The Norwich Exile Community and the Dutch Revolt

A recent trend in historiography on the Dutch Revolt is to examine the role of transnational networks and how the positions and practices that exiles developed outside the Low Countries contributed to the Revolt and helped to shape the confessional landscape of the emerging Dutch Republic. A recent study by Silke Muylaert (2020) on migrant churches in England engages with this trend. One church that Muylaert analyses is the Flemish church in Norwich. This article builds on work on Norwich by Muylaert and other authors such as Raingard Esser to analyse the transnational networks to which members of the Norwich community belonged and the positions and practices that they developed, which contributed to events before and at the start of the Dutch Revolt, and specifically to shaping the nascent Dutch Reformed Church.

It does so in four ways. First, it analyses the prosopographies of exiles who returned to the Low Countries to participate in sectarian activities in the prelude to the Dutch Revolt. Second, it analyses the role of preachers in disputes that arose amongst the exiles about whether to support armed resistance against the Spanish in the Low Countries. Third, it examines the impact of publications printed in Norwich by exiles in the years immediately before the start of the Dutch Revolt. One important work first printed in Norwich was Den Ziekentroost (Comfort for the Sick), which became a key text for pastoral care in the Dutch Reformed Church. Fourth, the article analyses how exiles in Norwich helped to build up the Dutch Reformed Church and shape the confessional landscape in the Dutch Republic. Amongst the activities they engaged in were preaching, printing, bookselling, and translation.