2023-10-25 22:26:22
No matter how much the historiography that deals with the relationship between Spain and the Netherlands at the dawn of the Modern Age is developed today, when both territories shared the Crown, there will always be interesting chapters and figures to unravel. One of them is Maximilian de VilainBaron de Ressegem, example of one of those characters with firm beliefs that today we could call ‘advanced’but to which a rather unfortunate personal circumstance led to the other side of the political board at that time, in a context as bloody as the religious wars that shook Europe, and in particular Flanders, between the 16th and 17th centuries.
De Vilain belonged to a family of Flemish nobles who served the counts of Flanders and their successors, the dukes of Burgundy and the Habsburgs. During the reign of Philip II, he held different positions and even presided over the Councils of State and Finance. A moderate Catholic and pragmatic politician, De Vilain disapproved of the violent repression of Calvinists launched by the feared Duke of Alba.. He also believed that in order to restore peace and put an end to disorders, the king should return privileges to his Flemish subjects and give more power to native institutions, such as the States General, which intermediated between them and the Spanish crown.
“For him, one of the aspects that had to be understood to end the fight between Philip II and his subjects was ‘the nature of the country’ (‘le naturel du pays’). With this, Vilain wanted to say that The king was not the only individual to be ‘natural’ to the country, but all his subjects possessed these characteristics. The monarch and the subjects were linked to the country by that ‘naturalness’ and, for Vilain, the forgetting of that link was an important cause of the ongoing civil war,” the Belgian professor explained this Wednesday in Aranjuez. Jonathan Dumont, member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. She did it at the start of the days Cultural exchanges between the courts of the Iberian Peninsula and the Habsburg Netherlandsorganized by the King Juan Carlos University, he Moll Institute -Flamenco Painting Research Center created by Prensa Ibérica, publisher of this newspaper- and the Silesian University in Katowice. Among the audience was the Belgian ambassador, Geer Cockx.
Although those theories were opposed to the absolutism that marked the reign of Philip II, Vilain obtained from the king the right to speak directly and freely to him, even when he was not invited to do so. And in this way he was able to maintain a critical stance with those responsible for foreign affairs of the Crown. The quality of his advice, rooted in that ‘naturalness’ that Dumont explained, contrasted with the errors that others made, completely alien to the reality of the Netherlands.
But the failed episode of the peace of Breda in 1575, which was derailed when the king refused to guarantee religious freedom in those territories, and the death in 1576 of Luis de Requesens, who had replaced the Duke of Alba as governor of Flanders with a more thorough and moderate policy, put an end to his conciliatory and reformist purpose. Added to this was that, in 1578, Vilain was arrested by the Calvinists when he attended the States General in Ghent and spent two years in prison.
He emerged from that traumatic experience completely changed. He felt betrayed by those he had defended, and abandoned his ideas of shared sovereignty. The Flemish nobleman showed his support for the repressive policy of the Spanish king, and where before he was in favor of peace and clemency, now He decidedly opted for violence to subdue the ‘heretics’. “Because of his rage,” Dumont said, “Vilain sees what is happening in a more ideological way than before. […] “He hopes that the princes will band together to crush a rebellion that threatens divine order.”
The baptism of Philip II and the Flemish ‘concierges’
During the talks held this Wednesday there was also time to learn, for example, the authorship of the scenery that involved the baptism of Philip II in the church of San Pablo in Valladolid, which can now be attributed to the Flemish painter Jacob van Battel. The discovery of a document that certifies payment for that work in the Historical Archive of the Nobility of Toledo led the teachers Africa Espíldora García y Ana Diéguez-Rodríguezthe latter director of the Moll Institute, to credit that authorship and pull a thread that led them to delve into the career of a painter who worked intermittently inside and outside Spain, on several occasions for the Order of the Golden Fleece, and often in funeral ceremonies of monarchs, such as those of France and England.
According to this document found, the academics explained, “the work that was entrusted to him is related to the structures built to decorate the route of the procession who accompanied Prince Philip from the palace where the Empress Elizabeth resided to the church of St. Paul where he was baptized. The descriptions that have come down to us speak of an elevated promenade that connected the two buildings, flanked by railings and that passed under five triumphal arches. The entire place was decorated with fragrant plants, fruits and flowers. In each of the arches, actors and singers performed various scenes of a religious nature as the procession passed.”
The contributions to the Spanish crown of the Netherlands and its society, cultivated and advanced for the time, were numerous, and those present at the conference could perceive their legacy a few steps from where they were held, in the Aranjuez Palace itself. He recalled it in his presentation José Eloy Hortal Muñozprofessor at the Rey Juan Carlos University, who speaking of the Royal Sites (like the palace in question) underlined the fundamental role played by the ‘concierges’ (written at the time like this, with a G), a position of French and Flemish tradition. They were put in charge of those sumptuous palatial buildings to maintain them, but also to make them more efficient and ensure their artistic heritage. “In the 1560s,” Hortal Muñoz said, “Philip II introduced a lot of Flemish ‘concierges’ who came directly from the Netherlands, not only to take care of those places, but to introduce innovative techniques in the gardens, in the buildings, in pharmacies and clocks…” The faces in the audience said it all: you had to hurry to get out to see it up close.
#pacifist #adversary #bloodthirsty #Duke #Alba #ended #defending #violence