Lawful Limits. Border Management and the Formation of the Habsburg-Dutch Boundary, ca. 1590-1665

The dissertation ‘Lawful Limits. Border Management and the Formation of the Habsburg-Dutch Boundary, ca. 1590-1665’ examines the creation of the territorial separation between the early modern Netherlands. Focussing on the Eighty Years War and the first years after the end of this conflict, the research examines the manifold actors who contributed to the emergence of the Habsburg Dutch-Border. Numerous people and institutions, including Kings, Councils, Estates, towns, Merchants, officers, soldiers and farmers were indeed involved in this process. By developing different strategies of border management they helped shape the eventual structures that became part of the new border, more particularly through repeating moments of interactive deliberation. Effectively, and in contrast to older historiography which focussed on the importance of war and geographic conditions for boundary formation, this research reveals that the construction of the Habsburg-Dutch border first and foremost related to human actions, reactions and counteractions. Following an introductory chapter on the role of territoriality in the geopolitics of the Eighty Years War, the first part of the dissertation discusses the Habsburg-Dutch frontier and investigates the strategies by which governments, the military and the local populations interacted in times of violent conflict. Key to this was an expanding and increasingly structured dialogue, kick-starting a self-reinforcing process that allowed for the physical and legal ‘materialization’ of the border. Chapter two delves into the connections between the military and the legal transformation of the borderlands, focussing on the development of numerous fortifications and the ‘juridical’ alternative of collecting/paying contributions. Chapter three discusses the regulation of movement in the frontier area, revealing more about the types of interactions that happened at the frontier and how these contributed to the process of border formation. Chapter four then looks at the functionality of sauvegardes and neutralities, assessing the specific interests with which people engaged each other in the borderlands of the Eighty Years War. Importantly, the periods before and after the Twelve Years Truce are discussed jointly, as similar evolutions can be observed during both periods. After analysing the combative phases of the Eighty Years War, part two focusses on the transition from war to peace through negotiation. Chapter five discusses how the border appeared during moments of failed pacification, including the 1598 Act of Cession and the 1632 Estates-General held in Brussels. Returning to some of the themes of chapter one, the question is asked if territory remained on the margins of the negotiations or if it impeded the reaching of peace. Next, chapter six brings the arrangements of successful moments of peace-making to the fore. It does so by studying which of the war-time strategies of border management were included in the Treaty of Antwerp (1609) and the Peace of Munster (1648), stressing that diplomats needed to take account of the new border framework when pacifying the Low Countries. Paying attention to these two Treaties is important because they set the playing field for numerous post-war discussions about the border. Instead of dealing with 1609 and 1648 as clear endpoints, these dates are treated here as starting points for a third round of border management interactions. Because the two Treaties still needed to be implemented, the developments that occurred during the actual Twelve Years Truce and after the Peace of Munster mattered greatly for the eventual structure of the border. Many (legal) disputes regarding the border emerged between 1609-1621 and 1648-1665. In order to demonstrate how earlier strategies of border management influenced the post-war handling of the border, the broader themes of part one are roughly repeated. Chapter seven reveals the different strategies by which the two treaties were practically implemented, stressing that peacetime border management involved both diplomacy and legal debate. Chapter eight subsequently discusses how these two options were deployed in service of the geostrategic interests of the Habsburg Monarchy and the Estates-General, i.e. how the limieten were actually delimitated during numerous ‘public’ conflicts. Finally, chapter nine studies the interaction between local actors and government officials in ‘private’ issues, stressing how the new border structures impacted on the life of the people living in (and beyond) the borderlands.nrpages: 268status: publishe