Exile Experiences and the Transformations of Religious Cultures in the Sixteenth Century: Wesel, London, Emden, and Frankenthal

Abstract

Abstract This essay compares the experiences of Netherlandish Protestants who fled Habsburg persecution in the late sixteenth century in their three largest exile communities – Wesel, London and Emden. Previous scholars have emphasized that exile encouraged Netherlandish Protestants to develop more confessionally Calvinist ideas and to embrace a more volunteeristic understanding of faith, which could (and should) operate independent from government oversight. Further, scholars have suggested that Calvinism flourished in exile because its strict church discipline held fractured communities together. This essay reassesses these conclusions by examining the diversity of ideas circulating in exile communities, the flexibility of migrant churches to local conditions, the continued frustrations of pastors and elders in achieving their disciplinary objectives, and the repeated assurances among exile leaders of their obedience to political authorities. It concludes by suggesting that a newly founded exile community, Frankenthal, might be the closest to the model Reformed community proposed by scholars, but notes that it only ever attracted few Netherlandish Protestants.