Ecclesiastical Institutions

Soon after, the efforts of Netherlandish congregations across the diaspora picked up steam. Again the vision seems to have been of a multilingual, internationalist vision for these Reformed churches. Discussions about the strategic benefit of such an organization seem to have begun among Dutch Reformed in the Palatinate (probably including Dathenus) as well as coreligionists in England.4 Muylaert, Shaping the Stranger Churches, 197; Jelsma, Frontiers of the Reformation, 113. A key promoter of this effort was Philip van Marnix, Lord of St. Aldegonde, a Reformed nobleman who had participated in political protests and scheming against Habsburg rule in 1565 and 1566.5 Weis, Philipp de Marnix et le Saint Empire; Weis, “Philip of Marnix and ‘International Protestantism’.” Marnix’s own vision for the Reformed church at this point, as demonstrated by Alisa van de Haar, was one of multilingual unity.6 Van de Haar, Golden Mean of Languages, 202–06. In spring 1569, Marnix helped to develop alliances between Elector Palatine Friedrich III, leading Netherlandish Reformed pastors in the Palatinate like Petrus Dathenus, and William of Orange, now the undisputed leader of anti-Habsburg resistance in the Low Countries.7 Spohnholz, Convent of Wesel, 95–96. The following year, Orange hired Marnix as a propagandist and political advisor capable of earning Orange support among Reformed leaders suspicious of Orange’s intentions.8 Dankbaar, “Marnix van St. Aldegonde,” 41–85; Frijhoff, “Marnix over de opvoeding”; Alastair Duke, “Dissident Propaganda and Political Organization at the Outbreak of the Revolt of the Netherlands,” in Benedict, Marnef and Venard, Reformation, Revolt and Civil War, 133–48. One necessary precondition for this, in Marnix’s view, was to promote greater coordination across the Netherlandish Reformed movement. By March 1570, Marnix and the pastor at Frankenthal, Gaspar van der Heyden, cowrote a long letter addressed to coreligionists across the diaspora recommending that they build institutions capable of tracking migrants between the disparate and poorly connected congregations and organize some means of raising funds to support the hiring of pastors in underserved congregations.9 Philip van Marnix and Gaspar van der Heyden, “Rondgaande brief, namens de gemeenten te Heidelberg en Frankenthal, aan de verstrooide gemeente der vluchtelingen in Engeland en Duitschland,” in Van Toorenenbergen, Philips van Marnix van St. Aldegonde, 3–38. In the next year, Marnix worked hard to build transnational ecclesiastical institutions that could help coordinate the Reformed and Orangist causes.

In the summer of 1571, Marnix helped organize a meeting of Reformed Protestants in the town of Bedburg, an Unterherrschaft of the Neuenahr noble family that operated as a feudal dependency (Lehnsabhängigkeit) from the archbishop of Cologne, a small Reformed enclave within the duchy of Jülich.10 Herbert Frost, “Ablauf und kirchenrechtsgeschichtliche Bedeutung der Bedburger Synode vom 3. und 4. Juli 1571,” in 400 Jahre Bedburger Synode, 25–48. This essay contains useful information, but also some speculations that go beyond the evidence. On the role of Neuenahr’s princely holdings in supporting regional Reformed congregations, see Goeters, “Die Herrschaft Bedburg,” in 400 Jahre Bedburger Synode, 49–71. Marnix used this meeting to promote greater coordination between the congregations and to try to convince Reformed migrants to approve the Augsburg Confession, to build support among Augsburger Konfessionsverwandt princes in the Empire against Catholic officials in the Netherlands.11 As in a letter from July 24, 1571 Hessels, Epistulae et Tractatus, vol. 2, 378–87. See also WMV 2/2, 6–7. He also hoped to build an alliance with French Reformed Churches, which had recently secured limited freedom to worship in the Peace of Saint-Germain-en-Laye of 1570.12 On connections between the French Wars of Religion and the politics of the Empire, see Van Tol, Germany and the French Wars of Religion. On connections between the Dutch Revolt and the politics of the Empire, see Arndt, Das Heilige Römische Reich. On connections between the Dutch Revolt and the French Wars of Religion, see Holt, Duke of Anjou. The meetings at Bedburg took place on July 3 and/or 4.13 The German-language records report that the meeting was on July 3. The Dutch-language records indicated that the meeting lasted two days, July 3 and 4. Some have speculated that the Dutch speakers may have held separate meetings on the second day, though there is no clear evidence for this. Frost, “Ablauf,” in 400 Jahre Bedburger Synode, 30. We don’t have a complete list of attendees and, besides the surviving articles, we know little about what took place.14 WMV 2/2, 3–7. However, two features of the meeting are clear. First, the meeting only had a handful of attendees and largely came to nothing. The organizers agreed to further consult on how to form an alliance with the “churches of the Augsburg Confession,” but such aspirations found no traction. The idea of creating a common fund to help support the training of pastors and developing a system to monitor migrants between congregations also never resulted in any concrete action either. Neither were any significant steps taken to coordinate with the Reformed churches in France. The only meaningful outcome seems to have been that Marnix, Van der Heyden, and their allies organized another meeting in Emden later that year. Second, its organizers did not see the meetings at Bedburg as an exclusively “Dutch” matter. Representatives of German Reformed congregations came from the surrounding area, including Aachen and Cologne, but also the villages in Meil (near Rheinbach, also held by the Neuenahr family) and Laurensberg (in the jurisdiction of Aachen). Reports were written in both Dutch and German. The records do distinguish between “Duytschlandt” and “Nederlandt,” but they treat Reformed Protestants from both places as sharing a common cause. The gathering at Bedburg suggests that Reformed in the diaspora imagined a multilingual alliance of congregations that was not limited by their ties to the Netherlands.

Later that year, Marnix was closely involved in a larger and more successful effort. He helped organize a synod in the East Frisian city of Emden, which included twenty-nine attendees who met over the course of ten days in October 1571 to write a proposal for a provisional church order in fifty-three articles and twenty-five statutes.15 Nauta, Van Dooren, and De Jong, De Synode van Emden. Nauta, “Wesel (1568) en Emden (1571)”; Van Meer, De synode te Emden. Organizers had invited representatives from Netherlandish Reformed congregations located in the Netherlands; the duchy of Cleves; the Palatinate, England; and the imperial cities of Aachen, Frankfurt, and Cologne; they were asked to send questions about issues of concern or for advice.16 Organizers tried to convince Friedrich III, Elector Palatine to send representatives of his court in Heidelberg to the meeting in Emden, but the prince declined to do so. Ruys, Petrus Dathenus, 103–04. Perhaps the most novel decision made at Emden was to recommend a transnational ecclesiastical structure with periodic assemblies to which congregations would send delegates to resolve thorny questions and discuss matters of common interest. The Netherlandish Reformed congregations would be divided into nine regional groupings—delegates used the Latin word classis (“group”)—that would meet regularly to consult.17 For a history of the classis, see Van den Broeke, Een geschiedenis van de classis. See also Van Deursen, Bavianen en Slijkgeuzen. The recommended groupings of congregation were Palatine/Frankfurt; Jülich/Cologne/Aachen/Limburg; Cleves, Emden, England, Brabant, Flanders, the Walloon provinces; and Holland/Overijssel/West Friesland.18 Rutgers, Acta, 59–61. Less frequent and more expansive assemblies would meet at regional synods (called “provincial synods,” though they did not all correspond to a specific province or territory) and at the broadest “general synods.” While this presbyterial-synodal structure drew on French Reformed churches for precedents, coreligionists in France only included congregations operating in France, while the Netherlanders imagined a transnational, multilingual diasporic organization operating in the Low Countries, England, and the Holy Roman Empire.19 On the French example, see Sunshine, Reforming French Protestantism.

In terms of understanding the connections across the Reformed Netherlandish diaspora, three points are worth making about the synod held at Emden. First, while delegates came from a broad swath of congregations, the meeting was not comprehensive in scope. The churches in England selected delegates but were barred from attending by the English government, which insisted they fell under the jurisdiction of the Church of England, not a foreign institution.20 Hessels, Epistulae et Tractatus, 2:150, 391. The city church in Emden declined to attend, probably for fear of similarly running afoul of Count Edzard of East Friesland, but perhaps also because leading members of the church disagreed on key matters with its organizers.21 Pettegree, Emden, 178. No one came from Frankfurt either. The only consistory in the duchy of Cleves that sent delegates was that in Wesel. Many regions within the Low Countries had no representatives either. Second, considerable disagreements emerged at Emden on key issues, including which doctrinal statements to adopt and how narrowly to draw the lines of acceptable belief.22 Willem Nijenhuis, “Synod of Emden, 1571,” in his Ecclesia Reformata, 2:101–24. These debates had theological implications as well as political ones, including whether the Reformed might get support from French Huguenots, German Lutheran princes, William of Orange, and the Elector Palatine.23 J. J. Woltjer, “De politieke betekenis van de Emdense synode,” in Nauta, Van Dooren, and De Jong, De synode van Emden, 22–49. Third, delegates were building a multilingual ecclesiastical system. Native Dutch, French, and German speakers all attended, and the records were written in Latin. The articles did distinguish between the “foreign” churches (meaning congregations made up of Netherlanders living abroad) and “Netherlandish” churches (those located in the Low Countries), but the word used to refer to the location of their common origin—Belgium—referred broadly to the multilingual lands of the Low Countries.

In the year after the synod held at Emden, some congregations in the diaspora began to meet in their regional classis groupings. But while the synod of Emden had envisioned a transnational ecclesiastical system operating in support of Reformed Protestantism in the Low Countries, that is not what happened outside the Netherlands. In some cases, pastors and elders in the diaspora built entirely separate ecclesiastical structures. Such was the case with the congregations in England and East Friesland, for example, which never joined the Dutch ecclesiastical system.24 The English congregations formed organizations they called the coetus and colloquy, which shared some of functions of classis, but coreligionists elsewhere remained frustrated that they never formed a parallel institution. Becker, Gemeindeordnung und Kirchenzucht, 458–62; Muylaert, Shaping the Stranger Churches, 64–65, 75–78. East Friesland had already long had a so-called coetus (a Latin word for a meeting), at which Reformed pastors met to discuss matters of common interest. Jürgens, Johannes a Lasco in Ostfriesland, 304–11; Becker, Gemeindeordnung und Kirchenzucht, 40, 110–11.

For the eleven congregations in our study, the regional classis organizations proposed at Emden proved extremely important. Very soon after the synod, three classes formed, geographically centering around the duchy of Cleves, the duchy of Jülich, and the Electoral Palatinate. Those institutions focused the bulk of their attention on serving the multilingual Reformed congregations in their region, not providing cooperation across the Dutch Reformed diaspora or providing support for the building of the Dutch Reformed Church. All three maintained ties to the emerging Dutch ecclesiastical system but did not invest much of their attention either in providing leadership for congregations in the Netherlands or in seeking guidance from church leaders in the Netherlands.

The classis centered in the duchy of Cleves was not simply a foreign or diasporic appendage to the Dutch Reformed ecclesiastical system but a multi­lingual hybrid institution. The heart of the classis was the Dutch-speaking Reformed consistory in Wesel, made up of eight elders elected by members of the congregation. Classis meetings probably took place at the house of one of Wesel’s elders.25 The classis of Cleves was also called the classis of Wesel. In September 1580, Wesel’s elders instructed delegates coming from out of town to go to the house of the elder Hans van der Clocken, where they would be informed about what to do from there. EKAW Gefach 72,2 fol. 200v. Wesel’s Walloon congregation, whose pastor held French-language services apart from the city church, joined the classis too. The classis also included the mixed, local-migrant Reformed congregations at Goch, Xanten, Gennep, Rees, Emmerich, Kleve, and Kalkar. Reformed congregations in the Clevish towns of Duisburg, Zevenaer, and Orsoy also belonged, as well as those in the small enclave lordships of Hörstgen and Alpen. These last groups of congregations were made up of mostly locals, not migrants from the Low Countries. Such was also the case for the Reformed congregations in neighboring territories, including Rheinberg (in the archbishopric of Cologne), Bocholt (in the prince-bishopric of Münster), and Hamm (in the county of Mark). The classis of Cleves thus constituted a multilingual, regional ecclesiastical body. What the congregations who belonged to it shared—besides proximity—were their experiences as clandestine or semiclandestine Reformed congregations in the region, which was dominated by Catholic rulers, as well as a dependence on the powerful Protestant city of Wesel, including the Reformed elders in the city, for support and advice. Most classis business focused on recommendations for best practices for managing worship within majority Catholic communities, including traveling to services elsewhere and limiting the influence of Catholics and Anabaptists on their congregations.26 These records are at EKAW Gefach 12,5. For a modern printed edition, Simons, Synodalbuch.

The classis whose geographical center lay in the duchy of Jülich—usually called the classis of Cologne—similarly constituted a multilingual body whose orientation remained regional.27 The classis was also sometimes called the “classis of Jülich.” The congregations in Cologne and Aachen provided the bulk of classis leadership. That included the Dutch-speaking congregation of Cologne, the displaced Maastricht congregation that had moved to Aachen28 In the classis minutes, that congregation was variously called, “der kercken van Maestricht, nu binnen Aken gevlucht zijnde,” “der kercken van Maestricht (binnen Aken zijnde),” “der Maetsterychtse ghemeyndte tot Aken”, and “de ghmeynte van Maestricht binnen Aken.” WMV 2/2, 9, 12, 31, 44. (until it merged with the local Reformed church in 1579), but also, later, a new congregation that had formed in Maastricht, which thus lay within the Low Countries.29 Until 1579, Maastricht formally stood under co-dominium of duke of Brabant and the prince-bishopric of Liège, but its government operated autonomously in most matters and magistrates claimed the right to appeal to the imperial Reichskammergericht. Geurts, “Maastricht tussen Brabant en het Rijk,” 26–65. In 1579, it was captured by Habsburg troops, and thus formed part of the Spanish Netherlands until 1632. French-speaking congregations in Cologne and Aachen were also part of the classis. The majority of its churches were not made up of people from the Netherlands, however, but Reformed Protestants from the Empire. That included the German-language Reformed congregation in Cologne and—from 1579—the merged Dutch-German Reformed congregation of Aachen, and the German-language congregation in Burtscheid, which lay within the city of Aachen’s jurisdiction. It also included many German-speaking congregations in the duchy of Jülich and the archbishopric of Cologne—places like Sittard, Düren, Neuss, Euchen, Gladbach, Bonn, Susteren, Oberwinter, Warden, and those in noble enclaves, like Bedburg and Bedburdyck. Attendees seem to have spoken a mixture of German, Dutch, and Latin at their meetings.30 Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 170. As was the case with the classis of Cleves, most meetings of the classis of Cologne centered on delegates providing advice and support to congregations worshipping underground in Catholic territories and helping to ensure that all the congregations in the region had godly worship and limited the impact of Catholics and Anabaptists on their flocks.31 WMV 3/5. Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 156, 158, 170.

The classis based in the Electoral Palatinate similarly constituted a multi­lingual organization more oriented toward nurturing the faithful of the region than building God’s church in the Netherlands.32 The classis was also sometimes called the Highland (Oberland) classis. Leadership largely came from the Dutch congregation at Frankenthal. It also included the Dutch-speaking congregations in Frankfurt and (from 1594) in Neu-Hanau. However, most of the churches represented in this body were French speaking. Those included Walloon congregations in Otterberg, Frankenthal, Schönau, and St. Lambert, in the Palatine, as well as that of Neu-Hanau. From 1586, it also included the Walloon congregation in the free imperial city Wetzlar, which welcomed some sixty Walloon families fleeing the Spanish siege of Wesel.33 Cuno, Die pfälzischen reformierten Fremdengemeinden, 22–23. Meetings of the classis focused on local matters, including solving conflicts between Dutch and French speakers in the region.34 Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 54, 169–70.

Soon after the synod held in Emden, we see the first evidence of a tension developing between these multilingual regional institutions and the emerging Dutch Reformed Church. The first place we see this is in the uncertain authority of the articles adopted at Emden. It took two years for Wesel’s elders to approve the articles passed at Emden, despite the fact that three members of their church had attended.35 EKAW Gefach 72,1 fols. 10r, 11r–19r. Thereafter they largely treated the decisions made at Emden as authoritative. In late 1573, for instance, they chastised members of the Reformed congregation at Duisburg for failing to follow the synod’s standards for writing letters of attestation by failing to interview housemates of those seeking an attestation.36 EKAW 72,1 fol. 50r. Others remained unsure. Immediately after the synod, in November 1571, the elders of the German-speaking Cologne congregation declined to sign the Emden articles, even after repeated insistence from the pastor of the Dutch congregation in that city, Cornelis Walraven, the elder Adriaen van Coninxloo, and others over many months.37 WMV 1/3, 11, 19, 20–21; Simons, Kölnische Konsistorial-Beschlüsse, 36. Elders of Cologne’s Dutch-speaking congregation wrote to Aachen to inquire if there were similar problems there.38 WMV 1/3, 13, 20–21. We do not know what answer they received, but we do know that at the meeting of the Cologne classis held at Bierkesdorf (just north of the city of Düren) on December 17, 1571, there was no recorded discussion about signing the Emden articles.39 WMV 2/2, 8–11. There appears to have been some support for the articles among from non-Netherlanders, since at the next classis meeting, held on March 3, 1572 in Bedburg, delegates permitted the congregation at Neuss to make a copy of the articles approved at Emden for themselves at their own expense.40 WMV 2/2, 12. Still, delegates asked at the following classis meeting whether a pastor might offer a sermon on the content of the Emden articles.41 WMV 2/5, 11–12. WMW 2/2, 11–12. A couple of weeks later, on March 15, leaders of Cologne’s Dutch-language congregation sent Johannes Christianus, then serving as pastor in Bedburg, to urge his colleagues to sign the articles. Leaders of Cologne’s Reformed congregation said that they would respond at the next classis meeting.42 WMV 1/3, 24–25.

The next gathering of the Cologne classis took place that summer, on July 7, 1572, in the town of Venrath, in the duchy of Jülich. Johannes Christianus began with a sermon based on the decisions of the synod held at Emden.43 WMV 2/5, 16. The matter appeared to be resolved when delegates ordered members of Cologne’s German-language consistory to sign the Emden articles “because they were recognized as right and Christian.”44 WMV 2/5, 17. But apparently resistance continued because at the meeting that November in Burtscheid, which Cologne’s German-language congregation did not attend, Christianus was asked to write to Caspar Olivianus, theologian at the University of Heidelberg, and Gaspar van der Heyden, pastor at Frankenthal, for advice about the Cologne congregation’s unwillingness to sign the articles.45 WMV 2/5, 23. Leaders of Cologne’s German Reformed congregation explained that they did not attend because of the dangers of Catholic troops in the area, though Cologne’s Dutch- and French-speaking congregations sent delegates without incident. WMV 3/5, 65–67. We have not yet found such a letter, but the matter seems to have been ignored at the next classis meeting the following spring.46 WMV 2/2, 24–27. When the classis convened again on July 4, 1573, Cologne’s German-speaking congregation, for the second time, did not send a delegate. The delegates present again admonished that congregation for its unwillingness to sign the articles.47 WMV 2/2, 27. After that, the controversy was simply dropped. In the coming months and years, Cologne’s German-language Reformed congregation still participated collegially in classis business, without any sign of lingering acrimony. But its leaders never approved the articles of the Emden synod.48 In later years, they discussed recommendations made at Emden in their deliberations, but they never recognized them as binding. Simons, Kölnische Konsistorial-Beschlüsse, 124.

Three years later, some members of the Reformed church at Susteren, also in the classis of Cologne, similarly refused to approve the articles from the synod at Emden. However, they did not bring the controversy back to the classis. Instead, members of the consistory wrote to the Dutch Reformed elders in Wesel—in a different classis altogether. Elders there recommended that Susteren’s Reformed Protestants follow the example proposed at Emden, because it is “good enough and has been signed by many wonderful congregations.”49 EKAW Gefach 72,2 fols. 45r–46r.

We never get any explicit explanation about what aspect of the Emden articles caused concern, though it is notable that only Germans appeared hesitant. We seem to be tracing some kind of strain within the Cologne classes, which was both part of the ecclesiastical structure of the Dutch Reformed Church and a multilingual, regional Reformed institution operating in support of the broader evangelical cause in their region of the empire. While similar tensions did not emerge in the classes of Cleves and the Palatinate, the dual function was the same for all three. All three classes included underground, semiclandestine, and public congregations across a range of types of states. They all included German, Dutch, and French speakers. None of them provided an especially robust support for the Netherlandish Reformed churches before 1572, and none took their cues exclusively, or even primarily, from the Dutch Reformed ecclesiastical system that began forming in 1574. And while Reformed Protestants in the Netherlands were developing ever more standardized terminology and procedures for their classes and provincial synods, members of these classes never developed anything like a provincial synod and did not even standard terminology to describe the classes.50 They were called, variously, “classische bijencomsten,” classische versamelinge,” “classici conventus,” “classensche synodis,” “synodus,” “quartier versammelinge,” and “quartierkonsistorien.” WMV 2/2, 1, 25, 27, 34, 37, 42, 75, 83. Simons, Synodalbuch, 491, 495, 552. The congregations in Aachen also had a body called a coetus that involved ministers of the city’s three Reformed congregations consulting. It was thus more limited in scope than the bodies with the same name in England and East Friesland. Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 164. See above, n. 35.

For the most part, meetings of all three classes took place regularly, although uncertain circumstances sometimes forced delays and cancellations. The classes of Cleves and Cologne met twice yearly, except when military threats made such meetings dangerous.51 In July 1572, members of the classis of Cologne admonished those in the classis of Cleves because they were not meeting at least every three to six months, as recommended by the synod of Emden. WMV 2/2, 17–18. The classis of Cleves did not meet again until January 1574. Simons, Synodalbuch, 491–500. After that, it met twice yearly until 1583, when it started meeting only annually. After the May 1586 gathering, the classis of Cleves stopped meeting for six years due to warfare in the duchy. Initially, the classes of Cologne met three times a year, but it decreased to twice yearly in 1575. It cancelled meetings in 1583 and 1588, due to military activities during the Cologne War. The classis of the Palatinate met only once per year but canceled these annual meetings thirteen times between the first assembly in 1572 and the end of our project in 1600.52 Cuno, Die pfälzischen reformierten Fremdengemeinden, 22–23. The attendance of individual congregations could also be patchy. The Dutch congregation in Frankfurt, the largest in its jurisdiction, rarely attended the Palatine classis, though it is not clear whether that was disinterest or a strategic decision to avoid drawing attention.53 Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 169–70. Reformed congregations in the small towns of Cleves frequently missed classis meetings because of the threats within their towns or the danger of travel, or because they lacked a pastor.54 See, for example, Simons, Synodalbuch, 491. In Cologne, the consistory similarly skipped the classis meeting in 1590 and 1591 because of the dangers of freebooters or capture by “the prince of Jülich’s men,” who made the road to Aachen unsafe.55 WMV 1/3, 366. During the Cologne War (1583–1588), the Dutch consistory of Cologne frequently skipped classis meetings due to unsafe road conditions, “for he who loves danger” they wrote to their colleagues meeting in Aachen in April 1586, “will perish in it.”56 Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 84–85. More mundane reasons also led to absences. The Dutch-speaking consistory of Cologne, for instance, skipped its classis meeting in 1589 because it conflicted with the Frankfurt Messe.57 Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 86.

A similar tension emerged in 1578, when church leaders in the rebel-held Netherlands organized a large-scale Reformed church meeting planned for that summer to be held in Dordrecht. Frictions emerged because organizers including Petrus Dathenus, Gaspar van der Heyden, and Arent Cornelisz referred to the planned assembly as a “national” synod. Van der Heyden wrote to invite delegates from across Brabant, Holland, Zeeland, and Flanders as well as from the diasporic Dutch-speaking Reformed congregations in the Empire and England. However, he did not send similar invitations to the French- and German-speaking congregations in the classes of Cologne, Cleves, and the Palatinate. As the pastor in Cologne, Cornelis Walraven, pointed out in his response to the invitations, there was no mutually agreed upon explanation for how this new term “national synod” might compare to the “general synod of all Netherlandish churches” recommended at the synod of Emden in 1571.58 Rutgers, Acta, 59, 310–13. Accordingly, we must ask: Who did organizers of this meeting understand as belonging to their church organization?

It is worth pausing to consider the meaning of the word “national” in a sixteenth-century context.59 On this question for the Netherlands generally, Van Sas, Vaderland. In Dutch, the word natie did not hold a single meaning. In general, it referred to a group of people who came from the same place and had a common heritage. However, the term had three more specific connotations. Many sixteenth-century Netherlanders understood their “nation” to be the territory they came from, that is, the duchy of Brabant, the county of Flanders, the county of Holland, or otherwise. That is how Netherlandish migrants moving to Wesel organized themselves.60 Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 76–77. That is, in the sixteenth-century Low Countries, regional identities were often more important than countrywide identities.61 Duke, “Elusive Netherlands.” “Nation” could also refer to members of a shared language group, as the Dutch speakers in Frankfurt who distinguished those of “their nation” from the Walloons.62 Meinert and Dahmer, Das Protokollbuch, 140–41. This also appears to be how the pastor of the Dutch-speaking congregation in London, Simeon Ruytinck, meant the term in his 1618 book, the History and Proceedings That Primarily Concern the Lower German Nation and Congregations Living in England, and in particular in London.63 Ruytinck, Gheschiedenissen ende handelingen. Most inclusively, “nation” could be used to refer to all people with origins in the Netherlands. In Hamburg, the “Netherlandish nation” included Dutch and Walloon speakers who held specific legal and economic privileges in the city.64 Poettering, Migrating Merchants, 53–54, 242–43.

What did it mean, then, when organizers of the synod to be held in Dordrecht in the summer of 1578 planned a “national synod”? The answer is complicated. The official proceedings claim to be the records of a “National Synod of the Netherlandish Dutch and Walloon churches, both domestic and foreign.”65 Rutgers, Acta, 234. There was certainly a sense that they were building on the expansive vision of the synod held in Emden in 1571. They asked delegates, for instance, to consult and approve the articles from that meeting or to suggest changes to the proposed church structure. Surely, Walloon delegates from Hainaut, Artois, and Liège viewed the synod’s decisions as applying to them.66 They made a French translation of its decisions. Livre synodal, 1:43–65. See also Kist, “De Synoden,” 184–88.

And yet, by 1578, there was a growing sense that ecclesiastical organization would be divided by language.67 It’s possible that this change reflected the fact that so many Dutch elders of the new consistories in the Netherlands lacked the multilingualism common in the migrant communities. Gaspar van der Heyden, in preparing for the meeting, called it a gathering of “de nederlandtsche duytsche kercke.”68 Rutgers, Acta, 284. The Walloons also recognized that the synod was for the “Flemish churches,” and only selected delegates who spoke “the Flemish language.”69 See “Advis du Synode sur les articles resolues à Emden pour estre communiquez à compaignie (assemblée des Eglise flamenge (1)): Afin qu’il en soit arresté au Synode general,” printed in Kist, “De Synoden,” 189. Rutgers, Acta, 303. On this point, see Knetsch, “National Synod of Dordrecht.” See also Nauta, “De Nationale Synode van Dordrecht.” In their response, the congregations in England also describe the event as being for congregations of the “Neder-duydschen sprake.”70 Rutgers, Acta, 304–5. At the event itself, the discussions were held in Dutch, and all records were written in Dutch. There had been a small meeting of the three French-language congregations in Holland and Zeeland the previous year, so there was already some sense that French speakers would organize separately.71 Knetsch, “National Synod of Dordrecht.”

The trend toward separating along linguistic lines raised questions for congregations in the trilingual classes of Cleves, Cologne, and the Palatinate. A year before, the Dutch congregation at Frankfurt had also submitted questions to a synod of Walloon congregations held in Dordrecht in 1577, without realizing that the meeting was not intended for them; pastors in the Netherlands simply held the letter until it could be addressed by Dutch-speaking delegates at the next year’s “national” synod.72 Meinert and Dahmer, Das Protokollbuch, 164; Knetsch, “National Synod of Dordrecht,” 59–67. The Palatine classis made no mention of any incongruity in their reply to the invitation to the synod of Dordrecht, though they did send, as one of their representatives, Engelbert Faber, a church superintendent in the Palatinate who neither hailed from the Netherlands nor served in a Dutch-speaking church.73 On Faber, see Schatorjé, “Kirchengeschichtliche Hintergründe,” 134–37. The classis of Cleves sent, along with the Dutch-speaking pastor Servatius Wijnants, Cornelius Rhetius, an elder of Wesel’s Walloon congregation, to represent what elders referred to as the “duytscher ende walscher gemeijnten” of the classis at the 1578 synod.74 Like the other Walloon delegates, Jean Taffin and Guillaume Feugueray, Rhetius spoke and wrote Dutch perfectly well. Rutgers, Acta, 308–9. There’s no evidence that classis leaders meant for the appointments of Faber and Rhetius to represent a critique of the synod. But the contrast provides a useful indication that the three classes operating in the Empire continued to function as multilingual institutions, even if the churches’ rebel-held territories were developing a more language-based definition of their church and their activities understandably focused more on matters within the Netherlands.

Members of the classis of Cologne were more explicit in their resentment of the new approach taken by their coreligionists in the Low Countries. As they explained in a sharply written letter, they resented the very concept of a “so-called national synod” (eens Synodi, ghenoemt nationael). The idea of a “national synod,” explained a frustrated Cornelis Walraven on behalf of the classis, needed justification. The planned assembly at Dordrecht was not really a synod at all, he explained, but just an “extraordinary meeting” (bysonder versamlung), since it did not look like one of the three tiers of the hierarchy of synods—general, provincial, classical—recommended at the synod held at Emden.75 Rutgers, Acta, 310–11; Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 172–73; Knetsch, “National Synod of Dordrecht,” 54–55. This question was also raised in the fiercely particularistic city of Gouda, which refused to allow delegates to attend synodal meetings. Hibben, Gouda in Revolt, 105. Walraven, then pastor at Cologne, also explained that his classis included not only his own Dutch-speaking congregation but also the French- and German-speaking congregations in Cologne and Aachen, as well as churches across the duchy of Jülich. “We have not yet heard of anyone who has approved such extraordinary meetings,” which would meet without representatives of his classis’s French- and German-speaking congregations, “but now that we see that those of the Dutch [Nederduytsche] or Flemish language follow such an example, we can no longer stay silent about it.”76 Rutgers, Acta, 311. Walraven thus painted such a Dutch-language-centered approach as running counter to the multilingual, transnational spirit shared at the synod in Emden.

Meanwhile, in response to their invitation to the “national” synod to be held in Dordrecht, leaders of the Cologne classis replied that they did not possess copies of the articles of the synod of Emden and so could not comment on them. There is reason to be suspicious about this claim.77 Leaders of the stranger churches in England made the same claim, although Petrus Dathenus had sent a copy of the articles to the Dutch church of London in April 1572. Hessels, Epistulae et Tractatus, 2:294–96. But the English churches also declined to come to Dordrecht, given their deference to the bishop of London. Rutgers, Acta, 304–6. As noted above, members of Cologne’s classis disagreed about whether to adopt those articles. We also know that at least one congregation, at Neuss, had a copy of the articles made for their use, and we know that Christianus had preached on them at the classis meeting. Thus, it seems likely that some members of the Cologne classis were familiar with the content of the articles. They may have been prevaricating to hide their unwillingness to accept the authority of the synods in the first place. Regardless, after the “national” synod of Dordrecht, as before, the three classes continued to operate as multilingual bodies, unaffiliated with any political entity.

There were two more “national synods” of the Dutch Reformed churches in the sixteenth century, one at Middelburg in the spring of 1581 and another in The Hague in the summer of 1586. At both, domestic concerns dominated while the foreign congregations played a minor role.78 Rutgers, Acta, 339–643; Van Dooren, De nationale synode te Middelburg; Hibben, Gouda in Revolt, 105–11. At Middelburg in 1581, the only delegate from any of the congregations in the Holy Roman Empire was Johannes Badius from Cologne.79 The classis of Cologne intended to send an elder from the joint German-Dutch Reformed congregation at Aachen, but there’s no indication that happened. WMV 2/2, 99–100. Wesel’s French- and Dutch-speaking congregations explained that they would not be able to attend, but they did ask for advice.80 Rutgers, Acta, 417, 427–28, 429–30, 457–60. Their request that all responses should be written to them in both Dutch and French provides another reminder that they remained multilingual in their orientation.81 EKAW Gefach 72,2 fol. 229v–230r. While Wesel’s elders certainly respected the synod’s decisions, they did not treat those decisions as the last word. In 1578, Wesel’s elders had asked delegates at Dordrecht whether it might be appropriate to use an unleavened wafer instead of table bread in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.82 Rutgers, Acta, 271. Even after receiving an answer, they debated the issue into the following year.83 EKAW Gefach 72,2 fol. 148. Wesel’s elders had also asked delegates meeting in Middelburg whether it was permissible to continue appointing women as deaconesses.84 EKAW Gefach 12,5 fol. 42r. Rutgers, Acta, 417, 437. After they were instructed to stop the practice, they began calling women who performed the same roles “overseers” (opsienderesse) or “caretakers of the sick” (krankenpleegsterssen), but soon reverted to appointing women deacons.85 Spohnholz, “Olympias and Chrysostem.” In 1574, Goch’s Reformed congregation named a deaconess, but by 1580 explained that deaconesses were unnecessary because poor people were cared for by “our deacons and other well-meaning women.” Van Booma, Communio clandestina, 1:231. None of the congregations in our study sent delegates to the synod that met in The Hague in 1586; neither did that synod deal with matters brought forward by congregations in the Holy Roman Empire.

In retrospect, the transnational ecclesiastical networks of support that connected the sixteenth-century Dutch migrant communities in the diaspora to coreligionists in the Low Countries were not only relatively weak but also short lived. They began at Emden in 1571, and we can see their last flickers at the synod in Middelburg ten years later. Even during this year, the foreign classes of Cleves, the Palatinate, and Cologne played a relatively small part in the larger story of the Dutch Reformed church, either as leaders or as followers. But they played key roles in supporting the multilingual regional networks of Reformed Protestants in the Empire.