This ground-breaking collection reveals the networks of interrelation between Early Modern England and the Dutch Republic. As people, ideas and goods moved back and forth across the North Sea - or spread further afield in the vanguard of globalisation and empire - Anglo-Dutch relations shaped all aspects of life, with profound implications still relevant today. A diverse range of expert scholars share new research in their discipline, ranging across technology, trade, politics, religion and the arts. Different aspects of this history of competition, alliance, migration and conflict are taken up by each chapter, providing the reader with detailed case studies as well as the broader background and its historical roots. Anglo-Dutch Connections in the Early Modern World aims to be both accessible and innovative. It will be essential to students and researchers interested in European politics, intellectual history, and shared Anglo-Dutch society, while showcasing current research in multiple facets of the Early Modern World.

This richly illustrated book tells the story of cultural exchange between the people of the Low Countries and England in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, and reveals how Anglo-Dutch connections changed the literary landscape on both sides of the North Sea. Ranging from the Norman Conquest of 1066 to the 'Glorious Revolution' of 1688, it examines how Dutch-speaking immigrants transformed English culture, and it uncovers the lasting impact of contacts and collaborations between Dutch and English speakers on historical writing, map-making, manuscript production and early printing. The literary heritage of Anglo-Dutch relations is explored and lavishly illustrated through the unique collection of manuscripts, early prints, maps and other treasures from the Bodleian Library in Oxford. The book sheds new light on the literature and art of a pivotal period in European history.

The earliest chronicle of England in Dutch is found in a series of chronicles published in 1480 by Jan Veldener, who had been William Caxton's business partner in the Low Countries. The chronicle was written independently and made to fit in with the larger series. While being the first known standalone chronicle of England in Dutch, it shows a remarkable sophistication and adeptness in negotiating English and Dutch sources, as well as Dutch and English interests, and presents a determinedly Lancastrian view of English history to its Dutch audience. As such, the Middle Dutch Brut is a fifteenth-century product of what for the middle of the seventeenth-century has been identified as 'the Anglo-Dutch public sphere', and an indication that the reciprocal channels of discourse between Dutch and English speakers of the early modern period found their origins in the Middle Ages. This book provides an edition, together with a facing-page modern English translation, accompanied by a contextualizing introduction and explanatory notes. It is the first study, the first modern edition, and the first English translation of the Middle Dutch Brut. The chronicle has received very little scholarly attention, and has never been subject of study in the context of the Brut tradition. This edition will therefore provide a very significant further international dimension to the study of medieval English literature.

First collection devoted to the Poly-Olbion, bringing out in particular its concerns with nature and the environment. Poly-Olbion (1612-1622), the collaborative work of the poet Michael Drayton, the legal scholar John Selden, and the engraver William Hole, ranks among the most remarkable literary productions of early modern England, and arguably among the most important. An ambitious and idiosyncratic survey of the history, topography, and ecology of England and Wales - ranging in its preoccupations from the supernatural conception of Merlin to the curious habits of beavers, and from celebrations of martial glory to laments over the diminishment of woodlands - the book seems determined to pack all of national and natural history between its covers. In the course of thirty songs, Drayton's Muse traverses a varying landscape in which personified rivers, hills, and forests sing of past glories and disasters, pursuing local and regional rivalries whilst propounding a heterogeneous vision of Britain. However, perhaps because of its very uniqueness, it has received relatively little critical attention. This is the first ever volume of essays on Poly-Olbion, and a reflection of the work's increasing prominence in scholarship on the literature and culture of early modern England: the poem has long been central to critical studies of early modern nationhood and nationalism, but in the last decade it has also assumed a central place in discussions of pre-modern approaches to ecological sustainability and environmental degradation. The contributors here address questions about the form and purpose of Poly-Olbion, as well as engaging with these dominant critical debates, reflecting the extent to which the preoccupations of Drayton and his collaborators have become our own.