Lutherans in the Low Countries. Self-Imposed Thresholds and Calvinist Clout

In 2017, it is 500 years since Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. The movement for reform that Luther set in motion got off to a rapid and forceful start in the Netherlands. It was above all in the cosmopolitan trading metropolis of Antwerp that the influence of this church reformer made itself felt. However, Alexander Farnese’s conquest of the rebellious towns and cities of Flanders and Brabant in the 1580s was accompanied by a mass migration of Protestants to the rebellious north.