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A key figure of the early radical Enlightenment was Benedict (or Baruch) Spinoza. After his philosophy alienated him from the Jewish community in Amsterdam to which he was born, Spinoza travelled throughout the Netherlands but avoided voicing his…

In the wake of the Protestant Reformation, Spain didn’t develop a major Protestant sect. Instead, many Protestant ideas were erased from public consciousness by the Spanish Inquisition, which encouraged the censure of texts and the murder or…

While strategic marriages for either resources or power have always been present in European history, their importance during the renaissance cannot be understated. The marriages of Maximilian the I (top left) and subsequent marriages that he planned…

When Christopher Columbus landed in the Caribbean in 1492, he may not have found a heretofore undiscovered land, however, he did set into play a series of events that would forever alter the shape of history. Early accounts of the Spanish conquest…

This portrait of William III represents the interesting government which developed in the Dutch Republic following its independence from Spain. William III served as stadtholder of the Seven Provinces of the Netherlands from 1672-1702. The stadholder…

In 1713 Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of Hapsburg lands Charles VI issued the pragmatic sanction. This edict overruled the long-standing imperial law against a woman inheriting states in the Holy Roman Empire and was necessitated by Charles’ lack of a…

Protestantism had taken Germany by storm in the early 1500s. The Edict of Worms decreed in 1521 at the behest of Charles V declared Martin Luther a heretic and forbade anyone from supporting him, yet this did little to stop the rampant spread of…

Signed by Clamor Adolph Theodor von dem Bussche, this letter legally granted the emancipation of a German serf named Johann Hermann Weymann in 1762. In one notable line, von dem Bussche proclaimed “freyheit; urkundlich meiner eigenhändigen”, or…

Early modern scholars were divided on the issue of controlling colonies in Spain. Some saw holding power over colonies as beneficial for the wealth they provided, while others saw them as a distraction.
Colonies provided Spain with massive amounts…