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.
Erik De Bom, Ph.D. (2009), KU Leuven, is Research Fellow at that university. He has published on the history of political thought in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, early-modern intellectual history and Renaissance humanism.
Randall Lesaffer is Professor of legal history at KU Leuven as well as Tilburg University. His research focuses on the historical development of the law of nations in Europa since the sixteenth century. He is general editor of Oxford Historical Treaties and The Cambridge History of International Law.
Werner Thomas is professor of Spanish and Spanish American History at KU Leuven. He publishes on the Low Countries and the Spanish monarchy, the repression of Protestantism in Spain, and the government of Archdukes Albert and Isabella in the Southern Netherlands.
List of Tables
Notes on Contributors
Introduction
ââWerner Thomas
PART 1 The Construction of Sovereignty
1âSovereignty in Grotius
ââHans Blom
2âIdeas on Sovereignty
âSoto, Vázquez and Grotius
ââGustaaf van Nifterik
3âConform to the Government and Acknowledge the Sovereignty
âSimon Stevin and François Vranck, a Practical Approach to Contested Sovereignty
ââLies van Aelst
PARTÂ 2 The Use and Limits of Sovereignty
4âSovereignty as Argument
âThe Habsburg-Dutch Struggle for Territory before and after Westphalia, 1576â1664
ââBram De Ridder
5âSovereignty and Early Modern Private Property Rights
ââShavana Musa
6âThe âPerfect Principalityâ of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella
âProject and Reality of a âSeparate Sovereigntyâ of the Spanish Crown, 1529â1621
ââAlicia Esteban EstrÃngana
PARTÂ 3 Sovereigns and Sovereignty in Practice
7ââThe King is the Real Sovereign of this Countriesâ
âPolitics of Justice and Order from the Duke of Alba in the Netherlands, 1567â1571
ââGustaaf Janssens
This book is of interest to scholars and graduate students with interest in the subject of sovereignty from different academic disciplines: political and institutional historians, historians of political thought, legal historians, constitutional and international lawyers.