Description

The German town of Emden was, in the sixteenth century, the most important haven for exiled Dutch Protestants. In this book, based on unrivalled knowledge of the contemporary archives, Pettegree explores the role of Emden as a refuge, a training center and, above all, as the major source of Dutch Protestant propaganda. He also provides a unique and invaluable reconstruction of the output of Emden's famous printing presses. The emergence of an independent state in the Netherlands was accompanied by a transformation in the status of Protestantism from a persecuted sect to the dominant religious force in the new Dutch republic. Pettegree shows how the exile churches, the nurseries of Dutch Calvinism, provided military and financial support for the armies of William of Orange and models of church organization for the new state. This book is a major scholarly contribution to our understanding of the origins of the Dutch Republic and the place of Calvinism in the European Reformation.