Calvinism and Religious Toleration in the Dutch Golden Age

Book excerpt: Dutch society has enjoyed a reputation, or notoriety, for permissiveness from the sixteenth century to present times. The Dutch Republic in the Golden Age was the only society that tolerated religious dissenters of all persuasions in early modern Europe, despite being committed to a strictly Calvinist public Church. Professors R. Po-chia Hsia and Henk van Nierop have brought together a group of leading historians from the US, the UK and the Netherlands to probe the history and myth of this Dutch tradition of religious tolerance. This 2002 collection of outstanding essays reconsiders and revises contemporary views of Dutch tolerance. Taken as a whole, the volume's innovative scholarship offers unexpected insights into this important topic in religious and cultural history.