Reformers on Stage: Popular Drama and Religious Propaganda in the Low Countries of Charles V, 1515-1556 (review)

This study focuses on the role of the Chambers of Rhetoric and their plays in religious, orthodox or dissident, propaganda. These literary guilds were widespread by the end of the fifteenth century and contributed greatly to religious and secular urban culture. They participated in religious and civic celebrations and their poetry and drama competitions were often lavish events.

The Chambers provided opportunities for exchanging views and ideas. Their members came together from a love of rhetoric, poetry, or drama; their main aim was to voice emotions and ideas in beautiful, accomplished language for entertainment and instruction.

Soon after Luther's writings reached the Low Countries, the Rhetoricians became involved in religious debates about the shortcomings of the established Church and the new religious ideas. Plays discussed the importance and the behaviour of priests, the importance of the Sacraments and the benefit of experiencing God's Word directly through the Bible.

It is difficult to view the Reformation in the Low Countries as a national or regional phenomenon. Every town has a different and changeable history: where sympathy for dissident ideas existed, pressure from provincial or central authorities might cause opposition or persecution.

Gary K. Waite provides an informative overview of civic culture and religious reform in the Netherlands and of the Rhetoricians and their place in urban culture. Then the focus is narrowed to Antwerp and Amsterdam, important towns which reflected and influenced the different political, economic, and cultural climates of the southern and of the northwestern Low Countries. Both had to cope with and process the attacks on the established Church and the advent of the new creeds.

Antwerp, where the printing presses were instrumental in disseminating knowledge and entertainment and where at least three Chambers of Rhetoric operated, was a natural haven for new ideas. It did not escape the campaigns against heresy by the Habsburg authorities, but it is remarkable that neither those nor the increasingly fierce conflicts between the new creeds resulted in the terrible religious and social strife which affected many other places. Until the end of Charles V's reign in 1555, Lutheranism remained the dominant dissident creed in Antwerp. The Chambers continued to provide entertainment and to participate in civic and religious festivities.

A different scenario unfolds in the younger and smaller town of Amsterdam. Here the influence of the radical reformers, in particular of the Anabaptists, caused fierce religious and social conflict and considerable distrust towards the Chambers of Rhetoric and a withdrawal of support for the Chambers on the part of the city magistrates.

Waite rightly devotes a large part of his study to the impact of the Rhetoricians' competition in Ghent in 1539, which came to be seen as almost iconic for the course of the Reformation in the Netherlands. Nineteen chambers participated, nine were identifiably sympathetic to Lutheran ideas, seven showed varied spiritualistic approaches, and only three were in keeping with established Catholic dogma.

Ghent was a rebellious and powerful city which clashed frequently with its Burgundian overlords and its Habsburg rulers. Charles had been born in Ghent, but this much-emphasized special relationship did not prevent conflict, religious, political, and social. Shortly after the competition Charles marched on the town with an army, determined to curb all forms of dissent and rebellion. In September 1540 the published edition of the Ghent plays was placed on the Index and all Rhetoricians' activities were greatly curbed and censored. It led to a general decline in Rhetoricans' drama by the 1550s.

Very instructive too is the detailed discussion of some plays and their religious stance. The latter can be elusive, since Rhetoricians became increasingly circumspect as censorship and inquisition sought to eradicate dissident ideas everywhere. Even so, the passion with which ideas were communicated, often under dangerous circumstances, still comes through. The authorities were right to be worried: drama disseminated ideas, made people aware...