of the settlement.

Model of the Etruscan port of Lattara, founded in the 6th century BC and, according to some, the first port in Western Europe. (Today known as Lattes, 4 km south of Montpellier).

Trading with the Greeks and Romans, Lattara was a very active Gallic port until the 3rd century AD. Then maritime access changed, and the town fell into a state of numbness.

In the 13th century, under the impetus of the Guilhem family, lords of Montpellier, the port of Lattes was revitalized, only to regain its splendor when Jacques Cœur set up his warehouses there in the 15th century.

As for the port of Aigues-Mortes, built from top to bottom by Saint-Louis in the XIIIth century for the crusades, it was also one of the first in France. To connect the two, Saint-Louis dug the canal known as « Canal de la Radelle » (today’s Canal de Lunel), which ran from Aigues-Mortes across the Lake of Mauguio to the port of Lattes. Cœur restored this river-port complex to working order, notably by building Port Ariane in Lattes.

The Roman trade axis, Via Domitia.

Over the following centuries, these disparate elements of canals and water infrastructure will become an efficient network built around the Canal du Rhône à Sète, a natural extension of the « bi-oceanic » Canal du Midi (between the Meditteranean and the Atlantic) begun by Jean-Baptiste Colbert (see map).

Coeur had the local authorities involved in his project, shaking Montpellier out of its age-old lethargy. At the time, the town had no market or covered sales buildings. Also lacking were moneychangers, shipowners and other cloth merchants.

Montpellier: remnants of Jacques Cœur’s residence, now the Hôtel des Trésoriers de la Bourse.

In Montpellier, an entire district of merchants and warehouses was erected him, the Great Merchants Lodge, modeled on those in Perpignan, Barcelona and Valencia.

Numerous houses in Béziers, Vias and Pézenas also belonged to him, as did residences in Montpellier, including the Hôtel des Trésoriers de France, which, it is said, was topped by a tower so high that Jacques Cœur could watch his ships arrive at the nearby Port of Lattes.

And yet, as an old merchant and industrial city, Montpellier had long been home to Italians, Catalans, Muslims and Jews, who enjoyed a tolerance and understanding that was rare at the time. It’s easy to see why François Rabelais felt so at home here in the XVIth century.

Port of Marseille

Port of Marseille.

The hinterland was rich and industrious. It produced wine and olive oil, in other words, exportable goods. Its workshops produced leather, knives, weapons, enamels and, above all, drapery.

From 1448 onwards, faced with the limitations of the system and the constant silting-up of the port infrastructure, Coeur moved one of his agents, the navigator and diplomat Jean de Villages, his nephew by marriage, to the neighboring port of Marseille, at that time outside the Kingdom, to the home of King René d’Anjou, where port operations were easier, a deep harbor protected from the Mistral by hills and a port equipped with waterfront shops and storehouses. The boost that Jacques Coeur gave to Montpellier’s port Lattes, Jean de Villages, on Coeur’s behalf, immediately gave to Marseille.

Shipbuilding

Good ports mean ocean-going ships! Hence at that time, the best France could do was build a few river barges and fishing boats.

To equip himself with a fleet of ocean-going vessels, Cœur ordered a « galéasse » (an advanced model of the ancient three-masted « galley », designed primarily for boarding) from the Genoa arsenals.

The Genoese, who saw only immediate profit in the project, soon discovered that Coeur had had the shapes and dimensions of their ship copied by local carpenters in Aigues Mortes!

Furious, they landed at the shipyard and took it back, arguing that Languedoc merchants had no right to fit out ships and trade without the prior approval of the Doge of Venice!


Stained glass window of a ship (a caraque) in the Palais de Jacques Cœur in Bourges.

After complicated negotiations, but with the support of Charles VII, Coeur got his ship back. Cœur let the storm pass for a few years. Later, seven great ships would leave the Aigues-Mortes shipyard, including « La Madeleine » under the command of Jean de Villages, a great sailor and his loyal lieutenant.

Judging by the stained-glass window and bas-relief in the Palais de Coeur in Bourges, these were more like caraques, North Sea vessels with large square sails and much greater tonnage than galleasses. But that’s not all!

Having understood perfectly well that the quality of a ship depends on the quality of the wood with which it is built, Cœur, with the authorization of the Duke of Savoy, had his wood shipped from Seyssel. The logs were floated down the Rhône, then sent to Aigues-Mortes via the canal linking the town to the river.

The crews

One last problem remained to be solved: that of crews. Jacques Cœur’s solution was revolutionary: on January 22, 1443, he obtained permission from Charles VII to forcibly embark, in return for fair wages, the « idle vagabonds and caimans » who prowled the ports.

To understand just how beneficial such an institution was at the time, we need to remember that France was being laid to waste by bands of plunderers – the routiers, the écorcheurs, the retondeurs – thrown into the country by the Hundred Years’ War. As always, Coeur behaves not only according to his own personal interests, but according to the general interests of France.

Connecting France to the Silk Road

Cairo Citadel

Now with financial clout, ports and ships at his disposal, Cœur organized win-win commercial exchanges and, in his own way, involved France in the land and Maritime Silk Road of the time. First and foremost, he organized « détente, understanding and cooperation » with the countries of the Levant.

After diplomatic incidents with the Venetians had led the Sultan of Egypt to confiscate their goods and close his country to their trade, Jacques Coeur, a gentleman but also in charge of a Kingdom that remained dependent on Genoa and Venice for their supplies of arms and strategic raw materials, had his agents on site mediating a happy end to the incident.

Seeing other potential conflicts that could disrupt his strategy, and possibly inspired by Admiral Zheng He‘s great Chinese diplomatic missions to Africa from 1405 onwards, he convinced the king to send an ambassador to Cairo in the person of Jean de Villages, his loyal lieutenant.

The latter handed over to the Sultan the various letters he had brought with him. Flattered, the Sultan handed him a reply to King Charles VII:

« Your ambassador, man of honor, gentleman, whom you name Jean de Villages, came to mine Porte Sainte, and presented me your letters with the present you mandated, and I received it, and what you wrote me that you want from me, I did.

« Thus I have made a peace with all the merchants for all my countries and ports of the navy, as your ambassador knew to ask of me… And I command all the lords of my lands, and especially the lord of Alexandria, that he make good company with all the merchants of your land, and on all the others having liberty in my country, and that they be given honor and pleasure; and when the consul of your country has come, he will be in favor of the other consuls well high…

« I send you, by the said ambassador, a present, namely fine balsam from our holy vine, a beautiful leopard and three bowls (cups) of Chinese porcelain, two large dishes of decorated porcelain, two porcelain bouquets, a hand-washer, a decorated porcelain pantry, a bowl of fine green ginger, a bowl of almond stones, a bowl of green pepper, almonds and fifty pounds of our fine bamouquet (fine balsam), a quintal of fine sugar. Dieu te mène à bon sauvement, Charles, Roy de France. »

Syria was a pioneer in sericulture, so much so that any silk fabric, monochromatic in color with a satin weave, is called « damask », bringing out a contrast of brilliance between the background and the pattern formed by the weave.

To the Orient, Coeur exported furs, leathers and, above all, cloth of all kinds, notably Flanders cloth and Lyon canvas. His « factors » also offered Egyptian women dresses, coats, headdresses, ornaments and jewels from our workshops. Then came basketry from Montpellier, oil, wax, honey and flowers from Spain for the manufacture of perfumes.

From the Near East, he received animal-figured silks from Damascus (Syria), fabrics from Bukhara (Uzbekistan) and Baghdad (Iraq); velvet; wines from the islands; cane sugar; precious metals; alum; amber; coral; indigo; coral; indigo from Baghdad; madder from Egypt; shellac; perfumes made from the essence of the flowers he exported; spices – pepper, ginger, cloves, cinnamon, jams, nutmegs, etc. – and more.

From the Far East, by the Red Sea or by caravans from the Euphrates and Turkestan, came to him: gold from Sudan, cinnamon from Madagascar, ivory from Africa, silks from India, carpets from Persia, perfumes from Arabia – later evoked by Shakespeare in Macbeth – precious stones from India and Central Asia, lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, pearls from Ceylon, porcelain and musk from China, ostrich feathers from the black Sudan.

Manufactures

As we saw in the case of mining, Coeur had no hesitation in attracting foreigners with valuable know-how to France to launch projects, implement innovative processes and, above all, train personnel. In Bourges, he teamed up with the Balsarin brothers and Gasparin de Très, gunsmiths originally from Milan. After convincing them to leave Italy, he set up workshops in Bourges, enabling them to train a skilled workforce. To this day, the Bourges region remains a major center of arms production.

In the early days of printing in Europe, Coeur bought a paper mill in Rochetaillée, on the Saône near Lyon.

Le livre des propriétés des choses, Teinturiers au travail, manuscript copied and painted in Bruges, completed in 1482. London, British Library © The British Library Board/Leemage.

In Montpellier, he took an interest in the dyeing factories, once renowned for their cultivation of madder, a plant that had become acclimatized in the Languedoc region.

It’s easy to understand why Cœur had his agents buy indigo, kermes seeds and other coloring substances. The aim was to revive the manufacture of cloth, particularly scarlet cloth, which had previously been highly sought-after.

With this in mind, he built a fountain, the Font Putanelle, near the city walls, to serve the population and the dyers.

In Montpellier, he also teamed up with Florentine charterers based in the city, for maritime expeditions.

Through their intermediary, Coeur personally traveled to Florence in 1444, registering both his associate Guillaume de Varye and his own son Ravand as members of the « Arte della Seta » (silk production corporation), the prestigious Florentine guild whose members were the only ones authorized to produce silk in Florence.

Coeur engaged in joint ventures, as he often did in France, this time with Niccolo Bonnacorso and the Marini brothers (Zanubi and Guglielmo). The factory, in which he owned half the shares, manufactured, organized and controlled the production, spinning, weaving and dyeing of silk fabrics.

It is understood that Coeur was also co-owner of a gold cloth factory in Florence, and associated in certain businesses with the Medici, Bardi and Bucelli bankers and merchants. He was also associated with the Genevese and Bruges families.

Going International

Jacques Coeur organized a vast distribution network to sell his goods in France and throughout Europe. At a time when passable roads were extremely rare, this was no easy task. Most roads were little more than widened paths or poorly functioning tracks dating back to the Gauls.

Cœur, who had his own stables for land transport, renovated and expanded the network, abolished internal tolls on roads and rivers, and re-established the collection (abandoned during the Hundred Years’ War) of taxes (taille, fouage, gabelle) to replenish public finances.

Jacques Cœur’s network was essentially run from Bourges. From there, on the French level, we could speak of three major axes: the north-south being Bruges-Montpellier, the east-west being Lyon-Tours. Added to this was the old Roman road linking Spain (Barcelona) to the Alps (Briançon) via Languedoc.

From Bourges, for example, the Silverware, which served the Court, was transferred to Tours. This was only natural, since from 1444 onwards, Charles VII settled in a small castle near Tours, Plessis-les-Tours. So it was at the Argenterie de Tours that the exotic products the Court was so fond of were stocked. This did not prevent the goods from being shipped on to Bruges, Rouen or other towns in the kingdom.

Counters also existed in Orléans, Loches, Le Mans, Nevers, Issoudun and Saint-Pourçain, birthplace of the Coeur family, as well as in Fangeaux, Carcassonne, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Limoges, Thouars, Saumur, Angers and Paris.

Orléans and Bourges stocked salt from Guérande, the Vendée marshes and the Roche region. In Lyon, salt from the Camargue and Languedoc saltworks. River transport (on the Loire, Rhône, Saône and Seine rivers) doubled the number of road carts.

The great crane of Bruges. Miniature from the early 16th century.

Jacques Coeur revived and promoted trade fairs. Lyon, with its rapid growth, geographic location and proximity to silver-lead and copper mines, was a particularly active trading post. Goods were shipped to Geneva, Germany and Flanders.

Montpellier received products from the Levant. However, trading posts were set up all along the coast, from Collioure (then in Catalonia) to Marseille (at the home of King René d’Anjou), and inland as far as Toulouse, and along the Rhône, in particular at Avignon and Beaucaire.

A trading post was set up in La Rochelle for the salt trade, certainly with a view to expanding maritime traffic. Jacques Cœur also had « factors » in Saint-Malo, Cherbourg and Harfleur. After the liberation of Normandy, these three centers grew in importance, and were joined by Exmes. In the north-east, Reims and Troyes are worth mentioning. They manufactured cloth and canvas. Abroad, Geneva was a first-rate trading post, as the city’s fairs and markets had already acquired an international character.

Coeur also had a branch in Bruges, bringing back spices and silks from the Levant, and shipping cloth and herring from there.

Member cities of the Hanseatic League.

The fortunes of Bruges, like many other towns in Flanders, came from the cloth industry. The city flourished, and the power of its cloth merchants was considerable. In the 15th century, Bruges was one of the lungs of the Hanseatic League, which brought together the port cities of northern Europe.

Bruges in the XVth century. On the left, the Genoese factorie; on the right, opposite, the Florentine factorie.
Hof Blandelin in Bruges. Built in 1435, the building housed the branch of the Medici Bank in 1466.

It was in Bruges that business relations were handled, and loan and marine insurance contracts drawn up. After cloth, it was the luxury industries that ensured its prosperity, with tapestries. By land, it took less than three weeks to get from Bruges to Montpellier via Paris.

Between 1444 and 1449, during the Truce of Tours between France and the English, Jacques Coeur tried to build peace by forging trade links with England.

Coeur sent his representative Guillaume de Mazoran. His other trusted associate, Guillaume de Varye, began trading in sheets from London in February 1449. He also bought leather, cloth and wool in Scotland. Some went to La Rochelle, others to Bruges.

Internationally, Coeur continued to expand, with branches in Barcelona, Naples, Genoa (where a pro-French party was formed) and Florence.

At the time of his arrest in 1451, Jacques Coeur had at least 300 « factors » (associates, commercial agents, financial representatives and authorized agents), each responsible for his own trading post in his own region, but also running « factories » on the spot, promoting meetings and exchanges of know-how between all those involved in economic life. Several thousand people associated and cooperated with him in business.

The Military Reform that saved the Nation

Charles VII’s ordinance of April 8, 1448 created the Franc-Archers (free archers), a popular army that could be mobilized in the event of war.

Cœur used the profits from this lucrative business to serve his country. When in 1449, at the end of the truce, the English troops were left to their own devices, surviving by pillaging the areas they occupied, Agnès Sorel, the king’s mistress, Pierre de Brézé, the military leader, and Jacques Cœur, encouraged the king to launch a military offensive to finally liberate the whole country.

Coeur declared bluntly:

« Sire, under your shadow, I acknowledge that I have great proufis and honors, and mesme, in the land of the Infidels, for, for your honor, the souldan has given me safe-conduct to my galleys and factors… Sire, what I have, is yours. »

We’re no longer in 1435, when the king didn’t have a kopeck to face strategic challenges. Jacques Coeur, unlike other great lords, according to a contemporary account,

« spontaneously offered to lend the king a mass of gold, and provided him with a sum amounting, it is said, to around 100,000 gold ecus to use for this great and necessary purpose ».

Under the advice of Jacques Coeur and others, Charles VII was to carry out a decisive military reform.

On November 2, 1439, at the Estates General that had been meeting in Orleans since October of that year, Charles VII ordered a reform of the army following the Estates General’s complaint about the skinners and their actions.

As Charles V (the Wise) had tried to do before him, he set up a system of standing armies that would engage these flayers full-time against the English. The nobility got in the king’s way. In fact, they often used companies of skinners for their own interests, and refused to allow the king alone to be responsible for recruiting the army.

In February 1440, the king discovered that the nobles were plotting against him. Contemporaries named this revolt the Praguerie, in reference to the civil wars in Prague’s Hussite Bohemia.

Yolande d’Aragon passed away in November 1442, but Jacques Coeur would continue pressuring the King to go ahead with the required reforms.

Following the Truce of Tours in 1444, an ordinance was issued on May 26 announcing no general demobilization should occur; instead, the best of the larger units were reconstituted as “companies of the King’s ordinance » (Compagnies d’Ordonnance),” which were standing units of cavalry well selected and well equipped; they served as local guardians of peace at local expense. This consisted of some 10,000 men organized into 15 Ordonnance companies, entrusted to proven captains. These companies were subdivided into detachments of ten to thirty lances, which were assigned to garrisons to protect the towns’ inhabitants and patrol the countryside. In a territory similarly patrolled by the forerunners of our modern gendarmerie, robbery and plunder quickly ceased.

Crossbowman loading his weapon.

Although still a product of the nobility, this new military formation was the first standing army at the disposal of the King of France. Previously, when the king wished to wage war, he called upon his vassals according to the feudal custom of the ban. But his vassals were only obliged to serve him for forty days. If he wished to continue the war, the king had to recruit companies of mercenaries, a plague against which Machiavelli would later warn his readers. When the war ended, the mercenaries were dismissed. They then set about plundering the country. This is what happened at the start of the Hundred Years’ War, after the victories of Charles V and Du Guesclin.

Then, with the Ordinance of April 8, 1448, the Francs-Archers corps was created. The model for the royal « francs archiers » was probably taken from the militia of archers that the Dukes of Brittany had been raising, by parish, since 1425.

The Ordinance stipulated that each parish or group of fifty or eighty households had to arm, at its own expense, a man equipped with bow or crossbow, sword, dagger, jaque and salad, who had to train every Sunday in archery. In peacetime, he stays at home and receives no pay, but in wartime, he is mobilized and receives 4 francs a month. The Francs-Archers thus formed a military reserve unit with a truly national character.

As writes the Encyclopedia Brittanica:

« With the creation of the “free archers” (1448), a militia of foot soldiers, the new standing army was complete. Making use of a newly effective artillery, its companies firmly in the king’s control, supported by the people in money and spirit, France rid itself of brigands and Englishmen alike. »

At the same time, artillery grandmaster Gaspard Bureau and his brother Jean (Note N° 4) developed artillery, with bronze cannons capable of firing cast-iron cannonballs, lighter hand cannons, the ancestors of the rifle, and very long cannons or couleuvrines that could be dragged on wagons and taken to the battlefield.

As a result, when the time came to go on the offensive, the army went into battle. From all over the country, the Francs-Archers, made up of commoners trained in every region of France rather than nobles, began to converge on the north.

The war was on, and this time, « the gale changed sides ». The merciless French army, armed to the highest standards, pushed its opponents to the limit. This was particularly true at the Battle of Formigny near Bayeux, on April 15, 1450. It was a kind of Azincourt in reverse, with English losses amounting to 80% of the forces engaged, with 4,000 killed and 1,500 taken prisoner. At last, towns and strongholds returned to the Kingdom!

Helping a Humanist Pope

As mentioned above, the Council of Basel had ended in discord. On the one hand, with the support of Charles VII and Jacques Coeur, Eugene IV was elected Pope in Rome in 1431. On the other, in Basel, an assembly of prelates meeting in council sought to impose themselves as the sole legitimate authority to lead Christendom. In 1439, the Council declared Eugene IV deposed and appointed « his » own pope: the Duke of Savoy, Amédée VIII, who had abdicated and retired to a monastery. He became pope under the name of Felix V.

His election was based solely on the support of theologians and doctors of the universities, but without the support of a large number of prelates and cardinals.

In 1447, King Charles VII commissioned Jacques Coeur to intervene for Eugene IV’s return and Felix V’s renunciation. With a delegation, he went to Lausanne to meet Felix V. While the talks were going well, Eugene IV died. As Felix V saw no further obstacles to his pontificate, the Pontifical Council in Rome quickly proceeded to elect a new pope, the humanist scholar Nicholas V (Tommaso Parentucelli).

To make France’s case to him, Charles VII sent Jacques Coeur at the head of a large delegation. Before entering the Eternal City, the French formed a procession.

The parade was sumptuous: more than 300 horsemen, dressed in bright, shimmering colors, bearing weapons and glittering jewels, mounted on richly caparisoned horses, dazzled and impressed the whole of Rome, except for the English, who saw themselves doubled by the French to serve the Pope’s mission.

From the very first meeting, Nicholas V was charmed by Jacques Coeur. Slightly ill, Coeur was treated by the pope’s physician. Thanks to information obtained from the Pontiff, notably on the limits of concessions to be made, Coeur’s delegation subsequently obtained the withdrawal of Felix V, with whom Coeur remained on good terms.

The humanist Pope Nicholas V, fresco by Fra Angelico, one of the painters he protected. Fresco in the Nicoline Chapel in the Vatican.

Nicholas V, it should be remembered, was a happy exception. Nicknamed the « humanist pope », he knew Leonardo Bruni (Note N° 5), Niccolò Niccoli (Note N° 6) and Ambrogio Traversari (Note N° 7) in Florence, in the entourage of Cosimo de’ Medici.

With the latter and Eugenio IV, whose right-hand man he was, Nicholas V was one of the architects of the famous Council of Florence, which sealed a « doctrinal union » between the Western and Eastern Churches. (Note N° 8)

Elected pope, Nicholas V considerably increased the size of the Vatican Library. By the time of his death, the library contained over 16,000 volumes, more than any other princely library.

He welcomed the erudite humanist Lorenzo Valla to his court as apostolic notary. Under his patronage, the works of Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius and Archimedes were reintroduced to Western Europe. One of his protégés, Enoch d’Ascoli, discovered a complete manuscript of Tacitus’ Opera minora in a German monastery.

In addition to these, he called to his court a whole series of scholars and humanists: the scholar and former chancellor of Florence Poggio Bracciolini, the Hellenist Gianozzo Manetti, the architect Leon Battista Alberti, the diplomat Pier Candido Decembrio, the Hellenist Giovanni Aurispa, the cardinal-philosopher Nicolas de Cues, founder of modern science, and Giovanni Aurispa, the first to translate Plato’s complete works from Greek into Latin.

Nicholas V also made gestures to his powerful neighbors: at the request of King Charles VII, Joan of Arc was rehabilitated.

Later, when he sought refuge in Rome, Jacques Coeur was received by Nicholas V as if he was a member of his family.

The Coup d’Etat against Jacques Coeur

Jacques Coeur’s adventurous life ended as if in a cloak-and-dagger novel. On July 31, 1451, Charles VII ordered his arrest and seized his possessions, from which he drew one hundred thousand ecus to wage war.

The result was one of the most scandalous trials in French history. The only reason for the trial was political. The hatred of the courtiers, especially the nobles, had built up. By making each of them a debtor, Coeur, believing he had made allies of them, made terrible enemies. By launching a number of national products, he undermined the financial empires of Genoa, Venice and Florence, which eternally sought to enrich themselves by exporting their products, notably silk, to France.

One of the most relentless, Otto Castellani, a Florentine merchant, treasurer of finances in Toulouse but based in Montpellier, and one of the accusers whom Charles VII appointed as commissioner to prosecute Jacques Coeur, practiced black magic and pierced a wax figure of the silversmith with needles!

Lastly, Charles VII undoubtedly feared collusion between Jacques Coeur and his own son, the Dauphin Louis, future Louis XI, who was stirring up intrigue after intrigue against him.

In 1447, following an altercation with Agnès Sorel, the Dauphin had been expelled from the Court by his father and would never see him again. Jacques Cœur lent money to the Dauphin, with whom he kept in touch through Charles Astars, who looked after the accounts of his mines.

« Trade with infidels », « Lèse majesté », « export of metals », and many other pretexts, the reasons put forward for Jacques Coeur’s trial and conviction are of little interest. They are no more than judicial window-dressing. The proceedings began with a denunciation that was almost immediately found to be slanderous.

Tomb of Agnès Sorel, Collégiale Saint-Ours, Loches.

A certain Jeanne de Mortagne accused Jacques Coeur of having poisoned Agnès Sorel, the king’s mistress and favorite, who died on February 9, 1450. This accusation was implausible and devoid of any serious foundation; for, having placed all her trust in Jacques Coeur, she had just appointed him as one of her three executors.

Coeur is imprisoned for a dozen equally questionable reasons. When he refused to admit what he was accused of, he was threatened with « the question » (torture). Confronted by the executioners, the accused, trembling with fear, claims that he « relies » on the words of the commissioners charged with breaking him.

A miniature representing Christ (in front of the Palais Jacques Cœur in Bourges) on his way to the Mount of Calvary…

His condemnation came on the same day as the fall of Constantinople, May 29, 1453. Only the intervention of Pope Nicholas V saved his life. With the help of his friends, he escaped from his prison in Poitiers, and took the route of the convents, including Beaucaire, to Marseille for Rome.

Pope Nicholas V welcomed him as a friend. The pontiff died and was succeeded by his successor. Jacques Cœur chartered a fleet in the name of his illustrious host, and set off to fight the infidels. Jacques Coeur, we are told, died on November 25, 1456 on the island of Chios, a Genoese possession, during a naval battle with the Turks.

The great King Louis XI, unloved son of Charles VII, as evidenced by his ordinances in favor of the productive economy, would continue the recovery of France begun by Jacques Coeur. Many of Coeur’s collaborators soon entered his service, including his son Geoffroy, who, as cupbearer, became Louis XI’s most trusted confidant.

Charles VII, by letters patent dated August 5, 1457, restored to Ravant and Geoffroy Coeur a small portion of their father’s property. It was only under Louis XI that Geoffroy obtained the rehabilitation of his father’s memory and more complete letters of restitution.

NOTES:

  1. During the five years between Joan of Arc’s first appearances and her departure for Chinon, several people attached to the Court stayed in Lorraine, including René d’Anjou, the youngest son of Yolande d’Aragon. While Charles VII remained undecided, his mother-in-law welcomed La Pucelle with maternal solicitude, opening doors for her and lobbying the king until he deigned to receive her. During the Poitiers trial, when Jeanne’s virginity had to be verified, she presided over the council of matrons in charge of the examination. She also provided financial support, helped her gather her equipment, provided safe stopping points on the road to Orléans, and gathered food and relief supplies for the besieged. To this end, she did not hesitate to open her purse wide, even going so far as to sell her jewelry and golden tableware. Yolande’s support was rewarded on April 30, 1429 with the liberation of Orléans, followed on July 17 by the King’s coronation in Reims. Although many of her contemporaries praised her simplicity, her closeness to her subjects and the warmth of her court, Yolande d’Aragon was a stateswoman. And whatever sympathy she may have felt for her protégée, she would not hesitate to abandon her to her sad fate when her warlike impulses no longer accorded with her own political objectives : to negociate a peaceful alliance with the Duchy of Burgundy. The Duchess knew how to be implacable, and like her comrades-in-arms, the Church and the King himself, she abandoned La Pucelle to the English, to Cauchon, to her trial and to the stake. For more: Gérard de Senneville, Yolande d’Aragon : La reine qui a gagné la guerre de Cent Ans, Editions Perrin)
  2. Georges Bordonove, Jacques Coeur, trésorier de Charles VII, p. 90, Editions Pygmalion, 1977).
  3. Description given by the great chronicler of the Dukes of Burgundy, Georges Chastellain (1405-1475), in Remontrances à la reine d’Angleterre.
  4. Jean Bureau was Charles VII’s grand master of artillery. On the occasion of his coronation in 1461, Louis XI knighted him and made him a member of the King’s Council. Louis XI stayed at Jean Bureau’s Porcherons house in northwest Paris after his solemn entry into the capital. Jean Bureau’s daughter Isabelle married Geoffroy Coeur, son of Jacques.
  5. Leonardo Bruni succeeded Coluccio Salutati as Chancellor of Florence, having joined his circle of scholars, which included Poggio Bracciolini and the erudite Niccolò Niccoli, to discuss the works of Petrarch and Boccaccio. Bruni was one of the first to study Greek literature, and contributed greatly to the study of Latin and ancient Greek, offering translations of Aristotle, Plutarch, Demosthenes, Plato and Aeschylus.
  6. Niccolò Niccoli built up one of the most famous libraries in Florence, and one of the most prestigious of the Italian Renaissance. He was assisted by Ambrogio Traversari in his work on Greek texts (a language he did not master). He bequeathed this library to the Florentine Republic on condition that it be made available to the public. Cosimo the Elder de’ Medici was entrusted with implementing this condition, and the library was entrusted to the Dominican convent of San Marco. Today, the library is part of the Laurentian Library.
  7. Prior General of the Camaldolese Order, Ambrogio Traversariwas, along with Jean Bessarion, one of the authors of the decree of church union. According to the Urbino court historian Vespasiano de Bisticci, Traversari gathered in his convent at San Maria degli Angeli near Florence. There, Traversari brought together the heart of the humanist network: Nicolaus Cusanus; Niccolo Niccoli, who owned an immense library of Platonic manuscripts; Gianozzi Manetti, orator of the first Oration on the Dignity of Man; Aeneas Piccolomini, the future Pope Pius II; and Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli, the physician-cartographer and future friend of Leonardo da Vinci, whom Piero della Francesca also frequented.
  8. Philosophically speaking, reminding the whole of Christendom of the primordial importance of the concept of the filioque, literally « and of the son », meaning that the Holy Spirit (divine love) came not only from the Father (infinite potential) but also from the Son (its realization, through his son Jesus, in whose living image every human being had been created), was a revolution. Man, the life of every man and woman, is precious because it is animated by a divine spark that makes it sacred. This high conception of each individual was reflected in the relationship between human beings and their relationship with nature, i.e., the physical economy.

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Rembrandt: 400 years old and still young!

Selfportrait

Rembrandt H. van Ryn, was born on July 15, 1606, as the son of a not so poor miller living in the revolutionary city of Leyden in the Netherlands.

Today (2006), four hundred years later, even without any knowledge of the specific historical context, few are those that remain indifferent to his artistic message and skill. Why Rembrandt? What particular quality of his paintings, engravings and drawings gave him the power to reach over centuries of time?

As we will document here, Rembrandt, a precocious intellectual, became already quite « universal » as a young adult. But let’s try to find out what « universal » means.

The Revolt of the Netherlands

The revolt of the Burgundian Netherlands (Note 1) against the tyranny the Fuggers, bankers at the helm of the Spanish and Austrian Habsburg empire, resulted in the tragic break-up of this « nation-state in the making » between the north (today’s Netherlands) and the south (the territory that today includes Belgium and part of northern France).

The Habsburg empire, while brutally sticking to the rich southern part (Flanders), cynically offered the « insurgents » that, if they wished to have a country, they could settle in the malaria-infested swamps of the North, where 75% of the territory lies below sea level, but nevertheless an area slowly domesticated by generations of hardworking farmers thanks to a vast system of canals, dikes and locks, patiently erected since the end of the thirteenth century.

But Charles V, and even worse, his son Philip II of Spain, didn’t believe in the power of mind or that of work. Instead, they believed in the power of the sword and the terror of the Inquisition. After a long war and much unnecessary bloodshed, their policies had reached an impasse, and on April 9, 1609, the semi-bankrupt Habsburgs were forced to sign a twelve-year truce with the new Republic of the Netherlands.

Education

That same year, Rembrandt, hardly 3 years old, entered basic school, where girls and boys learn to read, to write and to calculate. School opens at 6 a.m. in the summer, at 7 a.m. in winter, and finishes only at 7 p.m. Classes start with prayer, the reading and discussion of passages of the Bible and the singing of psalms. Here Rembrandt develops an elegant handwriting and more than rudiments of the Bible.

The Netherlands want to survive. Its leaders wisely used the 12 year truce (1609-1621) to fulfill their commitment to the general welfare. This way, early XVIIth century Holland became maybe the first country of the world where everybody got the chance to learn how to read, write and calculate.

That universal school system, whatever its inadequacies, offered to both poor and rich alike, was the secret of the Dutch « Golden Century ». It’s schooling will also create the generations of Dutch immigrants that will participate a hundred years afterwards in the American Revolution

Others would enter the secondary school at the age of 12, but Rembrandt precociously enters Leyden’s Latin School at the age of 7. There, pupils generally, besides rhetoric, logic and calligraphy, learn, not only Greek and Latin, but English, French, Spanish or Portuguese. Then, in 1620, at the age of 14, since no age limit in the Netherlands bridled young talents, Rembrandt inscribed at the Leyden University. His choice is not Theology, Law, Science, nor Medicine, but Literature.

Did Rembrandt want to add to his knowledge of Latin, the mastery of Greek and Hebrew philology and perhaps Chaldean, Coptic or Arabic? After all, Leyden was already publishing Arabic-Latin dictionaries, while the Netherlands were increasingly growing to become the book printing centre of the world.

From its foundation in 1585, after a historic battle for the city’s freedom, Leyden University became a rallying point for humanists worldwide and a center for new discoveries in optics, physics, anatomy and cartography, offering the world such famous scientists as Christian Huygens (1629-1695) and Antonie van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723), both correspondents of Leibniz.

People flocked in from Flanders, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, England and even Hungary. By 1621, over fifty Frenchmen were teaching in Leyden. In a desperate effort to pollute this source of creativity, in 1630, René Descartes registered as a « mathematician » at the University of Leyden. (Note 2)

But the big trouble had already started way before. A disastrous theological « debate » degenerated into a conflict akin to civil war. On the one side, Jacob Arminius, founder of the « Remonstrant » current upholding the Erasmian-Rabelaisian concept of man endowed with a free will although that free will remained to be fine-tuned with the grace of God. This view was also held by the elder general and capable national leader, Johan van Oldenbarnevelt (1547-1619).

On the opposing side, one Franciscus Gomarus, defender of the fatalist Calvinist doctrine of « predestination », a doctrine adhered to by Prince Maurits, the young incoming son of the founder of the nation, William the Silent. While leaders were strongly divided, the 1619 « Dordrecht Synod » installed the radical Calvinist doctrine as the law.

Johannes Uytenbogaert

But Leyden was mostly « Arminian » and so was Rembrandt. Rembrandt’s 1633 and 1635 portraits of Johannes Uytenbogaert, the main reverend leading the Arminians who was obliged to spent several years of his life in exile to escape from persecution, show how closely Rembrandt was connected to this movement.

So, when Rembrandt entered University, the situation was very hot. Arminian-minded teachers are on the leave and often forced to do so. So was Rembrandt, and after two months, at age 14, he quitted University and went full time into painting and set up his own workshop.

By 1621, the truce had come to an end, and the Spanish army was once again conducting an all-out war against the Netherlands, which was accused, not without reason, of supporting the Bohemian revolt and harboring the leaders of its resistance. (Note 3)

As a young intellectual confronted with injustice and political and religious madness, Rembrandt entered the studio of Jacob Isaaczoon van Swanenburg, a learned Dutch painter who lived in Venice and Naples, where he worked from 1600 to 1617 before running into trouble with the Inquisition, which accused him of « painting on Sundays ».

Few works have survived from this master, renowned for his city views and portraits. But his subjects and style resemble those of the great humanist Hieronymus Bosch. For three long years, Rembrandt learned how to grind pigments, master essences, varnishes, brushes, canvases and panels.

But above all, Swanenburgh made his pupil a master in the art of engraving and etching.

Pelgrims of Emmaus

The supper at Emmaus, Rembrandt, 1628.

Rembrandt’s interest in the power of ideas clearly appears in the « Pilgrims at Emmaus », where an atmosphere of astonishment and horror break out when Christ reveals himself to the disbelievers.

Self-portrait, Pieter Lastman.

Then, before setting up his studio, Rembrandt will spend six months in the workshop of Pieter Lastman in Amsterdam. With Lastman, Rembrandt finally finds a master that departs from the traditional Dutch landscapes, still-lives and boring group portraits.

Building on the theatrical settings of Caravaggio, Lastman paints biblical, Greek and Roman mythology. He paints history! And Rembrandt always desired to become a historieschilder. Now, Rembrandt finally found in painting the literature he was looking for when inscribing in the University.

Also, in Lastman’s workshop, he meets the talented Jan Lievens, with whom he will work for a while.

Knowing how to know thyself

Rembrandts reputation is largely the fruit of the near to one hundred multiform self-portraits, including about twenty engravings, covering the walls of numerous museums around the world. Some pragmatists tell us Rembrandt did that many self-portraits because he just was the cheapest model in town, and probably the most patient one. Others claim he was simply noting down his unending grimaces, the famous tronies, to prepare future dramatic historical paintings.

We think there is more to it and we approve Simon Schama who wrote that, « The reason for the multiplication of his self-image was not a relentless, almost monomaniacal assertion of the artistic ego but something like the exact opposite. »

The self-portrait, an art expression that has nearly disappeared from today’s practice, always throws an extremely daring challenge to the painter looking into the mirror. Is this me? I didn’t realize I look that way. I’ve changed again! What is wrong? The a priori ideas in the mind of the perceiver or the sense perceptions he’s confronted with? Real thinking, in essence, comes down to confronting not just those burning paradoxes, but the joy of overcoming them with self reflexive irony, and a truthful commitment to the permanent discovery and communication of that increasing irony through a Socratic dialogue.

Rembrandt, at the age of 22 starts training his first pupil, Gerrit Dou, only fifteen years old. Samuel van Hoogstraten, who was another young pupil, reported Rembrandt advising him:

« Try to learn introducing in your work what you know already. Then, very soon, you will discover what escapes you and want to discover. »

Hoogstraten’s self-portrait at age 17 demonstrates what a contagious genius Rembrandt became rapidly as a teacher.

But Rembrandt’s main problem was to show movement. Anima means soul and for Rembrandt animating the mind of the viewer was the art of making that viewer conscious of his own quality of moving the soul, i.e. moving the mover. Through this process of teaching and self-teaching Rembrandt works out various ways to tell his-stories.

One funny way to put faces into motion is to wrap them into clothing, put on jewelry, and choose a specific light setting that generates interesting eye-attracting shadows bringing into light the plastic volumes. Explore facial expressions evoking anger, fear, happiness, self-doubt, laughter, etc.

The real subject is not Rembrandt, but the discovery of human consciousness through self-consciousness. The mirror image permits oneself to look over one’s shoulder down on oneself. Leonardo and others advised artists to view their own work in a mirror, since the « fresh » mirror image offered the artist another « viewpoint », revealing those remaining imperfections that had escaped from his attention.

Rembrandt’s wife, Saskia

Also, the compassion and self esteem one is forced to develop in that process becomes a basic ingredient for promethean and agapic character formation. Then, Rembrandt’s joyful process of self-discovery spills naturally over into the portraits done of others.

Look how funny Saskia smiles, when she dresses up « as Rembrandt » with a feathered reddish hat, carrying a golden chain and with her little hand lost in Rembrandt’s large glove.

Then, there are also the self-portraits in assistenza, where the painter’s face pops up uninvited in a larger painting, such as in Velazquez« Las Meninas ».

The Stoning of Saint-Stephen

The Stoning of Saint-Stephan

One of Rembrandt’s grimacing faces appears behind the martyr in the first known painting by the young Rembrandt, The Stoning of Saint-Stephen. Executed at the age of 19, the work powerfully expresses the basis of Rembrandt’s ideas. Loaded with some twenty figures, the subject had previously been treated by Lastman and Adam Elsheimer, a young German Mannerist living in Rome, whose works Rembrandt had admired while contemplating reproductions in Swanenburgh’s studio.

But why Saint-Stephen? Rembrandt’s choice stems directly from the subject. This Greek-speaking Jewish convert, the first Christian martyr, was tried by a court of law for blasphemy. He unabashedly told the Sanhedrin judges that they were « stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears » and that they were people who had « received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it… »

Stephen also told them that God could not be kept « locked up in a temple ». At one point, Stephen,

« being full of the Holy Spirit, and having his eyes fixed on heaven, saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and he said: ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God’.

« And crying aloud, they stopped their ears, and with one accord rushed upon him; and having pushed him out of the city, they stoned him; and the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man called Saul. And they stoned Stephen, who prayed and said: Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And kneeling down, he cried aloud: Lord, do not impute this sin to them. »

The painting leaves the left side entirely in shadow, in a partially failed attempt to evoke the idea of Stephen seeing the « open heavens. » Saul is in the shadows because he is the one encouraging the execution. Later, on the road to Damascus, he would have his own vision of the « heavens opening » and in turn convert to Christianity, since Saul is none other than the future St. Paul.

In short, as we have said, at the age of 19, Rembrandt powerfully asserts the principles for which he wants to live and for which he is prepared to die, ideas that he must have discovered at the age of fourteen during the great Sophist event, the great « theological debate » that was the beginning of the end of the Republic.

Ideas

Historians might scream there is no space here for political manifestos. They are right. Rembrandt’s ideas go far beyond simple minded militantism, and their political impact is much more profound.

In 1641, an artist, Philips Angel, adressing the painting guild, honored Rembrandt and underscored the artist’s « elevated and profound reflection ». What were these « elevated and profound » ideas all about?

  • Truth. Somebody must mobilize the courage to stand up and tell the truth in front of established authorities or misleading public opinion. That theme comes regularly back, notably with « Suzanna and the Elders ». Daniel, a witness of injustice will speak up and saves Suzanna from the death sentence.
  • Reason. Faith and religion do not always coincide with religious rites. Look to the angry angel preventing Abraham from killing his own son in « The sacrifice of Isaac ». Think before acting! Reason, love of God and love for mankind must guide any religious practice and on the basis of reason, a dialogue of cultures can enrich humanity.
  • Self-perfection. Change, yes. People can find in themselves the means to identify their errors and change for the better. The example of Saint-Paul will stand as a permanent reference for Rembrandt, who painted him several times and even represented himself as the Church father.
  • Love, Repentance, Pardon. In a period of permanent danger of « religious wars », Rembrandt strongly identifies with Saint Stephen’s demand « Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. » Rembrandt will paint several times « The return of the prodigal son ». The father gives a great feast for the returning son because he « who was dead came back to life ». The notion of pardon, and acting in the advantage of the other, will become the key concept for the success of the world Peace of Westphalia concluded in 1648 ending the thirty years war, including the recognition of the Netherlands as a sovereign state.

The Night Watch

The Night Watch

Misrepresented as a nocturnal scene, the Night Watch is probably one of the greatest intellectual provocations against cold Aristotelian classicism.

The Netherlands was at war. Amsterdam, like most major cities, maintained a considerable militia of archers, crossbowmen and harquebusiers. These small citizen armies had a firing range and a meeting hall, the Kloveniersdoelen, where soldiers could rest after training.

Obviously, such glorious gatherings deserved to be immortalized in vast group portraits, where all the members of the company was presented in such a way that, as van Hoogstraten put it, « you could, as it were, behead them all with a single cannon shot. »

Rembrandt completely overturned this traditional representation. Firstly, apart from the 2 captains and their 16 companions (who each paid for their presence on the canvas), Rembrandt added another third of figures to the original number.

Secondly, the revolutionary concept implemented is the idea of depicting the whole group as « on the march », not just advancing, but raising flags and weapons after passing under a circular arch seen just behind them.

Thirdly, a spectacular sense of movement emanates from the rapid oscillation of a chiaro-oscura, illuminating one part, casting another into shadow.

Finally, the show seems formally a confused, chaotic scene. People enter from all sides. In infinite heteronomy, one loads his rifle, another beats the drum, another raises his spear while another stares at his rifle.

Beyond this apparent hectic confusion, what remains is the spirit of a republican citizenry called to arms and moving from chaos to unity, a subject Rembrandt represented the same year in an allegorical oil sketch, Concord of the State.

Against narrow academic rigor, the spirit of inclusion of the multitude so common to Flemish painters like Bruegel was once again manifesting itself.

Van Hoogstraten, defending Rembrandt against these critics (as usual, those who were jealous of his brilliant performance) commented:

« Rembrandt observed this requirement [of unity] very well… and although in the opinion of many he went too far, making the painting more according to his personal taste than according to the individual portraits he had been commissioned to paint.

Nevertheless, the painting, no matter how harsh the critics, will stand, in my judgment, against all these rivals because it is so picturesque in its conception and because it is so powerful that, according to some, all the other doelen works look like playing cards in comparison. »

Immortality

We took here just a few examples to demonstrate that Rembrandts universal character derives directly from his ruthless commitment, directed to make us conscious of the creative potential given to all human beings, men and women, old and young, Christians, Jews, Muslims or others, a creative and creating human nature called the soul.

This commitment is once again available in today’s new generation and can therefore be mobilized for great achievements.

From this point of view, Rembrandt is in a good position to become a reference individual capable of leading us out of the current cultural « dark age », where video games teach our children to take perverse pleasure in gratuitous violence and push them to become « naturally born killers ».

In contrast, a Rembrandt who catches life and loves mankind will trace the divine in the slightest spark of light. As some sort of 5th apostel, without ever painting God directly, Rembrandt reveals the harmony of his creation.

Those who took time studying his paintings can tell themselves: « God exists, I just met Rembrandt », since through Rembrandt’s art God’s tender love and blessing power are revealed to us in our human reality.

That « immortal » nature of Rembrandt’s soul will doubtlessly nourish the « immortality » of the creative geniuses he will inspire. Let us not wait another four hundred years to celebrate such a genius, for what he brings us is living and not to be buried in the history of art

Notes:

  1. Friedrich Schiller, The revolt of the Netherlands; Karel Vereycken, How Erasmus Folly saved our Civilization; Karel Vereycken, « Rembrandt, bâtisseur de nations » in Nouvelle Solidarité, June 10 and 17, 1985.
  2. Years earlier, René Descartes, using his own funds, made a trip to Bohemia and in 1620 took part in the battle of Montagne Blanche, leading to the massacre of Prague, the capital of Bohemia. One biographer reports that Descartes, entering Prague, immediately appropriated Kepler’s Brahe scientific instruments.
  3. For a detailed report on the links between Rembrandt and Comenius and the Bohemian revolt, see Karel Vereycken, The light of Agapê, Rembrandt and Comenius versus Rubens, Ibykus N°85, 2003.
  4. Ernst van Wetering, director of the Rembrandt Research Project (RRP), on the basis of scientific examinations of Rembrandt’s works, estimates that the master required his models to pose for three hours a day for at least three months.
  5. Karel Vereycken, Leonardo, painter of movement, Fusion N°108, 2006.
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Erasmus’ dream: the Leuven Three Language College

In autumn 2017, a major exhibit organized at the University library of Leuven and later in Arlon, also in Belgium, attracted many people. Showing many historical documents, the primary intent of the event was to honor the activities of the famous Three Language College (Collegium Trilingue), founded in 1517 by the efforts of the Christian Humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam (1467-1536) and his allies. Though modest in size and scope, Erasmus’ initiative stands out as one of the cradles of European civilization, as you will discover here.

Revolutionary political figures, such as William the Silent (1533-1584), organizer of the Revolt of the Netherlands against the Habsburg tyranny, humanist poets and writers such as Thomas More, François Rabelais, Miguel Cervantes and William Shakespeare, all of them, recognized their intellectual debt to the great Erasmus of Rotterdam, his exemplary fight, his humor and his great pedagogical project.

For the occasion, the Leuven publishing house Peeters has taken through its presses several nice catalogues and essays, published in Flemish, French as well as English, bringing together the contributions of many specialists under the wise (and passionate) guidance of Pr Jan Papy, a professor of Latin literature of the Renaissance at the Leuven University, with the assistance of a “three language team” of Latinists which took a fresh look at close to all the relevant and inclusively some new documents scattered over various archives.

The Leuven Collegium Trilingue: an appealing story of courageous vision and an unseen international success. Thanks to the legacy of Hieronymus Busleyden, counselor at the Great Council in Mechelen, Erasmus launched the foundation of a new college where international experts would teach Latin, Greek and Hebrew for free, and where bursaries would live together with their professors”, reads the back cover of one of the books.

University of Leuven, Belgium.

For the researchers, the issue was not necessarily to track down every detail of this institution but rather to answer the key question: “What was the ‘magical recipe’ which attracted rapidly to Leuven between three and six hundred students from all over Europe?”

Erasmus’ initiative was unprecedented. Having an institution, teaching publicly Latin and, on top, for free, Greek and Hebrew, two languages considered “heretic” by the Vatican, was already tantamount to starting a revolution.

Was it that entirely new? Not really. As early as the beginning of the XIVth century, for the Italian humanists in contact with Greek erudites in exile in Venice, the rigorous study of Greek, Hebraic and Latin sources as well as the Fathers and the New Testament, was the method chosen by the humanists to free mankind from the Aristotelian worldview suffocating Christianity and returning to the ideals, beauty and spirit of the “Primitive Church”.

For Erasmus, as for his inspirer, the Italian humanist Lorenzo Valla (1403-1457), the « Philosophy of Christ » (agapic love), has to come first and opens the road to end the internal divisions of Christianity and to uproot the evil practices of greed (indulgences, simony) and religious superstition (cult of relics) infecting the Church from the top to the bottom, and especially the mendicant orders.

To succeed, Erasmus sets out to clarify the meaning of the Holy Writings by comparing the originals written in Greek, Hebrew and Latin, often polluted following a thousand years of clumsy translations, incompetent copying and scholastic commentaries.

Brothers of the Common Life

My own research allows me to recall that Erasmus was a true disciple of the Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life of Deventer in the Netherlands, a hotbed of humanism in Northern Europe. The towering figures that founded this lay teaching order are Geert Groote (1340-1384), Florent Radewijns (1350-1400) and Wessel Gansfort (1420-1489), all three said to be fluent in precisely these three languages.

The religious faith of this current, also known as the “Modern Devotion”, centered on interiority, as beautifully expressed in the little book of Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471), the Imitation of Christ. This most read book after the Bible, underlines the importance for the believer to conform one owns life to that of Christ who gave his life for mankind.

Rudolph Agricola

Rudolp Agricola, painted by Cranach.

Hence, in 1475, Erasmus father, fluent in Greek and influenced by famous Italian humanists, sends his son to the chapter of the Brothers of the Common Life in Deventer, at that time under the direction of Alexander Hegius (1433-1499), himself a pupil of the famous Rudolph Agricola (1442-1485) which Erasmus had the chance to listen to and which he calls a “divine intellect”.

Follower of the cardinal-philosopher Nicolas of Cusa (1401-1464), enthusiastic advocate of the Italian Renaissance and the Good Letters, Agricola would tease his students by saying:

“Be cautious in respect to all that you learned so far. Reject everything! Start from the standpoint you will have to un-learn everything, except that what is based on your sovereign authority, or on the basis of decrees by superior authors, you have been capable of re-appropriating yourself”.

Erasmus, with the foundation of the Collegium Trilingue will carry this ambition at a level unreached before. To do so, Erasmus and his friend apply a new pedagogy. Hence, instead of learning by heart medieval commentaries, pupils are called to formulate their proper judgment and take inspiration of the great thinkers of the Classical period, especially “Saint Socrates”. Latin, a language that degenerated during the Roman Empire, will be purified from barbarisms.

With this approach, for pupils, reading a major text in its original language is only the start. An explorative work is required: one has to know the history and the motivations of the author, his epoch, the history of the laws of his country, its geography, cosmography, all considered to be indispensable instruments to put each text in its specific literary and historical context and allowing reading, beyond the words, the intention of their author.

Erasmus (left) and his friend Pieter Gilles, by Antwerp painter Quinten Metsijs.

This “modern” approach (questioning, critical study of sources, etc.) of the Collegium Trilingue, after having demonstrated its efficiency by clarifying the message of the Gospel, will rapidly travel over Europe and reach many other domains of knowledge, notably scientific issues! By uplifting young talents, out of the small and sleepy world of scholastic certitudes, this institution rapidly grew into a hotbed for creative minds.

For the ignorant reader who often considers Erasmus as some kind of comical writer praising madness which lost it after an endless theological dispute with Martin Luther, such a statement might come as a surprise.

Scientific Renaissance

Art and science for the people. The early 16th century was a time of early scientific education.

While Belgium’s contributions to science, under Emperor Charles Vth, are broadly recognized and respected, few are those understanding the connection uniting Erasmus with a mathematician as Gemma Frisius and his pupil and friend Gerard Mercator, an anatomist such as Andreas Vesalius or a botanist such as Rembert Dodonaeus.

Hence, as already thoroughly documented in 2011 by Professor Jan Papy in a remarkable article, the scientific renaissance which bloomed in the Netherlands and Belgium in the early XVIth century, could not have taken place if it were for the “linguistic revolution” provoked by the Collegium Trilingue.

Because, beyond the mastery of their vernacular languages (French and Dutch), hundreds of youth, by studying Greek, Latin and Hebrew, suddenly got access to all the scientific treasures of Greek Philosophy and the best authors in those newly discovered languages.

Remains of the old Louvain city wall. In the foreground, the Jansenius tower, in the background, the Justus Lipsius tower.

At last, they could read Plato in the text, but also Anaxagoras, Heraclites, Thales of Millet, Eudoxus of Cnidus, Pythagoras, Eratosthenes, Archimedes, Galen, Vitruvius, Pliny the elder, Euclid and Ptolemy whose work they will master and eventually correct.

As the books published by Peeters account in great detail, during the first century of its existence, the Collegium Trilingue had a rough time confronting political uproar and religious strife. Heavy critique came especially form the “traditionalists”, a handful of theologians for which the Greeks were nothing but schismatics and the Jews the assassins of Christ and esoterics.

The opposition was such that Erasmus himself never could teach at the Collegium and, while keeping in close contact, decided to settle in Basel, Switzerland, in 1521.

Despite all of this, the Erasmian revolution conquered Europe overnight and a major part of the humanists of that period were trained or influenced by this institution. From abroad, hundreds of pupils arrived to follow classes given by professors of international reputation.

27 European universities integrated pupils of the Collegium in their teaching staff: among them stood Jena, Wittenberg, Cologne, Douai, Bologna, Avignon, Franeker, Ingolstadt, Marburg, etc.

Teachers at the Collegium were secured a decent income so that they weren’t obliged to give private lectures to secure a living and could offer public classes for free. As was the common practice of the Brothers of the Common Life in Deventer, a system of bursa allowed talented though poor students, including many orphans, to have access to higher learning. “Something not necessarily unusual those days, says Pr Jan Papy, and done for the sake of the soul of the founder (of the Collegium, reference to Busleyden)”.

Le Wentelsteen, last remaining staircase of the Collegium Trilingue. Crédit : Karel Vereycken

While visiting Leuven and contemplating the worn-out steps of the spiral staircase (wentelsteen), one of the last remains of the building that had a hard time resisting the assaults of time and ignorance, one can easily imagine those young minds jumping down the stairs with enthusiasm going from the dormitory to the classroom. Looking at the old shopping list of the school’s kitchen one can conclude the food was excellent with lots of meat, poultry but also vegetables and fruits, and sometimes wine from Beaune in Burgundy, especially when Erasmus came for a visit! While over the years, of course, the quality of the learning transmitted, would vary in accordance with the excellence of its teachers, the Collegium Trilingue, whose activity would last till the French revolution, gave its imprint in history by giving birth to what some have called the “Little Renaissance” of the first half of the XVIth century.

In France, the Sorbonne University reacted with fear and in 1523, the study of Greek was outlawed in France.

Marguerite de Navarre, reader of Erasmus.

François Rabelais, at that time a monk in Vendée, saw his books confiscated by the prior of his monastery and deserts his order. Later, as a doctor, he translated the medical writings of the Greek scientist Galen from Greek into French. Rabelais’s letter to Erasmus shows the highest possible respect and intellectual debt to Erasmus.

In 1530, Marguerite de Navarre, sister of King Francis, and reader and admirer of Erasmus, at war with the Sorbonne, convinced her brother to allow Guillaume Budé, a friend of Erasmus, to create the “Collège des Lecteurs Royaux” (ancestor of the Collège de France) on the model of the Collegium Trilingue. And to protect its teachers, many coming directly from Leuven, they got the title of “advisors” of the King. The Collège taught Latin, Hebrew and Greek, and rapidly added Arab, Syriac, medicine, botany and philosophy to its curriculum.

Dirk Martens

Dirk Martens.

Also celebrated for the occasion, Dirk Martens (1446-1534), rightly considered as one of the first humanists to introduce printing in the Southern Netherlands.

Born in Aalst in a respected family, the young Dirk got his training at the local convent of the Hermits of Saint William. Eager to know the world and to study, Dirk went abroad. In Venice, at that time a cosmopolite center harboring many Greek erudite in exile, Dirk made his first steps into the art of printing at the workshop of Gerardus de Lisa, a Flemish musician who set up a small printing shop in Treviso, close to Venice.

Back in Aalst, together with his partner John of Westphalia, Martens printed in 1473 the first book in the country with a movable type printing press, a treatise of Dionysius the Carthusian (1401-1471), a friend and collaborator of cardinal-philosopher Nicolas of Cusa, as well as the spiritual advisor of Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy and thought to be the occasional « theological » advisor of the latter’s court painter, Jan Van Eyck.

If the oldest printed book known to us is a Chinese Buddhist writing dating from 868, the first movable printing types, made first out of wood and then out of hardened porcelain and metal, came from China and Korea in 1234.

Replica of Martens’ printing press at the Communal Museum of Aalst.

The history of two lovers, a poem written by Aeneas Piccolomini before he became the humanist Pope Pius II, was another early production of Marten’s print shop in Aalst.

Proud to have introduced this new technique allowing a vast increase in the spreading of good and virtuous ideas, Martens wrote in one of the prefaces: “This book was printed by me, Dirk Martens of Aalst, the one who offered the Flemish people all the know-how of Venice”.

After some years in Spain, Martens returned to Aalst and started producing breviaries, psalm books and other liturgical texts. While technically elaborate, the business never reached significant commercial success.

Martens then moved to Antwerp, at that time one of the main ports and cross-roads of trade and culture. Several other Flemish humanists born in Aalst played eminent roles in that city and animate its intellectual and cultural life. Among these:

Cornelis De Schrijver (1482-1558), the secretary of the City of Aalst, better known under his latin name Scribonius and later as Cornelius Grapheus. Writer, translator, poet, musician and friend of Erasmus, he was accused of heresy and hardly escaped from being burned at the stake.

Pieter Gillis (1486-1533), known as Petrus Aegidius. Pupil of Martens, he worked as a corrector in his company before becoming Antwerp’s chief town clerk. Friend of Erasmus and Thomas More, he appears with Erasmus in the double portrait painted by another friend of both, Quinten Metsys (1466-1530).

Pieter Coecke van Aelst (1502-1550), editor, painter and scenographer. After a trip to Italy, he set up a workshop in Antwerp. Pieter will produce patrons for tapestries, translated with the help of his wife the works of the Roman architect Vitruvius into Dutch and trained the young Flemish painter Bruegel the Elder who will marry his daughter.

Invention of pocket books

In Antwerp, Martens became part of this milieu and his workshop became a meeting place for painters, musicians, scientists, poets and writers. With the Collegium Trilingue, Martens opens a second shop, this time in Leuven to work with Erasmus. In order to provide adequate books to the Collegium, Martens proudly became, in the footsteps of the Venetian Printer Aldo Manuce, one of the first printers to concentrate on in-octavo 8° (22 x 12 cm), i.e. “pocket” size books affordable by all and which students could take home !

For the specialists of the Erasmus house of Anderlecht, close to Brussels,

“Martens innovated in nearly all domains. As well as in terms of printing types as lay-out. He was the first to introduce Italics, Greek and Hebrew letter types. He also generalized the use of ‘New Roman’ letter type so familiar today. During the first thirty years of the XVIth century, he also operated the revolution in lay-out (chapters and paragraphs) that gave birth to the modern book as we know it today. All this progress, he achieved in close cooperation with Erasmus”.

Thomas More’s Utopia

1516, pages from Thomas More’s Utopia, printed by Martens in Leuven. On the left, an imaginary map showing the island of Utopia. On the right, the equally imaginary Utopian alphabet.

In 1516, it was Dirk Martens who printed the first edition of Thomas More’s Utopia. Among the hundreds of editions he printed mostly alone, 61 books and writings of Erasmus, notably In Praise of Folly. He also produced More’s edition of the roman satirist Lucian and Columbus’ account of the discovery of the new world. In 1423, Martens printed the complete works of Homer, quite a challenge!

In 1520, a papal bull of Leo X condemned the errors of Martin Luther and ordered the confiscation of his writings to be burned in public in front of the clergy and the people.

For Erasmus, burning books didn’t automatically erased their their content from the minds of the people. “One starts by burning books, one finishes by burning people” Erasmus warned years before Heinrich Heine said that “There, were one burns books, one ends up burning people”.

Printers and friends of Erasmus, especially in France, died on the stake opening the doors for the religious wars that will ravage Europe for the century to come.

What Erasmus feared above all, is that with the Vatican’s brutal war against Luther, it is the entire cultural renaissance and the learning of languages that got threatened with extinction.

In July 1521, confronted with the book burning, the German painter and engraver Albrecht Dürer, who made his living with bible illustrations, left Antwerp with his wife to return to his native Nuremberg.

Thirty years later, in 1552, the great cartographer Gerardus Mercator, a brilliant pupil of the Collegium Trilingue, for having called into question the views of Aristotle, went into exile and settled in Duisbourg, Germany.

In 1521, at the request of his friends who feared for his life, Erasmus left Leuven for Basel and settled in the workshop of another humanist, the Swiss printer Johann Froben.

In 1530, with a foreword of Erasmus, Froben published Georgius Agricola’s inventory of mining techniques, De Re Metallica, a key book that vastly contributed to the industrial revolution of Saxen, Switzerland, Germany and the whole of Europe.

Conclusion

If certain Catholic historians try to downplay the hostility of their Church towards Erasmus, the fact remains that between 1559 and 1900, the full works of Erasmus were on the “Index Vaticanus” and therefore “forbidden readings” for Catholics.

If Thomas More, whom Erasmus considered as his twin brother, was canonized by Pius XI in 1935 and recognized as the patron saint of the political leaders, Erasmus himself was never rehabilitated.

Interrogated by this author in a letter, the Pope Francis returned a polite but evasive answer.

Let’s rebuild the Collegium Trilingue !

With the exception of the staircase, only a few stones remain of the historical building housing the Collegium Trilingue. In 1909, the University of Louvain planned to buy up and rebuild the site but the First World War changed priorities. Before becoming social housing, part of the building was used as a factory. As a result, today, there is no overwhelming charm. However, seeing the historical value of the site, we cannot but fully support a full reconstruction plan of the building and its immediate environment.

It would make the historical center of Leuven so much nicer, so much more attractive and very much more loyal to its own history. On top, such a reconstruction wouldn’t cost much and might interest private investors. The images in 3 dimensions produced for the Leuven exhibit show a nice Flemish Renaissance building, much in the style of the marvels constructed by architect Rombout II Keldermans.

Every period has the right to honestly “re-write” its own history, without falsifications, according to its own vision of the future.

It has to be noted here that the world famous “Rubenshuis” in Antwerp, is not at all the original building, but a scrupulous reconstruction of the late 1930s.

Merci de partager !