De Achttiende Eeuw 36 (2004) nr.1
Kornee van der Haven
'‘That the Theatre Should Never Slander or Libel Religion...’ The
Revised Theatre Prints of 1729 and the Prohibition of Religious or Indecent
Plays in the Amsterdam Theatre.'
During the early eighteenth century a ban was imposed on religious theatre in the Schouwburg
of Amsterdam. The orthodox Calvinist church government of Amsterdam succeeded
only temporarily in its attempts to close the city theatre. In 1677 the governors of the theatre
to some extent pandered to the strong Calvinist criticism of the Amsterdam theatre and
decided to formulate several “theatre-laws”. One of these laws defined the ban on religious
theatre while others stressed the importance of banning indecent and immoral plays as
well. There are only a few examples of attempts on the part of the church government to influence
directly the contents of the plays that were part of the theatre programme between
1680 and 1750. During these years the governors of the theatre sincerely tried to observe the
theatre-laws of 1677. The Amsterdam Schouwburg was in fact subject to the self-censorship
of its own governors. A unique and interesting case occurred in the year 1729. Because of a
conflict with one of the theatre-printers over the privilege on printing the texts of different
plays, the governors of the Schouwburg stressed their right to revise these texts any time
they desired to do so. They wrote to the burgomasters that some older plays could no longer
be presented to the public in their original version. Obviously the governors of the orphanage
in Amsterdam who, together with the governors of the old men’s house, were the managers
of the theatre, had a financial interest in using this argument. To show the importance
of maintaining the privilege on printing the textbooks, two plays were reprinted and
strongly expurgated: Vondel’s Gysbrecht van Aemstel and Brederode’s Spaanschen Brabander. The
expurgated textbooks show us how the governors of the Schouwburg excluded any references
to religion and especially to God, and also demonstrate how they removed passages in
which people of high descent were criticized, as well as passages containing indecent language.
omhoog
Edwina Hagen
'‘The Giant Whore’. Fear of Catholics in the Royalist Political Weekly
Press, 1781-1788'
On the basis of political weeklies published by orangists in the 1780s, this article examines
the development of Dutch antipapism. The orangists believed in the Stadtholder as the protector
of the public reformed church and with that the religious and political status quo. In
general antipapism in the orangist press manifested itself when authors attacked the pro-
French politics of the patriots, who critized Stadtholder William V’s preference for an alliance
with England. According to them the ‘enlightened’ French still worshipped the
‘Whore of Babylon’ and given the opportunity would reintroduce papist practices such as
the Inquisition to the Netherlands, ruining its precious protestant character.
Two political events increased the prominence of the Catholic issue in the orangist press.
The first was a proposal made by William V on 9 October 1783 to exclude all non-reformed
citizens from public office. The second was the decision by the States of Holland on 25 January 1787 to abolish the practice of ‘recognition money’, costs Catholics had to make in order
to receive dispensation of anti-Catholic measures (‘plakkaten’).
Politically the patriots and orangists were rivals, but both parties believed in the idea that
religion could provide a unifying moral basis to the nation. It was widely believed that religion
enabled the citizens of the Republic to shape their inner selves in a moral sense, which
would help them to become upstanding members of the community, regardless of their religious
background. It thus included Catholics as well as the other religious groups as long
as they ‘behaved’ themselves. This rather mild tone changed into a very hostile one, when
the Catholics in 1787 gained one of their first political successes.
Over all, most antipapist remarks in the orangist weeklies (and pamphlets) were directly
aimed at their political enemy, the Patriot movement, rather than at the Catholics themselves.
They were designed to erode the reputation of the patriots, by calling them Jesuit intriguers
and by recalling popish plots against the Protestants in the past while simultaneously
depicting patriot leaders as crypto-Catholics. In this respect the way antipapism
functioned in orangist magazines was very similar to the role it fulfilled in the spectatorial
press, the difference being that here it was the orthodox Protestants who were being accused
of papist ideology.
omhoog
Thierry Alain
'‘Without Help or Assistance from Outside’. The Celebration of the
Enkhuizen Revolt against the Spanish in 1772'
The history of Enkhuizen in the eighteenth century is characterized by a spectacular decline.
This maritime city of Holland lost two thirds of her population between 1622 and
1795. The collapse of the herring fishing and the growth of Amsterdam are the chief explanations
of this. In these circumstances the celebration of the bicentenary of the Revolt
against the Duke of Alva takes on a special significance. Were the festivities of 21 May 1772
only an ordinary commemoration, or rather an endeavour to push forward the glorious past
of the city in a context of slump?
The magistrates of Enkhuizen organized gorgeous festivities throughout the day and
well into the night: a show of orange flags, ringing of the bells, religious ceremonies, parade
of the militia, a dinner-party in the town hall with speeches and declamation of poems. The
citizens of Enkhuizen seem to have had a share in the celebrations, according to the witnesses
and to the amount of money collected in the churches. The poems, play, and historic
summary especially printed for the commemoration show a common theme. They stress
the horrible dictatorship of the Duke of Alva, against which the city appears as a cornerstone
of Dutch freedom. According to these texts {04033}promoted by the city council- Enkhuizen
played a glorious part in the national past. The city could be proud.
We cannot speak, in this case, of an ordinary commemoration. The vroedschap of Enkhuizen
organized the celebrations of 1772 to deflect attention from the economic problems
of the city. The citizens were invited to unite around this sense of identity: as champions of
freedomthey might feel better motivated in dealing with their present problems.
omhoog
Peter Rietbergen
'Becoming famous in the eighteenth century. Carl-Peter Thunberg (1743-1828)
between Sweden, the Netherlands and Japan'
Thunberg’s fame, both in Sweden and in Europe at large, is now a thing of the past. Yet after
his return from a protracted stay in South Africa and the East Indies in the service of the
Dutch East India Company, he was hailed as one of his country’s leading scholars on account
of his merits as a botanist and the publication of his travel reports. Though many
people may have read all volumes, they undoubtedly were most interested in the part describing
his long sojourn in Japan. After all, since the publication of Kaempfer’s analysis of
the closed island empire in the 1720s – describing Japan as he had seen it in the 1690s – no
first-hand accounts had been published. Consequently, Thunberg was able to still the
hunger of a Europe craving for information about that enigmatic country – a Europe moreover
that, accustomed to the positive, indeed enthusiastic appreciation of China, was willing
to see Japan in an equally rosy light. In their constant self-reflection and self-criticism,
many literate Europeans needed these two countries as models of an ’enlightened’ society
and culture. Little did they know that Thunberg, as indeed many of his predecessors, had
been unable to look beyond the surface of Japanese society, beyond, that is, the ’official’
world of the Tokugawa shoguns. This had posed severe restrictions on his analysis – for
which, moreover, he had borrowed freely from the books written by earlier visitors to Japan.
At the same time, this situation allowed him to idealize what he saw and, in consequence,
to offer Europe the idealized vision he himself craved, too.
omhoog
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