The construction of patriotic sentiment in the sixteenth-century low countries : cartography, Calvinism and rebel propaganda

Since the 1 960s, the nationalist interpretation of identity in the sixteenth-century Low Countries has been replaced by a pluralist understanding of nations and identities during the period. According to the modern, pluralist approach, the sixteenth-century understanding of a country and a nation was not related to any collective sense of Netherlandish nationhood. Instead, there existed a variety of nations and identities, some of which had developed over the course of the centuries, others of which were more recent creations. The two main purposes of this thesis are to describe the nature and development of the pluralist model and to test the validity of the model through three case studies. These three studies, an examination of the patriotic propaganda drawn up by rebel propagandists during 1 568-1 570,a survey of the development, spread and impact of maps of the entire Low Countries in the sixteenth century and a brief study of the 'Dutch Israel' thesis, all support the pluralist model. The studies not only confirm the existence of different nations and identities in the sixteenth- century Low Countries but also support the complementary belief in the artificial nature of identity in the 1 500s. The thesis closes with a short conclusion which summarises the themes covered by the case studies and identifies the major questions which arise from the thesis.