Anticlericalism in the Netherlands: Some Preliminary Remarks

Anticlericalism in the northern Netherlands has hardly been treated as a topic in its own right. Yet the Dutch have produced their share of political theorists, jurists, philosophers, and a substantial flock of independent writers, who were more often than not virulently anticlerical, or who were at least opposed to the prevailing religious system, and emphasized, in particular, secular control over the clergy. In this paper, I shall attempt to provide a rough outline of anticlericalism in th.