Republiek en vorst. De stadhouders en het staatsvormingsproces in de Noordelijke Nederlanden, 16e-18e eeuw (original) (raw)

1989

Republic and Prince. The Stadholders and the State-Making Process in the Northern Netherlands, 16th-18th centuries. The paper subjects Norbert Elias’ ideas on early modern state-making to the test of the Dutch Republic. More specifically the question is put forward, why it is that the Orange Stadholders did not manage to reach the same station as the French Absolutist kings. And this in spite of the fact that the Stadholders’ position in many ways resembled that of the French monarchs, most notably through their command of the Dutch armies, that were among the largest of early modern Europe, thus providing the Stadholders with a firm hand in the monopoly of violence that plays such a crucial part in Elias’ theory of the state. The weakness in the Stadholders’ position is depicted as being mainly of a financial nature. The Dutch armies were financed to a large extent through private and voluntary subscriptions to loans of the province of Holland, and this gave Holland’s urban elites ...