History of the Netherlands

This article covers the history of the Netherlands for the last 2000 years.

Conversion to Christianity

Historical records date back to about 57 BC, when Roman armies under general Julius Caesar invaded and occupied the southern portion of the Low Countries. The northern frontier of the Roman Empire ran along the Rhine river through the Netherlands. The Romans established a number of fortifications along this frontier which became centers of trade. Germanic tribes living north of the frontier, such as the Frisians, were still heavily influenced by Roman culture through trade contacts. As the Roman Empire disintegrated, Roman armies withdrew from the Netherlands by about AD 406.

The Low Countries were inhabited by numerous Germanic tribes who had an agricultural society. By the third century, these tribes organized into larger federations and three main groups emerged: the Franks in the South, the Saxons in the East, and the Frisians in the North and West. Little is known of the pre-Christian pagan beliefs of the Germanic tribes, though it seems that Wodan and Donar were worshiped by the Germanic tribes in the Low Countries. The southern parts of the country were already nominally Christianized when the Roman Empire converted to Christianity. The Frankish king Clovis I (AD 466 - 511) converted to Christianity in the early fifth century, according to legend in the heat of battle. By AD 700, most of the Low Countries below the Rhine had been converted.

The conversion of the Frisians by Irish and Anglo-Saxon missionaries took place in the early eighth century by the monks Willibrord and Boniface. That Christianity did not immediately take hold is shown by the fact that Boniface was murdered in Friesland in AD 754 by pagan Frisians. From the 15th century onward, tales connected with the fall of the trees in the "Wild Woods without Mercy" of the Netherlands, which reportedly took place at the time of Saint Willibrord, in the 8th century, give the impression that the "barbarous" past of the northern Netherlands was swept away in one single moment with the fall of the area's trees. These stories associate Dutch civilization with the eradication of this vertical symbol and suggest that it is essentially secular, restrictive, claustrophilic, and egalitarian.

19th Century

After Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo in 1815, his enemies, gathered at the Congress of Vienna where they validated secret wartime treaties. They created the Kingdom of the Netherlands as a buffer against France, by uniting all the lowlands under William (1772-1843), who took the title of William I (1815-1840). Protestants were a majority only in the Netherlands (population 2 million), but they totally controlled the government, to the annoyance of Dutch Catholics and 3.5 million Belgians, who were overwhelmingly Catholic. The first 15 years showed progress and prosperity. as a industrial development increased dramatically in the south, where the Industrial Revolution allowed entrepreneurs and labor to combine in a new textile industry, powered by local coal mines. The was little industry in the northern provinces, but most overseas colonies were restored, and highly profitable trade resumed after a 25 year hiatus.

King William I was the key figure in the transition of the Netherlands to a modern state. An enlightened despot, he had no difficulty in accepting the social transformations of the previous 25 years, including equality of all before the law; he was, however, a Calvinist intolerant of the Catholic majority. He promulgated the "Fundamental Law of Holland", with some modifications, which entirely overthrew the old order of things, suppressed the clergy as an order, abolished the privileges of the Catholic Church, and guaranteed the enjoyment of the same civil and political rights to every subject of the king, and equal protection to every religious creed. It reflected the spirit of the French Revolution, but it did not please the Catholic bishops, who detested the Revolution.

William I actively promoted economic modernization. His position as monarch was ambivalent, however; his sovereignty remained real, but his authority was shared with a legislature elected by the wealthy citizens under a constitution granted by the king. Government was in the hands of ministries of state. The old provinces were reestablished in name only. The government was now fundamentally unitary, and all authority flowed from the center. Economic liberalism combined with moderate monarchical authoritarianism to accelerate the adaptation of the Netherlands to the new conditions of the 19th century. The country prospered until a crisis arose in relations with the southern provinces.

Belgium breaks away

In the Catholic south (Belgium), William's policies were unpopular. The French-speaking Walloons strenuously rejected his attempt to make Dutch the universal language of government. Flemings in the south spoke a Dutch dialect (Flemish) and welcomed the encouragement of Dutch with a revival of literature and popular culture. Other Flemings, notably the educated bourgeoisie, preferred to speak French. Although Catholics possessed legal equality, after centuries as the state church in the south, they resented their subordination to a government that was fundamentally Protestant in spirit and membership. Few Catholics held high office in state or army. Political liberals in the south complained as well about the king's authoritarian methods. All southerners complained of underrepresentation in the national legislature. Although the south was industrializing and was more prosperous than the north the accumulated grievances allowed the multiple opposition forces to coalesce. The outbreak of revolution in France in 1830 was a signal for action, at first on behalf of autonomy for Belgium, as the southern provinces were now called, and later on behalf of total independence. William dithered and his half-hearted efforts by William to reconquer Belgium were thwarted both by the efforts of the Belgians themselves and by the diplomatic opposition of the great powers.

At the the London Conference of 1830–31 the chief powers of Europe ordered (in November, 1830) an armistice between the Dutch and the Belgians. The first draft for a treaty of separation of Belgium and the Netherlands was rejected by the Belgians. A second draft (June, 1831) was rejected by William I, who resumed hostilities. Franco-British intervention forced William to withdraw Dutch forces from Belgium late in 1831, and in 1833 an armistice of indefinite duration was concluded. Belgium was effectively independent but William’s attempts to recover Luxembourg and Limburg led to renewed tension. The London Conference of 1838–39 prepared the final Dutch-Belgian separation treaty of 1839 and divided Luxembourg and Limburg between the Dutch and Belgian crowns. The Kingdom of the Netherlands thereafter was made up of only the 11 northern provinces.

Liberalism

In 1840 William I abdicated in favor of his son, William II, who attempted to carry on the policies of his father in the face of a powerful liberal movement. Sentiment in favor of revising the constitution increased, and, in 1848, while Europe was in turmoil, revision was undertaken by the liberal historian-statesman J. R. Thorbecke. The new liberal constitution, which put the government under the control of the states general, was accepted by the legislature in 1848. William III, who became king in 1849, reluctantly chose Thorbecke to head the new government, which introduced several liberal measures, notably the extension of suffrage. However, Thorbecke's government soon fell, when Protestants rioted against the Vatican's reestablishment of the Catholic episcopate, in abeyance since the 16th century. A conservative government was formed, but it did not undo the liberal measures, and the Catholics were finally given equality after two centuries of subordination.

Dutch domestic history from the middle of the 19th century until the First World War was fundamentally one of the extension of liberal reforms in government, encouragement to the reorganization of the Dutch economy upon a modern basis, and the rise of trade unionism and socialism as movements of the working class independent of traditional liberalism.

Religion was a contentious issue with repeated struggles over the relations of church and state in the field of education. At mid-century, most Dutch belonged either to the Dutch Reformed church (around 55% ) or the Roman Catholic church (35 to 40%), together with smaller Protestant and Jewish groups. A large and powerful sector of nominal Protestants were in fact secular liberals seeking to minimize religious influence. In reaction a novel alliance developed with Catholics and devout Calvinists joining against secular liberals. The Catholics, who had been loosely allied with the liberals in earlier decades, turned against them on the issue of state support, which the liberals insisted should be granted only to public schools, and joined with Protestant political parties in demanding equal state support to schools maintained by religious groups.

Cultural revival

The late 19th century saw a great cultural revival, especially in the 1880s and 1890s, typified by the painting of Vincent van Gogh. Literature, music, architecture, and science all flourished, as represented by Johannes Diderik van der Waals (1837-1923), a working class boy who taught himself physics and won the Nobel Prize for his discoveries in thermodynamics.

Dutch Empire

Control over the Netherlands East Indies, restored from British to Dutch rule by the Treaty of Vienna in 1815, was strengthened. The colonies sent substantial profits to the Dutch economy and revenues to the Dutch government. However, criticism of exploitative methods of the Dutch East India Company brought a shift in the economic system from forced payments in crops to traditional taxation, and it took the Dutch 35 years to subdue the Achin (Atjeh) rebels in Sumatra.

Historiography

The "polder model" continues to dominate both Dutch politics and historiography. The polder model strongly emphasizes the need for consensus and discourages debate and dissent in both academia and politics - in contrast to the highly developed, intense debates in Germany.

The H-Net list H-Low-Countries is published free by email and is edited by scholars. Its occasional messages serve an international community with diverse methodological approaches, archival experiences, teaching styles, and intellectual traditions, promotes discussion relevant to the Low Countries as a whole and to the different national histories in particular, with an emphasis on the Netherlands. H-Low-Countries offers conference announcements, questions and discussions; reviews of books, journals, and articles; and tables of contents of journals on the history of the Low Countries (in both Dutch and English).

Once heralded as the leading event of modern Dutch history, the Dutch revolt lasted 1568-1648, and historians have worked to interpret it for even longer. Cruz (2007) explains the major points of contention and schools of thought surrounding interpretations of the deeper meaning of the Dutch bid for independence from Spanish rule. While the intellectual milieus of late-19th- and 20th-century certainly left their mark on historical interpretations of this event, Cruz argues that writings about the revolt distinctively trace changing perceptions of the role played by small countries in the history of Western civilization. As is true in most contemporary historical scholarship, there are no more grand narratives for encompassing the Dutch revolt in its entirety, but Cruz points to future directions for understanding the revolt in its wider contexts, whether European or global.

Jan Romein's (1893-1962) created a "theoretical history" in an attempt to reestablish the relevance of history to public life in the 1930s at a time of immense political uncertainty and cultural crisis, when, in Romein's view, history had become too inward-looking and isolated from other disciplines. Romein, a Marxist, felt that history must contribute to social improvement. At the same time, influenced by the successes of theoretical physics and his study of Oswald Spengler, Arnold J. Toynbee, F. J. Teggart, and others, he spurred on the development of theoretical history in the Netherlands, to the point where it became a subject in its own right at the university level after the war.

Bibliography

surveys

• Arblaster, Paul. A History of the Low Countries. (2006). 298 pp.
• Blom, J. C. H. and E. Lamberts, eds. History of the Low Countries (2006) 504pp excerpt and text search; also complete edition online
• Grattan, Thomas Colley. Holland: The History of the Netherlands (2006) excerpt and text search
• Israel, Jonathan. The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477-1806 (1995)m a major synthesis; coplete online edition; also excerpt and text search
• van Oostrom, Fris, and Hubert Slings. A Key to Dutch History (2007)
• Rietbergen, P.J.A.N. A Short History of the Netherlands. From Prehistory to the Present Day. 5th ed. Amersfoort: Bekking, 2002. ISBN 9061094402

Specialty studies

• Abbenhuis, Maartje M. The Art of Staying Neutral: The Netherlands in the First World War, 1914-1918. (2006). 423 pp.
• Darby, Graham. The Origins and Development of the Dutch Revolt (2001) online edition
• Geyl, Pieter. History of the Dutch Speaking Peoples 1555-1648 (new edition 2001)
• Geyl, Pieter. the Revolt of the Netherlands: 1555-1609 (1958) online edition
• Green-Pedersen, Christoffer. The Politics of Justification: Party Competition and Welfare-State Retrenchment in Denmark and the Netherlands from 1982 to 1998 (2002) online edition
• Israel, Jonathan. Dutch Jewry: Its History and Secular Culture (1500-2000) (2002) online edition
• Koenigsberger, H. G. Monarchies, States Generals and Parliaments: The Netherlands in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries. (2002). 381 pp.
• Moore, Bob. Victims and Survivors: The Nazi Persecution of the Jews in the Netherlands 1940-1945. (1997). 340 pp.
• Prak, Maarten Roy. The Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century. (2005). 317 pp.
• Price, J. L. Holland and the Dutch Republic in the Seventeenth Century: The Politics of Particularism (1994) online edition
• Vandenbosch, Amry. Dutch Foreign Policy since 1815: A Study in Small Power Politics (1959) online edition

Cultural and social studies

• Berkel, Klaas van; VanHelden, Albert; and Palm, Lodewijk, eds. A History of Science in the Netherlands: Survey, Themes and Reference. (1999). 659 pp.
• Blom, J. C. H.; Fuks-Manfield, R. G.; and Schoffer, I., eds. The History of the Jews in the Netherlands. (2002). 508 pp.
• Dekker, Rudolf. Childhood, Memory and Autobiography in Holland: From the Golden Age to Romanticism. (2001). 174 pp.
• Goudriaan, Koen et al, eds. Education and Learning in the Netherlands, 1400-1600: Essays in Honour of Hilde de Ridder-Symoens (2004) online edition
• Grijzenhout, Frans and Veen, Henk van, eds. The Golden Age of Dutch Painting in Historical Perspective. (1999). 333 pp.
• Hsia, R. Po-Chia, and Henk Van Nierop, eds. Calvinism and Religious Toleration in the Dutch Golden Age (2002) online edition
• Israel, Jonathan, and Reinier Salverda. Dutch Jewry: Its History and Secular Culture (1500-2000) (2002) online eedition
• Kiers, Judikje and Tissink, Fieke. The Golden Age of Dutch Art: Painting, Sculpture, Decorative Art. (2000). 366 pp.
• Mak, Geert. Amsterdam: Brief Life of the City. (2000). 352 pp.
• Mathijs, Ernest, ed. The Cinema of the Low Countries. (2004). 268 pp.
• Muizelaar, Klaske and Phillips, Derek. Picturing Men and Women in the Dutch Golden Age: Paintings and People in Historical Perspective. (2003). 246 pp.
• Muller, Sheila D. Dutch Art: An Encyclopedia. (1997). 489 pp.
• O'Brien, Patrick Karl; Keene, Derek J.; Wee, Herman Van der; and Hart, Marjolein t', eds. Urban Achievement in Early Modern Europe: Golden Ages in Antwerp, Amsterdam and London. (2001). 361 pp.
• Price, J. L. Dutch Society, 1588-1713. (2000). 306 pp.
• Schama, Simon. The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1987. ISBN 0394510755. Very well written survey excerpt and text search
• Smith, Jeffrey Chipps. The Northern Renaissance. (2004). 447 pp.
• Westermann, Mariet. A Worldly Art: The Dutch Republic, 1585-1718 (2005) excerpt and text search
• Wintle, Michael. An Economic and Social History of the Netherlands, 1800-1920: Demographic, Economic and Social Transition. (2000). 399 pp. online edition

Dutch Empire and economic history

• Andrade, Tonio. "The Rise and Fall of Dutch Taiwan, 1624-1662: Cooperative Colonization and the Statist Model of European Expansion." Journal of World History 2006 17(4): 429-450. Issn: 1045-6007 Fulltext: Project Muse
• Aymard, Maurice, ed. Dutch Capitalism and World Capitalism (1982).
• Beekman, E. M. Troubled Pleasures: Dutch Colonial Literature from the East Indies, 1600-1950. (1996). 654 pp.
• Bogucka M. "Amsterdam and the Baltic in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century", Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 26 (1973), 433-47. in JSTOR
• Boxer C. R. The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1660-1800 (1965).
• Dash, Mike. Tulipomania. The Story of the World's Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions It Aroused. London: Victor Gollancz, 1999. ISBN 0575067233. Very entertaining and informative book about tulips and the Dutch in the 17th century
• Emmer, Pieter. The Dutch in the Atlantic Economy, 1580-1880: Trade, Slavery and Emancipation. (1998). 283 pp.
• Gouda, Frances. Dutch Culture Overseas: Colonial Practice in the Netherlands Indies, 1900-1942 (1995) online edition
• Israel, Jonathan I. Dutch Primacy in World Trade, 1585-1740 (1989) 462 pgs. online edition
• Jones, Geoffrey. Renewing Unilever: Transformation and Tradition. (2006). 447 pp.
• Moore, Bob and Nierop, Henk van, eds. Colonial Empires Compared: Britain and the Netherlands, 1750-1850. (2003). 204 pp.
• Ormrod, David. The Rise of Commercial Empires: England and the Netherlands in the Age of Mercantilism, 1650-1770. (2003). 400 pp.
• Palmer, Leslie H. Indonesia and the Dutch (1962) online edition
• Sluyterman, Keetie E. Dutch Enterprise in the Twentieth Century: Business Strategies in a Small Open Economy (2005) online edition
• Ungerm Richard W. "Herring, Technology, and International Trade in the Seventeenth Century," The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 40, No. 2 (Jun., 1980), pp. 253-280 in JSTOR
• Unger, Richard W. A History of Brewing in Holland, 900-1900: Economy, Technology and the State. (2001) 428 pp.
• Van Hoesel, Roger, and Rajneesh Narula. Multinational Enterprises from the Netherlands (1999) online edition
• Veenendaal, Augustus. Railways in the Netherlands: A Brief History. (2001) 235 pp.
• Vries, Jan de and Woude, Ad van der. The First Modern Economy: Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500-1815. (1997). 767 pp.
• Wintle, Michael. An Economic and Social History of the Netherlands, 1800-1920: Demographic, Economic and Social Transition. (2000). 399 pp. online edition
• Zanden, Jan Luiten and Riel, Arthur van. The Strictures of Inheritance: The Dutch Economy in the Nineteenth Century. (2004). 384 pp.

Historiography

• Buyst, Erik; Smits, Jan Pieter; and Zanden, Jan Luiten Van. "National Accounts for the Low Countries, 1800-1990." Scandinavian Economic History Review 1995 43(1): 53-76. Issn: 0358-5522 focus on data for 1921-39 and rates of industrialization during the first half of the 19th century
• Cruz, Laura. "The 80 Years' Question: the Dutch Revolt in Historical Perspective." History Compass 2007 5(3): 914-934. Issn: 1478-0542 Fulltext: History Compass
• Linden, Marcel van der, and Jan Lucassen. "Social History in the Netherlands." Tijdschrift Voor Sociale Geschiedenis 1997 23(2): 209-222. Issn: 0303-9935. Argues Social history has been thriving since the 1970s, with representation from all stylistic and methodological approaches, albeit with weak theory. No major shifts from the qualitative to the quantitative or from statistical series to microhistory have taken place. Pluralism and eclecticism seem to be the rule
• Schmidt, Ariadne. "Vrouwenarbeid in De Vroegmoderne Tijd in Nederland," [Women's Work in the Early Modern Netherlands]. Tijdschrift Voor Sociale En Economische Geschiedenis 2005 2(3): 2-21. Issn: 1572-1701
• Voerman, Gerrit. "De Stand Van De Geschiedschrijving Van De Nederlandse Politieke Partijen" [The State of Historiography on Dutch Political Parties]. Bijdragen En Mededelingen Betreffende De Geschiedenis Der Nederlanden 2005 120(2): 226-269. Issn: 0165-0505

Online resources

• International Institute of Social History (IISH)