By the end of the sixteenth century, stories about the Revolt in the Low Countries (c. 1567-1648) had begun to spread throughout Europe. These stories had very different authors with very different intentions. Over time the plethora of sources and interpretations faded away, leaving us with opposing canonical narratives. The Dutch and Spanish national myths were forged on the basis of two visions of the conflict: as a liberation war against cruel Spanish oppressors and as a glorious episode in the history of the Spanish Empire. This volume delves into the early, seemingly anecdotal stories of the war to map the great variety and interconnection of the narratives. It asks such questions as how did the Jesuits write about the Revolt, what can we find in Italian chronicles and how did the war look from the perspective of a local nobleman or a Spanish commander?

Introduction: early modern war narratives and the Revolt in the Low Countries - Raymond Fagel
1 'Do not reveal that I wrote this': diplomatic correspondence, news and narratives in the early years of the civil war in the Low Countries - M. J. Rodriguez-Salgado
2 The fabrication of Francisco de Valdés: episodic narratives in Spanish and Dutch chronicles on the siege of Leiden (1573-4) - Leonor Álvarez Francés
3 The year of the Furies: military correspondence around the Sack of Antwerp (1576) - Beatriz Santiago Belmonte
4 'Lode della nazione italiana': Italian historians on the Spanish soldiers - Cees Reijner
5 Narrating mutiny in the Army of Flanders: Cristóbal Rodríguez Alva's La inquieta Flandes (1594) - Miguel Martínez
6 Orange's Spanish mulatto and other side-changers: narratives on Spanish defection during the Revolt in the Low Countries - Raymond Fagel
7 How a defeat became a victory: the siege of Ostend in contemporary Dutch war coverage and post-war chronicles (1601-15) - Werner Thomas
8 North and South: a comparison of episodic war narratives during the Revolt in the Low Countries - Jasper van der Steen
9 Chaplains and soldiers: experience and narratives in the Low Countries (1567-1648) - Vincenzo Lavenia
10 'Was bis daher gepassiert solt vergessen und vergeben sein': cross-border nobleman Sweder Schele's (1569-1639) accounts of army commanders during the Revolt in the Low Countries and Thirty Years' War - Raingard Esser and Dániel Moerman
11 Geoffrey Parker's Universal Soldier revisited: European military history and human universals - Gregory Hanlon
Index

Editors

Raymond Fagel is Lecturer in Early Modern History at Leiden University
Leonor Álvarez Francés is a PhD Researcher at Leiden University
Beatriz Santiago Belmontea is a PhD Researcher at Leiden University