|
|
Article: Antwerp
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
|
ANTWERP
ANTWERP.
Few early modern cities experienced such profound changes as Antwerp. The city on the River Scheldt was transformed from a sixteenth-century commercial metropolis to a small town of only regional importance by the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In the same period, Antwerp changed from an open cosmopolitan city with strong Protestant influences into a bulwark of the Catholic Reformation.
In the first half of the sixteenth century, the Low Countries were fully integrated into the vast Habsburg empire and the international economy. Antwerp profited greatly from this situation, experiencing unparalleled economic and population growth. Its commercial expansion was ...