ONLINE SEMINAR: The Decade of Possibilities in the Low Countries (1566–1581). International online research seminar (2026-2027)

 

(image source: ModerNUM)

Abstract: 

The 1570s marked a turning point in the history of the Low Countries. While civil war raged, a range of ideas and plans for potential socio-political change emerged, coexisting with those that would ultimately determine the region’s long-term future. The way historians view this period is still influenced by Belgian and Dutch national narratives. In Belgium, this moment is seen as a turning point that led inevitably to the restoration of a Catholic monarchy and the creation of a centralised state, reflecting the model adopted by the newly formed Belgian state in 1831. In contrast, these years are still understood in the Netherlands as inevitably leading to the independence of a Protestant nation and decentralized republic – a prerequisite for the country’s emergence as a great power in the 17th century, epitomized by the “Dutch Golden Age”. However, the division between the Northern Low Countries, republican and dominated by Calvinists, and the Southern Low Countries, monarchist and Catholic, was by no means inevitable in the 1570s. Other avenues remained open to those involved. Consider Philippe Marnix de Sainte-Aldegonde, for example, who, at the Imperial Diet of Worms in 1578, sought to persuade the princes of the Empire to support the Low Countries within a kind of imperial league. His recommendation of Matthias of Habsburg as the new governor-general could ultimately have led to the region being re-anchored within the Empire. We should also remember Maximilien Vilain, the governor of Lille, who, at the time of the diplomatic meeting in Breda (1575), proposed a project of minimal religious tolerance to King Philip II in order to restore the country’s prosperity. Vilain suggested that the king’s Calvinist subjects would be permitted to resettle with the status of foreign merchants. Also, in 1578, William of Orange drafted a plan for religious coexistence, hoping that this would keep his broad coalition against Habsburg authority intact. Eventually, the States-General left it to the discretion of the cities to introduce a religievrede. Between 1578 and 1581, about thirty cities did so, although these arrangements were short-lived. The period’s key players had to be both intellectually and politically resourceful; they did not want to see their “country” destroyed by foreign armies and economic crisis. While the brutal policy of the Duke of Alba polarised Calvinists and Catholics, it also created a need for both sides to find a political solution to end the devastation. Attributing the root of violence to foreigners, often the Spanish, was one way to find common ground. This also pushed the actors to devise plans to end the crisis and restore the country’s liberties and economic vitality. Also crucial in this respect is the role of Protestant exiles, many of whom returned to the Low Countries after the Pacification of Ghent (1576), which had promised a settlement of both military and religious affairs. We consider “the Decade of Possibilities” in a chronologically broad sense, as a period beginning with the iconoclastic wave of 1566 and ending with the Estates General’s act of abjuration in 1581, which declared Philip II forfeited of his sovereignty over the Low Countries. We will therefore examine the multiplicity of political possibilities that emerged during this period in terms of ideas, discourses and actions (assemblies of the Estates, diplomatic meetings and missions, initiatives at the local and regional level). This will involve exploring these possibilities and assess the motives and backgrounds of the individuals and groups involved, as well as outlining the forms of their projects and examining why they did not come to fruition. Our ambition is therefore to contribute to the history of possible futures that never came to pass, but which seemed viable to those involved at the time. The research seminar participates in ongoing historical reflections about promising political initiatives that failed, and about their hidden or indirect but lasting influences.

Program:

18-09-2026 – Political Experiments and Ideas of Change

Judith Pollmann (Leiden University), How to End the Dutch Revolt? International Future-Thinking in Action.

Jonathan Dumont (Liège University), A Monarchical Utopia? Maximilien Vilain and the Compromise Monarchy.

13-11-2026 – Religious Alternatives

Christine Kooi (Louisiana State University), The Reformed International in the Low Countries in 1572.

Guido Marnef (University of Antwerp), A Road to a Multi-Religious Urban Society or to Religious.

22-01-2027 – Diplomacy and News

Nina Lamal (Huygens Institute, KNAW), The Diplomatic Campaigns of 1577-1578.

Monique Weis (University of Luxembourg), Political Discourse about War and Peace in Two Rival discours véritables about the Dutch Revolt (1577).

19-03-2027 – Visual Discourses

Cassiopée Guillet (University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne), Visualizing Oppression: Protestant Prints and the Rhetoric of Violence in the Early Modern Low Countries (1566-1581).

Anne-Laure van Bruaene (Ghent University), Badges of Authority. Heraldry and the Display of Civic Republicanism in Calvinist Ghent.

 21-05-2027 – War and Army

Raymond Fagel (Leiden University), The First Decade of the Revolt in the Low Countries: from Spanish Soldiers to Spanish Occupation.

Michael Depreter (Saint-Louis-UCLouvain/University of Oxford), Arms Markets, “Military Revolution”, and Socio-Political Identities in the Low Countries’ Urban Republics (1577-1585).

Each session begins at 1:30 pm and finishes at 3:30 pm.

Read more here. 

BOOKS: Violet SOEN, Wouter DRUWÉ, Wim FRANCOIS & Ralph DECONINCK (eds.), Innovationes Lovanienses: Arts, Law and Theology at the University of Louvain (1425–1797) and Students, Scholars and Their Books at the University of Louvain (1425–1797) [Lectio, ed. Pieter D'HOINE/Studium Lovaniense, ed. Violet SOEN] (Turnhout: Brepols, 2026) [OPEN ACCESS]

 

(image source: Brepols)

Two open access volumes on the University of Leuven/Louvain in the late Middle Ages and Early Modern Age have been published recently.

Innovationes Lovanienses: Arts, Law and Theology at the University of Louvain (1425–1797) (eds. Violet Soen, Wouter Druwé, Wim François & Ralph Deconinck)
DOI 10.1484/M.LECTIO-EB.5.145524
Abstract:

Throughout the first centuries of its existence, the University of Louvain functioned as a crossroads for the transmission of texts, ideas, and even images from Antiquity, across the Middle Ages, and through the Renaissance. From its foundational bulls between 1425 and 1432, the university was established as a prototypical studium generale, drawing inspiration from earlier institutions in Paris and Cologne and adopting elements from contemporary universities like Rostock and Geneva. Situated at the heart of Europe, the University of Louvain quickly became a pivotal center for the reception and dissemination of both ancient and contemporary knowledge across the continent, and later, the Habsburg Empire. This volume examines how teachers and students examined old and innovative ideas across various constituent bodies of the university, including the Faculty of Arts or the College of the Three Tongues, or neighboring institutions, like the Jesuit College. Contributions span the Faculties of Law, adopting insights on the newly promulgated Tridentine decrees or novel moral economies, to the Faculty of Theology, a hotbed of the controversies surrounding grace, free will, and salvation in post-Tridentine Catholicism. Of the many scholars that were active in Louvain, special attention is devoted to the philologist Petrus Nannius, the theologians Michael Baius and Jacobus Janssonius, the lawyers Petrus Peckius and Johannes Wamesius, and the Jesuits Robertus Bellarminus and Leonardus Lessius, along with the lectures they gave at the Louvain house of their Order.

Chapters

• Innovationes Lovanienses. What Is New about the ‘Old’ University of Louvain (1425–1797)? (Violet Soen)
• The Old and the New. Scholastic Elements in the Works of Petrus Nannius (1496–1557), Professor of the Collegium Trilingue in the First Half of the Sixteenth Century (Aline Smeesters)
• Diagrammatic Innovations in Louvain Logic Notebooks (Seventeenth-Eighteenth Centuries) (Lorenz Demey)
• The Role of Legal Practice in Louvain’s Legal Education (c. 1550–1650) (Wouter Druwé)
• What Makes a Legal Commentary? . Louvain Professors on Liber Extra and Liber Sextus (Sixteenth-Eighteenth Centuries) (Piotr Alexandrowicz)
• Teaching Canon Law after Trent. Mapping Juridical Sources in the Lectures of Petrus Peckius (1529–1589) (Ana Luiza Ferreira Gomes Silva)
• When the Sun Stopped Setting. Louvain Lawyers & Theologians on Issues of Monopolies and Competition (1500–1670) (Wout Vandermeulen)
• Knowledge of Nature and Scripture at the Threshold of Modernity. Michael Baius’s (1513–1589) Louvain Lecture on Romans 1 (Jarrik Van Der Biest)
• The Internal Act of Faith in the Commentaries on the Summa theologiae. Produced in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-century Louvain (with a Comparison with Previous Iberian Commentators) (Lidia Lanza)
• The Jesuit College and Knowledge Transmission: Robert Bellarmine’s Lectiones Louanienses (1570–1576) and the Spanish Scholastic Legal-Economic Thought (Shiri Roelofs)
• Ex nudo Dei beneplacito. On Concord and Discord between Luis de Molina’s Concordia (1588) and Leonardus Lessius’s De gratia efficaci (1610) (C.J. (Niels) De Bruijn)
• Vision, Love, and Joy. The Louvain Jesuit Leonard Lessius (1554–1623) on Beatitude (Patrícia Calvário)

Students, Scholars and Their Books at the University of Louvain (1425–1797) (eds. Violet Soen, Wouter Druwé, Wim François & Ralph Deconinck)
DOI 10.1484/M.LECTIO-EB.5.145522
Abstract:

Integrating prosopographical, cartographical, and book-historical data, this collective volume on the first University of Louvain (1425–1797) contributes to ongoing interdisciplinary inquiries into the intellectual productions of students, scholars, and printers in the Early Modern era. The ten contributions examine the state of the art at the University of Louvain, whose output was supported by the vibrant printing presses of the Low Countries and the continual mobility of its scholars across continental Europe. The essays first unravel the transregional circuits of Louvain’s students, scholars, and printers, built upon their geographical mobility throughout Europe. The second part explores how early modern students at Louvain created their study materials by compiling lecture notes, rearranging the contents, and binding them into codices, often adorned with drawings or printed engravings – a practice that remained prevalent until the eighteenth century. Further contributions trace the introduction of the handpress to the city of Louvain, which, beginning in 1473, brought new opportunities for producing textbooks for broader markets, as typography and physical features transformed handbook production. Louvain’s publication network was especially dense in the sixteenth century, and publication rates remained high through the eighteenth century. This volume offers new insights into the hybrid world of oral teaching, handwritten note-taking, and printed textbook production by students, scholars, and printers at one of Europe’s intellectual crossroads.

Chapters

• From Magister Dixit to STUDIUM.AI. New Perspectives on Students, Scholars and Their Books at the University of Louvain (1425–1797) (Violet Soen)
• Louvain Scholars on the Move. Networks and Mobility Patterns at the Early University of Louvain. An Analysis of Academic Mobility (1425–1797) (David de la Croix & Maria Vitale)
• From Transregional Recruitment to Self-reproduction. Building a Teaching Staff at the University of Louvain in Its First Two Decades (1425–1443) (Christiaan Engberts)
• Who’s Who in STUDIUM.AI. New Linked Data about Students, Scholars and Printers at the Early Modern University of Louvain (1425–1797) (Violet Soen Yann Ryan)
• The Louvain Lecture Halls during Theological Controversy. The Benedictine Student Stephanus Puelincx and His Notes on the Lectures of Jacobus Janssonius (c. 1607) (Linde Van den Eede)
• In the University Classroom. Seventeenth-century Notebooks of Arts Students at the Universities of Louvain and Leiden (1651–1700) (An Smets)
• Drawing Practices as Learning and Recreational Processes in Louvain Student Notebooks (Seventeenth–Eighteenth Centuries) (Gwendoline de Mûelenaere)
• Honesti et probi adolescentes. Pardon Letters and Student Violence at the Early Modern University of Louvain (Sixteenth–Seventeenth Centuries) (Gert Gielis, Luke Giraudet & Quintin Verreycken)
• The Importance of Typography in Knowledge Transfer. The Materiality of Louvain Printed Philosophy Textbooks (1474–1562) (Dieter Cammaerts)
• Shedding (More) Light on Sixteenth-century Mapping Practices. Pieter Pourbus’s Application of Gemma Frisius’s Triangulation Methods (Jan Trachet & Hendrik Hameeuw)
• Integrating Library and Prosopographical Data in the Early Modern Publication Network of the University of Louvain (1501–1797) (Rossana Scebba & Margherita Fantoli)

Both books can be read in open access with Brepols. 

 

BOOK: Fidel J. TAVÁREZ, Assembling an Imperial Machine: Spanish Commercial Reform in the Age of Enlightenment (Oxford: OUP, 2026), ISBN 9780197755051

 

(image source: OUP)

Abstract:

In the eighteenth century, a host of Spanish statesmen compared well-ordered empires to harmonious machines and devised a comprehensive plan to liberalize and integrate the imperial economy. The main initiative of this economic plan was a commercial policy that contemporaries called comercio libre, which entailed replacing the traditional fleets and galleons with a new system of free trade within the empire. The statesmen who designed this new imperial vision became convinced that the pursuit of markets, rather than military power alone, was the key to succeeding in a modern commercial society. But where their European counterparts remained committed to international trade, Spanish ministers focused on integrating Spain’s metropolitan and colonial territories. In fact, Spanish statesmen reasoned that the Hispanic world’s vast territories were a microcosm of the global economy that could become both self-sufficient and impervious to international commercial pressures. They also recognized that the viability of this closed commercial empire depended on synergizing millions of subjects across Spain’s dominions, which is why they insisted on the importance of integrating Indigenous and Afro-descendant wage workers and consumers. Combining intellectual history, Atlantic history, and the history of the Bourbon reforms, Assembling an Imperial Machine shows that, rather than a mercantilist atavism, the Hispanic world’s commercial reforms represented a genuine attempt to solve the dilemmas of early modern globalization, an endeavor that, in turn, inaugurated the enduring fascination with erecting a free trade bloc in Latin America.

Read more here: 10.1093/9780197755082.001.0001.

 

BOOK: Paolo CALCAGNO, La Repubblica di Genova (1528-1797) [Gli antichi stati italiani] (Bologna: il Mulinoa/Upm, 2026), ISBN 9788815419484, € 9,99

 

(image source: IBS)

Abstract:

Dal 1528 alla caduta nel 1797 in seguito all’ascesa napoleonica, questo libro ricostruisce la storia della Repubblica di Genova seguendo la trasformazione di una città marinara in una solida potenza aristocratica. Liberatasi dalle dominazioni straniere, Genova consolidò un sistema politico fondato sull’oligarchia e sul legame con il Banco di San Giorgio, cuore finanziario della Repubblica. Alleata della Spagna asburgica, seppe ritagliarsi un ruolo centrale nello scacchiere italiano ed europeo, tra crisi interne, guerre con Savoia e Francia, e rinnovate ambizioni marittime. Lungi dall’essere un secolo di decadenza, il Settecento genovese vide una sorprendente vitalità economica e portuale, preludio alla fine di uno Stato antico nelle forme ma ancora vitale nello spirito.

BOOK: Daniel ALLEMANN, Empires of Slavery: Rights and Power in the Early Modern Iberian World [Max Planck Studies in Global Legal History of the Iberian Worlds, ed. Thomas DUVE; 7] (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2026), [OPEN ACCESS]

 

(image source: Brill)

Abstract:

Enslavement was central to the early modern Iberian empires. No one at the time seriously questioned its legality, yet widespread reports of violent practices of captivity and human trafficking contrasted sharply with the Christian ideal of charity. This volume explores how Spanish and Portuguese theologians, jurists, and missionaries grappled with this moral dilemma. These thinkers developed ideological tools to protect the souls of those who appeared to be in a state of mortal damnation. Slavery prompted Iberian intellectuals to rethink the boundaries between property and person, law and religion, and household and commonwealth. By reconstructing these debates, this volume offers a new narrative about the relationship between individual rights and political power in the early modern Iberian world.

On the author:

Daniel Allemann, Ph.D. (2020), University of Cambridge, is Scientific Collaborator at the University of Geneva. A historian of the late medieval and early modern periods, he studies how intellectual traditions shaped ideas of empire, rights, and religion. He co-edited Conceptions of Space in Intellectual History (2018). 

Read more here: DOI  10.1163/9789004760592.

BOOK: Nicolas RUIZ, Mariage et patrimoine dans la Lorraine du XVIIIe siècle [Histoire des temps modernes, ed. Lucien BÉLY, 13] (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2026), 547 p. ISBN 9782406199700, €49

(image source: Classiques Garnier)

Prix Favard de Langlade 2022 de l’IIHN (Institut supérieur de l’histoire du notariat) et Prix de thèse établissement 2022 de l’université de Lorraine

Abstract:

Alors que l’ancien droit lorrain donnait au mari des pouvoirs menaçant sérieusement les droits de la femme, les actes du XVIIIe siècle mettent en évidence que les couples étaient soucieux du sort du survivant et que ceux qui passaient un contrat de mariage souhaitaient protéger les enfants du premier lit.

 Read more here: DOI 10.48611/isbn.978-2-406-19972-4.

 

BOOK: Bram VAN HOFSTRAETEN, Het vennootschapswezen in vroegmodern Antwerpen (1480-1620) [Iuris Scripta Historica; 33] (Leuven: Peeters, 2025), VIII + 480 p. ISBN 9789042955356, € 85

(image source: Peeters)

Abstract:

In 1608 werd in Antwerpen de Consuetudines compilatae voltooid. Deze vierde en laatste redactiepoging van het Antwerpse gewoonterecht bevat maar liefst 27 artikels van vennootschapsrechtelijke aard. Kort na het verschijnen van de compilatie weerklonk echter de kritiek dat de redacteuren tal van nieuwe, niet-costumiere normen hadden ingevoerd. Dit boek onderzoekt de houdbaarheid van deze kritiek, in het bijzonder met betrekking tot het geredigeerde vennootschapsrecht. Enerzijds wordt de juridische oorsprong van de vennootschapsrechtelijke bepalingen in de Consuetudines compilatae onderzocht; anderzijds wordt hun inhoud getoetst aan de vennootschappelijke gebruiken zoals die in de zestiende-eeuwse handelspraktijk geobserveerd werden. Als dusdanig zal blijken dat de redacteuren in de eerste plaats remedies wensten te formuleren voor de meest voorkomende oorzaken van vennootschapsgerelateerde onenigheden. Dat zij zich hierbij vaak lieten inspireren door niet-Antwerpse en niet-costumiere rechtsbronnen beïnvloedde de verhouding tussen het geredigeerde vennootschapsrecht en de Antwerpse ondernemers. Men had immers een juridisch kader gecreëerd dat niet noodzakelijk strookte met de gangbare zestiende-eeuwse vennootschappelijke gebruiken in de Scheldestad.

See table of contents here.

More information with the publisher.

 

BOOK: Andrew FITZMAURICE & Rachel HAMMERSLEY (eds.), The Cambridge HIstory of Rights, vol. III: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries [The Cambridge History of Rights, ed. Nehal BHUTA, Anthony PAGDEN & Mira L. SIEGELBERG] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2026), ISBN 9781108938853, 120 GBP

 

(image source: CUP)

Abstract:

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, contemporary authors explored the myriad ways in which the concept of rights could be understood but almost always arrived at the same conclusion: It was vital that rights should never be conflated with power. Through twenty-six expertly written essays, Volume III of The Cambridge History of Rights focuses on the language of rights, exploring its use in contexts as diverse as the English family, trading relations, and Asian powers. This was a period in which rights came to the forefront of political discourse, making it crucial to the longer history of rights reflected in this series. By foregrounding the idea of rights in action, the volume considers the relationship between the ways in which rights were articulated – by individuals, institutions, and states – and how they were enacted in practice. In doing so, it uncovers the complexities inherent in the development of the language of rights during this formative period.

Table of contents:

Introduction Andrew Fitzmaurice and Rachel Hammersley

1. Roman law: the science of right Daniel Lee

2. Natural rights Mads Langballe Jensen

3. Historic rights in sixteenth-century France Sophie Nicholls

4. Common law rights Alan Cromartie

5. The rights of states to self-preservation Simone Zurbuchen

6. The Right of natural persons to self-preservation Rosemarie Wagner

7. Divine right in early modern political thought Cesare Cuttica

8. The right to punish Signey Gutnick Allen

9. The rights of war and peace Peter Schröder

10. The right of navigation: claiming and challenging the free sea in theory and practice Arthur Westeijn

11. The right to trade, 1500 –1700 Mark Somos

12. The right to property Andrew Fitzmaurice

13. Fair trials in law: imagining the rights of the accused Paul D. Halliday

14. Freedom of religion Stefania Tutino

15. The right of resistance Kajo Kubala

16. The Right to Political participation and representation Markku Peltonen

17. Rights and power in early modern feminism Hannah Dawson

18. Gender and rights Anna Becker

19. The rights of women Sharon Achinstein

20. The rights of the insane Angus Gowland

21. The rights of asylum Gaby Mahlberg

22. The rights of peoples in Spain and its empire Tamar Herzog

23. The rights of people in the English empire Ken Macmillan

24. Rights in the seventeenth-century French empire Saliha Belmessous

25. Rights, authority, and autonomy: the VOC in seventeenth century Southeast Asia Peter Borschberg.

Read more here: DOI 10.1017/9781108938853

BOOK: Lars REGULA & Jörg ULBERT (eds.), Consular Jurisdiction. On the History of the Judicial Functions of Consulates (12th–20th Century) [Legal History Library, eds. Dirk HEIRBAUT, Matthew C. MIROW, Michelle McKINLEY & C.H VAN REE, 83; Studies in the History of International Law, ed. Randall LESAFFER, 30] (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2026), ISBN 978-90-04-75519-2

(image source: Brill)

Abstract:

For today’s practitioners, the history of the judicial functions of consulates is far more colourful and obscure than modern consular law might suggest. Take, for instance, Consul Annibale de Rossetti in Egypt, who had to arbitrate a lawsuit between two German merchants and was completely overwhelmed. De Rossetti neither knew German nor was he familiar with the law he was expected to apply. Modern consuls often react with disbelief at the fact that their predecessors acted not only as judges, but also as regulatory authorities and bailiffs. This volume brings together contributions on the history of the legal roles and functions of consulates, spanning from America to China and from their origins in the Middle Ages to the modern consulate.

Résumé:

L’histoire des fonctions judiciaires des consulats est bien plus riche et obscure pour les praticiens d’aujourd’hui que ne le laisse penser le droit consulaire moderne. Par exemple, lorsque le consul Annibale de Rossetti, en Égypte, dut trancher un litige entre deux commerçants allemands, il fut dépassé par la situation. De Rossetti ne connaissait ni l’allemand, ni le droit qu’il était censé appliquer. Les consuls modernes réagissent souvent avec incrédulité en apprenant que leurs prédécesseurs exerçaient à la fois les fonctions de juges, d’autorités réglementaires et d’huissiers de justice. De volume réunit des contributions portant sur l’histoire des rôles et fonctions juridiques des consulats, de l’Amérique à la Chine, depuis leurs origins au Moyen Âge jusqu’au consulat moderne. 

Contributors:

Marcella Aglietti, Eleonora Angella, Arnaud Bartolomei, Thibault Bechini, Giorgio Ennas, Ana Belem Fernández Castro, Juliette Françoise, Laura Galoppini, Sacha Gauthier Olssy, Thomas Gidney, Berna Kamay-Ulusay, Jessica Marglin, Cédric Quertier, Lars Regula, Victor Simon, Jörg Ulbert, and Dominique Valérian.

On the editors:

Lars Regula, University of Hamburg, is a Ph.D. student at the Chair for Legal History. His research deals with German consular jurisdiction in the Ottoman Empire. Jörg Ulbert, Ph.D. (2001), Université de Bretagne-Sud, is maître de conférences at the same university. He has published monographs and many articles on diplomatic and consular history, including Consul et services consulaires au XIXe siècle (2010) with Lukian Prijac. 

Read more here: DOI: 10.1163/9789004755192.

SEMINAR CYCLE: "La escuela de Salamanca: Actualidad, vigencia y legado" (Madrid: Real Academia de la Historia, FEB 2026)

(image source: RAH)

Abstract:

La Real Academia de la Historia organiza, junto a la Fundación Tatiana, la quinta edición del ciclo de conferencias “El Valor de la Historia”. Carmen Sanz Ayán, académica de número de la institución, es una vez más la coordinadora de este ciclo de conferencias, que se desarrollará en dos partes. La primera parte tendrá lugar en febrero de 2026 y la segunda se celebrará en los meses de octubre y noviembre de 2026. La Escuela de Salamanca es un movimiento intelectual y cultural desarrollado en los siglos XVI y XVII que, liderado por el teólogo, filósofo y jurista Francisco de Vitoria (1485-1546), tuvo una amplia proyección no solo en Europa sino en toda la extensión de la global Monarquía Hispánica. Su influencia interdisciplinar en universidades y pensadores coetáneos y posteriores fue tan amplia que con frecuencia sus miembros suelen ser considerados padres de la Modernidad. La transversalidad del enfoque humanista de sus presupuestos teológico-jurídicos manifestado en su revalorización del derecho natural y de gentes, en la defensa de la libertad individual frente a los posibles excesos del poder político y en su preocupación por el comercio justo o la ética económica, priorizó la defensa de la dignidad humana y la aplicación de la razón a la hora de dar respuesta a los problemas sociales y morales que surgieron en su tiempo y merece ser conocido por los ciudadanos y ciudadanas del siglo XXI que a pesar de los 500 años transcurridos desde su aparición, se enfrentan con desafíos de parecida naturaleza. La Fundación Tatiana y la Real Academia de la Historia, comprometidas desde 2019 en una alianza estratégica para visibilizar nuestra relación con el pasado de un modo dinámico y crítico, han promovido para 2026 dos ciclos de conferencias y mesas redondas centradas en la difusión del legado intelectual de la Escuela de Salamanca que en 2026 celebra su V Centenario al recordar la llegada de Francisco de Vitoria a la Universidad salmantina en 1526. Los dos ciclos de conferencias programados durante los meses de febrero, octubre y noviembre de 2026 en las sedes de la RAH y de la Fundación Tatiana, se ocuparán de analizar la naturaleza y el legado de este universal e influyente movimiento intelectual.

Program:

6 de febrero de 2026

Inauguración y presentación de los ciclos

La Escuela de Salamanca: Concepto y Evolución

Carmen Sanz Ayán

Académica de número de la Real Academia de la Historia y catedrática de Historia Moderna (UCM).

19:00h. Sede Real Academia de la Historia. Calle Amor de Dios, 2, Madrid, 28014 Madrid

13 de febrero de 2026

Las ideas económicas de la Escuela de Salamanca y su praxis política
(Siglos XVI-XVII)

Agustín González Enciso

Académico correspondiente de la Real Academia de la Historia y catedrático emérito Universidad de Navarra.

19:00h. Sede Real Academia de la Historia. Calle Amor de Dios, 2, Madrid, 28014 Madrid

25 de febrero de 2026

Mesa Redonda

La Escuela de Salamanca en clave humanística: Soberanía y legitimidad del poder

Con la participación

Sergio Bravo Sánchez

Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)

Lorena Velasco Guerrero

Universidad Francisco de Vitoria (UFV)

Jaime Elipe Soriano

Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM)

19:30h. Sede Fundación Tatiana en Madrid. Paseo del General Martínez Campos 25, Madrid

Read more here.

BOOK: Lars BEHRISCH, Democracy's Double Helix. Participation, Equality and Revolution in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: CUP, 2025), ISBN 9781009029667

 (image source: CUP)

Abstract:

Where does our modern democracy come from? It is a composite of two very different things: a medieval tradition of political participation, pluralistic but highly elitist; and the notion of individual equality, emerging during the early modern period. These two things first converged in the American and French revolutions – a convergence that was not only unexpected and unplanned but has remained fragile to this day. Democracy's Double Helix does not simply project and trace our modern democracy back into history, assuming that it was bound to come about. It looks instead at the political practices and attitudes prevailing before its emergence. From this perspective, it becomes clear that there was little to predict the coming of democracy. It also becomes clear that the two historical trajectories that formed it obey very different logics and always remain in tension. From this genuinely historical vantage point, we can therefore better understand the nature of our democracy and its current crisis.

On the author:

Lars Behrisch, Universiteit Utrecht, The Netherlands 

Read more here: DOI 10.1017/9781009029667. 

VACANCY: Assistant Professor in Early Modern British History (fulltime, tenure) (Warwick: University of Warwick, DEADLINE 8 MAR 2026)

(image source: Warwick)
 

Description:

Informal Queries For informal queries about the role, please contact Professor Tim Lockley at T.J.Lockley@warwick.ac.uk The Department of History seeks to appoint an Assistant Professor in Early Modern British History on a full-time and indefinite basis from 1 September 2026. You will be part of one of the largest History departments in the UK with a thriving community of teachers and researchers covering a range of disciplines and geographical areas.

Read more here. 

BOOK: Manuel HERRERO SÁNCHEZ, Jonatán OROZCO CRUZ & Pedro CARDIM (eds.), The Asiento System and the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved Africans (circa 1580–1750) [The Atlantic World, ed. Benjamin SCHMIDT & Wim KLOOSTER; vol. 41] (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2026), xiv + 374 p. ISBN 978-90-04-54929-6, € €157.94

 

(image source: Brill)

Abstract:

This is the first edited volume to focus explicitly on the asiento, the contractual framework that regulated the transatlantic slave trade to Spanish America between the late sixteenth and mid-eighteenth centuries. As the mechanism that structured a vast system of human trafficking – one of the foundational tragedies of the modern world – the asiento functioned as a legal, political, and commercial instrument of empire. Drawing on new archival research in multiple languages and from repositories across the Atlantic, the chapters trace the negotiated nature of these contracts, the transimperial flows they enabled, and the roles played by formal and informal agents of diverse social, ethnic, and institutional backgrounds. Contributors are: Pedro Cardim, Christopher Ebert, Manuel F. Fernández Chaves, Alejandro García Montón, Miguel Geraldes Rodrigues, Manuel Herrero Sánchez, Wim Klooster, Thiago Krause, Maximiliano Mac Menz, Joseph Mainberger, Ramona Negrón, Linda Newson, Jonatán Orozco Cruz, Edgar Pereira, William Pettigrew, Filipa Ribeiro da Silva, Klaus Weber, and David Wheat.

 On the editors:

Manuel Herrero Sánchez is Professor of Early Modern History at Pablo de Olavide University in Seville. His research focuses on the comparative approach to the history of the Dutch Republic and Genoa, and on the Spanish Monarchy considered as a polycentric imperial structure composed of urban republics. Jonatán Orozco Cruz is Predoctoral Researcher at Pablo de Olavide University, where he is developing his PhD dissertation Transnational Social Networks Connecting Imperial Spaces: the Spanish Monarchy and the Slave Asiento (1675–1694) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Manuel Herrero Sánchez. Pedro Cardim is Associate Professor of History at Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. He has published widely on Iberian history, early modern legal history, and Portuguese colonisation of Brazil.

Rad more here: DOI  10.1163/9789004549296.

BOOK: Joseph Samuel HARPHAM, The Intellectual Origins of American Slavery. English Ideas in the Early Modern Atlantic World (Cambridge (Mass.): Harvard UP, 2025), ISBN9780674278370

 

(image source: Harvard UP)

Abstract:

A landmark account of the origins of American slavery, revealing how ancient Roman ideas were used to defend the establishment of a slave empire in the English Atlantic world. The period from 1550 to 1700 was critical in the development of slavery across the English Atlantic world. During this time, English discourse about slavery revolved around one central question: How could free persons be made into slaves? John Samuel Harpham shows that English authors found answers to this question in a tradition of ideas that stretched back to the ancient world, where they were most powerfully expressed in Roman law. These ideas, in turn, became the basis for the earliest defenses of American slavery.

On the author:

John Samuel Harpham is Assistant Professor of Classics and Letters and Wick Cary Professor in the Institute for the American Constitutional Heritage at the University of Oklahoma. 

Read more here. 

BOOK: Sylvie DAUBRESSE, Mark GREENGRASS & Marc SCHACHTER, Les procureurs généraux Jean et Jacques de La Guesle. Documents sur l’histoire de France au temps des guerres de Religion (1562-1605) [Documents inédits sur l'histoire de France; 85] (Paris: CTHS, 2025), 420 p. ISBN 978-2-7355-0993-5

 

(image source: CTHS)

Abstract:

Entre 1570 et 1605, un père et son fils, Jean et Jacques de La Guesle, occupèrent à tour de rôle la charge de procureur général du roi au parlement de Paris, cour souveraine la plus importante de la monarchie française. Alors que le royaume traverse une crise profonde provoquée par les guerres de Religion, les deux hommes, défenseurs des droits du roi, se trouvent plongés au cœur de questions cruciales : pacification du royaume, politique financière, exercice de la justice, relations avec Rome. Le présent ouvrage se compose d’une longue introduction et d’un corpus de soixante-douze textes manuscrits se rattachant à l’activité des La Guesle (lettres, discours, mémoires), dont deux harangues inédites de Jean trouvées à la Folger Shakespeare Library de Washington. Il s’agit là d’un ensemble documentaire remarquable qui éclaire le parcours de deux grands magistrats, les ressorts de leur action, mais aussi les rapports complexes qu’ils entretenaient avec le souverain.

Read more here. 

BOOK: Magnus RESSEL & Emir O. FILIPOVIC (eds.), Companion to the Later Crusades (1400–1700) (Leiden/Boston: DegruyterBrill), 2026

 

(image source: DeGruyterBrill)

Abstract:

The crusading movement endured well beyond the 14th century. Across Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, the desire for crusading continued to wield substantial influence, transcending borders and permeating diverse social strata. This companion brings together pertinent research and organizes a field of study that has become solidified recently. It focuses on crusading activities, rhetoric, discourses, and symbols that left lasting impacts and had global consequences for both Christian and Muslim societies. With contributions from Marian Coman, André Teixeira, António Lázaro, Pavel Soukoup, Emir O. Filipović, Ferenc Toth, Ana Echevarría, Elma Koric, Ignacio Bernstorff, Iulian Damian, Benjamin Weber, Nikolay Antov, Heribert Müller, Magnus Ressel, Paul Srodecki, Stefan Schröder, James Mixson, Eleni Tounta, Iván Rega Castro, Borja Franco Llopis, Loïc Chollet, Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas, Antonio García Espada, Norman Housley

On the editors:

 Emir Filipovic, University of Sarajevo; Magnus Ressel, Universität Frankfurt am Main.

Read more here: DOI 10.1515/9783110735932. 

CONFERENCE: Minorités protestantes et droit(s) en Europe (17e-18e S.) (Le Mans: Le Mans Université, 11-12 DEC 2025)

 

(image source: IMHC)

On 11 and 12 December 2025, the following conference took place in Le Mans:

Programme

11 décembre 2025

9 h 30 – 10 h | Accueil café

10 h – 10 h 15 | Ouverture du colloque

Session 1 – Droit et justice autour des guerres de Religion

10 h 15 – 10 h 45 | Réparations pour un massacre : la justice transitionnelle et la minorité protestante pendant les guerres de Religion

David van der Linden (université de Groningue)

10 h 45 – 11 h 15 | Le droit à une justice équitable : les justiciables protestants à la chambre de l’édit de Castres (1598-1679)

Sherylin Bouyer (université de Groningue)

11 h 15 – 11 h 45 | La conversion du protestantisme français à l’absolutisme des Bourbons : entre accommodements politiques et fermeté spirituelle (1629-1661)

Laurent Bouchard (université de Poitiers)

11 h 45 – 12 h 30 | Discussion collective

Session 2 – Contraintes et interprétations de la loi

14 h – 14 h 30 | Faire échec à la qualification de relaps pour préserver ses droits en Languedoc autour de la Révocation de 1685

Julien Broch (Aix-Marseille Université –CERHIIP)

14 h 30 – 15 h | “En attendant qu’il plaise à Dieu les éclairer comme les autres” : l’article XII de l’édit de Fontainebleau et la minorité de la minorité huguenote

Hubert Bost (EPHE-PSL – LEM)

15 h – 15 h 15 | Pause café

15 h 15 – 15 h 45 | Beaucoup de bruit pour rien ? Réactions huguenotes à la déclaration royale de 1724

Pauline Haour (EPHE-PSL)

15 h 45 – 16 h 15 | Interpréter l’édit de Versailles de 1787

Didier Boisson (université d’Angers – TEMOS)

16 h 15 – 17 h 30 | Discussion collective

Vendredi 12 décembre 2025

Session 3 – Les acteurs protestants face au droit

9 h – 9 h 30 | Avocats et experts : les protestants saumurois et leur rôle dans l’application du droit et de la justice sous l’édit de Nantes

Léo Maillé (Le Mans Université – TEMOS)

9 h 30 – 10 h | Pasteurs et droit(s) : usages, médiations et enjeux dans les protestantismes minoritaires (xvii^e-xviii^e siècles)

Céline Borello (Le Mans Université – TEMOS)

10h15 – 10h45 | Le pasteur doit-il se faire avocat ? Le Tabernacle de Dieu sous la nuée d’Alexandre Brissac (1666)

Julien Léonard (université de Lorraine – CRULH)

10 h 45 – 11 h | Pause café

11 h – 11 h 30 | La concurrence des capitulations. Les privilèges religieux des troupes étrangères dans les villes de garnison de la dorsale catholique (France, xvii^e-xviii^e siècles)

Paul Vo-Ha (université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne – IHMC/IUF)

11 h 30 – 12 h | Une diplomatie pour les droits des exilés : le cas des réfugiés huguenots (v. 1680 – v. 1720)

Naïma Ghermani (université Grenoble-Alpes – LAHRHA)

12 h – 12 h 45 | Discussion collective

Session 4 – Circulations et héritages du droit

14 h – 14 h 30 | L’Église réformée au Brésil : cadres institutionnels et enjeux coloniaux (1630-1654)

Matheus Vila Nova (EPHE-PSL – LEM)

14 h 30 – 15 h | D’une émancipation à l’autre : convergences entre non conformistes et anglicans autour de l’Émancipation des catholiques en Irlande (1791-1829)

Karina Bénazech Wendling (université de Lorraine)

15 h – 15 h 30 | La laïcité et l’intégration républicaine des minorités religieuses : le choix des protestants (xviii^e-xxi^e siècles)

Valentine Zuber (EPHE-PSL – GSRL)

15 h 30 – 16 h 15 | Discussion collective

Conclusion générale

(source: IMHC) 

BOOK: Craig MULDREW, The Capitalist Self. The Social Origins of Financial Capitalism in Early Modern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025), ISBN 9781009644488, €40,85

 

(image source: CUP)

Abstract:

In this radical reinterpretation of the Financial Revolution, Craig Muldrew redefines our understanding of capitalism as a socially constructed set of institutions and beliefs. Financial institutions, including the Bank of England and the stock market, were just one piece of the puzzle. Alongside institutional developments, changes in local credit networks involving better accounting, paper notes and increased mortgaging were even more important. Muldrew argues that, before a society can become capitalist, most of its members have to have some engagement with 'capital' as a thing – a form of stored intangible financial value. He shows how previous oral interpersonal credit was transformed into capital through the use of accounting and circulating paper currency, socially supported by changing ideas about the self which stressed individual savings and responsibility. It was only through changes throughout society that the framework for a concept like capitalism could exist and make sense.

Read more here: DOI  10.1017/9781009644488.

BOOK: Wouter DRUWÉ, Randall LESAFFER & Geert SLUIJS (eds.), Natural Law and Domestic Government in the Early Modern Period [Legal History Library, eds. Dirk HEIRBAUT, Michelle MCKINLEY, Matthew C. MIROW & C.H. VAN RHEE; vol. 80] (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2025), ISBN 978-90-04-74871-2, €160,93

 

(image source: Blackwell's)

Abstract:

Natural Law and Domestic Government in the Early Modern Period examines how natural law informed evolving ideas of governance from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Through case studies spanning France, the Low Countries, England, Iberia, and colonial America, this volume explores how jurists, theologians, and political thinkers grappled with questions of sovereignty and justice. Contributors analyse influential figures from Bodin and Coke to Tuldenus and Lipsius, tracing how natural law intersected with legal concepts of rights, obligations, contracts, and associations. By uncovering diverse and contested uses of natural law, this collection offers a nuanced account of its enduring role in shaping early modern statecraft and political thinking.

On the editors:

Wouter Druwé is an associate professor of Roman law and legal history at KU Leuven. He studies the interaction between late medieval and early modern learned law (ius commune) and legal practice, with a particular focus on the Low Countries. Randall Lesaffer is a professor of legal history at KU Leuven and Tilburg University. His research focuses on the history of international law in early modern Europe. He is the general editor of The Cambridge History of International Law and the Brill book series Studies in the History of International Law. Geert Sluijs is a Ph.D. candidate at KU Leuven, holding degrees in law, philosophy, and intellectual history. His research interests include early modern legal and intellectual history. He has previously published on these topics, in particular regarding the Leuven scholar Tuldenus. 

Read more here: DOI 10.1163/9789004748712.

BOOK: H. Alberto FEENSTRA, Frontiers of Finance: The Political Economy of Public Debt in the Dutch Republic [Library of Economic History, eds. Jeremy LAND, Tomoko SHIROYAMA & Jeroen TOUWEN] (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2025), ISBN

 

(image source: Brill)

Abstract:

This book analyses the political economy of provincial public debt within the federal Dutch Republic. Frontiers of Finance: The Political Economy of Public Debt in the Dutch Republic shows that the domestic effect of Holland's financial revolution and Amsterdam's subsequent rise to an international financial centre was limited. Instead, the fiscal and legal fragmentation caused differences in risk, capital supply, transaction costs and, consequently, borrowing costs. The merits of Holland’s financial revolution were thus not transferable to another context. The results are relevant for wider debates about the role of institutions and the financial sector for economic growth.

On the author:

Alberto Feenstra, Ph.D. (2018), University of Amsterdam, is postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University. He publishes on Dutch financial history, including provincial debt and monetary colonial history. 

Read more here: DOI  10.1163/9789004745254.