The concept
Between the mid-sixteenth and the mid-seventeenth centuries there were signs of enormous and rapid economic growth in the Republic. The arts and sciences underwent a period of unprecedented development, and Dutch ships were exploring the world. During this period, which is commonly referred to as ‘the Golden Age’, the Republic was among the most powerful countries in Europe.

There has been quite some discussion concerning exactly when the Golden Age began and how long it lasted. It is generally agreed, however, that this important period largely coincided with another event in Dutch history: the Revolt.

The Revolt and the run-up to the Golden Age
In the sixteenth century, the Low Countries were part of the Spanish Empire. After the abdication of emperor Charles V in 1555, his son Philip II took over the imperial leadership. Philip was saddled with a rapidly growing Protestant movement and a struggle for greater autonomy in the northern regions of the Low Countries. He responded to these developments by forcefully suppressing Protestantism and centralizing administrative power in Brussels as much as possible. This led to great political and religious tension in the Low Countries.

In 1566 the bomb burst and the interiors of Catholic churches in several places in the Netherlands were vandalized. This ‘beeldenstorm’, or iconoclastic attack, would become the prelude to a revolt in the northern regions. The battle of Heiligerlee two years later between Spanish armies and the troops of the Prince of Orange was the formal starting point of a struggle that was to last for eighty years. At the Peace of Münster (1648), the Spanish formally recognized the independence of the northern Low Countries.

War and economic growth
The revolt against ‘the Spanish tyranny’ did not get in the way of economic development in the northern Low Countries. Since the beginning of the sixteenth century, trade with the Baltic region had been increasing steadily. Ships from various Dutch cities around the Zuiderzee participated in this trade, and Amsterdam developed into the principal entrepôt in the flow of goods.

After the Spanish captured the important harbour of Antwerp in 1585, some of the wealthy population fled the city. The refugees who went to Amsterdam brought more than their capital with them. They also brought knowledge of and contact with European mercantile houses and banks. This influx of refugees strengthened Amsterdam’s share in the European trade network and brought about a new period of economic growth for Amsterdam and the surrounding cities. When northern insurgents closed off access to Antwerp (the mouth of the Schelde), the centre of gravity for trade in the Low Countries shifted to Amsterdam in the north and remained there for quite some time.

The Dutch and the oceans of the world
With the establishment of the Dutch East India Company (1602) and the West India Company (1621), the northern Low Countries gained access to the Asian, Arabian, African, Caribbean and American markets. Spices, gold, ivory, textiles, silk, porcelain and sugar filled the Amsterdam warehouses. From 1635 onwards, the West India Company played a role in the infamous slave trade. Enslaved Africans were forcibly shipped to plantations in the Caribbean.

Overseas trade was not a dominant feature of the Dutch economy, however. Most money was earned closer to home in Europe. But international trade did contribute to the spreading of knowledge. At first this took place in the form of globes, cartographic material and travelogues. These were soon followed by books and pamphlets on a great variety of subjects. The acquired knowledge was then taught at the universities of Leiden, Utrecht, Amsterdam and Harderwijk.

Abundance
The availability of so much capital also made it possible to undertake costly enterprises, such as the draining of Holland’s great lakes. The fertile land thus obtained supplied the ‘burgers’ who had funded the enterprises with rich harvests.

Not all the money was invested in the economy. The initial modesty that characterized the merchants, many of whom were Protestant, was replaced by a greater concern for appearances.

More and more money was spent on the building of expensive houses, household goods, clothing, art and culture. The output of Dutch painters such as Rembrandt, Vermeer and Steen graced the elegant interiors of the canalside houses and country estates of the wealthy. Sculptors and furniture makers also contributed to the colourful excess that is so characteristic of the Golden Age. In the city of Amsterdam the most valuable treasures of the Western World were on display. But the days of abundance were numbered.

Decline
In the middle of the seventeenth century, the Republic was confronted by heavy competition from upcoming ‘mercantile’ powers such as France and England. Because of an oversupply of cargo space and dropping prices for their products, Dutch traders found themselves in a slowly descending spiral. When the Republic was drawn into war with France, England and the bishops of Munster and Cologne in 1672, the ‘Year of Calamity’, it came as a deathblow to the Dutch economy and to the Golden Age.