Unholy Territory ; French Missionaries, Huguenot Refugees, and Religious Conflict in the Dutch Republic

Abstract This article studies the mission of French Discalced Carmelite friars in the seventeenth-century Dutch Republic. Established from 1647 onwards in The Hague, Leiden, and Amsterdam, the missionaries’ aim was to minister to the French-speaking Catholics of Holland, but they also sought to convert expatriate French Protestants as part of the wider Counter-Reformation campaign to win back souls lost to the Reformation. Despite conflict with the Walloon churches, however, the Carmelite mission was surprisingly successful in converting Huguenots to the Church of Rome, repatriating many of th... Mehr ...