I enjoyed participating in the recent historical workshop on The Army of Flanders: Crossroads of Peoples, Crucible of Nations (1567–1706) at the War Heritage Institute in Bruxelles.

Thanks to Maurizio Arfaioli, Natasja Peeters, Nand Cremers for organizing this fascinating workshop on the Army of Flanders and its place in European history!

Workshop Description

Since its re-emergence on the modern historiographical scene in the 1970s, the Army of Flanders has become one of the case studies at the heart of (among others) the scholarly debates on the early modern ‘Military Revolution’ and on the rise of the European fiscal-military state. However, the very nature of the Army of Flanders as a multinational expeditionary and occupation force has kept it on the fringes of the national historiographical traditions (Spanish, Flemish and Walloon, Italian, British, Irish, French, etc.) that now speak for the naciones that once constituted it. This has led to the Army of Flanders being studied (if at all) as the sum of its parts, rather than as an organic whole that could be said to have been the first ‘European army’. 

The aim of this workshop is to begin the process of reassessing and redefining the place of the Army of Flanders within the framework of modern scholarship by bringing together various experts, gathering scattered documentation, identifying new research sites, methodologies and tools needed to realise its full scientific and public potential.