Flight from Flanders to Friesland

In the latter half of the sixteenth century Protestantism gradually spread throughout the northern Netherlands in the form of Calvinism—which had a direct impact on Anabaptists.

When the Northern Provinces of the Netherlands led by the exiled Protestant Prince William of Orange went to war against Spain in 1568, persecution of Anabaptists in Catholic Flanders increased again. Long before the Protestant Northern Provinces would declare independence in 1581, the inquisition against Anabaptists in Bruges, for example, had achieved its goal. With the last two Anabaptist executions in the city in 1573, the once large and thriving Mennonite congregation was extinguished. Subsequently Mennonites lived in Bruges only on rare occasions, and when present, for only a short time, as for example the well-known art historian Karel van Mander in 1582 (note 1).

In the Northern Provinces Calvinism had become attractive theologically and politically. Not only was Christian resistance to tyrannical governments permitted in the new Reformed movement, but followers of Calvin considered it a positive Christian responsibility to overthrow a godless regime, which they saw embodied in Philip II of Spain (who continued to rule over Flanders).

Mennonites continued to renounce in principle the use of force for achieving the Christendom goals of Christian teaching or mission, challenging the formal or informal connection between state and church.

However, the declaration of independence by the seven northern provinces and the elevation of Calvinism as state religion brought a welcome measure of religious tolerance for Mennonites, though not recognition. Many Anabaptists from the southern Catholic Low Countries fled for the provinces of Holland, Zeeland and in particular, Friesland—all regions with significant Anabaptist presence (note 2).

The population transfer within the Netherlands from south to north during these years was massive; the hemorrhaging reached its peak between 1585 and 1587, and “amounted to over 100,000 refugees and, possibly, as many as 150,000,” with Bruges losing “about half of its inhabitants” (note 3). Some of the Dutch towns and cities to which the Flemish Protestant and Anabaptist refugees arrived grew spectacularly—even doubling and tripling in size.

Then as now, success in refugee resettlement is determined in part on the capacities of a society to absorb a massive influx on the one hand, and for newcomers to adapt their skills, on the other.

"What is most remarkable about the exodus to the north after 1585 is the speed and comparative ease with which the newcomers were integrated into Dutch society and economic life. … [T]he new labour force hardly anywhere overlapped, or competed, with the existing Dutch proletariat. The United Provinces at the end of the sixteenth century, was a land of two proletariats—the native and the immigrant—which performed largely separate tasks." (Note 4)

It is not surprising that the many urban Flemish Anabaptist silk- and linen-weavers would be sufficiently different culturally from their rural agrarian Frisian Mennonite co-religionists and hosts, and that differences in faith and practice might arise as well.

The Frisians took offense at the elaborate “worldly” dress and manners of the more urban Flemish, whereas the Flemish felt they had more than proven their world-denying faith in persecution and migration.

The Flemish in turn thought the Frisians were not sufficiently sober and simple with regard to their homes and household furnishings. Coming from a background of more severe persecution, the Flemish were also more rigorous with community discipline than Frisians.

The former held consistently to those parts of Menno’s theology that taught that Jesus did not take on fallen human nature, but came clothed in untarnished “celestial flesh” (note 5); as a consequence, the church as Bride of Christ is not only “without spot or wrinkle” because of God’s grace, but can and should also remain so. The earthly Jesus became the model the church was to imitate to enter the Kingdom of God. To keep the church “pure,” church discipline was necessary, which included the ban and the related shunning of banned members—a view which had been central in Bruges, for example (note 6).

This understandably led to tensions and a major schism later in Friesland. The Flemish vision of church was supported by Menno’s more legalistic co-elder Dirk Philips (a Frisian), which demanded a strict application of the ban and shunning in daily life (note 7).

Factions developed, and the names “Flemish” and “Frisian” soon became less geographic names of origin than names of parties of like-minded Mennonites—though few from Flanders ever joined with what became “Frisian” congregations. The differences were significant as early as 1567 when the Flemish pronounced a ban on all Frisian Mennonites.

This Flemish/Frisian difference would play a defining role for descendants for the next three hundred years in their countries of refuge and settlement—including Russia. Notably, however, while the application of the ban was harsh and in retrospect more destructive than constructive for the community, it was restrained compared to the dominant groups in their context, who could still pursue their heretics as agents of the devil with the most brutal punishments and execution.

--Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: David Kunzle, From Criminal to Courtier: The Soldier in Netherlandish Art 1550–1672 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 237.

Note 2: Cf. Blaupot ten Cate, in Benjamin H. Unruh, Die niederländisch-niederdeutschen Hintergründe der mennonitischen Ostwanderungen im 16., 18. und 19. Jahrhundert (Karlsruhe: Self-published, 1955), 46, 48.

Note 3: Jonathan Israel, The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness and Fall, 1477–1806 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 308.

Note 4: Israel, The Dutch Republic, 309f. Cf. also Cornelius Krahn, Dutch Anabaptism: Origin, Spread, Life and Thought (1450–1600) (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1968), 211-214.

Note 5: Cf. Herman Vlekwijk, in Thieleman J. Van Braght, The Martyrs’ Mirror: The Story of Fifteen Centuries of Martyrdom (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 2001), 795f., https://archive.org/details/TheBloodyTheaterOrMartyrsMirrorOfTheDefenselessChristians. This doctrine was still referred to in at least one confession in use in the nineteenth century in Russia. The article “Of the Incarnation of the Son of God” in an Old Flemish confession used by the Kleine Gemeinde in 1844 confesses: “Upon reflection it is evident that he was not of the flesh and blood of his mother. John says, the Word was made flesh.” In Delbert Plett, Storm and Triumph. The Mennonite Kleine Gemeinde (1850–1875) (Steinbach, MB: D. F. P. Publications, 1986), 78, https://www.mharchives.ca/download/1575/.

Note 6: Cf. van Braght, Martyrs Mirror, 807f.

Note 7: Cf. Menno Simons’ 1541 booklet, “A Kind Admonition on Church Discipline” in The Complete Writings of Menno Simons, edited by J. C. Wenger (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1984), 407–418; cf. also 1043–145; 1050–1051 (http://www.mennosimons.net/writings.html). Dirk Philips was severe in his understanding of the ban and avoidance; cf. The Writings of Dirk Philips, 1504–1568, translated and edited by Cornelius J. Dyck et al. (Waterloo, ON: Herald, 1992), Kindle edition, A.11; C.4–6. See also chapters in his Enchiridon/ Handbook, 519ff., https://archive.org/details/enchiridionorhan00phil/page/538/mode/2up.

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