1 - Rampjaar Reconsidered

Summary

During the ‘Disaster Year’ (Rampjaar) of 1672, the French, the English, and their allies attacked and nearly toppled the Dutch Republic. To many observers and later historians, the Rampjaar signaled the end of the Golden Age. This chapter introduces the Dutch Republic and proposes several ways that an environmental history of disasters enriches our understanding of the development and meaning of decline. It explores these interventions through a deep reading of the print ‘Miserable Cries of the Sorrowful Netherlands’ (Ellenden Klacht Van het Bedroefde Nederlandt). This image visually merges the political and military disasters of 1672 with the floods and windstorms that followed. It condenses time, works across scale, and frames the collective environmental, cultural, social, and economic consequences of the Rampjaar as a breach with the past. Ellenden Klacht reads like a founding document of the Dutch decline narrative, but it also contains visual clues that point to alternative interpretations. It argues that disasters, especially natural disasters, were traumatic and they challenged the moral, economic, and political standing of the Dutch Republic. At the same time, disasters could yield opportunities for adaptation, recovery, and growth.