Full Description
The essays in this volume explore the theories and practices of sovereignty in the context of state-building in the early modern Northern and Southern Low Countries. The Dutch Revolt, the secession of the northern provinces from the Spanish empire, the formation of the Dutch Republic and the reconstitution of Habsburg authority in the south, fostered tense debates among scholars and political leaders about the legitimacy, organisation and processes of law and governance. This made the Low Countries a prime battlefield for theoretical and political contestations about the nature of public authority and the relations between different layers of government in early-modern Europe. The book approaches this historical debate from three angles: (1) political theoretical, (2) legal, and (3) politico-historical.
Contributors are: Hans Blom, Bram De Ridder, Alicia Esteban Estríngana, Simon Groenveld, Gustaaf Janssens, Shavana Musa, José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez, Werner Thomas, Lies van Aelst, Gustaaf van Nifterik, and René Vermeir.
Contents
List of Tables
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
Werner Thomas
PART 1
The Construction of Sovereignty
1 Sovereignty in Grotius
Hans Blom
2 Ideas on Sovereignty
Soto, Vázquez and Grotius
Gustaaf van Nifterik
3 Conform to the Government and Acknowledge the Sovereignty
Simon Stevin and François Vranck, a Practical Approach to Contested Sovereignty
Lies van Aelst
PART 2
The Use and Limits of Sovereignty
4 Sovereignty as Argument
The Habsburg-Dutch Struggle for Territory before and after Westphalia, 1576-1664
Bram De Ridder
5 Sovereignty and Early Modern Private Property Rights
Shavana Musa
6 The 'Perfect Principality' of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella
Project and Reality of a 'Separate Sovereignty' of the Spanish Crown, 1529-1621
Alicia Esteban Estríngana
PART 3
Sovereigns and Sovereignty in Practice
7 'The King is the Real Sovereign of this Countries'
Politics of Justice and Order from the Duke of Alba in the Netherlands, 1567-1571
Gustaaf Janssens
8 Electing a Prince
the Popular Transfer of Sovereignty at the End of the Sixteenth Century
José Javier Ruiz Ibáñez
9 North-Netherlandish Sovereigns at Work in the First Half of the Seventeenth Century
Simon Groenveld
10 Early Seventeenth-Century Representative Institutions and Law Making in the Habsburg Netherlands
René Vermeir
Index
