Cunegonde's Kidnapping: A Story of Religious Conflict in the Age of Enlightenment

by Benjamin J. Kaplan

How a popular religious war erupted on the Dutch-German border, despite the ideals of religious tolerance proclaimed by the Enlightenment

In a remote village on the Dutch-German border, a young Catholic woman named Cunegonde tries to kidnap a baby to prevent it from being baptized in a Protestant church. When she is arrested, fellow Catholics stage an armed raid to free her from detention. These dramatic events of 1762 triggered a cycle of violence, starting a kind of religious war in the village and its surrounding region. Contradicting our current understanding, this war erupted at the height of the Age of Enlightenment, famous for its religious toleration.
 
Cunegonde’s Kidnapping  tells in vivid detail the story of this hitherto unknown conflict. Drawing characters, scenes, and dialogue straight from a body of exceptional primary sources, it is the first microhistorical study of religious conflict and toleration in early modern Europe. In it, award-winning historian Benjamin J. Kaplan explores the dilemmas of interfaith marriage and the special character of religious life in a borderland, where religious dissenters enjoy unique freedoms. He also challenges assumptions about the impact of Enlightenment thought and suggests that, on a popular level, some parts of eighteenth-century Europe may not have witnessed a “rise of toleration.”

Genres: History, Nonfiction

312 pages, Hardcover

First published October 28, 2014

About the author

Benjamin J. Kaplan is a historian and professor of Dutch history at University College London and the University of Amsterdam.

He taught at University of Iowa. He is a 2011 Guggenheim Fellow.

According to the New York Times, in his 2007 book Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe, Kaplan "maintains that religious toleration declined from around 1550 to 1750," and that Europeans responded by devising "intricate boundaries allowing them to live more or less peaceably with neighbors whose rival beliefs were anathema."

Books
Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe.Harvard University Press. 2007. ISBN 978-0-674-02430-4.
Calvinists and Libertines: confession and community in Utrecht, 1578-1620, Clarendon Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0-19-820283-7
Benjamin J. Kaplan, Marybeth Carlson, Laura Cruz, eds. (2009). Boundaries and their meanings in the history of the Netherlands. BRILL. ISBN 978-90-04-17637-9.
Benjamin J. Kaplan, Bob Moore, Henk Van Nierop, Judith Pollmann, (eds.) Catholic Communities in Protestant States: Britain and the Netherlands C.1570-1720, Manchester University Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7190-7906-1

Reviews

[Harriet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kaplan, Ben. Cunegonde’s Kidnapping (Yale University Press: New Haven & London, 2014).

Ben Kaplan’s "Cunegonde’s Kidnapping" tells the fascinating story of a child-kidnapping which triggered an episode of religious unrest, using this case study to inquire into the wider landscape of religious conflict and toleration in the Aachen/Overmaas border region in the mid-18th century. With the help of an extraordinarily detailed source previously unused by historians (a 1500-page court dossier, lost due to being misfiled), Kaplan tells the complex tale of an interfaith couple in the Dutch village of Vaals, whose baby was nearly kidnapped during its Reformed baptism by the husband’s Catholic sister, Cunegonde. Cunegonde herself was subsequently kidnapped by farmhands from neighbouring Catholic Aachen to protect her from prosecution, giving the case a highly fraught political dimension. From this story, Kaplan constructs a microhistory of the area and its religious composition, opening up instructive wider perspectives on religious coexistence in the Holy Roman Empire and the Dutch Republic from the Peace of Westphalia to the French invasion. Larger themes include the impact of the area’s borderland character on confessional interactions, the influence of Enlightenment thought, and the individual motivations of actors involved in religious conflict.

Following an introduction and first chapter which introduce the case study and general context on religious toleration, mixed marriages and the social importance of baptism, chapters 2-5 alternate between advancing the story of the case study and providing more detailed background knowledge on the area’s borderland character (ch.3) and the history of anti-Protestant sentiment in nearby Catholic Aachen (ch.5). The second half of the book sensibly abandons this alternation, as the story progresses and takes on wider social dimensions which lend themselves to integration into broader context. Chapter 6 traces the religious reprisals which emerged out of the kidnapping incident. Chapter 7 and 8 follow the criminal case against Father Bosten, the Catholic village priest who was ultimately blamed for Cunegonde’s actions, reflecting in particular on the anti-Catholic and especially anti-clergy sentiments which led to his prosecution. Chapter 9 traces the fates of the case study’s protagonists and the long-lingering cultural memory of the incident in Catholic Aachen and the Dutch Republic.

Embedding the case study in a broad layer of context is one of the particular strengths of Kaplan’s account. In particular, the examination of the wider history of religious strife in the region (ch.5) helps to illuminate why this single incident of an attempted kidnapping ignited so many incidents of violence and reverberated for years. It remains somewhat unclear, however, why Kaplan regards these incidents of religious violence as a “religious war”. Given that it was both ‘popular [and] undeclared’ in nature (152) and that the perpetrators were invariably small groups of individuals acting in informal, non-state sanctioned capacities, a more thorough elaboration on the ways in which it constituted a war, rather than mere religious strife, would be insightful.

Thanks to Kaplan’s commitment to examining a source, rather than a particular theme, surprising areas of inquiry and knowledge intersect with his analysis, for instance the legal state of torture in 18th century Europe (113), or how the growing textile industry in Vaals shifted the religious dynamics in the region (134-35). This approach, along with Kaplan’s empathetic look at the individuals involved in the story, their backgrounds and motivations, creates an extremely engaging narrative. A downside of his consistent emphasis on narrative is that it comes to some extent at the cost of clarity of structure, for instance when it comes to the chapter titles, which offer little overview over the outline of the book. Despite this, the structure itself is well-considered and logical, following both the chronology of events and cutting vertically across society from the “common people” who set in motion the events of the story, all the way up to the stadholder of the Netherlands, who ultimately pardons the Catholic priest.

One particularly interesting area of intersection is that of Enlightenment thought with the prevailing anti-Catholic sentiments of the time. Kaplan pinpoints Enlightenment influence at various points in the narrative, forgoing the easy conclusion of an Enlightened “happy ending” when members of the Dutch elites, clearly influenced by Enlightenment thought, eventually press for the pardon of Father Bosten and a reduction of his debt. Instead, he points to the function of Enlightenment thought as a class barrier, something used to distinguish “common people” from “learned men” (191-92, 236), and outlines how its uneven spread across location and class in part exacerbated anti-Catholic sentiments.

Overall, thanks to the extraordinary nature of the source material and a thorough application of wider context, this book provides an extremely lively and empathetic depiction of 18th century religious toleration and conflict.

[Maud Van Keulen · Rating 4 out of 5]

makkelijk verhaal om te volgen.

[Denise Kettering · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is an excellent microhistory that features the story of a young family and the conflict that could occur over "mixed marriages" (marriages between people from two different Christian confessions), particularly when it came to baptizing children. Benjamin Kaplan does an excellent job of using this microhistory to point to a much broader dynamic. Namely, the Enlightenment period of the 18th century is typically understood as a typically described as a period of relative tolerance between religious confessions: the wars of religion had ceased and people generally decided to live and let live. Yet, Kaplan demonstrates how the imperial call to tolerance was not the same as the local feelings about living in tolerance with one another. Thus, this story of Cunegonde serves a much broader purpose. As another reviewer mentioned there is some inconsistency with naming, but overall this book is a fascinating case study.

[Jacqueline · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read this for my second year university history course, so naturally it was not that fun knowing that I had to write a 3,000 word essay on it. However, there were parts that were fascinating to read. Learning about the religious intolerance during the Enlightenment was something that I never really considered happened during a time where people became more secular and more involved with the sciences. I did think that it was unnecessarily long and could have expressed the same idea without so much fluff.

[Nathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is fantastic! Best I've read since The Sister's of Sinai (also a microhistory).

The writing (grammar and composition) was delightful.
The story worked for me on every level (religious interest, legal drama, international conflict, etc.).

[Sophie Small · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this for my history class and genuinely very much enjoyed it. Does an excellent job of combining narrative and fact, and the use of micro history to give insight into an era is fantastic

[Antonia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting topic. I learned a great deal about the microhistory of an area/period I knew little about. The author uses lots of legal Latin, without translation, which would have helped, and calls the same person by different names interchangeably, which can be confusing at first. USe the cast of main characters for reference, and refer to the maps to get a better sense of the physical layout of the countries/ borders involved.

[Shawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rather fascinating.