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Reformation, Revolt and Civil War in France and the Netherlands, 1555-- 1585. Edited by Philip Benedict, Guido Marnef, Henk van Nierop, and Marc Venard. Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen Verhandlingen, Afd. Letterkunde, Nieuwe Reeks, deel 176. Amsterdam: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1999. viii + 298 pp. NLG 95.
This conference-volume adds substance and scope to the far too few historical attempts to compare the religious and political events in late sixteenth-century France with those in the neighboring, rebellious Netherlands with which they were often closely connected. Drawing on the works of the handful of Dutch historians who have so far ventured into this often complex area of comparative history, from Enno van fielder in 1930 to Henk van Nierop and J. J. Woltjer in the mid-1990s, and who for obvious reasons have focussed on these issues from a Dutch perspective, this work seeks to extend and elaborate the reflections of these historians-of whom the latter two are also contributors to this volume. Apart from the introduction and the first chapter dealing with the historiography of the Wars of Religion in France and the Dutch Revolt, most of the comparative conclusions are, however, left for the readers to make for themselves. This is because the remaining fourteen chapters of...