‘Heerloese knechten’: Unemployed Soldiers as a Security Threat in the Sixteenth-Century Netherlands

The sixteenth century saw increasing problems with disbanded, unemployed soldiers (‘heerloese knechten’) in Europe. In the Holy Roman Empire they had by the middle of the century come to be regarded as the primary threat to the Eternal Public Peace (Landfrieden). This article looks at why and how unemployed soldiers became a security threat in the sixteenth-century Netherlands. It does so by analysing the developing discourse on this topic and the measures taken to combat the threat in comparison with the Empire. In practice both the Netherlands and the Empire developed a collective security r... Mehr ...