Genetic traces of the Spanish Occupation of the Low Countries?

MOESAN said:
@Davef and @Angela
sorry Davef, I found your post #14 sensible and peaceful even if not centered on the very technical focus of the thread, I wanted to give you a thumb up and I made an error! one down!!! Could this be corrected, Angela?
Click to expand...
Only Maciamo can do that. The simplest way is to give him credit for other two posts each, even if they are not so good. :)
 
MOESAN said:
@Davef and @Angela
sorry Davef, I found your post #14 sensible and peaceful even if not centered on the very technical focus of the thread, I wanted to give you a thumb up and I made an error! one down!!! Could this be corrected, Angela?
Click to expand...
Not a problem! Mistakes happen, and thanks for admitting!
 
why do you think that I hate other Iberians? it's that do you think that everybody has your same psychology?

by the way geographic families are more for politicians of the XVI-XIX centuries obsesed in providing for their countries natural boundaries (Pyrenees, Alps, Rhine), but there are also other kind of families like those supported by cultural bonds.
 
davef said:
Not a problem! Mistakes happen, and thanks for admitting!
Click to expand...
Just a friendly reminder, moesan! When you get the chance :), take your time
 
Angela said:
This is a strange one. The whole paper is available.

See:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajpa.23409/abstract

"Abstract

Objectives

War atrocities committed by the Spanish army in the Low Countries during the 16th century are so ingrained in the collective memory of Belgian and Dutch societies that they generally assume a signature of this history to be present in their genetic ancestry. Historians claim this assumption is a consequence of the so-called “Black Legend” and negative propaganda portraying and remembering Spanish soldiers as extreme sexual aggressors. The impact of the presence of Spaniards during the Dutch Revolt on the genetic variation in the Low Countries has been verified in this study.
Materials and methods

A recent population genetic analysis of Iberian-associated Y-chromosomal variation among Europe is enlarged with representative samples of Dutch (N = 250) and Flemish (N = 1,087) males. Frequencies of these variants are also compared between donors whose oldest reported paternal ancestors lived in—nowadays Flemish—cities affected by so-called Spanish Furies (N = 116) versus other patrilineages in current Flemish territory (N = 971).
Results

The frequencies of Y-chromosomal markers Z195 and SRY2627 decline steeply going north from Spain and the data for the Flemish and Dutch populations fits within this pattern. No trend of higher frequencies of these variants has been found within the well-ascertained samples associated with Spanish Fury cities.
Discussion

Although sexual aggression did occur in the 16th century, these activities did not leave a traceable “Spanish” genetic signature in the autochthonous genome of the Low Countries. Our results support the view that the ‘Black Legend’ and historical propaganda on sexual aggression have nurtured today's incorrect assumptions regarding genetic ancestry."

Maybe I just don't understand the context. Should the Germans do a study on births within a couple of years of 1945, especially in places like Berlin, and see if a lot of "Slavic" y dna shows up? How about "German" y dna showing up along the Gothic Line in Italy, or other foreign dna showing up in the south as the invasion moved up the peninsula? In the Balkans, where rape was a weapon of war the yDna is so similar you'd never be able to tell, which is probably a good thing.

See:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32529679

Some sources maintain 2 million German women were raped by Soviet soldiers during WWII.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_of_Germany

Nothing on that scale happened in Italy, but it wasn't unknown.
Click to expand...

The Spaniards destroyed the elite and the economy and the commerce. They were very repressive.
If it were not for them, maybe the center of the renaissance would have been in Belgium and not in northern Italy.

But I had never heard of sexual aggression or of systematic rapes.
And it proves not to be true.

It would be more interesting to study how Holland became a superpower with a merchant fleet sailing the seven sees, and if there was an imput of DNA of Belgian fugitives.
 
bicicleur said:
The Spaniards destroyed the elite and the economy and the commerce. They were very repressive.
If it were not for them, maybe the center of the renaissance would have been in Belgium and not in northern Italy.

But I had never heard of sexual aggression or of systematic rapes.
And it proves not to be true.

It would be more interesting to study how Holland became a superpower with a merchant fleet sailing the seven sees, and if there was an imput of DNA of Belgian fugitives.
Click to expand...

I don't see how this could be a factor. The Spanish occupation of the Netherlands commences in the late 16th century. The Renaissance began primarily in Tuscany, as well as Northern Italy, about three hundred years earlier.

Plus, there are multiple reasons why it makes sense that the Renaissance began in Italy. An outline version of why the Renaissance began in Italy:
http://www.markedbyteachers.com/gcse/history/why-did-the-renaissance-begin-in-italy.html
 
I do not see Belgium as the cradle of any renaissance, the truth would have been as history would have been, I do not think so.
 
The main tool of the Renaissance was the printing press with movable type of Johannes Gutenberg (15th century); Otherwise all the knowledge that poured in from Byzantium (and was translated) could not have been mass distributed;
 
Last edited:
Angela said:
I don't see how this could be a factor. The Spanish occupation of the Netherlands commences in the late 16th century. The Renaissance began primarily in Tuscany, as well as Northern Italy, about three hundred years earlier.
Plus, there are multiple reasons why it makes sense that the Renaissance began in Italy. An outline version of why the Renaissance began in Italy:
http://www.markedbyteachers.com/gcse/history/why-did-the-renaissance-begin-in-italy.html
Click to expand...
yes, you're right, that was before, the 13th century, and allready in the 14th century France started to interfere ..
Flanders had become independent from the French king because the count of Flanders had organised resistance to the Viking invaders, which the French king was unable to do in Flanders
it became very prosperous with industry and commerce booming and cities in rivalry till the Franco-Flemish war which made Flanders semi-dependant of France again in the 14th century
further growth became compromised but Flanders still remained prosperous and Antwerp became the most important trading and financial centre in Western Europe
through inheritance the Low Lands - Belgium - first became dependant to the dukes of Burgundy and finally to the Spanish Habsburgs
and these Spanish Habsburgs gave the final blow
they installed a regime of terror in their fundamentalistic Catholic fever - in Spain it was called the inquisition
much of the elite had to flee and build a new life elsewhere
and Holland, behind the rivers which formed an untakable obstacle for the Spanish armies was the first destination
compared to the Spanish Holland was quite tolerant and Amsterdam's Golden Age was in the make
 
Carlos said:
I do not see Belgium as the cradle of any renaissance, the truth would have been as history would have been, I do not think so.
Click to expand...

Belgium (particularly Flanders) and the southern part of the modern Netherlands were the main artistic centre of the Renaissance outside of Tuscany and northern Italy. Oil painting was invented in Flanders in the 15th century, and many of the most famous Renaissance painters of the 15th and 16th century were Flemish (van Eyck, Bruegel the Elder, Bruegel the Younger, Memling, Beuckelaer, van Orley, Rubens, van Dyck, and many more). Here are some examples of their works.

Charles V's decision to cede the Low Countries to his son, Philip II of Spain, led to the war of Dutch independence, which caused many Belgian intellectuals, merchants and artists to flee the Spanish occupied south to move in the new Dutch Republic. The middle and late 16th century was the Dutch Golden Age, with painters like Vermeer or Rembrandt, but also scientists (Christiaan Huygens, Hans Lippershe, Zacharias Janssen, Cornelis Drebbel, etc), who invented the pendulum clock, the telescope and the microscope, among others.

With the influx of Flemish intellectuals, the Dutch Republic became so advanced that soon the Dutch took over most of the Portuguese colonial empire (in South Africa, India, Ceylon and Malaysia) and became strong enough to rival much larger countries like Spain, France or England.
 
Carlos said:
I do not see Belgium as the cradle of any renaissance, the truth would have been as history would have been, I do not think so.
Click to expand...

the reign of Philips II of Spain was one of the worst - if not the worst period in Belgian history

it turned an area which was still prosperous into a backward region - a shithole country as Trump would say
it destroyed the economical fabric and all what was left was an illiterate population of peasants
 
There was war, occupation, and devastation throughout much of Europe in the 16th century. Unfortunately, that's what it was like in Europe pretty much all of the time.

The Italian Wars saw 65 years of French attacks on the Italian states, starting with Charles VIII's invasion of Naples in 1494.

There were battles, food shortages, sacks, rapes, you name it.

See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Wars

Yet it was the time of the High Renaissance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinquecento

The prior century was no better, which no doubt led to this quote:
“You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”― Graham Greene, The Third Man

For the record, the Borgias were not Italian.

Then it was the turn of Charles V and his mercenaries, including lots of German ones. That century began the real down turn. Now, whether that was because it finally was too much, or because of the Spanish occupation of so much of Italy, or because of the taking over of the eastern trade by the Ottomans and the switch to trade with the Americas, which benefited countries closer to the Atlantic, I don't know. Probably it was some combination of all three.

Whatever, I'm not aware of any attempt by Italians to create a mythology where either France or Spain was painted as irremediably evil, more evil than any other invading country. Maybe the religious differences exacerbated it.
 
Angela said:
There was war, occupation, and devastation throughout much of Europe in the 16th century. Unfortunately, that's what it was like in Europe pretty much all of the time.

The Italian Wars saw 65 years of French attacks on the Italian states, starting with Charles VIII's invasion of Naples in 1494.

There were battles, food shortages, sacks, rapes, you name it.

See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Wars

Yet it was the time of the High Renaissance.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinquecento

The prior century was no better, which no doubt led to this quote:
“You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”― Graham Greene, The Third Man

For the record, the Borgias were not Italian.

Then it was the turn of Charles V and his mercenaries, including lots of German ones. That century began the real down turn. Now, whether that was because it finally was too much, or because of the Spanish occupation of so much of Italy, or because of the taking over of the eastern trade by the Ottomans and the switch to trade with the Americas, which benefited countries closer to the Atlantic, I don't know. Probably it was some combination of all three.

Whatever, I'm not aware of any attempt by Italians to create a mythology where either France or Spain was painted as irremediably evil, more evil than any other invading country. Maybe the religious differences exacerbated it.
Click to expand...

well, if the French or the Spaniards would have succeeded in conquering and ruling over Italy, history would have been different, wouldn't it?
I don't see how a centralised monarchy could have created renaissance
 
bicicleur said:
well, if the French or the Spaniards would have succeeded in conquering and ruling over Italy, history would have been different, wouldn't it?
I don't see how a centralised monarchy could have created renaissance
Click to expand...

I'm sorry. I don't understand. France and Spain did conquer and occupy large parts of Italy, although Spanish rule was more successful and lasted longer, thanks to all that New World gold and the mercenaries it could buy.

It went from this:
300px-Italy_1494_AD.png


To this:
the_italian_wars_by_hillfighter-d3bhzh3.png


As time went by, through intermarriages over and over again with the Hapbsburgs Toscana lost much of its autonomy as well.

If you mean that as the turmoil lessened but the foreign control became more complete there was less and less prosperity and creativity, I would agree with that.
 
Zvrk9 said:
Sure DaveF, thanks for your comment. Here are my related comments.

I completely agree that this article is of little value.

I find Angela's comments about Balkans and rape as a weapon of war inappropriate. There many examples of this horrible crime throughout distant and recent history. I get sick in the stomach reading about the act of rape in any form (war or not). However, one can't judge people of 9 nations (Balkans peninsula) based on media coverage of few.

As a reference to making some broad judgments on who is likely to rape (if that is ever appropriate), please compare statistics for this criminal act and that will give you another point of view.
Click to expand...


sounds like , you want to hide the truth on such matters or else it will offend ..............rape, prostitution, slavery, gender inequality etc issues have been around forever, we need to confront these issues head on regardless of who it offends
 
bicicleur said:
well, if the French or the Spaniards would have succeeded in conquering and ruling over Italy, history would have been different, wouldn't it?
I don't see how a centralised monarchy could have created renaissance
Click to expand...
republics in Italy created the renaissance and not the areas ruled by monarchist goverments be they foreign or not
 
In Spain we love Italy in every way, it is one of the great nations that has changed and intervened in the course of humanity, one of the greatest nations that have ever existed. France we also like; although they are more difficult, they look at the navel all the time. Germany we also like, we turn our backs on Portugal. The countries of Belgium and Holland, what would you say, I think they are countries that still have a lot of prejudice with Spain because they see us as evil invaders, but we were the world power, nowadays we are not thinking about that, nor do we keep it in mind constantly . Spain is also one of the greatest nations that humanity has given.
 
the renaissance was pre italian-wars, after the italian-wars (pavia1525) which was hereditary at root (anjou claims / valois(visconti) claims) the large parts of italy(milan/naples) under PhilipII were than mostly/solely the supply of armory(milan) and soldiers/mercenaries(milan/naples) as the 'Army of Flanders' relied heavily on the so called foreign contingents from 1565-97 the 'Army of Flanders' J.Glete2002p.85 consisted of 40 tercios 22Spanish/18Italian and 47 regiments 28German/19Walloon in 1621 of the 47 tercios I.Lopez2012p.7 seven were Spanish the rest (40) being Walloon and Italian with regiments being German, Burgundian and Irish; other example Nördlingen 1634 the 12-13000 infantry in the army of Leganes 7-8000 infantry was naples/lombardy, after nördlingen that army marched into flanders;
 
alexfritz said:
the renaissance was pre italian-wars, after the italian-wars (pavia1525) which was hereditary at root (anjou claims / valois(visconti) claims) the large parts of italy(milan/naples) under PhilipII were than mostly/solely the supply of armory(milan) and soldiers/mercenaries(milan/naples) as the 'Army of Flanders' relied heavily on the so called foreign contingents from 1565-97 the 'Army of Flanders' J.Glete2002p.85 consisted of 40 tercios 22Spanish/18Italian and 47 regiments 28German/19Walloon in 1621 of the 47 tercios I.Lopez2012p.7 seven were Spanish the rest (40) being Walloon and Italian with regiments being German, Burgundian and Irish; other example Nördlingen 1634 the 12-13000 infantry in the army of Leganes 7-8000 infantry was naples/lombardy, after nördlingen that army marched into flanders;
Click to expand...

Your first sentence is absolutely incorrect. As to the rest, I can't make out if there's any larger meaning there.

"The Italian Renaissance (Italian: Rinascimento [rinaʃʃiˈmento]) was the earliest manifestation of the general European Renaissance, a period of great cultural change and achievement that began in Italy during the 14th century (Trecento) and lasted until the 17th century (Seicento), marking the transition between Medieval and Modern Europe."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_RenaissanceThe earliest dates I've seen are 1330-1550, or 1330-1527.

The Italian Wars "often referred to as the Great Italian Wars or the Great Wars of Italy and sometimes as the Habsburg–Valois Wars or the Renaissance Wars, were a series of conflicts from 1494 to 1559."https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Wars

See the overlap?

Plus, my point was that great advancements can be made even in the midst of turmoil and war.

Italy in the Trecento:
The fourteenth century in Italy was cataclysmic. This was the time of the plague (documented by Boccaccio), political schism, and perpetual conflict.

Plagues in Italy-
"In January 1348, the Black Plague entered Genoa and soon spread like wildfire throughout the Italian Peninsula , as people fled the coastal towns in search of safety, unaware they were already carrying the disease (or carrying the fleas in goods such as textiles). As people continued to flee further inland so did the plague. A few weeks later, it infiltrated Pisa, and then spread with alarming speed through Tuscany to Florence, Siena and Rome."

"When the plague hit Florence,it hit hard. The thriving city, which relied so heavily on foreign trade, was brought to its knees. It is estimated nearly 60% of the population perished. Camps were set up outside the city walls for people who were showing any sign of the disease. So many were dying that mass graves were dug and possessions burnt, before so much as a blessing. Italian writer Giovanni Boccaccio who survived in the city was inspired to pen his experience into a ficticious novel, The Decameron."

Military conflict was a constant:
"Constant conflict was the fate of these vigorous urban societies. In addition to the internal struggle, and the struggles for independence from emperor and pope, there was the constant fighting of the cities against one another. They fought for commercial supremacy, control of trade routes, access to seaports, territorial expansion, and possession of natural resources; like their internal conflicts, these intercity wars and rivalries were likely to be prolonged, bitter, and ruthless. Reference has been made to the commercial rivalry of Genoa, Pisa, and Venice. Florence fought for centuries for control of Pisa and was frequently engaged in war with other Tuscan neighbors and rivals, such as Lucca and Siena."

The Angevins:

"The alliance of the papacy with the French crown had repercussions that were felt beyond southern Italy and Sicily. The Angevins saw themselves as champions of the Church and the popes became more and more dependent on the French monarchy for support. Increasingly, Italians felt distanced from a Church so heavily controlled by French interests and took exception to foreign influence. The situation worsened during the residence of the papal court in Avignon during the Avignonese Captivity (1308-1378) and the attitude of resentment was especially evident in the Papal States of central Italy.The Papal States stretched across the middle of the Italian peninsula and provided agricultural and taxation support for the papacy. The region was exceptionally diverse culturally and a belligerent nobility made the area difficult to control even with a strong administrative presence at Rome. The absence of the papacy during the Avignonese Captivity combined with the decimation of the Plague, leaving the capital ravaged. Lawless brigands terrorized citizens and travellers alike throughout the area and wolves even roamed the streets of the city. Without a strong unifed government in Rome, central Italy was left to the mercy of princelings who used swords to carve out their own territories.


The continuous political strife and warfare drained the economy and exhausted the population of Italy. Civil unrest frequently burst into open violence and rioting as cities rebelled against feudal landholders over rights of self-government and taxation. The conflict between the papal Guelphs and the imperial Ghibellines was to the benefit of many cities and by playing these two factions against one another, civic governments were able to organize and squirm out from under the direct control of either. The ideologies of the parties were often retained but tailored to suit the ideals of the new communes and, although regularly labelled as either Guelph or Ghibelline, many towns shifted their allegiances with the political winds."
http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zab...e. etc/Philosophers/End/FRAMES/cityframe.html

Italy in the Quattrocento:

The Wars in Lombardy-1423-1454
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_in_Lombardy

Peace of Lodi-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lodi
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

This thread has been viewed 31684 times.

Back
Top