Journal Article

After Iconoclasm: Reconciliation and Resacralization in the Southern Netherlands, ca. 1566–85

Spicer, Andrew

2013

Overview

This article considers the institutional response to the Iconoclastic Fury and the iconoclasm of the early 1580s in the southern provinces of the Netherlands. Although the restoration of Catholicism is more often associated with the early seventeenth century, this article demonstrates that the reconstruction of churches and reestablishment of worship took place a generation earlier in the immediate aftermath of the religious violence. Furthermore this restoration was a priority for the government in the Netherlands, in particular for Margaret of Parma and her son Alexander Farnese, as they sought to regain control of the region and assert the authority of the crown. In particular, they encouraged the use of the ecclesiastical rites of consecration and reconciliation to symbolize the cleansing and purification of the religious landscape after the profane actions of the iconoclasts and adherents of the Reformed faith.

• Publisher: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, Inc,The University of Chicago Press,Truman State University Press,University of Chicago Press
• Subject: Authority / Catholicism / Christianity / Faith / History / History and sciences of religions / Modern period / Overall studies / Reconciliation / Religious history