''Young Flemish'' was a subgroup of the
Mennonites, itself a subgroup of
Anabaptism, from about the 1580s to the 1630s in what is now
Belgium and the
Netherlands.
From the 1520s Dutch Protestants started to fragment, with the
Anabaptists as the first to create a rift. From 1530 to 1550 the Anabaptist movement acted as the Reformation's arm and mouthpiece. Their followers were persecuted which created disagreement among them as to how to handle this, either by taking up arms to resist or passive defiance. On the pacifist side, the followers of
David Joris
David Joris (c. 1501 – 25 August 1556, sometimes Jan Jorisz or Joriszoon; formerly anglicised David Gorge) was an important Anabaptist leader in the Netherlands before 1540.
Life
Joris was probably born in Flanders, the son of Marietje Ja ...
were the bigger group in the 1530s, and the followers of
Menno Simons, called Mennonites, the smaller, and mainly in
Friesland and
Groningen
Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...
. But by the 1540s the
Mennonites had become the mainstream of Dutch Anabaptism. The Mennonites fragmented even further into subgroups. Menno tried to heal the split in 1557 but failed.
In Flanders Flemish Anabaptism grew strongly in the 1550s, inspired by Menno's teachings, but at great cost, with hundreds of executions.
When the
Duke of Alva came to Flanders, many migrated to the north. This created tensions between various groups of Anabaptists regarding doctrine, organisation, and life-style. Flemish Anabaptism was now no longer a reference to geographical location of the group but one of confessional bloc.
Dirk Philips
Dirk Philips (1504–1568) was an early Anabaptist writer and theologian. He was one of the peaceful disciples of Melchior Hoffman and later joined Menno SimonsGunnar Westin, ''Vapaan kristillisyyden historia'', s. 203. in laying out practical doc ...
became the leader of the 'Flemish' Anabaptists, although he was not Flemish.
By the 1580s the Flemish Anabaptists had further subdivided into hardline and moderate factions, Old Flemish and Young Flemish.
Haarlem
Haarlem (; predecessor of ''Harlem'' in English) is a city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland. Haarlem is situated at the northern edge of the Randstad, one of the most populated metropoli ...
in particular was a city where in the 1590s all six blocs of Dutch Anabaptism existed: Waterlanders, Old Frisians, Old Flemish, Young Frisians, Young Flemish and High Germans.
Salomon van Ruysdael and, probably, his brother
Isaack van Ruisdael
Isaack van Ruisdael (;In isolation, ''van'' is pronounced . 1599 – buried 4 October 1677) was a Dutch Golden Age painter, brother to Salomon van Ruysdael and the father of the landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael.
Life
Isaack van Ruisdael was b ...
, father of
Jacob van Ruisdael, belonged to the Haarlem Young Flemish.
In 1632 most Old Flemish reunited with the Young Flemish. Subsequently these United Flemish merged with a faction of Young Frisians.
By the 1640s the great majority of the 75,000 Dutch Anabaptists belonged to either the new moderate conservative bloc of United Flemish, Frisians, High Germans or Waterlanders.
References
Notes
Bibliography
*{{cite book, last=Israel, first=Jonathan, title=The Dutch Republic. Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall 1477–1806, year=1995, publisher=Oxford University Press, location=Oxford, isbn=978-0-19-820734-4
Mennonitism in Europe
History of Flanders
Early Modern Netherlands