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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 27 December 2024
This essay examines the historical and intellectual significance of the Dutch Doopsgezind-Collegiant poet Gesine Brit. It reconstructs the historical background that led to the writing of a religious-political poem that Brit penned in 1705 to denounce the persecutions suffered by her religious companions in Groningen at the hands of the local religious and civil authorities. It then offers both an examination of its content and its first English translation. It demonstrates that Brit belonged to a tradition of Nonconformist intellectuals who contributed to shaping Dutch Enlightenment culture, thus expanding the canon of political writing to include women and their poetry.
References to ACA and GCA are given by access and inventory numbers
The research upon which this article is based was conducted as part of the research project ‘European women and religious dissent: the advent of modernity and the democratic public sphere’, funded by the European Research Council under the Horizon Europe Framework Programme (grant agreement no. 101063043). A shorter version of this article was presented at the international conference ‘Women and religion: dissenters, workers, writers in the early modern European context’, held at University College, Dublin, Newman House, on 12–13 June 2023. I would like to thank the conference attendees and this JournaL's reviewers and editors for their comments and suggestions. Special thanks also to Katherine O'Donnell and Gary Waite who read an earlier version of this article. Their comments and insights greatly improved it.
1 For a careful discussion of the concept of ‘agency’ see Howell, Martha, ‘The problem of women's agency in late medieval and early modern Europe’, in Moran, Sarah J. and Pipkin, Amanda C. (eds), Women and gender in the early modern Low Countries, 1500–1750, Leiden 2019, 21–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Pipkin, Amanda, Dissenting daughters: Reformed women in the Dutch Republic, Oxford 2022, 30–1CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Martine van Elk, Early modern women's writing: domesticity, privacy, and the public sphere in England and the Dutch Republic, Cham 2017, 1–2. Van Elk has demonstrated that several women writers continued to represent themselves according to the previous, traditional model of absolutist power and publicity, as a way to counter the growing emphasis on the household and its private realm.
4 Sarah J. Moran and Amanda Pipkin, ‘Introduction’, in Moran and Pipkin, Women and gender, 2–3.
5 For a careful discussion of the historiography of early modern women in the Netherlands and the pre-eminence given to the northern provinces see ibid. 6–16. A useful resource on Dutch women is the Digitaal vrouwenlexicon van Nederland, at <https://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon>. See also the monumental anthology compiled by Kloek, Els and Boom, Irma, 1001 vrouwen uit de Nederlandse geschiedenis, Nijmegen 2013Google Scholar.
6 Moran and Pipkin, ‘Introduction’, 12–13.
7 Ibid. 10–11; Pipkin, Dissenting daughters, 1; Mirjam van Veen, ‘“… Polué et souille …”: The Reformed polemic against Anabaptist marriage, 1560–1650’, in Mirjam van Veen and others (eds), Sisters: myth and reality of Anabaptist, Mennonite, and Doopsgezind women, ca. 1525–1900, Leiden 2014, 88, 91–2; Piet Visser, ‘L'Honneste Femme: a French, Roman Catholic role model for Dutch Doopsgezind sisters’, in Van Veen, Sisters, 198. In this essay I follow Piet Visser's use of the terms ‘Mennonite’ and ‘Doopsgezind’. The former refers to those Dutch Anabaptists belonging to more conservative communities, while the latter to those who emphasised the responsibility of individual believers over the authority of the congregation, thus resulting to a certain extent in more tolerant communities. It is uncertain when exactly the term ‘Doopsgezind’ began to be used, but it was after 1557, when the Waterlanders separated themselves from the group led by Menno Simons, Dirck Philips and Lenaert Bouwens. The Waterlanders seem to have been the first to use the term Doopsgezinden to refer to themselves. For more information on this schism and the use of these terms see Visser, Piet, ‘Mennonites and Doopsgezinden in the Netherlands, 1535–1700’, in Roth, John and Stayer, James (eds), A companion to Anabaptism and Spiritualism, Leiden 2007, 299–300, 311–14Google Scholar. This distinction between ‘conservative’ Mennonites and more ‘liberal’ Doopsgezinden was reinforced in the seventeenth century, when the latter associated with the Collegiants. On the use of the terms ‘Mennonite’ and ‘Doopsgezind’, and the preference for more neutral terms such as ‘baptiser’ or ‘adult baptiser’ see also Driedger, Michael, ‘The year 1625, the Dutch Republic, and book history: perspectives for reframing studies of Mennonites and early modernity’, Mennonite Quarterly Review xcvii/1 (2023), 12–14, 22–3Google Scholar.
8 Among the many studies see at least Broad, Jacqueline and Green, Karen, A history of women's political thought in Europe, 1400–1700, Cambridge 2009CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clarke, Danielle, The politics of early modern women's writing, 2nd edn, London–New York 2013CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brownlee, Victoria and Gallagher, Laura, Biblical women in early modern literary culture, 1550–1700, Manchester 2015Google Scholar; Stavreva, Kirilka, Words like daggers: violent female speech in early modern England, Lincoln 2015CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Thomas, Emily (ed.), Early modern women on metaphysics, Cambridge 2018CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Conroy, Derval (ed.), Towards an equality of the sexes in early modern France, New York–London 2021CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 Broad, Jacqueline, ‘Women on liberty in early modern England’, Philosophy Compass ix/2 (2014), 112Google Scholar.
10 Pipkin, Dissenting daughters, 21; Moran and Pipkin, ‘Introduction’, 12–13; Pipkin, ‘Women's writing’, 32. On the growing circulation of women's writing in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, either in manuscript or in published form, see Pipkin, Dissenting daughters, 224–5.
11 Crawford, Patricia, Women and religion in England, London 2005Google Scholar.
12 As further explained below, the Collegiant movement was aconfessional in the sense that it did not require a confession of faith for participation in its religious assemblies. Some of its members also openly opposed confession of faiths as a group-defining factor. This picture may be complicated by the unclear position of the Collegiants towards Roman Catholics. According to the historian Jacobus van Slee, the Collegiants were inclined to allow Catholics to participate in their religious assemblies, but it is not certain that Catholics ever did so: De Rijnsburger Collegianten: met inleiding van Dr. S. B. J. Zilverberg, Utrecht 1980, 404–8. Further research may prove whether or not Catholics actually participated in Collegiant meetings, and if not, how this might change the scholarly view of the Collegiant movement as aconfessional.
13 The historiography on ‘confessionalisation’, which includes both ‘confession-building’ and ‘social discipline’, is vast. For a concise, careful summary see Michael Driedger, ‘Konfessionalisierung (im Täufertum)’, in Mennonitisches Lexikon (MennLex), at <https://www.mennlex.de/doku.php?id=top:konfessionalisierung>. See also Michael Driedger and Gary Waite, ‘From “the radical reformation” to “the radical enlightenment”? The specter and complexities of Spiritualism in early modern England, Germany, and the Low Countries', Church History and Religious Culture ci/2–3 (2021), 135–66. Leszek Kolakowski included the Collegiants among the groups and individuals that he labelled as ‘Christians without a church’: Chrétiens sans église: la conscience religieuse et le lien confessionnel au XVIIe siècle, trans. Anna Posner, Paris 1987, chs iii–iv.
14 Zijlmans, J. M., Vriendenkringen in de zeventiende eeuw: vereningsvormen van het informele culturele leven te Rotterdam, Den Haag 1999, 99–126Google Scholar. On the early modern concept of equality between sexes and its difference with the equivalent modern idea see Conroy, Derval, ‘Introduction: women and the history of philosophy’, Early Modern French Studies xliii/1 (2021), 1–4Google Scholar.
15 Among the many studies see at least Visser, Piet, ‘Enlightened Dutch Mennonitism: the case of Cornelius van Engelen’, in Schubert, Anselm and others (eds), Grenzen des Täufertum / Boundaries of Anabaptism, Gütersloh 2009, 369–91Google Scholar; Wiep van Bunge, De Nederlandse republiek, Spinoza en radicale verlichting, Antwerp 2010; Buys, Ruben, ‘“Without thy self, O man, thou hast no means to look for, by which thou maist know God”: Pieter Balling, the radical enlightenment, and the legacy of Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert’, Church History and Religious Culture xciii/3 (2013), 363–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Buys, Ruben, Sparks of reason: vernacular rationalism in the Low Countries, 1550–1670, Hilversum 2015Google Scholar; Gary Waite, ‘The drama of the two-word debate among liberal Dutch Mennonites, c. 1620–1660: preparing the way for Baruch Spinoza?’, in Bridget Heal and Anorthe Kremers (eds), Radicalism and dissent in the world of Protestant reform, Göttingen 2017, 118–36; Joke Spaans and Jetze Touber, Enlightened religion: from confessional Churches to polite piety in the Dutch Republic, Leiden 2019; and Michael Driedger, ‘Aufklärung’, in MennLex, at <https://www.mennlex.de/doku.php?id=top:aufklaerung>.
16 Brit is listed among the eight women (out of eighty-four authors) who were active between the seventeenth and the eighteenth century. See Visser, Piet, ‘Aspects of social criticism and cultural assimilation: the Mennonite image in literature and self-criticism of literary Mennonites’, in Voolstra, Sjouke and Visser, Piet (eds), From martyr to muppy: a historical introduction to cultural assimilation processes of a religious minority in the Netherlands: the Mennonites, Amsterdam 1994, 82Google Scholar. But she is not listed, for instance, in the ‘Dictionary of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch philosophers', in which Michael Driedger counted nineteen men and one woman belonging to the Mennonites and Doopsgezinden. Driedger also reveals that women were active in compiling hymnbooks and, more broadly, in the Dutch book trade. For these reasons, he follows a previous statement by Troy Osborne in stressing that ‘there is a need for more research on early modern Dutch adult baptizing women’: Driedger, ‘The year 1625’, 34–5, 38–9, 42.
17 Although it seems hard to establish exactly who started to use these terms in the first place, it appears that the term ‘Rijnsburger’ was well established among the Collegiants themselves by 1672, when Joachim Oudaen wrote the first history of the beginnings of the movement. As for the term Collegianten, it appears profusely in archival documents from the Collegiants in Amsterdam starting from the late 1670s. See respectively [Joachim Oudaen], Aanmerkingen over het verhaal van het eerste begin en opkomen der Rynsburgers, Rotterdam 1672; ‘Inventaris van het Archief van het Weeshuis der Doopsgezinde Collegianten de Oranjeappel’, ACA, 169/1. For more information on the controversies within the Dutch Reformed Church between Remonstrants and Gomarists, and the defeat of the former at the Synod of Dordrecht, see Adriaan Goudriaan and Fried van Lieburg, Revisiting the Synod of Dordt (1618–1619), Leiden 2011. For the socio-political context of such controversies see Israel, Jonathan, The Dutch Republic: its rise, greatness and fall, 1477–1806, Oxford 1995, 422–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
18 Pipkin, Dissenting daughters, 34–7. See also Fred van Lieburg, ‘Het gereformeerde conventikelwezen in de classis Dordrecht in de 17e en 18e eeuw’, Holland, Regionaal-historisch Tijdschrift xxiii/1 (1991), 2–21.
19 Driedger, ‘Gesellschaften und Vereine’, in MennLex, at <http://www.mennlex.de/doku.php?id=top:gesellschaften–und–vereine>. The historiography on early modern ‘publics' is constantly growing. An excellent summary of recent discussions on early modern privacy and the public sphere(s) can be found in Van Elk, Early modern women's writing, 3–10. Among the many studies on this topic see Bronwen Wilson and Paul Yachnin (eds), Making publics in early modern Europe: people, things, forms of knowledge, New York–London 2010, and Peter Lake and Steve Pincus (eds), The politics of the public sphere in early modern England: public persons and popular spirits, Manchester 2012.
20 For more information on the Collegiants see Van Slee, De Rijnsburger Collegianten; Wiep van Bunge, Johannes Bredenburg (1643–1691): een Rotterdamse collegiant in de ban van Spinoza, Rotterdam 1990; Andrew Fix, Prophecy and reason: the Dutch Collegiants in the early Enlightenment, Princeton 1991; Leszek Kołakowski, ‘Dutch seventeenth-century anti-confessional ideas and rational religion: the Mennonite, Collegiant, and Spinozan connections: translation and introduction by James Satterwhite’, Mennonite Quarterly Review lxiv/3–4 (1990), 259–97, 385–416; Gerrit Voogt, ‘“Anyone who can read may be a preacher”: sixteenth-century roots of the Collegiants', Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis lxxxv/1 (2005), 409–24; and Francesco Quatrini, Adam Boreel (1602–1665): a Collegiant's attempt to reform Christianity, Leiden 2021.
21 For a list of the several colleges and an account of their beginnings see Van Slee, De Rijnsburger Collegianten, 79–237.
22 Ibid. 105–107; Visser, ‘Mennonites and Doopsgezinden’, 334. In the 1650s the United Flemish congregations also included the Young Frisians and the High Germans, as the three groups had united in 1639. For further information on the several Doopsgezinde and Mennonite groups in the Netherlands between the sixteenth and the seventeenth century see Visser, ‘Mennonites and Doopsgezinden’, 319–28.
23 Visser, ‘Mennonites and Doopsgezinden’, 334–40. On the Lammerenkrijgh see also Michael Driedger, Obedient heretics: Mennonite identities in Lutheran Hamburg and Altona, 2nd edn, London Park–New York 2017, ch. iii. The divide between the ‘tolerant Lamists’ and the ‘confessional Zonists' matches roughly the distinction between Doopsgezinden and Mennonites described above.
24 The historiography on Socinianism is vast. For a concise and careful analysis of Socinianism as a doctrinal system see Ogonowski, Zbigniew, Socinianism: history, views, legacy, Rome 2021Google Scholar.
25 For example, Gary Waite has revealed that both opposing parties accused each other of Socinianism during the Two-Word dispute: Waite, ‘The Two-Word debate’.
26 Quatrini, Adam Boreel, 87–8, 97–119.
27 Israel, The Dutch Republic, 911–12.
28 Van Slee, De Rijnsburger Collegianten, 221–6.
29 ‘Thyes Textor misleydt door seker landloper Carel Cats genaemt, en naemaels overgegaan tot de soorte van Mennisten, die sich Collegianten noemen, herwaerts geciteert verscheen’: GCA, access no. 1517, Kerkenraad van Hervormde Gemeente te Groningen, 1568–1951, inventory no. 4 (here in after GCA 1517/4), 6 Mar. 1700 (no foliation).
30 ‘Vermaent dat sich te wachten hadde van't geselschap der Collegianten, als luiden die tot verleydinge leerden, wilde dat niet beloven’: ibid.
31 ‘Ingelyxs wierde gerept, hoe die so genaamde Collegianten, die uit de Mennisten uitgegaen syn, haer selven de vryheit nemen om in een publycke vergaederinge van alle pointen der religie op een Sociniaensche maniere te handelen’: GCA 1517/4, 28 Apr. 1700 (no foliation).
32 ‘Dese vryheit an opgemelte Collegianten te benemen’: ibid.
33 It was not uncommon that Dutch magistrates left dissenters unmolested for some time, despite the Reformed ministers’ pressure: Van Veen, ‘The reformed polemic’, 89–90.
34 GCA, 1517/4, 29 May 1701 (no foliation). For the discussions around the Collegiants in the preceding months see the consistory minutes dated 8 June, 25 Aug., 4 Sept., 24 Nov. 1700 at GCA 1517/4.
35 ‘Een nieuwe secte uit de Mennoniten by de huisen gaande, om volk van dese Gemeinte tot haar leere te trecken Collegianten genaamd en dat … deselve seer gevaarlyke en dwalende gevoelen hadden omtrent het Fundament onser saligheid’: GCA, access no. 1605, Stadsbestuur van Groningen (2), 1594–1815, inventory no. 25 (hereinafter GCA 1605/25), 461. There is an identical copy of this ordinance in GCA, access no. 2041, Register Feith-stukken Stadsarchief Groningen (meest afschriften), 1291–1815, inventory no. 967 (here in after GCA 2041/967), extract dated 6 December 1701 (no foliation).
36 ‘Dat wy onbehinderd in ’t beleeven van onze conscientie onder U Ed: Mog: regeringe nog mogen continueren’: GCA 2041/967, extract dated 19 December 1701 [no foliation].
37 Ibid. extract dated 9 Jan. 1702 (no foliation).
38 GCA 1605/25, 482.
39 GCA 1605/25, 493–4.
40 ‘Wierd wederom gerept van de soo genaemde Collegianten, die alsnoch in hare vergaderingen stoutelik voortvaren, en dat op haer oude plaetse, alwaer haer getal eer vermeerderde als verminderde; en dat onaengesien de Heeren des raads by resolutie haer sulx verboden hadden, so datse tegen ‘t verbodt der magistraet notirlich aengaen’: GCA 1517/4, 25 May 1704 (no foliation). The reformed ministers had already reported two years earlier that the Collegiants had continued to meet on Sundays in their usual meeting place: GCA 1517/4, 20 Aug. 1702 (no foliation).
41 ‘Belangende het naelaaten van haer Godsdienstig ‘t zaamenkomsten, dat in conscientie verstonden, haer sulks van Godt en Christus was belasten, dat vermogten’: GCA, access no. 1605, Stadsbestuur van Groningen (2), 1594–1815, inventory no. 26 (hereinafter GCA 1605/26), 327.
42 Between August 1702 and May 1704, the burgomasters had enacted three further ordinances concerning the Collegiants, namely on 7 September 1702, 8 January 1703 and 11 December 1703: ibid. 37–8, 79, 320–1.
43 Ibid. 327.
44 Ibid. 342.
45 GCA 1517/4, 4 Mar. 1705 [no foliation].
46 Ibid. 10 June 1705 (no foliation). See also the minutes dated 24 May.
47 GCA 1605/26, 379.
48 ‘Dese schadelicke by-een-komste dus verre is gestoyt’: GCA 1517/4, 30 Aug. 1705 (no foliation). It should be noted that the Collegiants resumed their assemblies in the following months. For information on the history of the Groningen College during the eighteenth century see Van Slee, De Rijnsburger Collegianten, 229–37.
49 Variants of her name include Geesie, Gezine, Gesina and Gezina.
50 The following biographical account is based on the biography composed by Van Oostrum and further updated using archival findings. Thus, when not otherwise specified, biographical information is taken from W. R. D. van Oostrum, ‘Brit, Gesine’, in Digitaal Vrouwenlexicon, at <https://resources.huygens.knaw.nl/vrouwenlexicon/lemmata/data/brit>.
51 The date of birth can be concluded from her marriage certificate, which states that she was forty-two years old on 4 September 1711: ACA, access no. 5001, Archief van de Burgerlijke Stand: doop-, trouw- en begraafboeken van Amsterdam, inventory no. 708 (here in after ACA 5001/708), fo. 70r.
52 According to his marriage certificate, Roelof Brit was fifty-three years old when he married Maria Catharina de Bruine on 25 August 1730: ACA, access no. 5001, Archief van de Burgerlijke Stand: doop-, trouw- en begraafboeken van Amsterdam, inventory no. 571, fo. 19r.
53 This was a declaration given by the consistory of a congregation on behalf of a member who was moving elsewhere, testifying that the said member was irreproachable in both belief and behaviour. The attestatie for Maarten Brit and Baartje Roelofs was dated 17 December 1681. ACA, access no. 1120, Archief van Verenigde Doopsgezinde Gemeente van Amsterdam en rechtsvoorgangers, inventory no. 245, Attestatie voor Marten Hendrikx Brid en syn huysvrouw Bartie Roelofs 17 decemb. 1681 (no foliation).
54 The Doopsgezinde church bij ‘t Lam en Toren was established in 1672 from the union of the Lamists bij ‘t Lam and the Waterlanders bij ’t Toren: Visser, ‘Mennonites and Doopsgezinden’, 337.
55 ACA, access no. 5001, Archief van de Burgerlijke Stand: doop-, trouw- en begraafboeken van Amsterdam, inventory no. 1070, fo. 99v.
56 ‘Gilles Hogeveen haar man halvesusters soon’: ACA, access no. 5075, Archief van de Notarissen ter Standplaats Amsterdam, inventory no. 8508 (here in after ACA 5075/8508), notarial act dated 24 January 1732 [no foliation].
57 ACA, access no. 1120, Archief van Verenigde Doopsgezinde Gemeente van Amsterdam en rechtsvoorgangers, inventory no. 213, 106.
58 For information on women's education in the Dutch Republic see Van Elk, Early modern women's writing, 13–15, 167–213.
59 Visser, ‘L'Honneste Femme’, 203; Pipkin, Dissenting daughters, 32.
60 Elizabeth Jocelin, The mothers legacie, to her unborne childe, London 1624.
61 Idem, Uyterste Wille van een Moeder Aan haar toekomende Kind, Toegeeugent aan de Volkmaaktste Huysmoeder: den tweden druk, met vaarzen en koopere platsen versiert, Amsterdam [1699].
62 ‘De Eerbare Geesje Brit, geen ongeoeffende liefhebberes van de dicht-konst’: ibid. fo. *3v.
63 Ibid. 209–47.
64 Gesine Brit, ‘Op Salomons Vreede Tyd, uyt 1 Kon. 1. v. 4, 5: verklaart en toegepast ter gelegenheid van de Vrede, door Dr. Hermannus Schyn: Leraar der Doopsgesinden te Amsterdam’, in Hermannus Schyn, Salomons Tempel-Bouw, of Regt Gebruik des Vredes, op den algemeene Dankdag (gevierd op den 6 november 1697), aanewezen, in de Verklaring en Toepassing van Salomons Woorden: 1 Koningen v: vers 4, 5, Amsterdam 1697.
65 By contributing to other people's works and to larger editorial projects, Brit complied with the ordinary custom of the Dutch Republic: Van Elk, Early modern women's writing, 128–29. For the titles of these poems by Brit see the biographical entry by Van Oostrum, who has compiled a preliminary bibliography of Brit's poetry.
66 Schroeder, Nina, ‘Art and heterodoxy in the Dutch Enlightenment: Arnold Houbracken, the Flemish Mennonites, and religious difference in “The great theatre of Netherlandish Painters and Painteresses” (1718–1721)’, Church History and Religious Culture ci/2–3 (2021), 324–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
67 ACA 5001/708, fo. 70r.
68 ACA, access no. 877, Archief van de Doopsgezinde Gemeente de Zon, inventory no. 35 (no foliation).
69 Van Elk, Early modern women's writing, 13, 156–7. For more information on the gendered aspects of marriages in the Dutch Republic see pp. 29–31, 40–8; Michael Driedger, ‘Mennonites, gender, and the rise of civil society in the Dutch Enlightenment’, in Van Veen, Sisters, 232–5, 237.
70 Johanna Coomans, a well–known writer from the province of Zeeland, was another famous exception to this unwritten rule: Van Elk, Early modern women's writing, 44.
71 Stichtelyke zinnebeelden gepast op deugden en ondeugden in LVII tafereeelen vertoont door A. Houbraken, en verrykt met de bygedichten van Juffr. Gezine Brit, Amsterdam 1723.
72 ‘Naa het verloopen van een geruimen tydt … kreeg ik aanleyding tot de vernuftige Dichteresse Gezine Brit, huisvrouw van Jacob van Gaveren, berucht door ’t maken van verscheiden puikdichten. Deze wert door my en haaren broeder ernstig verzocht om ’t geen waar meergemelde Zeeus nalatig in gebleven was, op te nemen, ’t geen zy, om dat die stof haaren aart vleide, my toestont, en ook in korten tydt voltooide’: ibid. (no page number).
73 ACA, access no. 5001, Archief van de Burgerlijke Stand: doop-, trouw- en begraafboeken van Amsterdam, inventory no. 1103, fo. 64r.
74 I was not able to access the original notarial act. The information is taken from Van Oostrum.
75 If one were to find information on these people, it would be helpful to reconstruct Brit's network. The suggestion that Jacobs was a Collegiant is certainly enticing, even though the only element supporting this is the fact that she was living in Rijnsburg.
76 ACA, 5075/8508, notarial act dated 24 January 1732 [no foliation]. A few months before, Brit had appeared in front of the same notary to sign an act for the transfer of an obligatie, namely a debt letter of loan, to Helena van Soesdijk. Brit had inherited this obligatie of the value of 12,000 guilders from her late husband: ACA, access no. 5075, Archief van de Notarissen ter Standplaats Amsterdam, inventory no. 8505, notarial act dated 2 June 1731 [no foliation].
77 ACA, access no. 5075, Archief van de Notarissen ter Standplaats Amsterdam, inventory no. 8531, notarial act dated 28 October 1737 [no foliation].
78 ACA, access no. 5075, Archief van de Notarissen ter Standplaats Amsterdam, inventory no. 8529, notarial act dated 1 June 1737 [no foliation].
79 Knipkunstenares could be translated as ‘a cutting artist’, where the knipkunst was the art or ability of cutting all kinds of things out of paper. See Schroeder, ‘Art and heterodoxy’.
80 Het stamboek op de papiere snykunst van Mejuffrouw Joanna Koerten, huisvrouw van den Heere Adriaan Blokk. Bestaande in Latynsche en Nederduitsche gedichten der voornaamste dichters, Amsterdam 1735.
81 Gedichten op de overheerlyke papiere snykunst van wyle Mejuffrouwe Joanna Koerten, huisvrouwe van wylen den Heere Adriaan Blok, gedrukt na het origineeel stamboek; Benevens een korte schets van haar leven, Amsterdam 1736.
82 ACA, access no. 5001, Archief van de Burgerlijke Stand: doop-, trouw- en begraafboeken van Amsterdam, inventory no. 1104, fo. 45r.
83 Van Elk, Early modern women's writing, 81, 101, 105–6; Amanda Pipkin, ‘Women's writings during the Dutch revolt: the religious authority and political agenda of Cornelia and Susanna Tellinck, 1554–1625’, in Moran and Pipkin, Women and gender, 32–67.
84 Van Elk, Early modern women's writing, 129–30, 136; Pipkin, Dissenting daughters, 208–10.
85 The quotations from Brit's poem here and following are taken from Appendix 1 below, which includes the first English translation of Brit's poem. Appendix 2 includes the transcription of the original Dutch manuscript.
86 Elias van Nijmegen, Historie der Rijnsburgsche vergadering, Rotterdam 1775, 228–32.
87 Allard Pierson Museum, Amsterdam, HS 65–129 (loan of the Mennonite Community of Amsterdam).
88 Pipkin, ‘Women's writing’, 40–55.
89 Among the many studies see Jonathan Israel, Radical Enlightenment: philosophy and the making of modernity, 1650–1750, Oxford 2001; Wiep van Bunge, From Stevin to Spinoza: an essay on philosophy in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic, Leiden 2001; Michiel Wielema, The march of the libertines: Spinozists and the Dutch Reformed Church (1660–1750), Hilversum 2004; and Alexander X. Douglas, Spinoza and Dutch Cartesianism: philosophy and theology, Oxford 2017.
90 I would like to thank Katherine O'Donnel for pointing this out.
91 Van Elk, Early modern women's writing, 4, 16, 90.
92 Clarke, Danielle, ‘The countess of Pembroke and the practice of piety’, in Harris, Johanna and Scott-Bauman, Elizabeth (eds), The intellectual culture of Puritan women, 1558–1680, Houndmills 2010, 28–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
93 Van Elk, Early modern women's writing, 8; Pipkin, ‘Women's writing’, 58.
94 Van Elk, Early modern women's writing, 132; Pipkin, Dissenting daughters, 112
95 Pipkin, ‘Women's writing’, 40, 51.
96 Ibid. 62.
97 Broad, A history of women's political thought, 112.
98 Ibid. 7.
99 Ibid. 8–9.
* This is a reference to the Nederlansche historien by Pieter Cornelisz Hooft, which appeared in two volumes between 1642 and 1654: Neederlandsche histoorien, seedert de ooverdraght der heerschappye van Kaizar Kaarel den Vyfden op Kooning Philips zynen zoon, Amsterdam 1642, and Vervolgh der Neederlandsche Historien, seedert het ooverlyden van Prins Willem, tot het heinder der landtvooghdyschap des Graaven van Leicester, Amsterdam 1654.
† This the first occurrence of the term reen (‘course, gallop’), which could also be a variant of the term rein (‘purity’). It seems that Brit played with these two words in her poem. In this occurrence, it has been translated as ‘gallop’ to express that sense of movement captured by the following verb vesten (‘hold on’). But if reen means also ‘purity’, then Brit here aimed at representing the movement set off by the Collegiants toward a purer form of religion, a movement that was stopped by the Reformed in Groningen. I would like to thank Gary Waite for suggesting that reen could be regarded as a variant of rein.
‡ This is the second occurrence of the term reen, this time translated as rein, because ‘purity’ makes more sense in the context of the line.
§ The word schenden has an explicit sexual meaning, clear in expressions such as eene maagd schenden ('to defile or deflower a virgin’) and vrouwen schenden ('to ravish women, to commit rape’).
** Both the manuscript and the published versions read overheen, an adverb meaning ‘over, across, on top of’. However, such an adverb would make no sense in the context of the line. It is most likely a misspelling of the word overheer (‘master, sovereign’), possibly done on purpose for rhyme's sake.
†† The use of another sexual verb – schaaken ('to ravish, to commit a rape’) – in a context unrelated to sexuality – a wolf or a bear hunting a nest – aims at stressing the immorality of what happened in Groningen.
‡‡ Weerloos is a key term for Doopsgezinden, Mennonites and Collegiants, who generally defended a non-resistant approach towards evil and violence.
§§ This might very well be an implicit reference to the Parables of the Tares in Matthew xiii. 24–30, a locus classicus in the early modern discussions around tolerance and intolerance.
*** Namely the Amsterdam prison Rasphuis, whose motto, on front door reads ‘wilde beesten moet men temmen’ (‘wild beasts must be tamed’).
††† The term beleid was used for bestuur, regeering, bevelvoering, that is ‘administration, government, command’.
‡‡‡ As above, here also recurs the term overheen for overheer.
* This is a transcription of the manuscript version kept in Allard Pierson HS 65–129 (loan of the Mennonite Community of Amsterdam). For the published version see Van Nijmegen, Historie, 228–32. In the following, only the chief and most significant variances between the two versions are pointed out.
† Van Nijmegen has the superlative vreemder in the first line, closing the second line with a question mark as if Brit were asking ‘what is stranger’ than the news coming from Groningen. Although this would make sense, the simple adjective vreemde in the first line of the manuscript, which has no question mark at the end of the second line, seems to better convey the flow of the first quatrain.
‡ Van Nijmegen has haer instead of zij.
§ Van Nijmegen has the equivalent term dan.
** Dwinglandy in the manuscript.
†† Van Nijmegen has ‘maer is ‘t, helaes!’ However, as above, the exclamation mark appears to break the flow of the passage.
‡‡ Van Nijmegen has a question mark at the end of the quatrain, instead of a full stop, making the two quatrains starting from ‘daar zij wanneer de Roomse’ a second, long rhetorical question, instead of an assertion as in the manuscript version.
§§ Van Nijmegen has staat, which means ‘state, condition’. But in this sentence, such a term would make less sense than the word haat (‘hate’) which is in the manuscript version.